Delicious Recipes to Keep my Family of Four Happy and Full
I have the world’s worst black thumb. Until recently, the only plant I have been able to keep alive is a Christmas cactus that I was given as a gift when my grandfather died years ago. That changed recently when I purchased a hydroponic basil plant because they were out of regular basil. On a whim, I decided to plant it and it has been flourishing ever since. The more it grows, the more I realize that I need to find ways to use it and I collected 21 recipes with basil.
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Strawberries are everywhere right now. I know our berry patches are turning out some amazing strawberries and they are just begging to be eaten, cooked with and enjoyed while they are at their peak. I love eating strawberries on their own but also like to add them to desserts during the summer. For dessert not too long ago, I decided to do a slightly different take on strawberry shortcake and use a cheesecake style filling in place of the traditional whipped cream.
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Mathlete is a scone lover. Every time we go to the coffee shop or pick up pastries for breakfast, he always chooses scones. I had never really thought about making my own scones until I was chatting with a blog friend of mine about ways to use her awesome basil simple syrup. I decided right then that I was going to try my hand at making strawberry basil scones with a basil glaze.
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I love ceviche but don’t get the chance to eat it very often. I had been dreaming of it ever since we went on the Miami Culinary tour during Blogher Food so I dragged Mathlete to the Mexican place that I usually order it from. They have the most amazing shrimp ceviche. Well, #sadpandaface, they don’t have it anymore! The only ceviche they have has scallops and I really dislike scallops. So, I decided I was going to make it at home and made spicy tilapia ceviche for dinner one evening.
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Almost every Friday, another family and I hit the local Mexican restaurant for margaritas. Both of our schedules have changed a bit so we haven’t been able to make it there as often and have opted for food and cocktails at home instead. Jose Cuervo makes a delicious ready-to-serve margarita and they just recently introduced the Iced Teagarita. It is an yummy mix of a classic lime flavored margarita and iced tea. It is an amazingly refreshing cocktail on a hot summer night!
I have been adding fresh berries to my iced tea drinks recently so I decided to combine that new treat with the Jose Cuervo drink and make a strawberry basil Teagarita.
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Lunch options in or near my office are very limited. Like a single cafe with boring sandwiches kind of limited. So, I like to take my lunch as much as possible. Not only does it give me lots more options but it also helps me save money. Now that the weather is warmer, I am definitely focused on salads more but tend to avoid lettuce based salads because they don’t hold up very well in travel. I was thinking about my lunch menu for upcoming weeks and came up with five perfect lunch salads.
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Every January, our house gets so excited because it is Girl Scout cookie time. By the end of the month, we are all out of the delicious cookies and it is sad faces all around. While shopping in Walmart the other day, I discovered THE BEST thing in the check out aisle. NESTLÉ® CRUNCH® Girl Scouts® Candy Bars which totally allows us to get our Girl Scouts® cookie fix even though it isn’t cookie season. I totally grabbed all of the Thin Mints® bars they had in the aisle and brought them home. We usually freeze our cookies to get them nice and cold but I decided to make Thin Mints® Ice Cream Pie with the candy bars instead.
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In my dreams, summer is a time to slow down and relax. Days are spent lounging by the pool and nights are spent with delicious dinners on the deck. I’m a good dreamer, right? Reality is far different around here. Gymnastics practices are longer, camp carpools are added into the mix and getting dinner on the table becomes so much harder. Oh, add the heat into that mix and turning on an oven or stove and cooking just loses its luster. That is where the beauty of something like this sausage and pepper one pot pasta comes into play. It is one pot and a meal that cooks in under thirty minutes. Sound too goo to be true? Well, you definitely aren’t dreaming 🙂
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Grilling season is here! From burgers to fruit, we are all about using our grill as much as possible during the nice weather! On top of grilling pretty much all of our meals, we also use the warm weather and beautiful evenings to get together with friends on the deck.
Chicken is one of my favorite things to cook on the grill and, recently, I decided to add one of our #BackyardBash drinks into the marinade for some grilled sticky chicken.
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It’s grill time! That means lots of burgers, kabobs and maybe even a grilled dessert or two. I like to change it up whenever I can and break out of the burger routine. Of course, Mathlete is a burger fan so we don’t stray too far. I was craving Italian food one night but it was just too beautiful outside to ignore the call of the deck and grill. So, I combined them both with a recipe for a delicious chicken Parmesan burger.
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