Is this thing on?

I know, it's been a long, long time. Let's get on with it, shall we?

Things that consume my life right now:

Kicking around the soccer ball with my big girl. She loves being on a team for the first time. This is my happy and excited Green Hornet. Soccer mom status realized.

Enjoying the green everywhere, even in my knitting. 

Playing trains, planes, and automobiles with my not so little boy.

Baking. Always baking! This time, soft pretzels, Auntie Anne's style. My boy looked at the mixer and said "Dough". My job here is done! These are slightly sweet, buttery, and tasted just like the mall staple. 

Auntie Anne's Copycat Pretzels

2 cups milk
1 1/2 tablespoons (2 packets) active dry yeast
6 tablespoons brown sugar
4 tablespoons butter, melted
4 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons fine salt

1/3 cup baking soda
3 cups warm water
Coarse salt
 8 tablespoons butter, melted in a shallow dish 

Warm up the milk in the microwave or on the stove for just about one and a half minutes. It should be about 110º.  Stir in the yeast and let it sit for about 3 minutes. Add the butter and sugar. Add the flour about 1 cup at a time and the add the fine salt. Knead for about 10 minutes with a stand mixer, or by hand. Put it in a greased bowl and cover with greased cling wrap. Let rise for 1 hour in a moist, warm place until doubled in size.

 Preheat the oven to 450º. Divide dough into 12 pieces.  Roll them all out as thin as you can. Combine the warm water and baking soda in a wide bowl. Form the dough into pretzel shapes, then dip in the baking soda water. Place on a greased baking sheet and sprinkle with coarse salt. Bake for about 7-11 minutes or until browned. 

Enjoy one and then hand out to neighborhood kids so you don't eat them all. At least that's what I had to do!

Forgetta bout it.

I am a woman of my word and let's just say, we've been having some ice cream 'round here. Big thanks to my babe Henry for healing his gut in time for me to partake in the seasonal dairy deliciousness.

While I've taken the easy way out and just scooped the ice cream out of store-bought containers, the other night when we had friends over for dinner, I decided to try a homemade topping to make it a little more fancy. First, I chose to make a salted butter caramel sauce which looked and smelled so amazing that we were hovering around the pot with spoons. Then we tried it and I'm just going to assume I took the caramel too far because it was incredibly bitter tasting and disgusting. We were in such denial that we thought it would get better as it cooled or better with ice cream. Nope, it didn't. Burnt sugar is burnt sugar, people. I felt defeated. Actually, I was just plain pissed at myself for wasting the cream and butter! I don't take kindly to kitchen failures.

Thankfully, friend time cures all. After a lovely afternoon noshing and chatting, I was up for another try. I changed gears though and went for a butterscotch sauce.

I have to ask you to do something first.

I want you to forget about everything you think you know about butterscotch sauce.

I want you to forget that it is usually an odd brown with a sometimes hint of nuclear yellow.

I want you to forget it usually comes out of a pump or a squeeze tube.

I want you to forget that it's usually so sweet you could go into sugar shock after a bite.

I want you to forget that you don't like butterscotch.

I want you to forget that you ever bought an ice cream topping in a store.

I want you to forget that you think you can't make ice cream sauce at home because it might be 'tricky' or take a long time.

I want you to forget all those things and remember to add dark brown sugar and heavy cream to your grocery list this week. I'm going to assume you already have the salt, butter, and vanilla, ok? If you don't have those things in stock, why are we friends? I kid!

Because here's the deal. Even though 'they' say it's cooling down this week, it's still going to be hot and it's your right to eat a whole lotta ice cream in the summer. And you need to promise me you are going to try this at least once. It's going to take you maybe 10-15 minutes total. Really. That includes fumbling around for the right pot in your 'very organized' cabinet and gathering your ingredients Rachel Ray style.

Seriously. You are going to want to top it on everything, but I highly recommend at least starting with vanilla bean ice cream and topping it when the sauce is still a touch warm. You will thank me and remember how right I was about that whole butterscotch thing.

You're welcome in advance. Now go win friends and influence people with an ice cream topping.

As usual, this is from Smitten Kitchen. You can go there for prettier pictures for sure.

Ridiculously Easy Butterscotch Sauce

I usually hate when recipes are titled with 'ridiculously easy', but this time, it's really, really true.

Smitten Kitchen (She writes that it was adapted from The Washington Post who adapted it from The Perfect Cake)

1/4 cup (or 1/2 stick) unsalted butter

1/2 cup packed dark or light brown sugar (I used dark)

1/2 cup heavy cream

1/2 tsp flaky sea salt or 1/4 tsp regular table salt

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Melt butter in a medium heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat. Add the sugar, cream, and salt and whisk until well blended. Bring to a very gentle boil and cook for about five minutes, whisking occasionally.

Remove from heat and add the vanilla and stir to combine. You can add more vanilla and salt at this point, but I really liked the flavor of the above proportions. The sauce will thicken as it cools. Make it right after dinner and it will be perfect consistency by the time you've digested enough to have room for dessert.

This can be served cold or warm (please, go for warm) and easily stores in the fridge in an airtight container for up to two weeks. Can be reheated in the microwave or small saucepan.

The end.

Travel quirk.

Hey Y'all! Tell me, why is the southern accent so infectious? After two weeks in the south, The Boss and I were getting pretty impressionable as far as the language goes;)

We were beaching it as well as visiting family and friends over the past few weeks and I just had to laugh at myself after some gentle ribbing by family members regarding one of my apparent travel quirks.

I seem to bring an apron and microplane grater along more often than not.

What? Is that weird?

Such is my life! Well, I don't hear anyone complaining about the cooking that results from this type of travel packing!

And it's no crazier than say, my four year old who refuses to take off swim goggles during dinner!

Beach life was good. Now off to figure out what day it is before I sink any further into this post-vacation brain mush.

Ahh...summer.

I pledge.

My college roommate recently wrote a blog post about her summer pledge and it mostly involved icy summer treats (she already does triathlons and such so she doesn't need to put things like exercise on her list). It got me thinking about my summer pledges, which coincidentally, also involves a lot of icy summer treats! Especially since I'm leaning back into the world of dairy (woo).

It's going to be an interesting summer. For the first time in our years together, Hank and I will both be home and free of that whole day job thing for the entire summer. In theory, this means a lot of stuff can be accomplished. It also means we can do a whole lot of goofing off if we play it right.

In addition, I plan to say, "Go ask your father." a lot! Bwahahahahahaha.

I've vowed to stop being what I call an "idea gatherer" and will work on putting plans into motion. I've already started on that. Lots of work to happen after vacation. The words Summer Pledge seem so much more motivating than something like New Years Resolutions. I'll be anxious to see my progress come August when I'm shipping Hank off to work and The Boss off to school. The nice thing is that even if we shirk some jobs along the way, it was in the name of good fun with our kids.

We haven't started making popsicles, ice cream, or sorbet yet, because we're still all about crunch. Sweet potato chips to be exact. Yeah, we're still making everything into chips. To go with one of our favorite dips which I just so happened to whip up for Father's Day. It's from one of our favorite restaurants of all time, Kaya. The dip is spicy and so good with the slight sweet and salty flavors of the homemade chips. The restaurant serves this with sweet potato and other root vegetable chips that are fried, but we're all crazy for the baked sweet potato chips around here. The in-laws are crazy about them, too when they were here for Father's Day. Everyone devoured the dip and chips before I could even get outside to take photos. Ahh well, it won't be the last time these make an appearance. The only downside is that these recipes call for turning on your oven which is I think against the law in the summer. Save these in your back pocket if you'd like.

The vacation countdown begins today and somehow I think giving Hank a hammock for Father's Day really wasn't the way to go if I wanted anything to be accomplished this week or during the summer for that matter. Certainly I have no designs on that hammock. Nope, not me. Relax? What? Never! I only bought the hammock for him.

Baked Sweet Potato Chips

Using a mandoline or if you have mad knife skills, thinly slice sweet potatoes (we keep the skin on) and lightly toss with olive or canola oil. Place on baking sheet making sure the potatoes do not touch or overlap each other. Bake at 400 degrees anywhere from 10-20 minutes, depending on how big your pieces are. The edges will start to curl up and turn slightly brown. Remove potato pieces and place on a cookie rack to cool and sprinkle with sea salt.

Kaya's Yucatan Black Bean Dip

I snagged this recipe off of their website years ago before they probably realized they shouldn't put their recipes on their site;)

3 cups cooked black beans

1/2 cup mayo

1/2 cup parmesan cheese

1/2 tsp chili powder

1/2 tsp cayenne

1/2 can of chipotle peppers in adobo sauce (I typically only use 3 peppers and it's spicy enough)

chihuaha or monterey jack cheese, about a half cup

green onions for garnish

In a food processor, add half of the black beans, mayo, parmesan, chili powder, cayenne, and chipotles. Process until well mixed and smooth. Add in remainder of black beans and pulse a few times. You want some of the black beans to have some texture. Place mixture into a baking dish, sprinkle with cheese. Bake at 375 degrees for about 20 minutes or until cheese is melted and dip is bubbling around the edges. Sprinkle with green onions if you wish. Serve with chips of any kind. If you aren't into making your own chips, a bag of Terra chips works really well!

Late to the party.

If you read any kind of food blog whatsoever in the past year or more, you've probably seen someone rave about kale chips.

Kale? Turned into a crispy chip? Granted, I'm one of those weird people who actually likes her greens, but I can't deny that I got pretty excited that I could possibly make something so incredibly super food healthy and have it taste like junk food.

And one day my husband knocked me over by bringing home kale. It was fate. So we gave it a whirl. I'm going to be honest here. I think my expectations were too high. Just so you know, kale chips will not taste like Doritos. They will not taste like Cheetos. Are you getting a sense of my forbidden snack foods? They will not taste like potato chips either. Shocking, I know.

They were incredibly crunchy and nicely salted. They were fine for a healthy snack, although I thought they were a tad bitter. That could be a result of the type of kale though. They reminded me why I like roasted cauliflower--the browned crispy bits. I think adding some other flavors would help it out for me. The reason I will continue to make them is that The Boss thought they were awesome.

That is a kid eating kale. Willingly.

While we ate our dinner, she asked to crumble the chips into her pasta.

So there ya go.

You can find a bunch of kale chips right here. Crunch.