Two friends, miles apart, who love to bake!
It’s obvious we have an ice cream obsession around here, but sometimes you want to beat the summer heat and not feel guilty about indulging. Or maybe you’re doing the Whole30 like us and can’t have sugar. Or maybe you just want a healthy summer …
We took a few weeks off but we’re back with another Friday Finds! It’s hard to believe this is the last Friday in August! Hope you have a great weekend 🙂 Starbucks is finally introducing almond milk. Of course, we can’t enjoy it until our …
If you are not watching The Great British Baking Show on PBS, you are missing out. Seriously, your life can’t possibly be complete. This show is hilarious, heart warming, tense, funny, educational and wonderful all wrapped in one! In fact, go stream the first two seasons on Netflix then come back and read the rest. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.
Hello again! Can we please talk about how funny Sue and Mel are? And isn’t Mary Berry just the best! I want to invite her over for tea and pick her brain on all things baking. Then there’s Paul Hollywood. He seems tough and definitely tells it like it is but how awesome to have him judge your baking and give feedback. I just really wish I could go cook in the tent for a weekend!
Season 3 started a few weeks ago and my mom and I are big fans. I’ll usually go home and do laundry at some point during the weekend and watch the latest episode with my mom. We’re hooked! As you know (because you just binged watched the first two seasons), each episode has a theme and three challenges. Recently, they had a biscuit themed episode and for one of the challenges they had to make biscotti.
I’ve never had biscotti before. Honestly, I was afraid of cracking a tooth because it seemed so dry and hard. I also didn’t used to be a big coffee drinker so I never had a reason to buy biscotti with my coffee. After this episode, however, I was inspired! I channeled my inner British Baking Show contestant dreams and made Lemon Coconut Biscotti, adapted from these Lemon Almond Biscotti from King Arthur Flour. I even talked through the process in my head as I made them and pretended I was on the show… Don’t judge, I know you’d do the same. I was so pleasantly surprised with how they turned out, I made a second batch the next night to take on our family vacation. These are so easy to make, seriously, so easy! And so good! I even forgot to photograph them because I was too excited with how they turned out. I can’t wait to make another batch soon!
And in case you were wondering, Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry loved them in my pretend show. I was definitely star baker that week…
-Kelly
Ingredients:
Directions:
For the glaze: To toast coconut, spread coconut on baking pan and bake for about 10 minutes in 400 degree oven. Remove and cool completely. In a bowl, whisk together 1 cup powdered sugar, the juice of one lemon and a splash of milk. Whisk until well combined. (Add more milk if glaze is too thick.) Dip the biscotti, curved side down, into glaze. Sprinkle with toasted coconut and enjoy!
Coffee might be my biggest weakness. I need it in the morning, I won’t turn it down in the afternoon, and I’ve been known to drink it in the evening before bed (I’m not an addict. Italians do it. It’s classy). The only problem with …
The Summer Olympics start tonight with the opening ceremonies. Here’s a look back at the 1996 Olympics. What happens to Olympic villages after the Olympics? Check out these abandoned ones. It’s kind of sad… What’s the difference between ice cream and gelato? Have you seen …
By now everyone knows I obsessively love peaches. Between the peach cobblers, peach muffins, peach jam…I could honestly eat all peach everything and never get tired of it. So when we stopped at an adorable farmer’s market in Tuscaloosa and they had fresh peaches (and again …
We’re giving up wine for the month of August. Well, actually, all sugar and alcohol (send your prayers, we’ll need them!) but apparently some days are better than others when buying wine. Who knew?! Looking forward to September already… For those days when going to …
If you follow us on social media, you know that we had an LDB wedding recently. Steph and Matt got married in a truly awesome, fun and wonderful wedding weekend in Boise, Idaho, the place they first met 8 years ago! But more on the wedding later… Because a month before the wedding we celebrated with a Bachelorette party New Orleans Style!
One night in New Orleans and three nights in a beach house on the Mississippi Gulf made for a truly epic Bachelorette weekend. Here are some highlights from the weekend!
Night 1: We somehow coordinated Kelly’s flight from Sacramento, Steph’s sister Cassie’s from Spokane, Brittney’s from Boise and Steph and Jamie’s drive from Monroe to all coordinate and arrive at the airport at the exact same time! Though the real miracle was getting all our luggage to fit in the car. Our first night in NOLA consisted of charbroiled oysters and fried gator at Drago’s, Popeye’s chicken, Bourbon Street, Hurricane’s at Pat O’Brien’s and lots of dancing, laughter and fun!
Since we had appetizers late, we hit Popeye’s down the street from our hotel before hitting Bourbon St. It was absolutely pouring, in true Louisiana fashion, but we bought umbrellas from the corner store and braved the storm!
Day 2: We checked out of our hotel and walked around the French Quarter, ate beignets at Cafe du Monde, heard live music at Jackson Square and got brunch at Napolean House. Fun fact: this is the house the mayor of New Orleans at the time was going to give Napoleon, had they been able to “rescue” him. There is just so much history like this in New Orleans! We’ve already decided we need another trip to explore more.
Night 2: After strolling around New Orleans, we checked out of our hotel and picked up Lauren from the airport. We made a pit stop at Costco to stock up on food before driving to our beach house in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. The first night we ate pizza, drank plenty of wine and played both Cards Against Humanity and the wedding spin off, Cads About Matrimony.
Day 3: Each morning we relaxed with coffee and Lauren’s amazing scrambled eggs (seriously, she’s a pro), sitting out on the porch watching the ocean. Saturday we then went on a Swamp Tour! While we didn’t see any gators, we had a lot of fun on the boat and learned about the local wildlife. This started a theme for the weekend of sharing interesting animal facts. Turns out we know quite a few! (do not youtube how seahorses give birth. I repeat…do NOT).
Sitting on a boat is pretty demanding, so we’d worked up quite the appetite. Luckily The Shed, a famous BBQ joint, was on our way home. There’s a good reason it’s famous too…everything was amazing!
Day 4: It was so relaxing to end the trip with a day spent doing absolutely nothing. Well…if drinking mimosas, walking the beach, and laying by the pool count as doing nothing.
We did a little research and found out the entire beach we were on was completely destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. While there are some beautiful new homes, like the one we stayed at, there are obvious remnants of the storm: pillars from docks that were never rebuilt, whole foundations left behind, one lot had just a staircase remaining…it’s hard to imagine the aftermath, and scary to think it could easily happen again.
Overall it was the perfect weekend. Half of the group hadn’t met before, and it is such a great feeling when friends from different stages of your life get together and magically everyone just clicks. There was so much laughter, some amazing food and even more to drink! We’re already talking about a bachelorette reunion next spring because we had so much fun. That’s a thing, right??
From Steph: throughout this entire wedding process, I realized I have some of the best friends in the entire world. I couldn’t ask for smarter, kinder, more hilarious girls to surround myself with. I’m so grateful for their friendship and their willingness to fly across the country to see me!
And that’s it! If you’re looking to plan the perfect bachelorette party, all you need is a great group of girls, one night of dancing, and three nights of beachside bliss. And taquitos. So many taquitos.
~Kelly & Steph
Our hearts and prayers are with Dallas this week. Another attack in France yesterday. This video, after the attack in France last year, seems very relevant today and melts our hearts. Still reeling from their own tragedy, Dallas stands in solidarity with Nice, France. Catastrophe …