summer

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Sometimes it’s too hot to cook. Sometimes you feel overwhelmed (gratefully, happily overwhelmed) with more work than you can do in a seven day week. Sometimes you miss your significant other who happens to be extremely close to finishing his Masters thesis, in addition to working until after midnight several days in a row.

Last night all of those sometimes collided, and Wine Wednesday became takeout sushi and sangria night. We used to have sushi Thursday. We’ll call last night “Give me wine and sushi or I will cry Wednesday”.

Getting into the kitchen to whip up a summery sangria based on the ingredients we had in the house was therapeutic for me, as kitchen time often is.

For this sangria, you will need a bottle of dry white wine like this Travessia Pinot Grigio I found. I loved this when at its release and was actually surprised to find we had a bottle left when I was digging through the wine fridge.

You will also need a cup of Lillet Blanc. Never had Lillet? It’s a delightful aperitif, great in cocktails, and a perfect match for white sangria.

Lillet

Since we have a boatload of sweet, juicy peaches and even sweeter honeydew, I diced up several cups of the fruit.

peaches and melon

Make sure to have a vessel large enough for a whole bottle of wine plus. I used this snazzy pitcher my husband picked up. Smile We did have a nice glass pitcher at once point, but I don’t know where it is.

I muddled the fruit with the tiniest pinch of sugar and then poured in the wine and Lillet. A few good stirs, and it was ready to be chilled for about an hour. It can be served right away, but ideally the flavors will have some time to give the sangria a little love.

sangria

Serve over lots of ice in a giant glass.

sangria

Preferably alongside a meal that someone else made, in my case spicy tuna hand rolls.

spicy tuna hand roll

The sushi and sangria, along with Spotify, hanging out on our deck, and trying to plow through my work, made me a little less stressed, but I have a meeting this morning I am super nervous about. Tonight, I have dinner at Del Frisco’s, and when today is over, I think I will be able to breathe a little more of a sigh of relief. I hope you all have a great day!

What is your favorite summer drink?

Tags: recipe, sangria, summer, sushi, wine

Happy Birthday to my husband! I wish we had the whole day off to spend together, but alas there is that thing called work. Since we weren’t able to spend today celebrating, we made the most of a perfectly sunny, blue sky weekend and had a little birthday party on the boat.

For once, I actually planned the food for our boat outing instead of leaving it to dips and chips alone.

The spread included a creamy avocado dip with crackers and carrots. The dip recipe will be coming soon!

avocado dip

We also had sopressata with crackers and baguette slices

sopresata

And Caprese salad skewers, a simple arrangement of mozzarella, tomatoes, and basil on skewers, drizzled with EVOO and seasoned with a sprinkle of salt and pepper.

Caprese skewers

The weather cooperated for us quite well, with hot temperatures on the shore, and cooler, but still nice and warm out at sea. A shiny black seal swam around us for some time, pretty much making my day.

boating in Boston

Did you know that Harpoon Summer comes in cans? They are adorable!

Harpoon Summer

We ate our spread while anchored off of Grape Island and Hingham Harbor. It was a perfect, calm spot to chow down on the food we brought as well as the chicken salad sandwiches our friends brought.

dinner

We didn’t have to come back to the dock until almost 9:00 and there was still a little bit of sun; I love that summer light! It was a beautiful, smooth ride back in and a perfect, calm day for us novices to be on the water.

boating in Boston

The cherry on top? Strawberry pie, of course. Winking smile

What are your favorite easy picnic foods?

Tags: Boston, entertaining, Food, summer

Summer makes blogging easier. The light is great, and the ingredients, local produce, make for great photos with no work. It also makes eating easier. The elegant, fresh flavors of summer fruits and vegetables lend themselves to quick meals without much fuss, almost as if nature planned it that way. . . I just need to find a place where it is like this year round!

As you know, I have been working mostly from home, but this week I started a contract job that has me in the office more. And that means making lunch again. Summer helped make that a no-brainer. A fresh, light, and veggie-packed pasta salad was my first thought, and it was a good one.

orecchiette

I started with about 3/4 bag of Trader Joe’s orecchiette, the little ear shaped pasta. I really like tiny pastas in pasta salad. I got the water boiling and the pasta cooking while I prepped the rest of my simple recipe.

An entire shallot, finely diced, went into the pan.

shallot

It joined a large zucchini, two small summer squashes, and grape tomatoes, all from Trader Joe’s, and all local or semi-local, at the very least grown somewhere in the US, an option that my Shaw’s just does not offer. Does it ever completely enrage you that, even in the height of the season, we import veggies and fruits from everywhere but our local farmers? Hello, economy fix. Let’s support businesses in our communities!

vegetables

Anyhow. . . once the pasta was cooked, I mixed it in with the vegetables and four triangles of Laughing Cow garlic & herb cheese. For a light cheese, which I normally would laugh at, I actually think Laughing Cow is good, and mixed in with the veggies and pasta, it made a nice cream “sauce”. Yummy.

Laughing Cow Cheese

I forgot to take a photo of the final product, but it was great! It made for a lunch I looked forward to, and for me, that is the ultimate test of a lunch recipe.

This pasta salad would make a great vegetarian side dish or main dish for a summer BBQ, as long as it isn’t kept out in the sun too long!

What did you have for lunch at work this week? Anything delicious?

Tags: cheese, Food, Lunch, pasta, summer, vegetables, Vegetarian

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