June came and went and July is melting its way into August. We’re certainly enjoying the beautiful SoCal weather and all the great things that come with summer-including the lack of time for blog posts. We’ve been eating our summer favorite foods, creating new ice cream flavors, exploring refreshing cocktails and bubblies and gardening. Of all things we’ve made and tried this summer these are my favorites so far:

GRILLED PIZZAS. I do dream with a built-in italian brick wood oven where I’ll make ridiculous amounts of pizza and breads. For now, grilling is by far the easiest way for a ‘dealicious’ homemade pizza.

GARDENING: I can’t raive enough about our Gronomics raised garden. I literally L-O-V-E it! It’s a fun project to do with the kids and it’s a great investment. I use lots of fresh herbs in cooking and anyone who has bought herbs from the grocery knows they aren’t cheap!

BUBBLY ITALIAN WINE. As much as I love red wines, there’s nothing like a crisp and refreshing bubbly wine to go with light summer dishes. I’ve to admit that I totally bought this Spumante for the looks. I mean, look at this bottle! I was so surprised to find that the inside is as delicious as the outside. Not too dry, not too sweet and extremely easy to drink. Bepin De Eto is relatively new in the US market but you can find it (if you haven’t already) at Costco under $20.00. Now, that’s ‘dealicious’!

HOMEMADE ICE CREAM. So far, our ice cream maker has been the most used appliance this summer. I wouldn’t have guessed how much fun it’s to make our own flavors. I’m NOT a big fan of ice cream but I love creating different flavors with the kids. The small batches are perfect for us, ice cream maker beginners, looking for unique flavors. Banilla, salted caramel banana and roasted balsamic strawberry made it to the favorite flavor list. I’ve a feeling we’ll be making ice cream throughout the year no matter how cold the weather may be.

 

 

Disclaimers:  

• I did not use affiliate link advertising in my blog.  I did not receive compensation for links in my posts.  
• English is not my first language and even after 15 years of English speaking I’m still learning. I ran Microsoft Word’s spelling and grammar check on this blog entry. If it is not grammatically correct, it is MW fault.