Happy almost 4th of July!!

Land of the free, home of all the foodz.

We’re headed to a BBQ tomorrow at a friends house with the dogs so my to-do list looks like this:

• make blueberry pie bars
• buy American flag bandannas for the dogs
• eat a hot dog

All of those are v important, v patriotic. But of course I had to throw together all the greatness that’s #blessed the internet this week for your BBQ extravaganza.

From my archives: I have the blackberry pie bars, made with blueberries because Sprouts was basically giving them away, the agua fresca from Monday would be awesome for a crowd, this raspberry fluff because everyone loves a giant pink cloud on fireworks day, roasted strawberry lemonade to impress everyone, and this potato salad from 5 years (!!) ago when nobody read the blog. Let’s pretend the pictures are still there!

From everyone else on the internet:

Adrianna has us covered on two bases: everything hamburger bunz and classic cherry pie because patriotism.

Can you bring doughnuts to a BBQ? yes? cool. Joy made some bebe peanut butter chocolate ones that I would like to casually smash into my face.

Sydney thinks she’s cool (she is) with her own round-up of goodness.

Blueberry Key Lime Cheesecake Tart from Emily because you need to impress everyone before the fireworks.

Cindy made agua fresca too! Dark cherry because cool dude wearing sunglasses emoji.

These chocolate chip cookies are one of my favorites from Megan’s archive that I’ve actually taken to a BBQ before with nothing short of stellar reviews.

The Honestly Yum kewl dudes went and casually knocked it out of the park with blueberry pie ice cream sandwiches.

MORE BLUEBERRIES with Blueberry Bourbon Basil Smash from da boys over at Probably This for your 4th of July wasted look.

Of course we need burgers so Brandon made everyone Basil Turkey Burgers with fresh ground turkey thighs because he is very smart and knows what he’s doing.

Sarah has this insane looking s’mores crackle cake that I would secretly steal and eat myself if I saw it at a BBQ.

MORE PIE. ALWAYZ. Peach Purple Basil Hand Pies from Phillip bring all the boys to the yard.

AND if you’re a purist that needs their flag shaped something, Alana has you covered with a Coconut Pudding Flag Tart, and Stephanie has red, white, and blue mini pavlovas so you can be America 4evr,

For music this week, we’ve got a jam Megan tweeted at me for our much needed baking dance party. It would also be super super great for your 4th of July partay or the no pants party you have afterwards with only your dogs.

STRAWBERRY KIWI WHERE DID YOU GO?

Growing up you were my favorite Snapple and now you are probably still Snapple and Hansen’s sodas but I guess I just don’t drink you anymore. Maybe I should have done more research before writing this.

1999 Billy was all about the strawberry kiwi snapple, all about christina aguilera, all about the hair gel. He looked ridiculous but was always refreshed and knew what a girl wanted.

It’s been turning more and more what I imagine an armpit feels like down here in Southern California so I’ve been doublefisting all the drinks with ice in them. It’s either iced tea, iced coffee, water (-__-) , or agua fresca. I like to think of it as the healthier/I know where this color is coming from kool-aid. They’re pretty widely available at Mexican restaurants and large Hispanic Supermarkets. I like making my own at home because it’s rare to find one that doesn’t have a pound of sugar in it, and I get to put all the fruits I want in there. Enter strawberry kiwi, enter snapple, enter 1999 Billy.

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Like I mentioned on Monday’s post, the book is dunzo. Literally the happiest I’ve been in a while and I feel super weird now, it’s legit been a few months since I haven’t had something on my to do list so I spent at least one day this week laying on the couch watching hgtv (seriously how is it so addicting). The other days were spent recipe testing for the blog and actually getting to cook things for the sake of just getting to cook things. I luh dat feeling.

This is one of those weekends where things I write on this list might actually happen. I think the only thing I have to do this weekend is make the drive to get my eyebrows threaded because we moved a couple months ago and these caterpillars will soon be butterflies and I don’t know if I trust anyone else. Perfectly manicured can quickly turn into constantly surprised with one too many pulls and that’s something I don’t want in my life right now.

With the whole rest of the time though I have like a thousand possibilities:

First up is homemade cream cheese from Adrianna. It’s part cream, part milk, part magic, etc and it’s crazy dreamy. I just happened to be there when it happened and I might have taken a potato chip and had my way with it.

V cute Matt & Beau have a drink that involves tequila so I’m sold. Also there’s cantaloupe but seriously tequila and some sort of mixer and I’m like hai summerr.

Also v cute: Graham went blueberry picking in overalls and made me a blueberry & blonde chocolate crostata.

mild side note: I’m v happy about the growing gay male food blogger circle of life.

this kind of happened a while ago, but Stephanie made Vietnamese braised beef tacos and that first image literally gives me life.

Molly made egg salad, with her own, like completely whisked that shit by hand, sriracha mayo. I fucking love egg salad when it’s made properly so the casual addition of homemade sriracha mayo turns me on just a little bit more.

Popsicle week is just a few weeks away (sending out the email today!!) and Cindy is pregaming with these roasted apricot and vanilla créme fraîche pops that are so insanely beautiful I might not want to eat them? HAAAA NOT <– Borat impression.

Erika is serious in the biscuit business with corn milk biscuits that I want so bad right now with some honey butter, just like, a dozen of that. I’m going to hunt down White Lily flour in Southern California.

I’m very into pretending snacks are meals as of late so it’s really no shock that I want an entire platter of these fava and radish toasts from the newly redesigned Dinner Was Delicious. Can I just pause for a sec and make the you are my fava-rite joke? no? kcool moving on.

Sydney shoved m&m’s and sprinkles into a cookie and they look like they need me to eat an entire batch by myself.

Carrying the end of the list of things I want to make this weekend is Izy with some insanely good looking Wild Blueberry  & Coconut Ricotta Doughnuts. I hate the task of deep frying anything but I would definitely get over all of it to make one or seven batches.

For music this week we need to listen to the song that I’ve danced to approx. 1000 times. It’s the perfect summer jam and works great when you want to dance at your dogs to annoy them for all they put you through.

I’m back bb’s!

I officially finished up the book this morning* (!!!) (*actually after I simultaneously cry and sleep for 2 days) so now I’m ready to just go full speed ahead on here. Mo’ food mo’ money mo’ problems, also there’s a new weekly post I wanna try out that involves tools and shit I use in my kitchen all the time.

Gird your loins.

I’m back with a new favorite of mine, da pavlova. I’m always so impressed when I can just take a few ingredients, whip them together and have a very impressive dish. Maybe I’m easily impressed but I’ll marry you if you give me a slightly chewy meringue covered in whipped cream and macerated fruit.

Pavlovas have been popping up everywhere, Adrianna made the glory s’more and there’s talk about vegan pavlova with chickpea liquid that I’m still a little freaked out/very interested in.

The magic that happens here involves all the graham cracker crumbs so it sort of tastes like a crispy chewy bowl of lucky charms. Then that’s just casually topped with sour cream spiked whipped cream and macerated strawberries. Are you turned on yet?

I’ve gone ahead and made these mini because I can easily just grab it with my hand and smash it in my face that way, and that way you can sort of serve it alongside the whipped cream and strawberries and people can help themselves. If the strawberries and whipped cream aren’t your thing, freak, then I would definitely just scoop these bad boys out on the baking sheet and dip them in super dark chocolate once they’re cooled. I mean honestly, I ate half of these plain, right off the baking sheet. #farmtotable #bakingsheettomouth

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It’s national doughnut day you guys! Last year we were feeling ourselves with Lilo parent trap inspired peanut butter oreo doughnuts but this year there’s no recipe, just a link to v cool doughnut tumblr and a failed cover image from the book because I’ve shared zero things.

This is actually the placeholder for the cover that’s being finished up right now that’s 1000x better and I’m really excited for you guys to see it. There were probably twice as many doughnuts as this and this was the sort of final number that made it, v america’s next top doughnut. I figured since I didn’t have a recipe we could talk real quick about what goes on the doughnut.

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Things have been a little/lot quiet around here as I twerk on the book (coming down the home stretch!) but I figured enough was enough so I’m here today to shout from the rooftops about my friend Shauna‘s new book Real Sweet.

The book is great, Shauna’s great. I don’t even want to think about the amount of work and testing that went into all the recipes, and to really place the diamond in the crown, every headnote makes me smile. She knows her way around funny.

The whole idea behind the book is that you’re baking with all natural sugars, nothing super refined, which is great because Shauna basically just did all this work so I could feel better about eating more desserts. Most of the recipes call for sugars that are new to my kitchen, which very much excites me in a weird way, but before I went out to get those I decided to take this beast for a spin. I mean, come on. Caramelized. Honey.

Am I the last one to this party? If I am it sure as hell is fashionably late. tbh I really don’t like honey in it’s bear to table state, there’s something about the flavor that I’m just meh about, but I figured I’d try cooking it down and ohmygod you guys. Total game changer. Total Ramonaeyes.

It takes on a sort of nutty profile that I just want to try and put in a million different desserts. Let’s not cross our fingers and friendship bracelets, but I feel a frozen yogurt with this treatment in the near future, and also this to sweeten a cream cheese frosting would be so great.

I know some of you reading this are like thanks asshole for this summer dessert when it’s snowing here but honestly it’s shorts weather already here in Southern California and I just want to lay around with no pants on and watch Broad City.*

*that last bit is kind of an everyday thing.

Last bit! GO BUY SHAUNA’S BOOK. If you like baking or want to experiment then this book is perfect. Go over here to Shauna’s site for even more of a book run down, and an awesome giveaway (!) that’s still good for a few more days.

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