It’s summer!  Finally the season has arrived for strawberry salads and garden tomatoes, cool soups and no-cook meals, and sandwiches for dinner and peach pie and cherry pie and watermelon.  Every summer I plunge into gardening with such enthusiamsm that I typically kill off everything I have planted within a few weeks.  Apparently vegetables don’t appreciate my particular style of helicopter parenting.  Basil is especially challenging because I want to pick and prune a little here and few leaves there until the poor thing is one tall nude stem.  This summer I have practiced much restraint and so far have been rewarded with a big bushy basil plant that I have not killed yet.    

I received a new food processor for my birthday and to celebrate both my bushy basil and my new kitchen appliance (squee!) I made my first batch of pesto in many summers.  I like my pesto with walnuts (they’re cheaper than pine nuts and I can toss the extras on a salad) but feel free to use pine nuts if you are a purist.  Click here for the recipe »

Congratulations Suzanne!  Please check your email for further information.  Thank you all and I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother’s Day.

Being a Mom can be tough.  Heck, life is tough.  And then you became a Mom.  One of my favorite moments in the day is the quiet bit after everyone is off to school or tucked into bed and I get to enjoy a few minutes all to myself.  It is my chance to do something just for me-to reset and unwind.  I brew my favorite espresso, gently froth some milk and honey, and crack open my feed reader for some serious me time.  It never fails to leave me with a honey foam mustache and a “Mmmmm, that’s good” exhale.  I sit in the garden and watch this or this and suddenly I am me again.   In honor of all the Moms out there who wrangle, cajole, nag, and work wonders daily,  Nespresso would like to giveaway one U Pure Cream machine and an Aeroccino Plus milk frother to the coffee lover in your life (is it you?). Courtesy of Nespresso, I have this machine and I love it.  The engineering is intuitive and gorgeous, the coffees are velvety and rich, and I can froth milk at the touch of a button (hot or cold! How cool is that??).  You will also receive a tasting box of each of their 16 Grand Cru coffees to experiment with.  If you have a serious coffee lover in your life then this is the package for them.  I have been so  impressed by the way Nespresso cultivates each coffee experience by engaging all of the senses-including the sense of euphoria experienced when one encounters truly excellent customer service.    

The giveaway will run until 12:00pm noon CST this Mother’s Day, Sunday 5/12/13.  At that time, our friend the random number generator will choose one commentor as the winner.  And since my Mom is pretty much my only subscriber (and I bought her this exact same setup for her birthday so she’s out of the running) you have a great chance to win!  To enter, leave a comment below telling us how you plan to spend this Sunday whether it be with a Mom, as a Mom, or maybe treating yourself to your favorite “me time” activity.  You can also come back and comment again for a Tweet, Pin, or Facebook share.  Please be sure to include a working email address that you check regularly so that I can reach you for congratulations and shipping information.

We all deserve a perfect coffee moment.  My coffee experience of choice is my decaf honey latte: two Decaffeinato Intenso capsules topped with milk and honey frothed together in the Aeroccino+.  It is creamy, slightly sweet with an intense coffee and subtly cocoa flavor.  Also, the Nespresso U machine is fully automatic which means you won’t ruin your perfect moment by having to clean out a coffee pot.

This post was created in connection with my appointment as a Nespresso Club Blogger.  All opinions are my own.

If I was a smart blogger I would hold this recipe for Oktoberfest.  Or I would have gotten my act together and made it back in March around St. Patty’s day.  But since I have never been either a smart blogger or an appropriate seasonal menu eater, here you go.  Here are some amazing sweet and sour caramelized sausages for your rainy spring dinner.  You can thank me later.      Click here for the recipe »

I can’t even tell you.  I can’t even tell you how excited this picture makes me.  I LOVE fried calamari.  There is no natural explanation for this level of excitement and yet here it is.  Yum.  There is just something about the tender rings, crisp and chewy, with a hint of the sea.  And don’t get me started on the creepy crunchy tentacles.  Tentacles!  Warm and salty, with a generous dollop of chunky marinara and a squeeze of lemon-a plateful of fried calamari is one of those special moments.  It’s one of those perfect, lazy weekend snack-meals.  Like a bottle of wine and a platter of amazing cheese.  Feel free to whip up a garlicky mayonnaise or serve these with a sweet Thai chili sauce but I love them alongside a big bowl of marinara-like a perfectly al dente pasta or a crusty bread.  Click here for the recipe »