Amazon prime day rolled around the corner a couple weeks ago and I was able to get my hands on a much awaited Instant Pot. I've had my eye on this thing since my friends Marilyn and Wesley got one a few months back. They are some of the biggest foodies and best cooking couples I know and so if they have one, you know it's gotta be good. And as expected, this new gadget was magical--it can do 7 different things but is the size of a simple rice cooker!
The first recipe I wanted to try out was peach balsamic chicken. With fresh peaches from Jen's garden and fresh basil from my own kitchen bay window, this recipe came out wonderfully, thanks to my trusty instant pot of course. While I made this recipe in the instant pot it can easily be made in a skillet on the stove as well.
Summer is here and nectarines and peaches are dropping faster than we can pick! My friend Jen's house had literally HUNDREDS of delicious nectarines and sweet as can be peaches. After a couple hours of picking we ended up with boxes overflowing with beautiful stone fruit. Now what to do with them. We were making nectarine and peach everything for days. From pies, to jam, to cobbler and ice cream we tried it all! I even tried making nectarine ravioli but the flavor was overpowered by the goat cheese :D.
Hooray! It's our last month of residency! While we are overjoyed to be done with training, it also means that some of the wonderful friends we have made over the past three years will be moving away. It made me think of the saying "when life gives you lemons, make lemonade." Although being sad your friends are moving is hardly a lemon compared to the horrific recent events, I'll consider it a relative lemon. But why stop at lemonade? Our friends Jen and Curtis were celebrating their housewarming this weekend so we went ahead and turned our lemons into a lemon tart to share.
Although Summer isn't quite here just yet, she sure sends her greetings with scorching hot temperatures. The last two weeks have been horrendously hot with temps as high as 107F last weekend. With heat like this it's hard to get myself to cook or bake anything. Turning on the oven is taboo around this time of year. So instead, we've been living off of salads and paninis pretty much daily. To change it up a little I decided to try making a Mediterranean style watermelon salad. Cold, crisp, juicy-sweet watermelon tossed with feta cheese, sweet onions, heirloom tomatoes and mint, and topped with a balsamic glaze is the perfect salad to cool off with. Not to mention I love the colors!
Last week Nhan and I flew out to New Jersey and Philadelphia to visit his family and a few of our friends. We got to meet our new 1 week old baby niece Hannah and spend time with her wonderful big sister Gabriella. It's been quite a while since I've played with Legos and Play-doh but boy we had so much fun!
Towards the middle of our week there, Nhan thought, why not work on a small 4 hour project that we could give to his family before we leave. We decided on a farmhouse table and benches that we saw on Pinterest. With detailed plans from Ana White and a step-by-step tutorial by Whitney and Ashley from Shanty 2 Chic we managed to complete the table over two days (not quite the 4 hour project we aimed for, but a great starter weekend project nonetheless). We bought all the wood for the benches too but never got around to that. We'll save that for our next visit I guess.
