Making Sea Salt

The first time I heard of making your own sea salt was from a wonderful blog called Not Without Salt. Her post had beautiful photos of gathering sea water in glass jugs. I pinned it, thinking that it might be something to try when we moved closer to the ocean.

Then after I came across an article from Simple Organic posting about the benefits of natural sea salt versus highly refined table salt, you really didn’t have to convince me any further to give this a try. Natural sea salt has so many more nutrients and is much more flavorful than table salt, which sounds like a win-win to me!

Now that I live right down the road from a few beaches, making my own salt is suddenly very possible, very easy, and free! We didn’t have beautiful glass jugs, but we did have empty milk liters.

(Stay tuned for a post about Wrigley & Zoe’s day at the beach)

When we first made salt, we brought three liters of water home with us and it yielded about 3/4 cup of salt.

What I wasn’t anticipating was how absolutely fascinated my husband would be with the process. The same day that we finished our first pot of salt, we went back to the ocean for EIGHT more liters of water.

Mike stood in the kitchen most of the day literally watching the water boil.

Late last night, the salt finally dried up enough and this morning, we have…a lot more salt!

Also, I guess Mike was in the 3rd grade science mood because he put an egg in a cup of vinegar just to watch it strip the shell from the egg. I think he was meant to be a mad scientist, not an engineer.

Mike was absolutely giddy over the whole process, so if you have kids, hopefully they will be too. It might be a cool thing to do the next time you’re on vacation (if you’re renting a condo with a stove).

I definitely don’t think we’ll be buying salt while we live in Spain!

Have you made sea salt before? Do you ever like to do elementary school science projects in your kitchen too, or is it just my husband?

Munich

We spent three days in Munich on our trip, and it was wonderful! I’d heard fabulous things about Munich, but wasn’t sure what to expect in terms of its size. It was a much larger city than I had anticipated, but the public transportation was FANTASTIC. We could get anywhere we wanted through public transportation, and the hotel we stayed at even included a pass for all trains with our room.

Mike and I didn’t waste a lot of time when we got in…we headed straight for (you guessed it) the nearest glühwein booth!

The glühwein mugs kept getting nicer and nicer as our trip progressed, but since we were in Germany, we couldn’t go the whole trip without making the rounds to some bierhalls!

I will be forever partial to weissbiers…I don’t care if it makes me “such a girl.” Because I am. So hmph!

As evening fell, we decided to stuff ourselves silly on streetfood instead of going for a balanced meal at a restaurant. This is mostly what we did throughout the trip to keep costs down on the meals inbetween our Michelin-star restaurant excursions. More on that in a bit.

Now, it was all really the same from market to market. There weren’t a ton of differences besides the amount of people milling around and the mug that they were serving the glühwein in. But even though each market was largely the same, I really, really, really loved all of them. Having so much Christmas spirit in the air made me extremely happy, as did all of the sweets and foods that were delicious and cheap. Everyone that we came across in Munich spoke English as well, so it was also a very accessible city for tourists.

The other days that we were in Munich, it rained, so I didn’t take photos of their incredible day market, where there was produce galore. I could definitely see myself living happily in Munich, with the great public transportation, the shopping, the food, and the markets that were definitely superior to the little ones we have in our area of Spain.

We also went to Tantris, a 2-Michelin star restaurant with fabulous 70′s-era decor. Seriously, “orange carpet on the ceiling” type of fabulous.

In all honesty, we were a little disappointed in Tantris. It makes me feel like the snob-of-all-snobs saying that a 2-Michelin star restaurant wasn’t up to snuff, but there were a few dishes that left us less than impressed, which isn’t exactly what you want when you’re shelling out that kind of dough. Overall, I thought that it wasn’t worth the money or the rating. We had a good meal, but it wasn’t as special as we had hoped.

The other restaurant we went to while in Munich was called Terrine. It’s a one-Michelin star restaurant, and it was HARD TO FIND. We were about 35 minutes late to our reservation because we could not find where it was located. Oh, and it was raining. We were terrified of being charged as no-shows, but we made it and settled in.

Since this was the last restaurant we had planned for our trip, we decided to go all out for it and order the full, 10-course meal with wine pairings for each course. It. was. wonderful.

I won’t post pictures of this experience since the lighting was bad and my Photoshop skills just aren’t good enough to do it justice. Instead, I’ll let the menu speak for itself.

king crab and scallops in lime vinaigrette
tahiti vanilla, air “pata negra”

carpaccio of venison
kohlrabi, black truffle

lobster with squash and watercress
crispy calf’s head

john dory in clear bean-tea
seafood & red bell peppers

wild duck with black pudding and sauerkraut
cassis fruits

red mullet
cauliflower wonton, spinach, curry

chicken breast and leg
beetroots, artichokes, treviso

roquefort creme

grape granité, dark chocolate
cinnamon cake, orange, basil sorbet

warm chocolate espuma, rum banana, kafir lime ice cream

Some of it may sound odd or strange or not super appetizing, but it was amazing. It was a wonderful meal with all of the flavors adding something to the experience. The wine pairings with each meal were especially appetizing and we had a few very, very memorable wines. The service was all wonderful and we learned new things about cooking techniques and different wineries. While the meal was one of our most expensive on the trip, it was definitely worth it.

Munich was, in a word, magical. I loved so much about the city and I can definitely see myself revisiting. The bierhalls were fun, the dining was wonderful, the streetfood and markets were amazing.

Next, I’ll take you to Neuschwanstein Castle and Liechtenstein to round out our Winter Vacation!

Salzburg, Austria

After two days in Innsbruck, we drove about 2 hours to Salzburg to spend two days here! Unfortunately, the weather was not as cooperative in Salzburg as it was in Innsbruck and it rained the whole time we were here! I suppose that’s what you risk when you take a winter vacation, so we didn’t let it faze us. It snowed a bit as well, but it was the big wet flakes that immediately melted instead of accumulating to a pretty white blanket.

Despite the weather, we still had a WONDERFUL time in Salzburg. It’s larger and more expensive than Innsbruck, but it has even more designer shops if you’re looking to spend money on shopping. We mostly stuck around the glühwein and Christmas booths on day one!

The Christmas ornaments and decorations seem nicer here, but I’m way too nervous to take these gorgeous ornaments back on the plane with us to go home to Spain! I’m happy window shopping though

That evening, we went to Carpe Diem, Finest Finger Food. It’s a one-Michelin star restaurant that had a lot of choices when it came to what to choose for dinner. We could have gone with a number of small fingerfoods that are served creatively in cones, we could choose a prix-fixe winter menu with 5 courses, or a full, 7-course meal. We chose the full menu with 7 courses and were very pleased with our dishes.

As you can see, the lighting was a nightmare to photograph the food in, so I didn’t take too many photos. We did stay at the restaurant for almost four hours though, and had a wonderful evening listening to a band play Christmas music.

The next day in Salzburg, we slept in and went shopping in the morning. For lunch, we went to Ikarus, another one-Michelin star restaurant. This was the restaurant that I was looking forward to the most on our trip since it was such a cool concept-the restaurant invites the best chefs from all around the world to cook for a month. During our visit, the featured chefs were from Sao Paolo, Brazil, so our menu had Brazilian influences in the flavors. The restaurant is located in an airport hangar, which provided an incredible atmosphere.

The restaurant and decor were beautiful. I was even a little intimidated to walk in since there were only 8 tables in the whole restaurant! You always hope that you don’t stick out like a sore thumb in these kinds of places, you know? We started out with some sparkling wines, which were very good. There was a drink pairing available for our meal at €95/person, but since we were already spending so much on the meal, we decided to go for a bottle of wine instead. We went with one of the cheapest red wines on the menu and milked that sucker throughout the 12 different plates we received.

Our Menu:

Snacks:
Tomato, burrata and basil
Bonbon of foie gras and guava
Gillardeau oyster with cucumber and lychee

“Waldorf salad”
with Atlantic lobster and gorgonzola emulsion
***
Pot-roasted char
with Bacuri-vanilla oil and char caviar
***
Gnocchi of sweet potatoes
with Osietra caviar and tucupi
***
One-hour egg
with palm heart foam and white truffle
***
“Feijoada” Brazilian bean stew
***
Rice with slowly cooked cudgel of duck,
pequi and coriander
***
Braised cheek of beef with mashed potatoes,
crosne and black truffle
***
“Acai” Muscovado sugar, strawberry granite and guarana jelly
***
Assorted dessert tray

Our favorite dishes were the Waldorf salad, the pot-roasted char and the one-hour egg with generous slices of white truffle. It was all about a dream come true…I couldn’t believe all of the different flavors and the beautiful way each dish was plated. We had an amazing afternoon at Ikarus and if we ever find our way back to Salzburg, we’d go back in a heartbeat to see what that month’s chef had in store.

After our wonderful afternoon there, we walked around the hangar for a bit, then headed back to the hotel to relax before our evening at an Austrian Christmas play.

We had a wonderful time at the show. There were cute, talented kids and great talented musicians. While we couldn’t understand a lot of the dialogue (even with context clues it was often difficult), it was still incredibly enjoyable to listen to the music. Plus, it was awesome to see that the Austrian theatre-goers were all dressed up in very traditional dirndls and trachten.

It’s safe to say that we’re having a wonderful time on this vacation so far and feel so lucky to have the opportunity to do and see so much. While I wish it had been nicer weather in Salzburg so we could enjoy the markets a bit more, we still trekked out and made sure we saw as much as we could! Tomorrow, we head to Munich!

Have you eaten at a Michelin-star restaurant? Would you want to, or would you save your money for another part of the vacation?

Thanksgiving 2011

All in all, Thanksgiving 2011 was a success! Mike and I had a blast last night and didn’t get home until nearly two in the morning. Poor Mike, having to work today!!

Here are some photos of our Thanksgiving:

We had to cut the legs off of our turkey so it would fit in the oven! Then we decided to spatchcook it, so it would reduce the baking time and give us more room in our oven for other things.

He fills out a pan quite nicely, wouldn’t you agree? Of course, I didn’t take a picture of him when he was done. D’oh! Bad blogger. He looked and was delicious though.

Here’s the spread, all laid out. And yes, we ARE eating in a garage behind a bar with plastic chairs

And then, things got a little wild n’ crazy kids up in there…

I guess boys will be boys no matter what country you’re in!

The pies were delicious, but unfortunately I only got one bite of pumpkin. Mike dropped the leftovers on its way back home I nearly cried because I worked so hard on getting all of the ingredients and pumpkin puree is a precious, precious commodity around here.

Oh, and did I mention we brought the dogs? They were a big hit.

Miro LOVED Wrigley. I think he would have kept him if we let him Wrigley also got a lot of time on the treadmill since he loves it and it entertained everyone. Zoe was much more low-key throughout the night, but she gave lots of cuddles and kisses too.

Even though it was a VERY different Thanksgiving this year, we had so much fun. Mike’s Spanish is improving dramatically, and I’m getting much better at following conversation, though not quite as good at speaking yet. It was a very fun night, and I’m so glad we found this group of people to befriend while we’re here.

How were your Thanksgivings? I hope everyone had a wonderful day yesterday!

A Thanksgiving Feast

This year, I thought Mike and I would be all alone for Thanksgiving. I was a little sad because I usually love the huge spread of foods that is made for a larger crowd–there’s nothing more satisfying than taking “a little bit of everything.” But since it was going to be just the two of us, I didn’t want to make a ridiculously large amount of food that we then couldn’t eat.

But then, one evening when we went to our local bar, we were explaining what Thanksgiving was at one moment, and the next we were offering to cook a huge dinner for everybody this Thursday! So now, I feel like the pressure is on. It’s not that I can’t cook, because I can. But I think I’m nervous because the things I do cook are so wildly different from what our friends are used to eating. haha I can’t help but think “I hope they like my cooking!” even though it probably doesn’t matter in the end because it’s more about getting together and having fun, right?

So here’s what I plan on cooking:

• Turkey if we can find it. If we can’t find a whole turkey, I’ll roast one or two ducks.
• Mashed Potatoes and Gravy
• Stuffing
• Corn Casserole
• Sweet Potatoes (but there are no marshmallows to be found here!! That’s my favorite part! We’ll see what I end up doing)
• Pumpkin Pie
• Pecan Pie

And I feel like I need another vegetable dish, but I’m not sure if I want to do something traditional like green bean casserole, or if I should do something different like roasted cauliflower or something.

Now, finding the ingredients to everything is not always the easiest thing in the world. I already ordered the pumpkin puree and karo syrup online for my pies, so I should be good to go there. Though, pecans were nowhere to be found in the store, so I guess I’m going to make Walnut Pie. No one will know the difference, I promise

I’m hoping that we can find a whole turkey, though when we went to the grocery store on Saturday, there wasn’t a whole gobbler to be found anywhere. Maybe the last one had been snatched up by some other Americans who needed to celebrate Thanksgiving? Who knows. The lack of marshmallows is a problem. I’d make my own, but I’m not sure if I want to run all over town for the ingredients to make them.  And again…the lack of soft brown sugar is daunting. The only “brown sugar” they have here is Demerara sugar, which is different and doesn’t taste the same or give the same texture to dishes. What are sweet potatoes without brown sugar and marshmallows? Any delicious sweet potato recipes that don’t have those ingredients are welcome (not mashed though since I’m doing mashed potatoes).

So we’ll see. I’m excited and nervous to make dinner for everyone. I even promised that I’d learn how to say all of my dishes in Spanish so they’d know what they’re eating! (Jess, omg please help me on this!) The real challenge will be cooking everything here and making sure that it stays warm until we take it to the bar to eat. Since they can’t exactly close their doors to paying customers on a plain ole’ Thursday, we’re taking everything over there! Mike wants to try to hook up our computer to their big screen television so we can watch football too

Let’s hope that everything turns out well and I don’t mess it all up terribly!! Are you cooking Thanksgiving dinner this year? Have you run into any challenges while putting together your meal plan?

Don’t Mess With My Dinnertime

So, we’ve been living in Spain for nearly a month now. In that time, our schedule went like this:

• 6am-Mike wakes up, Mandy’s in bed
• 7am-Mike leaves the house, Mandy’s in bed
• 8am-Mandy makes her way out of bed and hangs out with the dogs/on the computer/around the house
• 12 noon-Mandy is hungry so she eats a snack
• 3:30pm-Mike comes home for the day, they eat lunch together
• 4:30-Mike works out
• 6pm-They aren’t hungry
• 7pm-They aren’t hungry
• 8pm- Kinda hungry, but not sure if they want to spend an hour cooking, then eating, then going to bed
• 9pm-OMG Starving, need food in my face now. Since dinner was never cooked, look in cabinets and refrigerator for 20 minutes, hoping something delicious and quick tackles me. Settle for something quick and healthy, like nutella on cookies. Or, if we do cook dinner at 8pm, finish eating around 9:30
• 10:30pm-Bedtime. Feel terrible because we just ate dinner and don’t sleep well, or feel terrible because my dinner consisted of Nutella and cookies for the third night in a row.

Besides the bedtime at 10:30, this is the way most people live their day-to-day lives here in our region. They don’t eat dinner until 9:30 and then go to bed maybe around midnight or one.

But…Mike gets up at 6am to get ready for work. Most people don’t start their days here until 9am. That makes a big difference! We aren’t night owls by nature, and staying up past 11 isn’t for us on a daily basis when he’s getting up early. I also really loved the ritual of cooking dinner around 5 or 6 oclock, eating and having the rest of the night to do whatever we pleased, be it run errands or hang out at home.

The Spanish schedule was making my days feel so off. I thought I would adjust after a couple of weeks, but we found that we just didn’t like the way this schedule was making us feel.

So here’s what we decided. Mike’s going to eat lunch/snacks at work. I’ll eat lunch/snacks at home. He’ll come home at 3:30, work out, and then be ready to help me cook dinner by about 6. We’ll cook dinner, and be happy having the evenings to relax before bedtime.

It will be very difficult to go out to eat on a regular basis. Here, many restaurants don’t even OPEN until 9pm. Add to that the fact that eating dinner out here usually takes a MINIMUM of 2.5 hours since the service is slower and no one is ever in a rush. Add in there about 20-30 minutes of driving to said location both ways and it’s impossible to get home at a decent hour on weeknights.

Saturdays are the best day to go out to dinner since we can carve out however much time is needed for a meal. Sundays…everything is closed. Only some restaurants are open for lunch on Sundays, but most of those places don’t have websites and you don’t know that it’s closed until you get there and you’re fire-breathingly hungry.

Now, the way a lot of the Spanish offset their eating/sleeping schedules is by taking a siesta in the middle of the afternoon, aka: taking a nap.

I think that’s stupid. I don’t want to break up my day with a nap unless I’m sick or if I’m so tired I might just pass out standing up. Further south in this country, it might make more sense because it’s literally too hot to think in the middle of the day, but here, it remains a steady 50-70 degrees at all times. You don’t need a nap in the middle of the day if you eat and go to bed at a decent hour, now do you?

So…we tried the Spanish way of eating. We agreed that it wasn’t sustainable for the long-term, and since we’re eating at home all of the time now anyway, we might as well do it on our terms. When we do decide to go out to eat, we’ll plan that day accordingly.

Do you think you could adjust to this kind of eating schedule? Would you take a nap in the middle of the day just to make it work?

This Little Piggy

{Disclaimer: Don’t read this if you are particularly squeamish about seeing deliciously cured legs of pig. But it’s not so bad…my mom got through the photos just fine…we video chatted with my parents just to see her face when she opened the photos. Priceless.}

One thing we were most looking forward to about living in Spain? The cured meats! Jamón Iberico is the famously delicious cured meat here, and it’s DELICIOUS! Mike and I were thrilled and somewhat creeped out by the fact that our grocery store has a whole aisle dedicated to hanging ham legs.

So, we decided to bring one home to call our very own

The dogs were VERY interested, to say the least.

He might have had tears of joy in his eyes, but I can’t confirm that.

The leg holder came with the house. It was seriously put on the “pros” list when Mike and I were weighing the options (guess who insisted it be on there?) Note: we accidentally started cutting into the wrong side first! We should have watched the how-to videos first, but Mike was far too excited for that.

The leg is covered in a layer of mold and rancid fat (I know, it DOES sound super yummy) but once you get beyond that, what lies beneath is delicious.

I was the first to cut into it…

And it was glorious!

Why yes, that is a ton of shiny grease on Mike’s whole hand. We’ve since learned to remove the outer, yellow fat before we start slicing what we need, but overall, we are very much enjoying having this in our home! It’s great for a go-to snack, a quick sandwich, and it’s easily stored for over a year as long as we cover the exposed part with some fat to keep it moist, then cover the whole leg with a towel. Pretty easy! I suppose it’s probably not the most heart-healthy snack, but hey! We’re young once, right?

We still haven’t exactly gotten our cutting technique down since they’re supposed to be transluscent, paper-thin slices. I’m sure that comes with a little more practice, which Mike is definitely willing to do whatever it takes to make sure we get enough practice in while we live here

Would you ever consider bringing a ham leg into your house? Have you tried Jamón Iberico?

The Food of Galicia

Since I got two requests yesterday to write about the food here, today seemed as good as any other day to address this topic. Truly, your wish is my command, readers!

Many of you may be aware that tapas restaurants are all-the-rage in Spain, but where we live? Not really. Galicia is in the Northwestern most part of Spain, which means that it’s very rainy and the temperatures here never get too hot. We’re also right on the Atlantic ocean, so our waters are much colder than the side of Spain on the Mediterranean, like Barcelona.

Via A to Z Maps Data

Our area is the green area at the top left of the map. We’re between La Coruña and Ortiguera.

Basically, it means a lot of seafood is eaten here. A lot.

When Mike and I traveled around Spain before coming to live here, people would tell us without fail “Galicia? The weather is terrible, but you’ll eat the freshest seafood in the world.” So far, the former has been very rainy, but not terrible, and the latter is very true.

The specialty of this region is Pulpo a la Gallego, which is Galician style octopus. Mike and I have had it many times and have both truly enjoyed it. The octopus is boiled, then cut into bite sizes, tossed with oil, salt and paprika, served over boiled potatoes.

Sorry for the cellphone pic, but you get the idea.

Speaking of the potatoes, everything here is served with boiled potatoes. They’re soft and buttery tasting naturally, but add in the oil and they’re very good! Only…I really don’t want boiled potatoes with EVERYTHING, know what I’m saying?

This past Sunday, Mike and I were invited to our new friends’ family lunch and we accepted. It was a very good opportunity to speak more with people here, and everyone asked endless questions about us. During that time, Louisa’s (the English speaking friend of ours) cousin fired up a couple of grills FULL of meat.

There were sausages, beef ribs, pork ribs, and a couple of cuts of meat I wasn’t familiar with. This was served with fried potatoes and fried croquettes.

Overall, the food here is very homey. It’s not terribly creative, they rarely use a spice other than sweet paprika, and they don’t use any sauces on anything. The fish is very good and fresh, so it doesn’t need too much dressing up, but if I’m being honest, the Gallegans could spice it up a bit.

We’ve only been out to eat a few times, and the story has been the same. Fish, still on the bone, mostly, served with boiled potatoes. Hunks of meat or sausage, served with boiled potatoes. There are certainly restaurants that break away from this, but if I’m talking about the food on a wide scale, this is what you’re likely to find here. I’ve been cooking up a storm since we like a variety of different things, but I’ve made a point to cook Galician style food when I can. So far, I’ve cooked berberechos, which are little shellfish that are very sweet and yummy, which you’ll remember I already showed you:

I’ve also cooked tiny little camarones, or shrimp.

And last night was the first time that I’ve ever cooked a fish whole! Mike asked if I wanted to take a picture of it, and I didn’t. Now I regret it, of course. The fish was very very good, though I’m not quite sure what kind of fish it was. We have two more that I didn’t cook last night, so I’ll take pictures when I cook those up.

We’ve really made a point to stay in and cook for ourselves as much as possible. Eating out here is expensive and takes HOURS. Especially since other people aren’t eating until the time we have to go to bed, it’s not worth it for us to go out on the weekdays. I’m happy cooking though, and I’m trying to make new things all of the time!

As for wines here, they are cheap, cheap, cheap. We’ve found decent bottles in our grocery store for 3 Euros! I have no idea how those winemakers make any money, but I’ll take it!

The coffee here is almost always divine. No matter what bar you walk in, they’ll have a shiny and expensive espresso machine, their beans are freshly ground, and we looove it.

Desserts?? Blah. Blah, blah, blah. The churros here are never very fresh (that’s a more southern thing anyway) and we haven’t really found a signature dessert for this area. I feel sorry for these people, honestly!! I’ve been all around and haven’t seen even a glimpse of cocoa powder, and as a result, no chocolate cakes or cookies. Their cakes are very plain, and flavored with a bit of licorice, which I don’t particularly like. I also haven’t seen brown sugar anywhere, or molasses for that matter to make my own brown sugar. Powdered sugar is also missing from the shelves, so I’ll have to make my own for that too (though cornstarch is something else I have yet to find). Candies, brownies and cookies just don’t seem to be done here at all, and even worse, I’m having a hard time getting my hands on the ingredients to make my own. My amazon shopping cart is just growing bigger and bigger.

So there you have it! The food here in Galicia is certainly good enough to keep us going, and we’re more than thrilled about the freshness of the seafood, but we’re not too thrilled with the traditional style of cooking. We’re used to a lot of variety when it comes to the places we eat out in Philly, and everything is cooked differently with it’s own interpretation. In Galicia, there’s no room for interpretation I think with ingredients like they have (the fresh fish) we’ll be able to create a lot of dishes ourselves that make us happy. As for the sauces, spices and baking ingredients we can’t find, we’ll just have to order them online.

Cayenne Chili Flakes

Our cayenne peppers are quite abundant right now in the garden, so it feels like I’m making something with them nearly every day. One of our favorite ways to save our cayennes to use throughout the year is by drying them out and making chili flakes! They’re much spicier than any you’d buy in the store, and we usually have plenty leftover to give as gifts.

First, get all of your cayennes together and make sure you have some rubber gloves to use while handling these hot peppers. Too many times I’ve rubbed my eyes after handling these peppers without gloves and felt like my eyes would never stop tearing.

Cut the tops off.

Actually, cut a LOT of tops off if you have plenty. Line up your beheaded cayennes on an ungreased non-stick baking sheet and bake at 250 F for about 3-3.5 hours until they’re dried, dark red, and smelling up your house with a spicy, caramelly pepper smell.

You can bag them whole at this stage if you want, or to make chili flakes, put them through a food processor.

You will probably sneeze and cough like crazy with all of the pepper residue flying around. You can protect your mouth and nose with a wet cloth and it’ll help reduce the feeling of being hit in the face with some pepper spray.

I put mine in little glass Kerr jars to store or give away! It’s super easy and doesn’t take too much work for over a year’s supply of chili flakes. The spice will gradually fade a bit from the flakes, but we found our last year’s supply to still have quite a lot of fire to it when we used the last of the flakes this past week.

Slimmer Summer Shake

As an ode to yesterday’s earthquake, I thought I’d…shake things up around here… (feel free to laugh at or with me on that one)

In the summer, I often get a hankering for ice cream. Milkshakes, mostly. But since we don’t keep ice cream in the house very often, and I don’t always like going out to a shop to pay $5 for a milkshake, I created a pretty easy substitute for when I’m just craving something chocolatey, icy, and out of a straw. It’s definitely not ice cream, but it’s satisfying enough to make me forget that I wanted a milkshake in the first place.

This is the shake I made for the NoshGirl Summer Beverage Party!

Slimmer Summer Shake

• 1.5 cups ice cubes
• 1.5 cups skim milk
• 1 ripe (or overripe) banana
• 1-2 tablespoons peanut butter (2 if you really like peanut butter)
• 1-2 tablespoons chocolate syrup (2 if you really like chocolate)

Blend in a blender.

Enjoy.

Be sure to blend thoroughly so your straw doesn’t get blocked up by annoying ice chunks. Nothing worse than when an ice chunk gets between you and peanut-buttery chocolate goodness.

Since it was such a huge deal yesterday, any awesome earthquake stories? Or, if you aren’t on the east coast, have you had a good milkshake lately?