Best Summer Icy Treats

This post was inspired by a recent podcast from the ladies of the Stuff You Missed in History Class, from How Stuff Works on the origins of ice cream. The podcast is super interesting, and you should definitely check it out.

Although I am one of the strange untrustworthy folks they mention that doesn't go crazy for ice cream (sorry dairy); I still can appreciate the splendor and glee that a delicious icy treat can provide on a hot day. So to take advantage of the remaining days of summer, I wanted to share some delicious frozen treats from some amazing lady bloggers.


1.) Cucumber Mint Slushie, from A House in the Hills

I just recently discovered A House in the Hills, a blog by Sarah Yates, and boy am I delighted! Not only does she have an amazing story to tell, wonderful healthy recipes to share, fabulous pictures, and a great voice, but she also has two of the cutest dogs. Between this recipe she shared for a refreshing cucumber mint slushie, and the picture of her dogs Bean and Nugget, I'm in blog heaven!

2.) Plum Sorbet, from The White Ramekins

It was hard to select only one recipe to share from Himashu Taneja, at The White Ramekins, but as soon as I came across this recipe I stopped in my tracks. There are so many things to love about this plum sorbet, but apart from the obvious, there are only four ingredients; plums, water, sugar (to taste), and balsamic vinegar. Also, I'd like to confess that I just learned what a ramekin was this year, and I'm kind of in love with the fact that Himashu is banker by day, blogger by night (just like me).

3.) Mango Cardamom and Sweet Coconut Popsicles, from A Cozy Kitchen

Adrianna from A Cozy Kitchen has got it right. Not only are these the popsicles of my dream, but they are fanciful and really well designed too. I am officially starving! Also, Adrianna, you are totally right, people who just bite in to cold things like they haven't a care in the world make me cringe. Maybe I'm in the same club as you, people with cold sensitive teeth that will all fall out. Now there's something to ask my dentist about.

4.) Corn Ice Cream, from Martha Stewart

Okay Martha, you had me with corn... as I mentioned earlier, I don't do a lot of dairy or really sweet sweets. So any time I can get a unique savory flavor in a food item that is traditionally meant to be sweet I find myself being like, 'go on I'm listening...' My skills are not such that I could make this, but if someone did, I would certainly be excited to try it.

5.) Lemon, Honey and Thyme Sorbet, from My Darling Lemon Thyme

Delightful. I guess in that one word I can sum up Emma Galloway's blog My Darling Lemon Thyme. Delightful. I'm really excited to delve deeper and check out her gardening tips and dairy free recipes. I have so much work to do...

As you can see prefacing this post as relating to ice cream might have been a bit misleading, as only one of the treats actually featured cream (corn!). Us sisters don't have a great time with dairy for the most part so I suppose these non dairy treats are more applicable to the sisters. Too bad it's so late right now because after this post I'm starving!

I hope you enjoyed my top five icy treats for the summer, and I encourage you to check out these cooking ladies' blogs. You will find so many lovely things.

DIY: Happy Valentine's Day, No One!

I stumbled upon this recipe for 2 cupcakes on Pinterest a few weeks back, so I thought why not give it a go? In order to Valentine the cupcakes up a bit, I decided to make a quick and easy topper using supplies I already had...

Insta-sista

Fall leaves falling in my front yard, but wait there's more...

Iowa! I mean, Eat-o-wa!

When you're in the Midwest, you need to eat like you're in the Midwest...and for me, that means MEAT. Please understand, I'm not terribly carnivorous at home. I don't usually buy meat because it's expensive and a pain to prepare. (OK, not thaaaaat much of a pain, but you must be mindful of cross-contamination, and really, I feel like I already have enough to worry about.) But if I don't have to prepare it, all bets are off. So, I spent this weekend eating meat, bread, and more meat & bread. I must say, it was pretty excellent. May I direct your attention to Exhibit A below? This brisket sandwich with pickles and onions was made by the good folks of B&B Grocery, Meat, and Deli. Yes. Please. Thank you. Always and forever...

Plundering mother's garden

I took care of my mom's cats and her horse Sully over the weekend so she could go visit sister Christine in Spokane...ergo I plundered her garden. 

Sully!

To be fair she certainly didn't mind, but boy did I get some treasures--check it out...

Burgers, burgers, burgers.

I'm going to start this post off by letting everyone know that I am a vegetarian.  I don't enjoy burgers or beef or bacon. Nicholas loves burgers and anything burger related. He may or may not sometimes refer to himself as the Burger Baron. There might even be a "my life in burgers: the first quarter" post on his blog. It's not uncommon to find little meat photo surprises when I load the memory card--evidence below.

While I don't partake in the burger business, I did want to give Nick something near and dear to his heart for our 3 year anniversary. I decided to knit Nicholas a bacon burger. I still need to knit up some cheese.

A piece of yellow American cheese has been ordered.

You can knit this burger using scrap yarn.  Here are the yarns that I used for my burger creation.

If you're asking if I keep some of my knitting
needles in a Queen Elizabeth ceramic cup,
the answer is most certainly yes!

This is the finished product. 

I included 2 pieces of lettuce, a tomato, a slice of bacon, a dollop of mustard and one beef patty.

The great thing about this project is that you can customize it however you want. Nick has already requested additions for upcoming occasions. Maybe some grilled onions for Christmas! 

The pattern I used is available on etsy.

morning at the market

Spokane has a new year-round public market--aptly titled The Spokane Public Market-- which I'm really excited about. I checked it out for the first time this morning because my friend, Shawn, wrote an article about the market for The Spokesman Review. You can read Shawn's piece here. 

My mission: tomatoes, carrots, and some type of fruit. 

And I'm happy to report that my mission has been accomplished. 

The goat cheese was a total bonus. 

The space and design of the market are pretty swell, too. 

And no trip to the public market would be complete without my favorite shirt. My family knows which shirt I mean. It's the old farmer's shirt I found at The Classy Rack for $2.00. 

Yes, it has a few holes, but that just makes me love it all the more.

Summer prevails!

double yum

My dear friend, Maya, gave me a jar of scrumptious strawberry-rhubarb jam this week.
I went straight to the store and bought a loaf of bread because it was toast and jam time. Straight up.

Tea with jam, jam and bread. Tea with jam, jam and bread. 

With jam and bread, with jam and bread, with jam and bread! 

That, of course, is from The Sound of Music. My, what a lovely interlude.

Glistening in the sun.

The second yum? Homemade oreo cookies. What? Yes. I saw the picture on foodgawker and wanted, wanted, immediately wanted them. So, I made them. Results? Tastes just like oreo cookies, except delicious. The recipe from the foodgawker picture may be found on Poet in the Pantry. The recipe I followed for my cookies is from smitten kitchen. Double yum, indeed.

Yes, I will eat this now, please.

Easter bunny...

When I was 19 I lived and attended school in Cheney, WA.  Christine and I would often drive into Spokane in the afternoon and spend lots of money and time entertaining ourselves at the bookstores and occasionally the mall.  One boring afternoon in April, we were eating mall pretzels (this was like 6 years ago, don't judge) and watching the mall Easter Bunny pose for pictures.  I swear this isn't as creepy as it sounds.  I told Christine, that if I was ever down and out, I could always be the Easter Bunny in the mall...only I would have my own way of doing things.  The little children would pose for a picture and I would pinch their arm really hard and then whisper through the plastic head-piece, "Eaaaassssttteeeerrr Buunnnnnnnyyyy." It sounds kind of messed up, but it sure gave us a chuckle at the time.  Who am I kidding, we laugh about it every Easter.  My mom laughs too.  As I type this, I realize that this story might be one of those, "you had to be there" things.  If that's the case--sorry.

This Easter my mother drove down to Olympia and Nick and I made Easter pizza (the way baby Jesus intended).  We used cloth napkins--it's Easter after all!

After we ate, we thought a game was in order.  Nick went to the basement and came back with one of my favorites...

Nick ended up winning (he also landed on free parking four times).  It made me sad when my mom started to run out of money.  She doesn't like Monopoly because, "you always have to take stuff from other people and then the next turn you have to give it right back."

Easter 2011, out!

I wonder what the sisters did on Easter...

Portland = Foodland

After spending some 26 hours in Portland, I realized that other than nail polish, the only thing I purchased was food.  Here is some of that food (plus a few non-food related pictures). PS the nail polish is swell.

Drinks at Jo's. 

Nick got a sampling of beers at Bridgeport.

Nick got a Moscow Mule [read bourbon drink] at Gilt Club. He needed it to help wash down his meal.

This is the "Neil Everett" burger aka the kitchen sink burger.
They put everything suitable in the kitchen on the burger.
This burger had foie gras, bacon, beef, gouda, lettuce, pickled beets, an egg,
french fries (on the burger), onion ring, some mysterious spiced meat, etc.
 I ordered a side of bread and some artichokes.  There wasn't much for veggies at this club.

Walked by this on the way back to the hotel.  

It creeped me out. Royally. 

In the morning, I had my very first pumpernickel bagel.  It was divine.  

Soy latte at Stumptown.

Bink was so happy to have us back.  She liked spending the weekend without Kitts.
We have to go tonight to pickup the bad baby from my mom's.
Bink will be so disappointed that she is coming home.

Sweet dreams are made of pizza and gum.

In the process of waking up this morning, I realized that I seemed to be chewing. Hold up. Chewing? Yup, I was dream-eating! At least, I think I was. And just what was I dream-eating? Well, it might have been pizza because that's the first thing that came to me. I must have been dreaming up some pizza. But it also could have been a dream about chewing gum because that was the second thing I thought about. Pizza? Oh wait, I was probably just chewing some gum. Who can unlock the mysteries of the human mind? And what will I dream-eat tonight, I wonder...

In the truck, in dreams, whenever.

P.S. The italicized parts are my actual thoughts from this morning. Bonus!

weekend sistering

We drove to the Mima Mounds.

It was a lovely afternoon.

Full of nature and the distant sound of small arms fire.

We ate all these tomatoes.

Peanut helped Nic with her knitting.

Kittens always have the most fun.