Happy Friday!
Happy Good Friday!
And Happy Easter to you as well.
Shall we get to my latest obsessions?
Alrighty then.
spicy mayo. yeah have you tried it?
it's so good I have to get it by the cup full.
I might be prone to drinking it straight up too.
Don't even get me started on this. Lake Champlain Chocolate. Heavenly chocolates.
My favorite is the peanut butter, but this caramel is a close second.
And Lake Champlain you need to add a touch of salt to this. Seriously.
Cape Cod finally has a Panera Bread and I finally got to try the Cobb salad with extra avocado.
Tasty indeed.
Bob Marley iced coffee is good. A bit sweet, but then again I don't like sugar in my espresso or coffee, but this was good.
Not too many preservatives or chemicals in there--which is good.
it's ice cream season!
And guess what? The snow storms on cape cod have stopped!!
We also got a couple days of sun.
east dennis, ma
race point, provincetown, ma
harwichport, ma
race point lighthouse beach, provincetown, ma
harwichport, ma (one of the deep sea fishing ports)
so nice to be outside, on the docks and it's not bitterly cold.
can you imagine living here? harwichport, ma (wychmere beach club)
around the web:
10-minute yoga workout to jumpstart your spring from yoganonymous
matzo pizza! from seriouseats.com
fried sun-dried beef w/ chili dipping sauce from shesimmers.com
vitamin D & muscle efficiency from paleo lifestyle magazine
store fresh grated ginger in freezer from thekitchn.com
DIY easy rosemary focaccia from thekitchn.com
buffalo chicken deviled eggs from closet cooking
DIY cabinet door storage for measuring cups from thekitchn.com
8 yoga poses to help cervical spine & neck issues from mindbodygreen.com
make your own honey bunny grahams from half baked harvest
DIY homemade frozen pizzas from thekitchn.com
cakespy's favorite buttercream frosting from cakespy.com
vegetable manchurian from ang sarap
custard cream cookies! from bits of sunshine
healthy fudgy brownie bits from averiecooks
6 ways to clean smelly plastic containers w/out chemicals from thekitchn.com
cadbury creme scotch eggs from cakespy.com
homemade chocolate hazelnut baci from butter baking
zesty chickpea & cumin dip from strayed table
cookies & cream ice cream cupcakes from taste & tell
carrot daikon kimchi from autumn makes & does
10 habits that will help you become slimmer from mindbodygreen.com
spaghetti squash pad thai from shared appetite
12 great tips for the perfect steak from will cook for friends
focaccia rolls from fabtastic eats
mustard & walnut cheese crackers from mad about maida
breakfast sushi rolls from apron strings blog
DIY homemade cadbury creme eggs from the hungry mouse
saint agur blue cheese sables from seriouseats.com
meyer lemon mascarpone cake from seriouseats.com
4 ways to boost your metabolism from blisstree.com
healthy: pb power fudge from heidi powell
how long does it take to fall out of shape? from outsidemagazine.com
homemade mango lassi from use real butter
(youtube video of a girl who is having a funny aftermath from wisdom teeth removal)
10 companies making fast food healthy from dailyburn.com
the power of being honest with yourself from marksdailyapple.com
do you all believe this?
do you use apple cider vinegar for health reasons?
healing powers of apple cider vinegar
Have a wonderful weekend!
3/29/13
friday links
3/22/13
friday links
Happy Friday!
As much as I want to say the word "happy" I am not with all these winter storms that keep hitting the Cape.
Two days ago was the first day of spring and right after that we had yet another snow storm.
This one dumping six inches of snow. Which by the way, six inches of snow to us now is a mere couple of inches. I don't like getting used to it that way.
It's not so much the snow that bothers me, it's the lack of sun that is killing my moods.
We seem to be on this pattern of five days of cloudy, dark or snow weather, and maybe one and half days of sun.
I miss the sun, I miss the natural Vit D she gives me too.
chatham fish pier
chatham fish pier. The beach is still pretty no matter the weather.
provincetown. the row of cottages on route 6a just before entering p-town. ghostly looking, but in two months they will all be filled with life.
my latest obsession, the chipotle tabasco sauce has just the right amount of smoke added to it, and has just the right amount of heat.
you must try your avocado toast this way.
or try this way: on an egg sandwich.
I was asked to try Bonnieville's Power Cookie. Pretty darn good for a vegan, gluten free and dairy free cookie! With no refined sugar too!
Those kind of cookies are hard to make AND hard to make tasty. If I had to change one thing?
It needs more chocolate flavor.
The strawberries at Whole Foods have been simply stunning.
They always have the best selection of produce.
It's here! I was sent a copy of Gesine latest cookbook!
I'm thrilled to pieces. Have you seen the latest recipes?
Bake It like you Mean It is about showcasing cakes from the inside out, Each chapter is devoted to a technique of making different types of cake beginning with the easiest recipe and moving to the more technically difficult as the chapter progresses. When the cakes are cut they reveal intricate layers of patterns and designs. One recipe you can have right now: Pyramid Cake is on her website.
Not only that, but recipes like creamsicle cheesecake, creamsicle meringue, truffle caramel fig cake, pumpkin mousse cruller tart, meyer lemon and blackberry zebra cheesecake....
sunshine creamsicle cheesecake pg. 170
around the web:
banana-brickle muffins from taste & tell
ham & cheese bread rolls from ang sarap
raw strawberry-lemon cake bars! from fragrant vanilla cake
s'mores candy bars! from not so humble pie (I am doing this!)
get enough sleep to ward off anxiety from greatist.com
avocado lovers maybe healthier overall from greatist.com
researchers care more about yoga than ever before from mindbodygreen.com
4 foods that can put you in a bad mood from aligyno.com
raw mint Oreo's from the sweet life
25 things to make you smile from buzzfeed.com
14 most common fitness injuries from outsidemagazine.com
bacon fat gingersnaps from seriouseats.com
best small towns in America (I love that P-town is on here) from fodors.com
dr oz's 30-day detox from doctoroz.com (anyone done this? seems costly)
how to make turkey jerky (paleo lovers) from marksdailyapple.com
turn bad habits into good ones from greatist.com
whole foods commits to full GMO transparency from wholefoodsmarket.com
detox asana: 8 yoga poses to spring clean your body from yoganonymous.com
how tapping can help you deal w/ debilitating disease from positivelypostive.com
secrets to living beyond 100 from intentblog.com
earl grey cupcakes w/ early grey frosting from fork and flower
curried baked carrot chips from oh my veggies
vintage easter basket cookies (step by step) from bobbies baking blog
spicy breaded sweet potato fries from peanut butter & peppers
easter biscuits from julias pantry
apple bourbon cream cheese wontons from lab at 56
bang bang shrimp from running to the kitchen
hawaiian bbq chicken taquitos from damn delicious
enter to win a trip to Duncan Hines Test Kitchen from bake or break
avocado feta salsa from diethood
buffalo chicken quinoa bites from damn delicious
Have a wonderful weekend!
2/14/13
cookies and cream cookies (plus blizzard 2013)
I'm back!
And I can say I survived the blizzard of 2013!
As most of you know, cape cod got hit pretty bad with the blizzard, or was it called storm nemo?
My area got hit hard.
Thankfully we survived it ok with minimal tree damage and house damage, but we lost power for three days.
For three days in 30 degree temperatures during the day and teen temperatures during the night.
You can only imagine how hard that was, mentally and physically.
I can honestly say it was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life.
By day two our inside home temperature was 43 degrees!
Hubby and I would lay in bed at night with 7-8 blankets, fully clothed, listening to the house creak and moan with the declining temps.
We could see our breath inside our home.
We didn't have a fireplace, but we did boil water over the gas stove every three hours.
Granted this is not safe and I don't recommend it to anyone, but we have high ceilings and only did this a few times to raise the temperature up a bit.
On day two and a half with no heat, we looked everywhere for a hotel room--they were snatched up fairly quickly and the waiting list was about three pages long.
The only communication we had was the radio and our iphones with which I got updates via the NStar website that said we had another three days to go until power was completely restored.
You can imagine the freak out factor I had with this news.
I wasn't so worried about us making it in the cold, my biggest fear was our pipes.
It was only a matter of time before the pipes would freeze. We did wrap a few pipes that were closest to the outside walls with clothes and towels, and blocked up the doors and windows with sofa cushions.
During the day we'd go to a local grocery store that was partially open, running on generators and eat whatever they had and use the restrooms to wash up. It was hard to come home to the house at night knowing it would be dark and cold.
There were two homes on our street that had whole-house generators, driving by these homes every night seeing them inside watching TV, using the computer, or cooking away in the kitchen was surreal--strange to say the least. It leaves you desperate in a way; longing for any kind of normalcy---again.
On our third day of no power we decided I would go the next day and stay with friends.
My husband was not leaving the house--under any circumstances. I didn't like this, and had zero say in the matter, but he did have a lot of army training so he was quite familiar with handling extreme conditions and weather.
You know how there are certain moment-like life events that happen to you that you never ever forget?
The time the power came on was in my top five.
We were just coming home for the night, driving down our road, seeing some lights on in houses that we were confused on whether or not those were the ones with the generators--we weren't sure because it all looked different.
Then we drove onto our street, and noticed the entire street was lit up like a christmas tree! When you're used to seeing black and then you see everything illuminated it's quite a change.
I remember screaming the whole way down our street to our house, saying 'oh my god, oh my god....!"
And then we got to our house and it was all black!
I didn't know hubby had turned all the lights off so that when the power did come back on we won't blow a fuse--he forgot this too!
So we both weren't sure if the power was on. Then I remembered that above the garage door is a motion detector light that glows red laser light when there is movement in the driveway which in turn turns on the outside lights. And POOF, the little red laser light started moving as I drove closer to the garage door and the lights on the garage door clicked on!!
I screamed "yes, the power is on!"
I screamed again, opened my truck door and started to get out, forgot to put the truck in park, caught myself and put it in park, got out and ran towards to the gas meter to hear for the sound of hissing to validate my curiosity again of whether the power was truly on. It was-- It was hissing away!
We both ran inside and were almost crying with happiness.
Hubby remembered the vent to the heater was blocked with a 4-5 foot snow drift, he ran around to shovel it out, while I ran around the house in shear happiness, turning on this or that light, and checking the all the heat panels. Finding my cat sitting on one of the floorboard heat panels--how he managed that balance act I'm still not sure, but porr thing he was cold too.
That night taking a hot shower-- well there are no words really for that; how do you describe that?
I mean it had been three days without hot water; your body just does a collective 'sigh' when the hot water hits your back for the first time.
We did lose power again the next day for six hours--what's six hours though when you've been through three days? Nothing.
As of today, thursday, my town still has about less than 100 homes still without power.
These are the places that are farther out from the main grid; homes that lost a lot of power lines and have older power lines/systems.
But thankfully today, thursday was the day that everyone in my town would be restored according to NStar. Happy Valentines Day indeed.
I haven't been cooking or baking for a while, cleanup is first, but I did find a recipe from the archives that I hadn't posted yet.
Happy Valentine's Day!
I know I'm happy--very happy and VERY grateful.
The taste of cookies and cream literally in a cookie. Seriously these are good.
Any type of Oreo will work and flavor-wise you can mix and match too.
Eating the dough is just as tasty too, plus there are no eggs so it's fairly safe.
1/18/13
friday links
Happy Friday!
Our cape cod sunsets have been so beautiful lately; I try to catch as many as I can. All of these are taken with my trusty iphone. This photo (below) that pink is just stunning.
west dennis beach
sandwich marina. sandwich, ma
clam diggers in chatham, ma
my kind of dinner. never tire of steamers.
chatham fish pier, chatham, ma (with tern island in the distance)
chatham fish pier, chatham, ma
around the web:
homemade vanilla creamer (no junk) from what's megan making
are you making these sunshine mistakes? from mercola.com
very inspiring health & fitness mantras from greatist.com (LOVE these!)
DIY jeweled heels from honestlywtf.com
ultimate guide to protein supplements from greatist.com
the semi-origin of gym machines? from theatlantic.com
relationship between exercise & inflammation from marksdailyapple.com
I love this ad for the van gogh museum cafe from hyperallergic.com
buttered grits cookies! from dessertfortwo.com
how to make candy sugar hearts from crunchycreamysweet.com
influenza sorbet (for real) from jeni's splendid ice cream
be a better cheese buyer from thekitchn
buckwheat: the new baking star from thekitchn
sea-salted choco-toffee rods from the moon blush baker
how to spot fake sriracha from foodrepublic.com
DIY healthier tortilla chips from thekitchn
DIY gluten free all-purpose mix from glutenfreegirl
sloppy tempeh-joe from chickypea
cooking salmon: minimizing that weird white stuff from thekitchn
beyond chicken noodle soup from thekitchn
rundown of 5 fitness apps from foodrepublic.com (I'm getting the yoga stretch one)
chinese mushroom soup from vanillabeanblog
leftover champagne: make vinegar from thekitchn
baltimore crab pretzel sticks from foodrepublic.com
fried pizza sandwiches from diethood.com
rice krispie treat snowballs from chocolatemoosey.com
thai turkey burgers from howsweeteats.com
swedish dream cookies from saveur.com
DIY single serving choco chip cookies from number2pencil.com
And finally a big thumbs up to one of the best places on cape cod to have breakfast: Keltic Kitchen
in west yarmouth, ma.
Should you plan a trip to cape cod, this is the best place to get a homemade breakfast.
Whether you want Irish or not, their food is amazing, prices are very reasonable and the portions are huge.
This is definitely not a tourist trap where they soak you for every dollar and give you a small
meal. They do get very crowded on the weekends, so come early.
I promise they will take good care of you--plenty of friendly waitstaff who will gladly tell you about their homeland of Ireland.
I had the Keltic Benny with a side of bacon. Huge right? The best breakfast I've had in a long time on cape cod.
12/24/12
merry christmas everyone!
Happy Holidays everyone!
Thank you for being a part of my food blogging world.
It's because of you, your emails, your comments, your tweets that I keep on creating new
recipes. You truly keep this alive, and I thank you for that.
I get so many emails asking for more cape cod beach photos, and it's been a while since I've
posted some. So here you go...enjoy.
nauset light eastham, ma
When the sun does come out here, the sunsets of lately have been magical.
Seaview beach, south yarmouth, ma
chapin beach rd, dennis, ma (a great place to watch the sunset)
more of chapin beach rd. Like a ghost town in the winter. Not a soul around--so peaceful.
harwichport, ma
harbor rd, town pier, harwichport, ma
harbor rd, town pier, harwichport, ma
harbor rd, town pier, harwichport, ma
nauset light beach, eastham, ma
le count hollow beach, wellfleet, ma
bayview beach, dennis, ma. This was about four hours before hurricane sandy hit.
bayview beach, dennis, ma.
seagull beach, yarmouth, ma
corporation beach, dennis, ma
chapin beach rd, dennis, ma
sandy neck beach, sandwich, ma
Summer is coming!
