Food

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Happy Summer Solstice! My appetite is just about spot on for the hot weather expected today; I don’t feel like eating much more than salads, sandwiches, and snacks, and with temperatures. Earlier this week after a weekend of eating fun BBQ food, a cool shrimp salad with a little bit of crunch and a lot of chopped romaine made the perfect dinner.

Summer meals mean convenience, so this recipe starts with pre-cooked frozen shrimp, which I thawed out during the work day. I pulled the tails off, roughly chopped the shrimp, and set the main part of this recipe aside.

shrimp

Next up I got to work on the crunch and the flavor, cleaning and chopping my favorite little sweet peppers and using scissors to cut a big bunch of cilantro.

peppers and cilantro

I squeezed two limes into a bowl to get the dressing started.

limes

To pull everything together, I mixed the chopped shrimp, peppers, cilantro, lime juice, and a few dashes of habanero sauce with 1/2 cup of Fage Greek yogurt.

shrimp salad

We ate the shrimp salad in whole wheat wraps with chopped romaine. It was definitely a summery dinner, with the cool, creamy dressing that had a hint of lime and a hunt of spice.

shrimp salad wrap

With the windows all wide open and the sun setting late, this dinner was a nice, relaxing introduction to the season ahead. The next two seasons make up my favorite time of year in New England, and I can’t wait to be outside as much as possible.

Happy Summer!

Tags: cilantro, dinner, Fage, Food, healthy, recipe

Moet and cupcakes. Cupcakes and Moet. And lots and lots of pink. It’s a girly paradise, the place you want to meet with your friends to catch up over a fancy latte and a cupcake or six. It’s Boston’s brand new cupcake shop, Georgetown Cupcake Newbury, brought to you by the ladies from the original Georgetown Cupcake and the TLC show DC Cupcakes, and it is fabulous. It would be the perfect place to stop with a bridal party or baby shower or just with a group of girlfriends as I did last Thursday.

Georgetown Cupcakes

What’s even more fabulous is attending a cupcake party with friends on a sunny Thursday evening. I had plans to meet Megan, Elizabeth, Bianca, and Emily at Georgetown Cupcake and also ran into Fiona and Melissa. It was a packed house with a huge turnout to welcome Katherine and Sophie to Boston. They, in turn, provided us with nonstop deliciousness. Georgetown Cupcakes

First, lets starts with the Georgetown Cupcake Newbury space. Located at 83 Newbury Street, the cupcake shop is a long, narrow space decorated with lots of pink and pretty things, like this crystal-encrusted Kitchenaid mixer.

Kitchenaid Bling

Sophie and Katherine greeted us at the door, dressed to go with the décor of their beautiful new shop. They were absolutely lovely.

Georgetown Cupcakes Owners

Once inside, a display of beautiful cupcakes also greeted us.

Georgetown Cupcakes

Along with servers offering glasses of Moet. . .

Moet

And a bustling staff making sure the cupcakes kept coming. We got to go right back into the kitchen to see the behind-the-scenes action. Once we took a little tour, we headed back down to the party to mingle and, more importantly, eat cupcakes.

Georgetown Cupcakes Newbury

As you can see, the pink lighting adds a soft glow to the entire space. It made for a great location for an event and made for some interesting food photos!

Georgetown Cupcakes Newbury Opening

Ready, set, go! Once the cupcakes started coming, they didn’t really stop. Here we have chocolate coconut and salted caramel. The chocolate coconut, with a cream cheese frosting topped with a generous amount of shredded coconut, is definitely a new favorite for me.

Georgetown Cupcakes Newbury

My other favorite of the evening was the chocolate peanut butter. We also sampled chocolate and Boston creme,

Peanut butter chocolate cupcake Georgetown Cupcakes

And cookies and cream.

cookies and cream cupcake

After we’d sampled our fair share of mini cupcakes (Definitely go with friends so you can have lots of small bites!), we made our way through the crowds and out to the door, where Georgetown Cupcake made sure we didn’t leave empty-handed.

gift bags

The swag bags were amazing, stocked with a hat, t-shirt, mug, travel mug, a copy of The Cupcake Diaries AND a gift card for a dozen cupcakes. Oh yeah, and the half dozen cupcakes we were all gifted on the way out. Sweet!

Georgetown Cupcakes

The gift bag was so generous, in fact, that I thought it would be a shame to keep it all to myself. Since I can’t ship you cupcakes (um, and I have already eaten them), I am giving one lucky ready my copy of The Cupcake Diaries.

To enter, just leave a comment letting me know what your favorite cupcake combo is. If you’ve been to Georgetown Cupcakes, give them a shout out too!

I’ll choose a winner on Friday; good luck!

And so many thanks to Georgetown Cupcakes

Tags: blogger events, Boston, champagne, Cupcakes, dessert, events, Food, media events, Moet

A few weeks ago I received an email from a representative of Ocean Spray to see if I was interested in receiving a Craisin vs. raisin taste testing kit. Always a fan of taste tests, I said yes, and shortly after I received a box pitting classic raisins against our tart, Massachusetts native, the Craisin.

After doing the taste test, I decided that while I like both, Craisins are more versatile to me. Raisins belong strictly in oatmeal or a cookie made of the breakfast treat while Craisins are great in cookies but also fare well in salads and savory dishes.

The kit came with some recipes, and after finding one for chicken salad, I decided to put my own spicy twist on it.

craisins

First I marinated a few chicken breasts in sriracha and grilled them on the indoor grill pan. It was kind of like how I imagine being pepper sprayed might feel. Holy spicy smoke! Once that died down, however, I had chicken with nice grill marks and a sriracha crust.

sriracha

While the chicken was cooling, I chopped a bunch of celery and a white onion.

image

I combined those with a little over a cup of craising.

image

And then added the chicken chunks. To finish the dish, I mixed in 1/2 cup of Fage Greek yogurt (0%).

image

This simple summer salad really offered an array of flavors and textures, from the tart and sweet Craisins to the spicy chicken and crunchy cool celery. We made wraps with it using my new favorite whole wheat tortillas from Target. It’s definitely going to be a summer staple as it’s easy to transport. The yogurt can also be mixed in at the last minute or brought along separately for a picnic.

Thanks to the people at Craisins for including me in the taste test.

Happy Friday, everyone! This weekend we have the Blessing of the Fleet, and I desperately need to catch up on cleaning and laundry after being away last weekend. I may also try to kick off my NYC Marathon training. Eek!

What are you up to?

Tags: chicken, chicken salad, chicken salad recipe, Craisins, easy dinner, Food, sriracha

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