WIwW: Birds flying away from the heat

It's hot here. Like really hot. 98 degrees and 100% humidity hot. Iced coffee sweating all over your clothes hot. I tried to dress appropriately today by wearing as few clothes as possible. It was still too many. :-)

 Orange sunglasses: Brooklyn street boutique

Silver necklace: Tiffany look-a-like, Canal Street, NYC

Aviary top: Old Navy

Jean Skirt: Ann Taylor

Brown wedge sandals: Montego Bay, Payless

P.S. The back side of this top is super cute and worth a close up. (You know, terrible picture not withstanding)

MIM: Mini pseudo caramel apples

Man, are you guys on Pinterest yet? Seriously, all my food inspiration comes from posts there these days. It's like getting your favorite magazine, but every day of the week (multiple times a day) instead of just once a month! Seriously, sign up already.
That being said, today's snack/dessert was inspired by the summer season and my desire to eat all things fruit all the time. I'm also watching the carbs again, so cookies, cakes, and the like all seem pretty heavy. I wanted something that was light, quick, fun, and mostly pop-able. Enter, the pseudo caramel apple.

Mini Pseudo Caramel Apples

1 lb green grapes, rinsed and dried

~3 Tbsp Trader Joes Caramel sauce mixed w/ ~1 Tbsp heavy cream

1 cup crushed salted & roasted peanuts

As seems to be my style lately, easy peasy recipe! Just wash and dry your grapes, heat up your caramel & heavy cream just until mixed, spear each of the grapes individually with a toothpick, get to dipping in caramel mix, and finish the dipping in salted peanuts. Refrigerate until hardened if desired. That's it! In case you hadn't figured it out yet, they're pseudo because there's not really any apple involved at all.

Verdict? Two thumbs up tasty. Honestly. I couldn't even tell this wasn't an apple if I had my eyes closed. You could accomplish the same thing by using a mini melon baller on an actual apple (which I may try sometime, and then wouldn't be "pseudo") but why spend the time when you can quickly use grapes? Serve to your friends. They'll thank you.

FFF: The patio garden

Welcome to my little outside corner of the city. After living here for almost 2 years now (eep! 2 whole years), I finally decided this was the year to get my act together and plant a patio garden. I will admit that the one major thing I do miss from the Milan house is having lots of garden space. I didn't go out there much in the summer, and I hate bugs and the like, but it sure was nice to have all that land. Living in the city has more than it's share of perks though, so my little patio space will have to do.
The Mister encouraged me not to go overboard on my first year, so I KISSed it (Keep It Simple Stupid). I picked up just 2 rectangular planters, one mini planter, and 3 bigger self-watering planters. For plants, I went with 3 different kinds of tomatoes (roma, patio, and mixed cherry), lots of basil, some herbs (chives, parsley, cilantro, mint), and one lone pepper plant. I think it should do nicely. I'm mostly excited for basil for pesto and caprese, mint for summer drinks, and tomatoes for salads when they finally start growing and ripening. Even if the garden ends up being a total fail (who knows what all that exhaust does to organic plants), I had fun planting for the season. I'm even hoping I'll learn a thing or two to make next season even better.

For your viewing pleasure:

P.S. We just signed another lease on our place. So next year's garden is already guaranteed.

WIwW: The Dress

The weather sure doesn't make me feel like it, but I'm trying to hold onto a mental "cute" vibe today. Nothing fancy, but just a new dress and my favorite belt. Now bring back the sunshine Mr. Weatherman. (And goodness gracious, do I REALLY need to focus on my camera work. Grr)

Leaf print dress: Emily and Finn, Flirt (local Brooklyn boutique)

Green elephant belt: thrifted, Brooklyn Flea

Brown heels: American Eagle, Payless

P.S. This dress has pockets. I <3 a good dress with pockets. In fact, pockets on everything are fantastic.

MIM: Smashed Baby Potatoes

Menu Item Monday today is a simple recipe for a side dish: Smashed Baby Potatoes. With Pinterest again as my inspiration, I cooked the Mister up a pretty simple meal of steak, steamed broccoli, and potatoes. But I didn't want just ANY old potatoes. I wanted fancy ones! So I followed this two part idea of boiling the potatoes first to cook them, then cooking them a second time in the oven to get them brown and crispy. I was sort of hoping they would be like tater tots?

First up, boil those baby potatoes in a pot of salted water. You could probably use new (red) baby potatoes for this as well. My potatoes were all probably no bigger than 1-2" in diameter. I boiled them for about 12 minutes. Once the potatoes are boiled, carefully drain them, then roll them around in some olive oil and salt/pepper to coat them. I used a chipotle olive oil, which added a nice subtle smoky, spicy flavor from my local favorite, The Filling Station.

Once the potatoes are coated, throw them out onto a baking sheet, and get out your potato smasher (or a fork will do in a pinch as well). Smash away!

Now that the potatoes are smashed and arranged, throw them into a 425 degree F oven for about 10-15 minutes. If you want, you can add just a little spray of olive oil or butter over the tops of the potatoes to help them brown up. If it doesn't seem like the potatoes are crisping enough, feel free to throw them under the broiler as well. I being as impatient as I was, didn't wait quite long enough, so the potatoes are not as crispy as I would have liked.

Verdict? One and a half thumbs up. I have to make this recipe again to perfect it, but the concept and taste of the potatoes was great, and was definitely more fun for a weeknight dinner than your average baked potato.

New Feature: Free Form Fridays

Friday's are the day I get to write whatever I want. :-) There might be pictures, there might not be. There might be a great story, or there might not be. It's free form and whatever I feel like baby! Today, I feel like writing about the lovely evening I had last night. It was BEAUTIFUL spring weather, about 70 degrees, slightly windy, and just the absolute PERFECT evening for me to sit on the porch reading, drink in hand. I mixed up a quick sparkler of Moscato wine, POM juice, lime juice, and a few ice cubes. I grabbed my newest Time Out New York, my new Nook loaded with the book I'm in the middle of (Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett), and headed out to my little corner of the city. I even managed to catch you a glimpse of my newly planted patio garden! It was pure after work bliss.

 

New Feature: What I wore Wednesday

What I wore Wednesday is a new feature for me, but not around the interwebs. I've decided I wanted to include a WIwW feature, because I so much enjoy them from everyone else. Also, my fashion sense is pretty terrible sometimes, and I'm hoping that by being forced to look at pictures of myself wearing exactly what I wore to work, I'll get better? Here's hoping at least. In general, I'm hoping I'll get better about taking pictures as well. Yesterday was an iphone/Instagram rush kind of day. Deal.

Sunglasses: Kenneth Cole, Marshalls

Turquoise necklace: So Good Jewelry, Miami

Purple ruffle tank: Banana Republic

White 3/4 sleeve cardigan: Old Navy

Khaki skirt: Merona, Target

Leopard flats: Wanted Skimmers in brown multi, Delia's

New Feature: Menu Item Monday

I told you I would be back with a surprise. One of the things I'm thinking of doing with the blog is adding M-F weekly features. Hence, Menu Item Monday. To be quite honest, I'm not the cook I once was. Not that I've lost my enjoyment for cooking, but frankly, living in NYC, there's not much need for me to be as creative with food as I once was. I've got every kind of cuisine available for delivery at the tips of my fingers. In fact, I can even order online with a credit card through Seamless! That being said though, sometimes a girl still needs to get in her kitchen. So I'm going to try and focus on just one menu item a week. It might be a main dish, an appetizer, a vegetable, or if I'm feeling really lazy, maybe even some doctored up take-out. I can't guarantee I'll be able to hold up my end of the bargain every week (it's a big undertaking!), but I'm certainly going to try.

One thing my meals have been focusing on lately are more vegetables. Especially with the summer growing season, and all the beautiful things available at the city farmer's markets, I'm trying to get in all my greens. One way of doing that, is to cut out some of the carbs, and figure out ways to add veggies to old favorites. So one of my tasks for this first MIM, was to attempt something I've been seeing around pinterest lately, "pasta" made of zucchini using a mandoline. I got to use my mandoline!

Menu Item Monday: Zucchini "pasta" Alfredo

1 pkg pancetta pieces

6 small zucchinis 

~3/4 cup alfredo sauce

So there's not really a mind-bending recipe here. Basically once the zucchini was cut, I drained it on some paper towels to dry a bit. I warmed a big skillet over medium, threw in the pancetta to brown up a bit, threw in the zucchini to saute and soften (~4-6 minutes), and then coated the whole pan with the alfredo sauce. Viola. Dinner.

Verdict? Gosh darn tasty damnit! Honesty. This was delicious. I would definitely make it again. The zucchini has a crunch just like al denta pasta does, and it even swirls around a fork to fit into your mouth! Two enthusiastic thumbs up. (P.S. I didn't even cut any of my fingers!)

Mulling it over

Howdy! Long time no post. :-) I've been mulling things over lately about what to do about this blog. I don't necessarily want to give up on it, but clearly I've been lacking the motivation to post anything for quite some time. I've got some ideas of my sleeve though, and I'm thinking June might be the perfect time to put them into action. I'm considering M-F daily posts with a little more structure. I'll clue you in when I'm ready, but is there anything else in particular you'd like to see? Posts you're interested in? Questions you have about city life? Stay tuned. I might just be back before you know it.

 Prepare for more sprinkles!

It's been a long summer

You ever get the feeling that you just want a certain season to END already? Being a Midwesterner at heart, I look forward to the changing of the seasons every year. I love watching new buds and refreshing rains in the spring, love time spent in the water and wearing skirts everyday in summer, love, love, love sweatshirts and pumpkins and apples in fall, and even love the snowfalls and whipping winds that winter brings. But recently, I've discovered that summer in the city is not quite like summer in the midwest. In fact, if someone had actually told me about what it feels like to stand on a subway platform waiting for delayed trains on a day that is 107 degrees ABOVE ground, making it at least 122 degrees BELOW ground, I certainly would have rethought this East coast move. I love NYC, I do. But this summer is just too much for me. Too much heat, too much humidity, and far too much of my time spent in my air conditioned apartment wishing it wasn't so terrible outside so that I could actually go out and DO something. Consequently, there hasn't been much activity on the blog lately, as my brains are too fried onto the sidewalk every night to do anything of interest!
Despite the heat though, I have managed to force myself to do a few things. There was a lovely summer wedding in Michigan celebrating Margot & Brian Cook, several walks to High Line park with the intent of rewarding myself with a Kelvin's slush and People's Pop's natural shaved ice at the end, a steamy trip to Chicago where I drowned myself in ice cream and gelato, a visit from Mike & Sarah that turned into a surprise elopement on the hottest day of the summer, and finally, a day spent honing my photography skills in the West Village.

It's all been lovely, but after so much heat, and very little downtime, I'm in need of a break. So I'll be spending the end of August at my grandma's house on Lake Huron, resting, relaxing, and appreciating the fact that although it might be hot, I've got a whole lake right outside the front door to cool off in. After that it's another quick trip to MI for Labor Day, this time to spend time with the Mister's family on Crystal Lake. Another time when I'm looking forward to the fact that I won't be sweating on the subway platform, but hopefully swimming until my heart is content in the clear waters. I'm hoping that after those two final trips, summer will finally wash itself away from the city, and I can be ready to welcome my favorite season of all, Fall.