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This Will Be My Summer

22 Jun

One of the many candidates for that "cool graphic" I was telling you about. Still ... not quite right.

My goal was to post this on Wednesday, the official first day of summer, but that didn’t quite pan out. (Not a good start to my jam-packed, goal-filled summer.) I have an excuse, though: I wanted to find the perfect background picture with which to create an awesome graphic that would surely inspire me to zoom right through my 30 summer bucket list items. I’m still working on that part, so in the meantime, I’m making this official …

I’m doing a summer bucket list!!!

Summer has a way of biting me in the butt and making me want to go on a thousand adventures. I think it’s the extra sunshine. I pretty much run on solar power. So I decided to create a list of all the fun things I have in store for myself  this summer. The best part is I’m planning to blog about all of it, so you’ll have a front-row seat to my adventures and, I’m sure, misadventures. And maybe you’ll even create a bucket list of your own and post it in our comments. Wouldn’t that be just delightful?! Before I use any more exciting punctuation, let’s get to this list:

  1. Go paddle boarding
  2. Go to Catalina Island
  3. Take a SCUBA diving refresher course
  4. Learn to windsurf
  5. Host a retro beach party
  6. Find a cute retro swimsuit to wear to said beach party
  7. Go sailing
  8. Ride my bike somewhere new
  9. Wake up early to see the pros surf at the U.S. Open of Surfing
  10. Go surfing
  11. Read these books: Girlchild, The Sleepy Hollow Family Almanac, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened: (A Mostly True Memoir), The Violin Face, Atlas Shrugged
  12. Become a better photographer
  13. Attend at least one outdoor cinema and one beach concert
  14. Start writing a story (or maybe write a whole short story)
  15. Do something with that canvas that’s been sitting against my wall all year
  16. Check out some local markets
  17. Make some of Real Simple’s fabulous-looking summer cocktails
  18. Take a nap in a hammock
  19. Buy a plant – or create an herb garden – and keep it alive all summer long
  20. Give back
  21. Try as many of Los Angeles Magazine’s “Cheap Eats” as possible
  22. Give an unexpected gift
  23. Indulge in a local tourist trap
  24. Learn a new skill
  25. Figure out what to do with all my travel photos
  26. Take a spin in some new car possibilities
  27. Start learning a new language
  28. Write a letter to someone special
  29. Spend an entire day disconnected from all technology, and see what happens
  30. Blog about it all …

Sounds pretty cool, right? I think so. Let the summer officially begin!

Holy Watermelon! It’s Nearly Summer

16 May

Fresh Watermelon Juice recipe from Sugar and Charm

Fresh Watermelon Juice recipe from Sugar and Charm

I’ve started seeing watermelon at the grocery store. Summer is almost officially here! Oh, picnics and outdoor events and beach days, how I cannot wait for you to arrive. So I’ll make you arrive early with this delightful watermelon juice recipe from Sugar and Charm that sounds perfect for an afternoon on the porch.

{Photos via Sugar and Charm}

Talkin’ Snacks

9 Apr

Mangiona With Caitlin Levin #2 Better than a doughnut via Justina Blakeney

There’s no way something that looks this good can be good for you. But I really think it might be. I’m loving this snack idea from Caitlin Levin on Justina Blakeney’s blog not only for its healthy yet drool-worthy looks but also because its lets me avoid biting into a whole apple, which I really hate. Weird, I know.

Also, kudos to my lovely friend Irvina for alerting me (via Pinterest) to Justina’s adorable blog and this other scrumptious recipe.

{Photo via Justina Blakeney}

Chocolate Chip Cookie Madness

28 Mar

Chocolate Lava Cookies -- Kevin & Amanda

I know we’ve posted a lot about cookies — especially the chocolate chip variety. But when you see an image like this, how can you resist? And this is exactly my kind of recipe: It calls for a muffin pan (check!) store-bought dough (check!), chocolate chips (check!) and a plastic bag (check!). That’s it! Of course, you could get all fancy and make your own dough, but I just love that Kevin & Amanda are all for the store-bought variety, too.

… This could be dangerous.

Fun With Pi

14 Mar

Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie -- Bakerella

Happy National Pi Day, everyone! For those of you whose last venture into the world of math was a college communications math class (me), Pi Day is the one day each year when true math fans delight at the aligning of calendar days and the mathematical constant for circles that is March 14, 3/14, 3.14. No matter how you slice it, today’s the day to eat copious amounts of pie and fill your blogs with as many pie/pi puns as possible. So I’m rounding out the day with a list of some of the best-looking pies around, starting with this looker (above) from Bakerella that is pretty much my dream-come-true.

3.14 more pies that strike my fancy:

1. Blackberry Apple Pie from Good Things Grow

2. Pies in a jar from All Jarred Up

3. Apple Pie Caramel Apples from The Girl Who Ate Everything

.14. Blueberry Pie Wontons from Cheeky Kitchen (technically these aren’t round, but put a few of them together and you can probably get something resembling a circle)

How to Eat Your Oats

7 Mar

Overnight Chai Steel Cut Oats - This Homemade LIfe

Continuing with my breakfast theme for this week, how good does this look? And I love that it’s so quick and easy to make. Time to finally get those steel cut oats out of the pantry and into my stomach.

{Photo and recipe via This Homemade Life}

I Have No Words

13 Feb

Cancel Valentine’s Day! I’m going to be busy making this …

{Photo and recipe via PeaBody}

Oh Good, An Alternative to Trifle

1 Feb

Cranachan via BBC Food

Cranachan: I have no idea how to pronounce it, but I so want to eat it. And it’s “a delicious alternative to trifle.” (No idea what that is either.)

Check out the recipe on the BBC website.

[Photo via BBC]

 

Quinoa, Sweet Quinoa

19 Dec

Warm and Nutty Cinnamon Quinoa Recipe - 101 Cookbooks

It seems like there are a lot of trendy, healthy foods popping up lately (kale, squash, quinoa and the like) that I have yet to really delve into on my own. My last two trips to Trader Joe’s have included quinoa of some kind, but the grain has just sat in my pantry, lost and confused among my usual repertoire of ingredients. That is, until this weekend, when I discovered this amazing recipe for breakfast quinoa that absolutely blew my mind.

I’ve actually been seeing breakfast quinoa popping up at some of my favorite breakfast places as of late, but I haven’t yet had the courage or desire to try it. This weekend I was feeling a bit ambitious – and hungry for something sweet and healthy (bit of an oxymoron, I know) so I went on a search for quinoa recipes. This one was a slam dunk as it included some of my favorite things ever: cinnamon, blackberries and pecans. Plus it seemed like the perfect mix of healthy and sweet. It was. In fact, it was so good, that it may have the power to overtake my morning cinnamon roll obsession. That’s big.

Check out the recipe at 101 Cookbooks. (Note: I substituted the milk for vanilla almond milk and it was amazing!)

A Longing for Friendsgiving

23 Nov

Friendsgiving - The Sweetest Occasion

Friendsgiving - The Sweetest Occasion

Friendsgiving - The Sweetest Occasion

Friendsgiving - The Sweetest Occasion

No joke, I’ve been looking all day for some really yummy side-dish recipes to contribute to my family’s Thanksgiving meal tomorrow. I’d finally settled on some pretty basic dishes when I came across this gem that seriously gives me warm fuzzies all over.

First of all, I love the idea of a “Friendsgiving.” (I, of course, love spending time with my family too, and I’m lucky to have them close by. But I also secretly dream of one day being forced to emulate the Thanksgiving episode of Felicity (season 1) by scrounging together whatever is left at the grocery store and cooking it in my dorm room microwave surrounded by friends both weird and good.)

Second, this Friendsgiving has a menu. Yes. A real menu that you can print out and fold and put on the table like the adorable thing that it is.

I honestly haven’t even looked at the actual recipes. The photos and menu sold me. But I can tell you that it all looks pretty amazing.

{Photos via The Sweetest Occasion}

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