Erica

My Favorite Arugula Salad with Honey-Lemon Dressing

April 25, 2014 by Erica

My Favorite Arugula Salad with Honey-Lemon Dressing
A few weeks ago my co-worker brought me some home-grown lemons. I asked you on Facebook what I should do with them. And I’m going to go ahead and give myself the boring award right now, because instead of all the fabulous things you suggested, I made salad.

In my defense:

1. It’s my favorite salad. And now it can be yours, too.

2. I was all ready to bake a lemon cake, and maybe sometime I still will, but then I made cookies. Like, a lot of cookies. And the cake option was crossed off the list.

3. Can I just tell you that you haven’t truly lived until you’ve had lemon salad dressing made with fresh-picked lemons? No, maybe I can’t tell you that; it sounds way too pretentious.

My Favorite Arugula Salad with Honey-Lemon Dressing
Let’s just get to the salad, shall we?

…

Chocolate Walnut Quinoa Cookies (Gluten-Free)

April 23, 2014 by Erica

Chocolate Walnut Quinoa Cookies
Yesterday I thought I was playing a sneaky trick when I asked on Facebook whether you wanted a quinoa recipe today or a cookie recipe. Usually when I do that, I’m shocked how many people choose the healthy option! But this time, a reader named Sarah saw right through me and said she wanted both. Well, in fact, that’s exactly what I was going to do either way.

Because I made quinoa cookies!

Chocolate Walnut Quinoa Cookies
Quinoa cookies?!?!

Quinoa cookies. Don’t be scared. Unless you’re scared that your inner cookie monster will come out and eat half a batch of cookie dough. In that case, you should probably run for the hills.

…

Spring Orzo Salad with Fennel and Asparagus

April 21, 2014 by Erica

Spring Orzo Salad with Fennel and Asparagus

Here in Utah, when people learn I’m from Boston, they often ask me why I don’t have a Boston accent. The truth is that neither of my parents grew up in New England, so the chances of me developing a Boston accent were pretty slim. Nate likes to tell me that my accent comes out after a few beers (bee-ahs!), but I say, psh. It’s probably just a mirroring thing. These days I probably have more of a Utah accent than anything – no big dill. (And for those of you wondering what a Utah accent is, that’s it right there.)

Well, I learned on Friday that I do have an accent, and it’s, um, not what I thought. My co-worker informed me, after much prefacing about how he liked the way I spoke, that my accent is Harvard valley girl. Oh, and that he’s mentioned this to other people we work with and they’ve confirmed it. What!

Well, I did not go to Harvard, nor did I grow up in any valley. I’m not exactly legally blond over here. I am forced to interpret the Harvard valley girl thing as something along the lines of “well brought-up but dumb” or “you say smart things but sound dumb saying them.” And they let me talk to clients… why? My mom was kind enough to offer her take as “smart but unpretentious.” But now I’m realizing “pretentious and dumb” is probably closer to a direct translation. Groan. Suffice it to say I will be speaking in a monotone at work for a few days! Like, totally.

…

Brunch Recipes For Your Easter Sweet Tooth

April 18, 2014 by Erica

Brunch Recipes For Your Easter Sweet Tooth

Is Easter a major holiday for you? Easter celebrations vary so much, from spending hours at church to nibbling on Cadbury mini eggs all day. (Can you guess which one describes me? I practically have to stare straight ahead when passing the Cadbury mini egg display in the grocery store…) But no matter which camp you’re in, I think we can all agree that Easter brunch is something to look forward to – especially when it is basically dessert before noon. Sign me up! Here are the decadently sweet brunch treats I’m salivating over.

…

Mango Sticky Rice

April 16, 2014 by Erica

Mango Sticky Rice

You know you’ve entered yuppie status when you can’t resist the Whole Foods one-day sale on champagne mangoes, and end up coming home with an entire crate.

Mango Sticky Rice

This happened last Friday, when I ran into Whole Foods for a “few things” (always) on my way home from work, and left with $9 of mangoes. Such a sucker.

But $9 for 14 mangoes! I was both delighted with the deal and in disbelief that I was buying a crate of something just because it was on sale. Also, have I really entered the phase of my life where I stock up on whole crates of expensive produce? I might be, like, 10 years too young for that. So many emotions brought on by these mangoes. Plus, how do you use up 14 mangoes?

Mango Sticky Rice

Luckily, I found the solution to that last one.

Step 1: make mango sticky rice.

Step 2: devour mango sticky rice.

Step 3: repeat.

I think that should just about cover it.

…

Connect