It feels as if we have turned a corner today and that summer might just have arrived to our neck of the woods.
The sunshine is out, it is warm, the air is balmy. I’m ready to put my toes in the sand and watch the waves roll in and just listen to Stevie Nicks. This Queen of Rock ‘N Roll is always a good summertime pick!
Here’s to Wednesday! We’re half-way to the weekend!
I grew up in a household where all genres of music were played. In our house we do the same thing. Even though we listen to everything, I seem to go through phases of listening to one genre or album more than another.
At the moment, I have been going through a bit of a 70s phase. A mellow 70s phase. I don’t care if it is considered “cheesey” or “corny” kinda music, I’m enjoying grooving to my tunes. I’m just missing the truly long hair, a nice big pair of sunglasses and some bell-bottoms. It has sorta become my soundtrack of the Summer. I thought I would share a bit of what I’m listening to with you.
It’s been pretty hot lately! We have been eating a lot of cold things to stay cool and I have been very inspired by my ice cream Pinterest board. Here are just a few things that have caught my eye:
1. Blackberry Pie Frozen Yogurt: Amanda K. By The Bay
2. Cherry Almond Ice Cream Cake: Love, Life & Sugar
3. Copycat Baskin Robbins Mint Chocolate Chip: Something Swanky
4. Classic Vanilla Bean Ice Cream: Drizzle & Dip
5. Blueberry Pie Milkshake: Saveur
6. Lemon Meringue Pie Ice Cream: Your Home Based Mom
7. Tangerine Sherbet: Shutterbean
{Don’t follow me on Pinterest already? Click HERE}
{Ice Scream! You Scream! We All Scream for IceCream! board HERE}
What could be a better way of celebrating the last day of school then an order of Five Guys french fries?
Here’s to Summer! Long may you last. And to the weekend, we are so happy that you have finally arrived!
I love vegetables! One thing I truly miss living in London is the roadside vegetable stands and pop-up Farmer’s Markets that exist in the South. The places you stop by on a hot Summer day, the vegetables still warm from being picked out of the fields. A Southern staple is yellow squash. I have not been able to get it in England until recently. Last year we noticed that Whole Foods was selling it and like crazy people we stocked up.
This year, I have done the same. Stocking up, slicing it and throwing it in to the freezer, so we have it as a side dish or to throw in to soups, pastas, risottos or in a vegetable medley. I picked some up on my way home from work on Friday and an idea started buzzing in my head. I knew just what I was going to do with it. Mr. Michie was on a school field trip on Saturday and I decided that I would make pizza for dinner. I have played around and around with this one particular dough recipe we like, making adjustments and tweaks and I have finally perfected it to satisfy our tastebuds.
I made the dough early in the day, so it had plenty of time to rise and just be. Before, Mr. Michie got home, I sauteed thin slices of yellow squash and cubes of pancetta. I also slowly cooked down an onion, till it was golden yellow and tender. Once he arrived home we got to work. I shaped the dough and brushed it with garlic oil and a little salt. We sprinkled freshly grated mozzarella over the top and then layered on onions, squash and pancetta. We finished it off with little dollops of ricotta, here and there. Once it was out of the oven it had a sprinkle of freshly chopped basil and some oregano.
It was wonderful. It was the taste of Summer in your mouth, the salty, the sweet, the savoury. It is most definitely a combination that we would make again.
{We have tried many different dough recipes over the years and this has become our favorite. I have made my own tweaks to the dough, but this is the recipe I used before I took the leap to start changing things: Annie’s Eats Homemade Pizza Dough}
As a line from Night Moves, my favorite Bob Seger song states:
“I awoke last night to the sound of thunder, how far off I sat and wondered?”
We had one H-E-double hockey stick of a storm last night. Mr. Michie and I moved in closer to each other, it is very rare that a storm makes me nervous, but the lightening last night was unreal. It flashed and lit up our room like we had turned the lights on. Our room was so bright I could have read my book. It didn’t stop, there wasn’t that moment in between, it was like someone was turning the lights off and on really quickly.
The rain lashed against the windows, our window was cracked to help ward off the stifling air in the house from the heat and the curtain blew, while rain splashed on to the windowsill and the thunder rolled.
This morning the air was cool, there was a soft mist swirling around the train tracks and the sun was shining bright. The air was clean. Everything felt fresh. Today is going to be another hot day, now I’m from the South, so I’m used to heat, but it even gets me down at times when it is blazing and their is no air-conditioning, it feels as if you can’t get cool, no matter what you do. I told Mr. Michie we might just start eating banana splits for dinner as it is too hot to cook.
I’m so happy that it’s Friday today, I have a few things planned this weekend and I want to get caught up on my laundry, but I plan to just enjoy being. I hope you have a wonderful weekend, wherever you may be.
It is getting hotter and hotter here! Yesterday it was almost 90F. That is a little too hot for me, when I work in a cupboard with no windows and my fan was just circulating a mix of sickeningly hot air around.
I closed my eyes at one point and dreamed of being some place else. Mr. Michie and I play a game, where we ask each other, “if you could be anywhere, where would you be?”
If he had asked me that yesterday I would have told him, listening to good beach music, driving to Jack’s Cosmic Dogs for lunch, where I would have my usual, The Cosmic Dog and then head to the beach to cool off in the water. Then, home for cold beer and boiled shrimp on the back porch, where we watch the sunset over the water and pray for the first cool breeze of the evening to waft over us.
Now, that would have been a good day to me! A girl can dream….
I’ve been doing a little pinning onto my Summer Pinterest Board. I think Summer has finally come to England. It has been hot all week, but there has been a delicious breeze in the air every morning.
It feels like a nice beach breeze, when it is cool in the morning and the sand is cold under your feet before the sunshine heats up for the day. A perfect morning, you know, one of those mornings, that you sit out on your beach porch and have a cup of coffee letting the ocean breeze and salt air wash over you. Oh, how I long to see the beach this year. In the meantime, I am living through my Summertime Board.
Below is a little 4th of July round-up, enjoy!
1. Bakerella Snow Cones
2. Red, White & Blue donuts
3. Watercolor Flag Straws
4. Crayfish Party Hats
5. USA Cake
All pinned to my “Born on the 4th of July” Pinterest Board.
We feasted this morning on fresh homemade cinnamon rolls with lashings of cream cheese frosting, flecked with vanilla beans and sunbeam shards of orange zest. While the steam from our coffee cups oozed into our nostrils, tantalising our taste buds with the first perfect sip to come.
The weather is beginning to turn summery here as we sit on the last day of June. I long for my toes to dangle over the edge of a pool or feel the rush of the waves hit my ankles as I stand at the shoreline watching the horizon for the shrimp boats I know so well coming back into port. There will already be people waiting at Shem Creek to collect from the boats.
These are the days that I truly miss home. The slow steady heartbeat of the South, the pace of Charleston life, the long lazy Sunday afternoons that dwindle into twinkling candle filled nights. The sweat that has already soaked your collar long before you open the door to the humidity of Summer.
Today, felt like a Charlie Parker kinda day and that is who crooned us through breakfast and coffee. This week, the beginning of July, places me at a crossroads and shall bring about some new changes one way or another. Mr. Michie ever my sounding board stands by me as I take this venture. Here’s to good things coming and here’s to Sundays, may the hold all the promise of the weekend that has been and the hope for the week that is coming.