Are you hungry? Well you might be after you read this post! Check out these amazing artsy pancakes created by Nathan Shields:
Doggies!
Marine animals (I think these might be my favorite!)
Dinos
Organs (not as appetizing but still cool!)
Check out many more pancake designs here.
I would love to see Nathan incorporate some chocolate chips into his designs, chocolate chip pancakes are my favorite!
How often do two such spectacular events collide on the same WEEKEND day? Not often is the answer, so huge celebrations are in order! Instead of choosing one, why not celebrate both Derby Day and Cinco de Mayo?
Cinco de Mayo
Kick off your Saturday with a Mexican inspired brunch.
Make the perfect margarita. You can’t taste the beer but it adds a nice kick!
Snack on some darling pinata cookies
And of course, play some Mexican tunes!
Kentucky Derby
Pick your pony. For the last 3 years I’ve somehow blindly picked the winner (seriously!) but of course didn’t wager anything. This year I have a friendly bet going and will be rooting for Creative Cause.
Meet all the horses here. Who do you like?
Make a mint julep. Such a civilized drink. And the mint makes it so refreshing!
And don’t forget to grab a huge Derby appropriate hat.
Have a fun weekend!
Check out these gorgeous BluePrint Juice bottles designed by Doubleday & Cartwright. Each bottle features the name of the juice (aka the color) and all the ingredients it contains- simple but beautiful!
For more information on these juices, visit BluePrint. Has anyone tried this juice? It looks delicious!
Montonsoup sent me an interesting article last night about 25 (mostly awesome) foods we’ll never get to eat again because they were discontinued. Some of these items I understand- I mean Crystal Pepsi? No thanks. But some deserve a little bit more attention for all the goods times they brought us:
Surge
If you’re a child of the late 80’s/early 90’s you remember Surge. Delicious, electric green, full of caffeine. Basically the most delicious drink ever invented. If Coca Cola started making these again, I think I could die happy!
Squeezits
Fun faces, fruity flavors. These were the best thing to find in your lunchbox!
Heinz Colored Ketchup
I remember this ketchup, and it was disgusting. I guess the fun factor of using different colors didn’t outweigh how gross it looked to most people. It’s funny how important color can be. Heinz discontinued this product in 2006.
Oreo O’s Cereal
This cereal was delicious. Was it healthy? Obviously not. But I still don’t understand why it was discontinued. I mean Cookie Crisp is still around right? So people clearly don’t mind eating cookies for breakfast!
If you want to see the full list of delicious food items you’ll never eat again, click here. What’s your favorite discontinued food item?
If you’re like me, you have some overripe bananas lying around the kitchen. What can I say? Those things ripen faster than I can eat them! The good news is, you can use them to make banana bread. In less than 15 minutes you can have a loaf in the oven….
Easy Banana Bread
Ingredients
2-3 very ripe bananas
1/2 stick of butter (softened)
2 eggs
2/3 cup sugar
1 1/3 cup flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
In a medium sized bowl, mash the bananas. You want to mash them as much as possible so there are no big chunks in your bread. Add the butter, sugar, and eggs and mix everything together.
In another bowl, combine the flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and cinnamon. Add this mixture to the wet ingredients and stir until everything is combined.
Pour the dough into a greased pan and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, 30-50 minutes.
This bread is so delicious…I especially like to eat it for breakfast with a little butter. It’s pretty much heaven!
It’s 90 degrees here in Boston and humid to boot. When it gets this hot, the last thing you want to do is turn the oven on and make it even hotter. But what if you’re still craving dessert? That’s where no bake cookies come in!
They’re quick, easy, and require no oven time. One of my favorite flavor combos is chocolate and peanut butter so I really like these cookies.
Chocolate Peanut Butter No-Bake Cookies
Ingredients
3 cups quick oats
1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
4 tablespoons cocoa powder
1/2 cup milk
1 stick of butter
2 cups white sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
Directions
Put the butter, sugar, milk, and cocoa powder into a saucepan. Bring to a roiling boil (you will see big bubbles) and then let the mixture boil for 1 minute
I tried to capture the bubbles-
Remove the mixture from heat. Stir in the peanut butter and the vanilla until smooth. Then, stir in the oats.
Line your cookie sheets with wax paper, then drop tablespoons of the mixture onto the sheets. Let cool until set.
Once the cookies cool, you are left with a chocolate peanut-buttery snack that is hard to resist. They may not be the prettiest looking cookies ever, but they sure taste good!
What’s more fun than chocolate dipped strawberries? White chocolate dipped strawberries with blue sugar! It’s an irresistible combination.
Tri-Colored Strawberries
Ingredients
Strawberries (about one pint)
2/3 cup of white chocolate chips
Blue sparkling sugar
Directions
Melt the chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl. Microwave them in 20 second increments, stirring between each one so you don’t burn the chocolate.
Dip the strawberries in the chocolate, making sure to leave part of the strawberry uncovered.
Dip the bottom of each strawberry in blue sugar, making sure to not cover all the white. You want all three colors- red, white, and blue, to show!
Place the strawberries on a wax paper covered baking sheet, and put them in the fridge until the chocolate sets.
And that’s all there is to it! In no time you’ll have patriotic strawberries that taste amazing. You can even pretend it’s a healthy dessert since strawberries are good for you, right? 🙂
As promised, here is another 4th of July dessert recipe. These sparkler pretzels are simple but fun and would make a perfect addition to any summer BBQ!
Pretzel Rod Sparklers
Ingredients
22 pretzel rods
6 .24 oz packets of Pop Rocks
2/3 cup of chocolate chips
Place your chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl, then microwave until melted. Heat in 20 second increments, stirring between each one. Be careful not to burn the chocolate!
Dip your pretzel rods into the chocolate, coating the top of the pretzel. Then, sprinkle pop rocks on the coated end, pressing them into the chocolate gently if need be.
Stand your sparkler rods upright in a cup or mug, then place them in the fridge until the chocolate has set.
When you eat them, the pop rocks sparkle and pop- it’s like fireworks in your mouth! And the saltiness of the pretzel is perfect with the chocolate. For such a simple dessert, these really deliver!
We had a 4th of July BBQ this weekend and I volunteered to bring desserts. I knew I wanted to make something festive and delicious so I decided on stained glass cookies (and a few other things, but I’ll save those for a future post!) I’ve seen these on numerous blogs, though I think initially on this one, so it was just a matter of mixing and matching what worked for me.
Here’s the version that I went with.
Stained Glass Cookies
Ingredients
1 cup white sugar
2 1/2 cups of flour
3/4 cup of butter (softened)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cookie cutters- one big and one medium size (I used a large circle and a smaller star)
red and blue jolly ranchers (I ended up using about 15 of them)
Directions
Cream together the sugar and butter until smooth. Beat in the eggs and vanilla, then stir in the flour, salt, and baking powder. Cover the dough and chill for an hour, or up to overnight.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. On a floured surface, roll out your dough until it’s about 1/4 or 1/2 inch thick.
Cut out circles and place them on a cookie sheet. I greased mine instead of using parchment paper which may have been a mistake. The cookies stuck to all my pans (and got ruined) except my nice expensive one so next time I think I’d use paper. Your call!
Once you have your circles on the cookie sheet, go ahead and cut out your stars.
Next, take the wrappers off your Jolly Ranchers and put them in ziploc bags (reds in one bag, blue in another) Then smash them into tiny pieces. This is easier said than done so it helps to have a sous chef do this while you roll out the dough 🙂
Fill the center of your cookies with crushed candy. Be careful not to get any candy on the cookie or it will discolor it. You want a decent amount of candy in there, so it should create a little dome in the middle. That way when it melts it will fill the entire middle.
Bake the cookies for 5-7 minutes (mine took 5) until the candy is hot and bubbly and the cookies are just beginning to brown. Let them cool completely before you careful take them off the pans.
And voila- the most patriotic cookies ever. Plus they are delicious!
Truth time- these cookies were a hit at the BBQ but they were kind of a pain to make. Perhaps it was the fact that it was 93 degrees out and my apt has no air conditioning (add to that a tiny kitchen and a hot stove…) and nothing was easy. The jolly ranchers stuck together because of the heat and I had to wait for the dough to warm up a little because it got too cold next to the vent in the fridge.
So my advice to you would be save yourself some trouble and buy premade sugar cookie dough. Then you can just use your cookie cutters and skip to the fun part!
The cool thing about these cookies is you can customize the colors to holidays, graduation parties, baby showers, etc. The sky’s the limit! And they really are very tasty so go ahead and make them- you’ll wow all your friends!
Did you have a good Fourth of July weekend? I had a blast, but I honestly think it will take me all week to recover from all the parties, food, and sparkling cocktails!
One of the best things about living in Boston is the ocean. I don’t get to go out on the water as often as I’d like to, but I was lucky enough to go on a (free!) boat cruise this weekend. The Spirit of Boston is one seriously nice boat-
We cruised around the harbor for two hours and the weather was perfect. There were lots of other boats out on the water.
I love the view of Boston from the harbor.
After the cruise, my boyfriend and I wandered over to Fan Pier where the Extreme Sailing Series was taking place. They had a whole village set up with food and drink tents, music, giveaways, and more. It was cool to see all the boats- they travel all over the world but Boston was their only U.S. stop.
At the sailing village, we saw Mayor Thomas Menino AND got to meet A.J. Burnett. I’ve watched him on the news pretty much every day since I moved to Boston so it was a little surreal to meet him in person! He was very gracious and let us take some pictures. Note how patriotic we are in our red, white, and blue.
After the sailing series, my boyfriend and I finished off the evening with dinner and drinks at Jerry Remy’s by the water. The food was a little pricey ($14 for a salad) but tasty. The burger came on fried dough. ’nuff said!
Zoltar Told Me 