Grilling, Picnics, and Bubble Tea

I hope this blog post finds you all enjoying your summertime to the fullest: the weather has gotten decidedly warmer around here which makes staying inside virtually impossible; farmers' markets beckon to me from every street corner; swimming pools and sprinklers become necessities and sun kissed tans are quickly building to darkened tan lines. Oh how I love summertime. 

I've also been enjoying the many pleasures of alfresco dining with my man. We are quickly become grill masters and have used his barbecue to cook the majority of our meals as of late. This was actually one of the first meals we made together.

Spicy grilled chicken, spring greens salad, par-boiled and grilled potatoes, and an orange salad.

A little red wine never hurt anyone either...

 There has also been a ton of picnicking too, a traditional summertime staple. Here are some pictures from our very first picnic together. We ended up staying at the park until way after the sun went down, just talking and snacking.

Macadamia crusted tapalia, veggie basil brown rice salad, lots of sliced watermelon, homemade pecan honey bread, and chocolate dipped strawberries. A picnic fit for sharing!

 And we have been blessed enough to have shared many many breakfasts together as well. He is in the process of perfecting my soft boiled eggs, something which I had never tried to master before meeting him. This is just one way in which we spend our mornings together.

 And last but certainly not least, I have now officially tried Bubble Tea! For those of you out there who have no idea what I am talking about, let me break it down for you, because it is an experience everyone has to have at least once. Picture a smoothie, in whatever flavor floats your boat, that has been blended with green tea and a little protein powder. So far, pretty awesome sounding right? But it gets better! They then add boba to the bottom of your glass. What is boba? Little spheres of heaven that burst in your mouth and provide an incredibly sensational and yet almost unrepeatable sensory overload! Really, they are like nothing else I've experienced, especially in a drink. Some people don't enjoy this overall sensory overload, but I quite enjoyed it. The protein powder kept me full and focused (I sound like a Shredded Wheat commercial, but when the shoe fits...) and the flavor combination was refreshing and ultimately a treat. I shall be visiting that place again real soon. 

I highly recommend a mango Bubble Tea when you go... which should be now... go get your keys... or better yet walk to the nearest Bubble Tea shop and enjoy the summertime weather!

I'll end all this with a recipe that I am sure Peter, my boyfriend, would be ecstatic if I shared with you all. It has been his favorite thing we have made together so far (and trust me, we have dabbled in a lot of noms.)

Spicy Orange Salad

2 oranges, peeled and sliced whichever way you choose
1 TB freshly minced parsley, or 1 tsp dried
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp cayenne powder
1/4 tsp salt

Place oranges in a bowl (the easiest way to peel an orange for a salad like this is just to cut of the rind with a sharp knife.) Sprinkle on the remaining ingredients, adjust the seasoning for your taste, toss with your fingers, and serve.

Summertime Strawberry Jam

One often thinks of orchards only in the fall, when apples are being picked and pressed into apple cider, and hay rides and pumpkin patches need to be explored with cold hands and hearts warmed by the festivities. However, the springtime is also a great time to visit an orchard because many times they have berries and tender spring vegetables, ripe for the picking. I visited early last week and walked away with a most peculiar but ultimately pleasing purchase - organic strawberries. Usually not my M/O, but I simply couldn't resist.

Strawberries, fresh from my favorite orchard in Lexington, still warm from the sun.

It is a wonder any of these beauties made it home; I swear I couldn't keep my hands out of them, they were that deliciously tender and explosively sweet. Their little seeds never lodged themselves in my teeth like their more annoying commercial cousins tend to do, and they had the most delicate and fanciful outer skins that almost melted on your tongue, making it difficult to just eat one. I had never had strawberries as wonderfully provocative as these, I simply couldn't get enough.  

Besides eating all of them as quickly as possible, what was I going to do with these little bundles of sunshine? They were altogether too tender to hold over for the next week and savor a few a day, so why not preserve them? Strawberry jam it is!

It really did hurt to have to dismember these - more than a few were spared their fate in the pot and made a B-line for my mouth instead.

To really drive home the summertime flavor, I added lemon zest and stirred in a splash of really good vanilla extract right at the end, just to round out the flavor. The zest was refreshing and indicative of strawberry lemonade, and the vanilla added a subtly sweet, holistic flavor, which is completely devoid in a standard store-bought jam.

Big jars of this jam was a necessity, for sharing, gifting, and one partial one for me to savor.

Lemon, Vanilla, and Strawberry Jam

2 2/3 cups fresh strawberries, washed and cut in half

3 TB Real Fruit Pectin

2 cups sugar

3 TB fresh lemon zest

2 TB good vanilla extract

Place strawberries in a large saucepan and crush with your hands (you can also use a potato masher, but really, use your hands.) Add fruit pectin, stirring to completely combine, and bring to a full roiling boil that cannot be stirred down. Stir the entire time. Add the sugar and stir to dissolve, boil for one minute, stirring, then remove from heat. Cool slightly, stir in lemon zest. Cool almost completely, then add the vanilla (that way the vanilla won't cook off from the residual heat in the jam.) You can now either can in prepared jars and seal, or, if you are like me, just place in sterilized jars and place in the refrigerator to consume within a week. (Trust me, it won't last that long.)

Side note: I have adopted a family of geese (and by adopt I mean gawk at every time I work in the downstairs kitchen...) Aren't they precious! They live at Woodford Reserve, back behind the aging houses, in the creek that runs behind the distillery, and I feel like they are mine because I have watched the four babies grow up from eggs just a month ago. So cute!!! I have yet to name them, not for lack of trying, but because I need the perfect names for such cute babies (while the goose parents just stare at me daringly.)

Pizza of a Sweeter Persuasion

My 21st birthday is in one short week and, while preparing myself mentally for the stark reality of turning one year older, I have been making plans that will help me celebrate such a momentous occasion. I have decided to go home my actual birthday, which just so happens to conveniently fall on a Saturday, to spend with my family. We will be dining at McCormick & Schmick's which, so I've heard, is a fabulous fresh and locally proud seafood restaurant. I think seafood is one of the most decedent ways to celebrate, so I am thrilled to be trying this place for the first time, surrounded by family, cioppino, and a killer wine menu. Afterwards we will be convening back at our home to savor Mommaw's birthday cake (which I am thinking will be lemon cake with raspberry filling - one of my favorite flavor combinations and such a departure from the cold, dreary weather we have been having as of late.)

The weekend after I will celebrate with my friends by dining at my favorite restaurant in my college home town, Saul Good. Afterwards I am inviting everyone back to my apartment for homemade birthday dessert and coffee. The beauty of this arrangement is that: 1. I have a perfect reason to bake all the sweets I want because I will have all these wonderful friends to savor them with me, 2. I have all day Friday to prepare for such a festive event, as I don't have classes on Friday's this semester - heavenly.

I have been doing a lot of cookbook, blog, and recipe reading to decide which desserts I would like to make, and in the brainstorming process my roommates suggested a fruit pizza. An interesting option, and as I had never made one before, I wanted to give it a test drive. Let me tell you, they are every bit as fun to make as they are to eat!

Basic no-roll sugar cookie recipe that I used half for the pizza "crust" and the other half was dedicated to actual cookies to throw in the freezer for an occasion where sweets are necessary.

Pizza sauce - made of whipped cream cheese and fluffy sweetened cream cheese to lighten the frosting.

The final product! Pretty right?

Glazed here with a little melted honey to make it pretty.