Holiday Cookie Inspo

My life right now:

• A blazing fire and a sort-of-sometimes-but-not-really cuddly cat
• Three sets of mis-matched battery operated tree lights (including one that only blinks and won’t stay solid) bc my first Christmas with said cat, 10 years ago, she bit into the lights and electrocuted herself and I’ve used battery operated ones ever since. 
• Mariah Carey Christmas tunes 
• Teavana white chocolate peppermint tea 
• A (3rd) rewatch of How I Met Your Mother
• Trying to ignore political news because: anxiety
• Regretting every single time I go on Facebook because: political news/ anxiety, but doing it anyway
• A pot of chili (usually with turkey, black beans, and pinto or white beans… never kidney beans bc Evan hates them, and only squash additions when he’s not looking) bc it’s all I want to make this chilly-chili weather season
• My Favorite Murder podcast, all day everyday

Holiday Pairing Party with DRY Sparkling!

To celebrate the upcoming holiday season, we’re having a virtual Holiday Pairing Party! I gathered up a handful of other bloggers to virtually sip sparkly seasonal drinks and nibble on tasty holiday food pairings with DRY Sparkling’s new limited edition Ginger and Cranberry sodas (in big champagne-sized bottles!)! See below for the full recipe round-up, including my chocolate satsuma truffles and mini blue cheese bacon cheesecakes!

Your Voice is Valid

Later this week, I’ll be back to regularly scheduled food posts. But I can’t just jump back into recipes without acknowledging that my heart is breaking for this country, for our planet’s environment, for my targeted friends and neighbors who are currently living in fear, and for everyone else who feels gutted by what’s to come in the next four years and by the precedent that has been set.

Halloween Weekend Things!

Happy Halloween weekend! I’ve got some Halloween bits and bobs for you, below! I hope everyone’s planning to do something fun and spooky involving costumes and candy. I’m hosting a little get together. The theme? Your favorite 90s sitcom…complete with 90s potluck food! Obviously I’m dressing up as the queen of 90s sitcoms, Roseanne. And I’m trying to convince Evan to go as her sister Jackie. BTW—one time I met Roseanne in a lobby in Vegas, and shouted out “I’M YOUR BIGGEST FAN!” and got my photo with her. NBD.

Savory Pumpkin Bread Pudding

When I was a kid, June was by far my favorite month. School got out for the summer, it was my birthday, we had that perfect spring weather—sunny and warm but not full on summer hot—and our field was filled with little purple flowers. And did I mention my birthday is in June? Of course I loved summer and also other months with holidays (particularly ones where I received gifts and/or cake and/or cookies), but I didn’t see how anyone could love any month better than June.

Chicken Teriyaki Pizza

In celebration of football Season and the Hawks straight stomping the competition the last couple weeks, I’ve joined a group of bloggers from all over the country — all of whom are big football fans! — to bring you football-inspired recipes this season. Last month we shared our favorite tailgating recipes, and now we are sharing more than 60 recipe ideas for celebrating on game day… all with our favorite cities and teams in mind! 

Tailgate Bloody Marys

It’s FOOTBALL SEASON. SEA … HAWKS! SEA….HAWKS!

Tropical Garden Party Cocktail

HI, it’s me! And I come baring refreshing summer cocktails… because it finally sort of feels like summer in Seattle! These are bright and fresh, a little sweet, slightly savory, and super herbaceous, with muddled shiso leaves and cucumbers, gin (I used Hendricks for that extra floral/herbal kick), lemonade and a splash of pineapple juice (though a muddled chunk of fresh pineapple would be the way to go if you have it!), and a sparkly splash of Serrano DRY to finish it off. 

Vanilla Pineapple IPA Popsicles | #POPSICLEWEEK

It’s that magical first-week-of-summer time. When everything seems possible, when we shed our winter skins and people ride bikes naked through the streets, the sun sets later and later each night, barbeques and beers on patios are plentiful and stretch past our pre-solstice bed-times, camping plans and picnic plans and beach-day plans are dreamt up and mapped out, and here in the PNW, we wear tank tops and flip flops one day, rainboots and jackets the next, constantly unprepared for the heat or the rain. It’s also the time of year when Billy of Wit & Vinegar hosts Popsicle Week!

Fried Chicken Sandwiches!

My mom said that when she and my dad first lived together, practically all she made was deep fried food in a cast iron skillet, because it’s all she knew how to cook. And my grandma, from Oklahoma, has bubbling hot oil running through her veins. But I was raised in the Pacific Northwest, in the 80s and 90s. Back when health crazes were all the rage. In a time when margarine was better for you than butter (although the lower price is more likely what kept that giant tub of Country Crock in our fridge my entire childhood). The days of Slim Fast powder and Jane Fonda aerobics tapes. Back when my mom only deep fried a couple times a year, and usually just to make breaded fried zucchini, and taquitos on Amanda’s birthday. Contrary to my mom’s belief, deep frying prowess is not something you’re born with. It’s not something I was born with. In fact, it’s something that, while brave and adventurous in the kitchen, I’ve always been intimidated by and have failed at every time I tried.

Ready-To-Go TJ Salad

I was eleven or twelve years old, and beyond excited to go to the movie that everyone said made them literally scream and jump out of their seats with fear. Of course my cousin Coco, 13 years my senior, took me. The same cousin who let me watch Candyman four years earlier (I would go on to brag, for years, that Candyman didn’t even give me nightmares, a fact that I wore like a badge of honor and maturity). The same cousin who couldn’t wait to binge on the movie Fear with my sister and me every summer since it came out… in 1990. When I was 5. (While the Marky Mark/ Alicia Silverstone Fear is amazing and the ferris wheel scene taught middle schoolers across the country everything we knew about sex at the time, I’m talking about the earlier movie Fear, starring Ally Sheedy, in which she’s a psychic who uses her powers to track down murderers and ps. it’s the best movie ever). The same cousin who later took us to see The Blair Witch Project… the night before we went on a family camping trip. 

Shredded Chicken Gorditas

Today I’m joining some other fun people on the interwebz in sharing recipes for Cinco de Mayo (scroll to the bottom for links)! Before we get started, a few notes:

Warm Lentil Salad with Butter-Crumbed Eggs | #SpringPantryPurge

I have a tendency to hoard but a desire to live minimally.

I have a nostalgia for things, which I come by naturally. My dad was a first generation child of immigrants, growing up in a family who had left everything behind. I think that probably makes you hang onto things a little tighter. When my parents were young and child-free, they travelled around the American southwest, living in a tiny travel-trailer in small towns along the way. That forces you to live minimally. Then when I was born, they settled on a 5 acre property, with lots of room for stuff. When I was growing up, we didn’t have a ton of money, which I also think makes people hang onto things. And we never moved. My entire childhood. So we just kept saving stuff and filling up our space. And overtime, we grew very attached and sentimental about our things. My mom still has all of my childhood toys. So, getting rid of things is hard for me. But I feel so much better in a clutter free environment. I truly feel like clearing the clutter in my house helps clear the clutter in my mind. So, I’m trying.

Kristy Taco Salad (with Doritos and French Dressing)

In my pre-teen through teen years, taco salad night was a pretty regular occurrence at my house. I would help my mom season and cook the ground beef (seasoning taco meat was where I got my start in the kitchen), my sister would prep the veggies, and Tami, my sister’s best friend, would grate the cheese. Seriously, I don't have any memories of anyone else grating cheese in my teen years.

Panama Travel

Facebook keeps reminding me that around this time last year, I was in Panama. I just realized I hadn’t posted photos here!

Baked Chicken and Mushroom Rice (aka Chicken No Peeky)

Toward the end of high school, my dad been laid off from work at the aluminum plant, and was doing small, part time jobs here and there. My sister was off in Seattle, at UW, my mom was working... and my dad and I were driving each other crazy.

Hot Cereal, Hot Coffee

Cold cereal was crispy, flakey, or puffy, and served with milk. It was this reason, the splash of milk, that I avoided cold cereal (and still do), aside from a handful of clusters popped into my mouth as a crunchy dry snack.

Hot cereal was Cream of Wheat, simmered on the stovetop, and served with a pat of country crock margarine and a shower of granulated white sugar. On weekends, when dad was home for breakfast, our hot cereal was topped with a generous, scalding hot, sugary sweet splash of black coffee. 

Sweet Potato and Chickpea Salad with Tahini Dressing and a 7-Minute Egg

In the last few years, I’ve fallen more and more in love with Middle Eastern food. I’m obsessed with tahini and za’atar. 

That’s how I started writing this post. Then I stopped, and started over, because I caught myself doing something that makes me cringe when I see others doing it.  

Sweet Potato and Black Bean Tacos

Things I did over the weekend include: bake a bundt cake, drink champagne, cohost my sister's bridal shower, drink champagne, cry over the Seahawks loss, drink more champagne, make batch number two thousand and sixty of these sweet potato tacos, so that I could photograph them for the blog... even though the sun was going down and the light was terrible and the photos aren't great and I used parsley to look like cilantro because I was out and didn't plan ahead (#reallife), I needed to share this recipe with you! You can now make this one recipe for the rest of your lives and never have to plan dinner again. You’re welcome... I'm gonna go drink some champagne now. 

Food for New Parents

One of my best friends just had a baby over the weekend, and I’m completely obsessed and in love with her new little guy. I have a handful of friends with babies, and of course Evan and I have a 3 and a half year old nephew that we’re crazy about, but this is first time I’ve been right there with a close close friend, and watched her transition from the girl I met the first day of college, to a hardworking professional business woman, a wife, a pregnant lady, and finally to a mom. It’s insane, and I have so much respect and love for her right now that I want to cry. Are sympathy hormones a thing?

Happy Twenty Sixteen

Twentysixteen! We made it! Happy New Year, friends. I’ve been a little MIA since early December. Truth be told, I barely turned on my computer over the holidays. It was a busy few weeks for me, with lots of parties, activities, a little bit of travel, and of course a full day of binging on Making a Murderer.