Grubarazzi

It’s picnic season which means lots of sweaty backs, hot grills, ice cold beer, hamburgers, and hot dogs. It also means that grocery stores are creating condiment stands where you can grab the staples for your backyard BBQ all in one place. Classic yellow mustard, sugary ketchup, pickle relish, and some soft white buns coming right up!  This gives me a great excuse to throw a few punches at traditional picnic condiments by making my own, like these spicy and sweet Sriracha Refrigerator Pickles. They are so easy to make. With only a few ingredients you can add a crunchy new twist on top of your juicy burgers, or dice them to make a spicy relish to slather on hot dogs. Or, do as I do, eat them right out of the jar.  Making refrigerator-style pickles is so easy you’ll wonder why you ever bought a jar of soggy pickles at the store. The key to making a good pickle at home is to buy fresh cucumbers from a farmer’s market or organic grocery store. If you buy a wax-cove...

It takes hours to get to Smith Mountain Lake, Virginia from Baltimore, Maryland. Four and half hours on a good day, and seven hours if you decide to leave anywhere between 3:00 pm and 6:00 pm on a Friday given that you have to drive through the DC mixing bowl (aka: hell) to get there. But I can’t sing its praises enough. Almost ten years ago, my grandparents bought a home on Smith Mountain Lake, and we have been going as a family ever since. Sure, the tiles are crumbling in the showers, there is always something for my husband to help fix or build, and we often just spend hours on the porch staring at the lake without actually going in to swim or Jet Ski. But there is an immediate sense of calm that washes over us as we walk through the doors. We wash off the car ride, grab a glass of whatever alcohol we have on hand, and slide the glass door out to the deck to get warm hugs and breathe in the fresh lake air. It was the biggest gift our grandparents could give us. The gift of being...

Although I love making protein smoothies for breakfast (like my Mango Kale Smoothie with Coconut and Mint ), sometimes a girl needs something hot and substantial in the morning. Especially before a two hour sweat session at the gym (nothing is more motivating than preparing to be a bridesmaid in two weddings in four months). And nothing satisfies me more than potatoes and eggs. The perfect solution: a healthy and satisfying sweet potato hash with zucchini, red peppers, and runny yolks. It’s a quick meal with perfect nutrients for one, or simply up the ingredients to feed a crowd. Quick Sweet Potato Hash with Eggs is fake out healthy comfort food with three servings of vegetables and tons of protein. It really can’t be beat. The trick to making this a healthy hash is by using just a little bit of your favorite fat while utilizing a nonstick skillet with a lid, and a splash of water to cook the sweet potatoes evenly. Throw the sweet potatoes in first, allow the water to evapo...

Would you like to know my deep dark secret? My greatest accomplishment in the kitchen was the day I learned how to hard boil an egg. After years of breaking egg whites as I painstakingly shed away at the evil shell, and cursing the heavens every time I got one unpeeled only to discover a green rim around the yolk, I finally figured it out. Nothing beats slicing open a warm egg to find a soft and billowy yellow yolk… to stuff in my face. Sometimes, the easiest things are the hardest to master. Which brings me to my next greatest achievement: making a perfect deviled egg. A good deviled egg can be made with as little as 4 ingredients: eggs, mayonnaise, relish, and paprika. But a perfect deviled egg requires a little more love and creativity. Take Mario Batali’s riff on a classic Hellmann's® recipe called Fiery Chipotle Deviled Eggs . Batali punches up the flavor by adding chipotle hot sauce, spicy mustard, cilantro, and celery salt. And wow, they are good! When I was a...