Watercress, Tomato, and Feta Pasta Salad

Watercress grows plentifully in the stream by my mother's house (zone 6). She found a calm part where the water flow is very gentle, very minimal, and has propagated a little watercress colony.

She brought over a bag of fresh watercress recently and I obviously turned to Pinterest to find a recipe to use it. This little salad was super simple, easy and quick, and used some interesting blanching techniques that I'd never tried.

Blood orange fennel relish on rainbow trout

I love cooking, it's the perfect blend of crafting and consuming. 

CRAFT: A couple nights back I worked on a blood orange fennel relish. In progress (below) are the chopped fennel fronds, my amazing citrus zester (a gift from my sister, similar here), and lemon juice. I often craft dinner with some vino in-hand. 

Quinoa Vegetarian Chili (Slow-Cooker Style)

I was inspired by the recipe (and photo!) of Vegetarian Quinoa Chili from Two Peas and Their Pod. I am a meat-eater but love to go for meatless mains when possible. Also I've been traveling a lot for work lately (January kicks off the spring market season for fashion accessories!), I spent last week in NYC and Atlanta, with just a day at home in between. Nonstop travel is exhausting, and I generally don't wind up nourishing my bod with healthy, leafy greens while away. Usually I'm eating rich, fabulous foods late at night at client dinners. Needless to say, I needed to whip up some quality food that was healthy and hearty at home (a little DIY detox, if you will).

Recipes on Pinterest

I've been using Pinterest lately for recipes and it is delightful. The recipes are available anytime, anywhere. And everything is stored in a super organized and accessible place. 

In the past I would find recipes in magazines or online and would never go back to actually make them. My "Food Inspiration" board on Pinterest has made it so much easier to access recipes.

Homemade Potato Chips

We are a family of DIY-ers. On vacation when we're not reading or relaxing at the beach, we generally make lots of homemade foods. Recently on the list were home-cooked potato chips. 

Step 1: Heat up a huge pot of hot oil.

Step 2: Use a mandolin to slice a million potato slices.

Gardening: Journey of the tomato

The story of Lily's Great Tomato Gardening Adventure

I ventured over to the nearby Rodale Organic Gardening Institute and purchased 4 little tomato plants of varying varieties on May 12, 2012. (There I am below in red stripes! ...feeling so famous right now.)

About a month after plating the little guys, (on June 18th to be exact) I started to see some little toddler tomatoes emerging from the vines. They were green and small. The plants are supported by twine wrapped around wooden stakes that I drove into the ground with a serious sledgehammer (you know, like this). 

Last weekend (Aug 5, so about 2.5 weeks after planting) I harvested a TON of tomatoes in my little garden basket. You can see the small yellow ones, the red chargers, and the purple cherokee variety. There's also some cucumbers and onions in the mix too.

Subsequently, we've been feasting on tomatoes. Most recently, a fresh basil-tomato-mozzarella panini on homemade french bread (more on the bread-making to come). Nom nom nom. 

*For a reference on what nom means - please click here.

That, my friends, is the journey of my 2012 Great Tomato Gardening Adventure. 

The End.

P.S. For more tomato gardening inspiration, check out our family friend Tim Stark's book, Notes from An Accidental Tomato Farmer.

Raspberry Rose Buttercream Macarons

During my latest baking adventure, my friend Christy and I tried our hand at French macarons for the very first time. After I made them a few people asked if there is a difference between coconut macaroons and French macarons . Yes, there is! The French ones are colorful, chewy, delightful, and uber trendy in the Pinterest-loving female crowd these days; the coconut ones involve lots of coconut flakes and a spiky finished product.

I found a recipe for French Macarons with Raspberry Rose Buttercream on my favorite cooking site, epicurious.com. It is a fabulous site with lots and lots of very sophisticated recipes, beautiful photos, and helpful reviews. 

(What's even more fabulous is borrowing your boyfriend's iPad during a Saturday afternoon baking session and suspending it from the kitchen cabinet. I felt super pro. If you have an iPad and don't have this awesome Gorilla Yogi Case for it with the grippy-legs, I recommend buying it STAT. The case lets you hang the iPad from anywhere and watch movies, page through recipes, FaceTime, whatever!)

The first step was to prep the sugar/egg "dough" for the cookies. Christy did that while I prepared the raspberry jam. The dough was surprisingly liquid and needed to be piped onto the cookie sheets. The piping helps you to create perfect little circles. 


   Little notes for next time: 

• DYE DILEMMA: If I could go back I would've added pink or red dye to the cookie batter so the final product was a little more fancy and pretty. After baking they ended up coming out golden brown, which was not so ooh-la-la Frenchy and beautiful.
• SIZE MATTERS: We also made the cookies too large. They could've been closer to 1 or 2" in diameter, instead of 4" in diameter. There was such an amazing taste explosion that occurred while eating them, we could've made more smaller cookies and spread the love more efficiently. 

When the raspberries and sugar were done simmering together, I separated the seeds from the syrup. Then we whipped the buttercream together and added some of the seedless raspberry syrup. Meanwhile, the cookies were in the oven baking...

When the cookies were finished baking and had cooled, I took the baked little meringue circles and assembled them with the seed-portion of the raspberry jam. 


Next Christy put the buttercream into a pastry bag with a 1/4" pastry tip on the end. She used this to apply the buttercream in an even way to each of the little cookies. This makes for a uniform little macaron cookie-sandwich.


    Note for next time:

• I think it might've been easier to use a 1/2" pastry tip. The 1/4" seemed small and it seemed to take forever!

The final step was to take my raspberry side and Christy's buttercream side and match them together. The finished product was EXCELLENT tasting (seriously, amazing). I was slightly disappointed that our version wasn't as beautiful as typical French macarons. Now we know what to do to step up our game for round 2!


Have you ever made macarons? What was your experience like?

Gardening: The sprouts they are a'comin

Back in February, while tending to my terrarium, I vowed to plan my garden a little better this year and get a head start in early spring. Gardening is just like anything else, if you don't think it through and plan it out at least a little bit, the results can be kind of lame. You get what you put into life, right?


Ok, so here's what I'm putting into my garden...

Note: I am a garden novice. I am not by any means an expert, just wanted to share with you my planting and (eventual) harvesting adventure!

I have one single raised bed right near the house. If you're considering raised beds for a veggie garden, I recommend you plan to put them as close to the house as you can. That way, running out to get lettuce for a salad or herbs for dinner isn't a 50 yard dash, but simply a short jaunt away.

So far in my raised bed, I've got: two types of lettuce, spinach, beets, radishes, parsley, cilantro, as well as yellow and white onions. These are some of the early spring vegetables & herbs that I chose to plant almost 2 weeks ago. Supposedly these hardly little guys can handle a few cool nights.

I only have 1 raised bed so far, so I have to plan my space carefully. I'm saving room for plants that need to be planted later in the spring, like tomatoes, corn, cucumber, and peas. This leaves about 1/2 of my little teeny garden unused for the next month or two. Since I have to water and tend to the little vegetable seedlings anyway, I decided to plant some flower seeds so that I have little annuals to transplant to my pots in May! Annuals can be so expensive when you buy them as plants, so if the little seedlings survive, I'll be saving a bit of money!!

I decided to plant some flower seeds that I'm told can tolerate the cold. I planted forget-me-nots, snapdragons, lupine, and bachelor buttons. I have plans for more, but need to wait until the weather warms up a bit.

The most exciting thing about this process by far is how quickly the seeds germinated and sprouted, I took these photos exactly 1 week after planting and already the lettuce and bachelor buttons were peaking through the surface!

With each group of seedlings, we followed a routine for planting (thanks for the help Pam!). We used a long stick to create uniform, shallow trenchs in the soil. Then I poured the seeds into my hand (much more control than pouring directly from the seed pack), and sprinkled the seeds in the trench, trying to space them evenly. Once the seeds were distributed, I then "pinched" the soil to cover the seeds and patted them down firmly with my hands. The final step is to get out the sprinkler and give the little guys a good soak for at least 10-15 minutes.

And wah-la... food and flowers are on the way, in just 7 days!! Isn't mother nature amazing??

Etsy Pick of the Week {Striped}

My friend just threw a lovely little house party last weekend with a crepe theme. She called it a "crepe soiree". Fun little striped straws definitely added to the francophile feel. Putting them in spiked lemonade made us feel like the party was a mid-summer soiree, though it's still too cold where we are in Pennsylvania to have outdoor dinner parties.


There are tons of fun party supplies on Etsy.com, including these striped, biodegradable straws in a myriad of colors. Admittedly, you can buy them on Amazon too for about $6 for 144, but the colors and selection are limited. 


Check out the selection at Cakes And Kids Too, an Etsy store by Julie, an American mom and entrepreneur who specializes in party supplies and accessories for cakes, cupcakes, and treats.

• Navy Blue Striped Straws- from Julie at CakesAndKidsToo - $4.80

MudSpot - East Village

I had the pleasure of brunching at MUD in the East Village a few weeks ago with some lovely friends. It was amazing how the café seems so unassuming from the outside, but if you follow your hostess through espresso machines, teeny tiny tables, and narrow passageways, you'll find a lovely open-air space in the very very back to whisk you away into brunch heaven. MUD has huge, lofty sky-lights, thick concrete walls, and twinkling little lights lining the rich brick walls. 

I can personally vouch for the amazing Banana Buttermilk Pancakes and the lovely, light Huevos Rancheros. Both perfect after a night of heavy drinking and dancing :)

Some visual snippets of my time with Amanda and Justin (oh & check out Justin's fabulous men's style blog when you have a moment, Munrowe)   

Butternut Squash Pizza

I recently made butternut squash pizza from a lovely little recipe I found on my fave cooking site, Epicurious.com. The recipe was simple, and it got even simpler when I decided to call the local pizza shop and purchase a bit of pizza dough on the way home from work, for just $3 (you know, instead of laboring over the actual dough-creating process after work)! Turned out to be a great time-saver, something I'll definitely repeat in the future. 

The recipe is available here, and was pretty easy and made a very hearty little weekday meal. 

Just sauté some onions...

Gather some fresh spinach...

Cube up some butternut squash and roast it...

Collect the sautéed onions, goat cheese, spinach, and cornmeal. (Note to self: more goat cheese next time. Lots more!)

Grab a beer.

Chop up the spinach. (With my trusty Timex, similar here from Piperlime)

Proof that I was actually in the kitchen when all of this cooking went down! I assembled the pizza toppings on top of the dough, then put cornmeal down on the baking pan to create a barrier between the dough and the pan (Note to self: use less cornmeal next time!).

Add a lovely infusion of Tuscan spices from Penzey's for some additional flavor (basil, thyme, salt, pepper, etc)

And the finished product, which I ate with the two boys most consistent in my life, my lovely boyfriend Mark and my wonderful brother Collin.

P.S. While checking for that Timex link I found these awesome watches on Piperlime. And for less than $200 too! I'm becoming a total watch-a-holic!

Link it up: 

• Tan Leather oversized Michael Kors "Mercer" Watch
• Tortoise Michael Kors "Frenchy" Watch 

Farm to Table (backyard edition)

I live in farm country and don't get an overwhelming amount of visitors. When my friend Jamie called unexpectedly to say she was coming down from NYC last fall, I was oh-so pleasantly surprised (read: ecstatic). Jamie is a food journalist (check out her writing here) who lives in Brooklyn, one of my dear friends from college. Her adventure to rural PA introduced me to a world I was so happy to find in my own backyard.

Jamie was in town to visit friends on a local farm, Eckerton Hill, for the annual pig roast. Hosted by farmer and writer Tim Stark (check out his book on tomato farming here), the gathering was a communal feast of farm hands, friends, and locals who all celebrated the summer's harvest and congratulated one another on a season of hard work.

It turns out, my parents' know Tim and his family well, and my Mom (a big organic gardener in her own right) joined me for the farming festivities.

We partook in some of the roasted pig.

Then feasted our eyes on these beautiful chili peppers, drying in the rafters of the Eckerton Hill barn.

The farm staff organized a few horse-drawn sleighs to take the visitors out to the fields and gather some pumpkins for carving.

Homemade whoopee pies were ahhhh-mazing. 

I was recently reminded of Tim's farm when I came across this amazing organization, Outstanding in the Field. More details on that to come. Suffice it to say, Jamie's visit to the area made me realize that the rise of farm-to-table is right in my very own backyard. And that, my friends, is a beautiful thing.