Treats for appetites of every size
This is a big day: it’s the very last SMiLes by Meg post. I started this blog in 2013, fresh out of college and about to start a two year teaching job in New Jersey. I had no idea what I wanted my life to look like yet, and TFA was a way that I could push off that decision a little longer while doing something that felt important and meaningful. And because I was in a new place starting a new phase of my life, it felt like the right time to also get more serious about a new …
Guys, I don’t know if I’m ready for DC summer. It’s June 6 (the official kickoff of my birthday week) and over 90° out. It’s already too hot for me. So I obviously wanted to make popsicles this weekend. And the popsicles I wanted to make were cucumber elderflower tequila popsicles, because that sounded like the most refreshing thing I could have in this weather. Unfortunately, no one sells elderflower syrup around here, or at least I couldn’t get my hands on any fast enough to make popsicles this weekend. I have now ordered some on amazon, but that means …
When I told Erik I was making cream cheese ice cream, he told me it sounded revolting. But I wanted to make ice cream, and BraveTart doesn’t have any bad recipes, so I decided to give it a go. This week was in desperate need of ice cream, especially with some Matzo Crack crumbs left to serve as a topping. Cream cheese ice cream may sound not super appealing, but think of it more as a tangy ice cream. If you like cream cheese frosting on cake, this is the ice cream equivalent. Definitely pairs well with lots of toppings …
Happy Easter! This is a late post because I just got back from seeing my family for the first time since moving to DC, and it was a much needed little getaway. We laughed a lot, spent a lot of time in the sun, and generally just enjoyed some time together. Definitely worth the upcoming week of quarantine while I get tested, etc. I made the recipe for this post before we left so I could leave a treat for our cat sitter. Fortunately, since last week’s post, we were able to get our hands on some matzo, and therefore …
Back to Christmas cookie boxes this week with one of the two non-cookie recipes I put in the boxes this year: peanut brittle. I think it’s fitting to still be sharing cookie box recipes because some of the cookie boxes I mailed out (3 day priority mail about 2 weeks before Christmas) just this week got to their destinations. USPS needs its funding restored. Anyways, peanut brittle went in the boxes this year as a compromise. I really wanted to try to recreate Williams-Sonoma peppermint bark, but then once I started looking at recipes realized it was a project in …
Looking back over the years, I’ve tried to make Oreos a few times. When I first moved into my apartment in Boston after law school, I gave them a go with this recipe. Then, a couple months later, I tried to recreate the Trader Joe’s candy cane Oreos with this recipe for my Christmas cookie boxes. Both seem to have been successes at the time, but they also both pale in comparison to the ones I made for my cookie boxes this year, a much more impressive looking and subtly peppermint variety out of BraveTart’s cookbook, of course. Christmas for …
Week 2 of cookies from my cookie boxes this year is checkerboards! When polling friends who got a box, this was a big favorite, which I think is probably more due to the fact that they look really impressive than anything else. Oh and also the butter. I first made checkerboards in my pre-blog life sometime in college. Cate was visiting my parents’ house with me, and I remember making them at the kitchen counter while she made wedding cookies. Or maybe I’m totally making up this memory but I think that’s when I first made them. I was surprised …
Thanksgiving was different this year, and I definitely missed the big family gathering, traditional holiday foods (mostly the secret stuffing) and post-meal nap/movie on the couch. But, if we couldn’t have that this year, our little Thanksgiving was the perfect Plan B. We made this pie the night before, and decided, since there was no one coming over, there was no reason we couldn’t eat it for breakfast on Thanksgiving day. This could very much turn into a new tradition. The rest of our meal came together throughout the course of the day, interspersed with video calls with family and …
Last week, my mom suggested I try a recipe of Grammy’s that I hadn’t tried yet – Danish Puff. My aunt sent me the recipe, confirming that it was always a treat when Grammy would make it on Sundays. I’d never heard of it, but decided to give it a go this Sunday, since we all deserve a treat to keep celebrating yesterday. I love getting recipes of Grammy’s, because they often come to me like this: No nonsense, easy to find ingredients, minimal instructions assuming you know what you’re doing in the kitchen. And at this point in my …
Washington, DC Fall is really winning me over. Boston Fall is decidedly the prettiest thing in the world, but that unbelievably perfect day where the leaves are changing and the sky is blue and the air is crisp and the brownstones look particularly lovely happens like two times total in Boston Fall. DC Fall has been that perfect temperature for two weeks now, and it’s not getting old. This weekend, we biked all around and just enjoyed being outside. And tomorrow we’ll head out to Shenandoah National Park to do some hiking and backpacking. I don’t know that I could …