Sprout & Pea

There’s a first time for every­thing, and last week­end just so hap­pened to be my first time in Pitts­burgh, Penn­syl­va­nia. I spent my Fourth of July explor­ing a new city and relax­ing in a nearby rural sub­urb with good com­pany, deli­cious food, sun­shine, cats, dogs and yes, even the Amish. I even had my first intro­duc­tion to Johnny Cakes (also known as corn­meal pan­cakes) and I can’t wait to get the recipe for this new favorite tasty break­fast treat. Before the fire­works set off and after a lit­tle game of bad­minton, we stuffed our­selves full with burg­ers and hot dogs topped with grilled kale, along­side lentil salad, green beans and an array of other good­ies. Read more:

This week­end was one of those mag­i­cal ones where a spon­ta­neous road trip with no spe­cific direc­tion turned into a spe­cial day to remem­ber and the dis­cov­ery of one of my new favorite places. Some friends and I had decided that we wanted to rent a car and drive out to a beach town for the day on Sat­ur­day. After quite a set­back with pick­ing up the “cheaper” rental car at the air­port, and an over­cast morn­ing, my two friends finally arrived in Brook­lyn to pick the rest of us up and with horns honk­ing and faces smil­ing, the sun came out just in time. With time more restricted than expected, we decided to set out to Tar­ry­town, New York– a quaint lit­tle town that is home to one of my new favorite spe­cialty food shops.
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This meal is another in the gar­den series.  Along with the other gor­geous gar­den veg­gies, I brought back two fresh picked red cab­bages that have been sit­ting in my refrig­er­a­tor for about a week now.  One of them I have set aside to use for my mom’s famous cole slaw (stay tuned).  The other, was tonight’s din­ner: red cab­bage rolls stuffed with red quinoa and goat cheese and topped with a sweet bal­samic sauce.
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Mak­ing my own quinoa pizza dough has been on my list of recipes to try for a while now. I had every inten­tion of finally try­ing this last night. That was until i got home late and tired and want­ing to make some­thing quick to eat. Enter the easy, yet still healthy alter­na­tive: ezekiel tortillas.

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My friend’s mom flew in from Aus­tralia to get mar­ried in Cen­tral Park today.  It was a beau­ti­ful, quiet cer­e­mony in a lit­tle gazebo on the water.  After the cer­e­mony, we all went down to Aurora in Brook­lyn — a restau­rant I was excited to finally check out.  My meal was pretty deli­cious —  I had a pasta limone.  We all ate fam­ily style and tried a lit­tle bit of every­ones dishes and every­thing was yum yum yum!  One thing in par­tic­u­lar that stood out as a crowd pleaser was the parmi­giano reg­giano with a driz­zle of bal­samic over it.  I had never com­bined these two before but I think I’ll be try­ing this at my next din­ner party with all of my cheese lov­ing friends.