An amazing drink from the Soggy Dollar Bar. A hair of the dog cocktail from a swim up bar. Tr additionally made with Prusser’s Rum, one sip evokes sounds of a steel drum. Made with juice and coconut cream, it’s like a Pina colada without the sugar extreme. Shake one up and bottom’s up! It’s sunshine and sand, all in a cup.

prusser’s Painkiller

2 1/2 ounces run

4 ounces pineapple juice

2 ounces orange juice

1 ounce coconut cream

Pour all ingredients into a cocktail shaker. Shake well over ice until combined. Strain into a glass filled with fresh ice and top with an umbrella, pineapple, lime wedges and anything else you can think of!

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I don’t eat eggs. I have an intolerance to them which gives me migraines. Most of the time, it’s totally fine and I don’t even miss them. But then brunch happens. Brunch is one of the best meals of the whole week and here I am stuck without 90% of the menu. So I’ve been coming up with a few brunch ideas that are not egg based and are still decadent and delicious. This tart hits all of those - it’s buttery and delicious. I cannot get enough of it. I actually had to stop myself from eating half of this the first time I made it.

I made it for our family with Earth Wise buttery sticks (not real butter - also, not sponsored) because my husband is dairy free. It totally did the job. You could use a combination of olive oil and butter if you want to cut out some of the fat. I prefer to just eat a smaller slice rather than change ingredients.

Buttery Potato Tart

makes one 12” tart

3 pounds Yukon Gold potatoes, thinly sliced

1 onion, thinly sliced

1/4 cup butter

2 cloves garlic, grated or diced

1 1/2 teaspoons anchovy paste

1 teaspoon dijon mustard

pinch of salt

pepper

STEP 1

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.

Very thinly slice the potatoes and the onion. Set them aside.

STEP 2

Melt the butter in a sauce pan and stir in garlic, anchovy paste and mustard.

STEP 3

When butter is melted, line the bottom of a cast iron skillet with parchment paper. Begin layering potatoes and onions - add a few tablespoons of the butter mixture between each layer of potatoes. Add salt and pepper to taste. When you’re done, pour any remaining butter over the top.

STEP 4

Pop the pan into the oven. After 20 minutes, press down on the potatoes to seal it together. Pop back in to cook for another 20 minutes.

STEP 5

After 40 total minutes, remove the pan from the oven and place something heavy on top of the potatoes. I like to fit a cake pan on the top and then weigh down with something heavy. Let cool with the heavy thing on top for 10 minutes. Then invert onto a cutting board or serving plate.

Also! You can easily substitute Earth Balance instead of butter in this recipe if you are going dairy free or dairy light!

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Why is it that spring feels like salads? I know at my house it’s because we ate so much meat and hearty soups over the last few months that we start to crave fresh and bright salads. Also, we’re in the thick of baseball season and these salads can be made ahead of time and packed to the field or kept in the fridge until after the game. There’s always a game.

Here’s what I’m making this week.

This Marrakech inspired tossed salad is topped with fried cheese and filled with quinoa. It’s both healthy and delicious. Also, it keeps well until the tomatoes get to smushy.

I make this Soba Noodle Salad all spring and into the summer. It’s my favorite thing to pack up for baseball, swimming, and every other late night or traveling dinner.

Is anything better than a Chop Chop Salad?? Packed with asparagus, spring potatoes, and fresh veggies, it’s the perfect spring time version of the best salad ever.

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Every year for my kids birthdays I make a coffee cake. A few years ago I started making a smaller and smaller cakes because my kids eat one slice and then they are done. Then I moved on to muffin sized coffee cakes and suddenly we can eat the entire batch!

These are perfect for a brunch, a weekday breakfast, or just for a snack. They cook super fast too - so you can whip them up anytime! I promise once you bite into these, you will never stop making these muffins. They are epic.

Coffee Cake Muffins

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1 egg

2/3 cup milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup sugar

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 cup vanilla yogurt (or sour cream)

topping

4 tablespoons butter

1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

STEP 1

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line a muffin tin with muffin liners or spray with non-stick spray.

In a small bowl (or measuring glass) whip together the oil, egg, milk and vanilla.

STEP 2

In a large bowl combine together the flour, sugar, and baking powder. Pour in half of the milk mixture and stir to combine. Then add the yogurt and blend together. Pour the last of the milk mixture and stir until combined. Don’t over stir. The mixture will be lumpy, it’s fine.

STEP 3

In a food processor or a bowl, mix together the topping ingredients until it’s sandy. I just use a fork or my fingers.

STEP 4

Fill muffin tins about 1/2 way and top each one with the topping mixture. Bake 15 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Let cool a few minutes before serving.

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Need a brunch cocktail?

In the era of prohibition, gin was terrible. It was made in bathtubs and buckets and could have actually been poison. In order to cover up the taste of the terrible gin, a bartender added honey and lemon and shook it up - like a martini only so it was palatable.

There are lots of stories about where the cocktail came from and most people like to say Paris. HOWEVER - prohibition was in the US not in France so how would the above explanation, which is the common explanation, make any sense at all? Here’s the better story that ties things together:

Do you know who Margaret Brown is? Molly Brown was traveling alone on the Titanic when it hit the iceberg. She loaded passengers on to lifeboats before she was finally persuaded onto one herself. Following the sinking, Ms. Brown organized the first class passengers to secure funding and necessities for the second and third class passengers who had survived. Her passion for philanthropy started long before she set foot on the Titanic and continued long after.

Here’s how she ties into the Bee’s Knees. The Unsinkable Molly Brown was on the Titanic because she needed to leave Paris, where she was visiting with her daughter, to get home to a sick grandchild. In the years following the sinking, Ms. Brown continued to travel to Paris - and as the wealthy woman she was - she stayed at the Ritz. The Ritz claims it originated the cocktail in 1921. However, another story says that Ms. Brown, the strong and independent woman that she was, brought the drink to Paris and had the bartender shake her up one. Ms. Brown bringing the drink to Paris makes way more sense - gin was readily available in Paris and would have been much more delicious than what was available back home in Denver.

Now that gin is delicious, we don’t need the honey and lemon to cover up the flavor. I chose a gin that has the flavors highlighted by the lemon and the honey serves to smooth out the lemon. I also chose this Empress Gin because it’s blue and turns this pink/purple when mixed with the lemon! Empress gin is one of the coolest you can have on your bar cart. It stays blue or gets a little more blue when mixed with basic ingredients (like soda water) but gets pink-y when mixed with anything acidic! It’s almost impossible to find cool colored liquors that aren’t mixed with weird ingredients - this one gets it’s purple color from the Butterfly Pea Flower. And it’s delish!

The Bee’s Knees

1 tablespoon honey

1 tablespoon hot water

2 ounces Butterfly Pea Flower Gin

3/4 ounce fresh lemon juice

In a cocktail shaker, stir together honey and hot water to melt the honey. Add gin and lemon juice. Stir a little - then add ice to the shaker. Shake well and strain into two cocktail glasses. Garnish with a twist of lemon.

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Six years ago I got a bee in my bonnet that I wanted to drive the Pacific Coast Highway and camp the whole way down. So we did it! Mr. Hedin’s parents had just bought a trailer that we could borrow so we loaded it up and headed out.

That trip started a tradition that still continues. We’ve road tripped to the Washington Coast, the Oregon Coast, Glacier Lake, Crater Lake, San Francisco, and this year we’re headed to Yellowstone.

These are our families favorite vacations.

It turns out that long hours in the car chatting about life, learning about the history of where we are at that moment, and even the arguing have created life long memories. Here are my tips for planning the perfect road trip for your family this summer.

Tip #1

For a ten day trip, choose a destination for your trip that’s about 10 hours away (if you drive straight there). You can add more hours to distance as your kids get older, but we’ve discovered 10-12 hours is the sweet spot. When we went to San Fransisco we took two weeks - fourteen days - to get there and back and it’s about 14 hours from our house.

Destinations from Seattle that are fun:

• Crater Lake

• Glacier National Park

• Olympic National Park

• Redwoods

• Yellowstone

• Banff National Park

TIP #2

If you’re taking a trailer (highly recommended) it will take longer to drive anywhere you are going than what maps tells you. I don’t know why. Plan on it. We discovered that no matter what we did we ended up getting to our campsite at 5pm.

Speaking of which, plan your campsites ahead, make reservations, and make sure you know what time you can arrive. We’ve arrived when the camp host is gone and we’ve arrived before we were supposed to. At least knowing if you are early or late means you can talk your way into or out of trouble.

Tip #3

Remember your audience. We started doing this when the kids were little. Jud was five when we did our first road trip. Which means we did not book five star restaurants - we debated who had the best tartar sauce on the Washington Coast. Our San Francisco stops were much different than if it would have just been Mr. Hedin and I.

Find a park. Find a goofy roadside attraction. Stop for ice cream. Find the best burger in town.

Tip #4

Teach!

I have a love of history anyway - it was my major in college - but teaching my kids a little something about where we are gives these trips a sense of purpose. The first year I did loads of research and made little packets for each of the kids with the history and games for them to play. No one read the history. Since then, I’ll print off the license plate game and a few word searches but the history pieces I keep on my phone and I read them off as we approach.

Some times it feels ridiculous and like only Mr Hedin and I are interested, but taking Washington State History is a middle school requirement in Washington State. This year my daughter has impressed me with what she has remembered from our drives. I wasn’t totally sure she was ever listening.

Share where you would go on your road trip! Or any tips you have for fun family adventures.

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Dutch Baby or German Pancake is my families favorite breakfast. The kids love that it puffs up and love it more that it’s a decadent breakfast you can smother with syrup and whipped cream. For St Patrick’s Day I thought it would be fun to add a little green to the party - in the form of spinach instead of food coloring. If any breakfast is inherently not healthy, it’s a Dutch Baby - so why not add a little redeeming value?

When this comes out of the oven, you can smell the spinach. But I promise once you bite into it, you don’t taste the spinach which means your kids won’t reject it based on flavor!

Luck of the Irish Dutch Baby

3 eggs

3/4 cup milk

3/4 cup flour

1/4 cup melted butter

1 cup spinach

1 teaspoon vanilla

STEP 1

Preheat oven to 425 degrees and pop the pan into the oven. I recommend a 12” skillet.

STEP 2

In a blender, whip the eggs then add milk. Blend until frothy.

STEP 3

Add flour, 1/4 cup at a time, and blend until just incorporated. Add the spinach and vanilla and whip until frothy.

STEP 4

Pop the butter into the hot pan. Close the oven and let it melt. When it’s melted, pour in the batter. Bake 20 minutes until edges are browned and puffed up

Serve with whipped cream, syrup, fruit, Nutella, anything else you like!

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This time of year we are ridiculously busy. Between baseball games, tournaments, practices, robotics, scouting, and just trying to survive - dinner starts to take a back seat. I start relying on sheet pan dinners more and more and this one is a great spring time option. We don’t eat a lot of dairy at our house so I often use vegan pesto instead of traditional pesto and let the kids add their own parmesan cheese. I also HIGHLY suggest picking up the pesto at Costco. It’s not expensive and it tastes great - especially if you are baking it anyway.

Sheet Pan Pesto Chicken

serves 4

2 lb chicken breast, cut into strips

1 bunch asparagus, chopped

2 medium zucchini, chopped

2 cups cherry tomatoes

1 onion, sliced

½ cup pesto

¼ cup fresh basil

½ cup grated parmesan

salt and pepper

STEP 1

Preheat oven to 450.

 Toss asparagus and zucchini with half of the pesto. 

STEP 2

Place chicken breasts on a sheet pan and pour pesto vegetables around them. 

STEP 3

Sprinkle the top of the vegetables with onion and tomatoes.

STEP 4

Spread the top of each chicken breast with the remaining pesto.

STEP 5

Sprinkle half of the parmesan over the top of everything and pop into the oven for 15-20 minutes until thermometer reads 160 degrees.  Serve with extra cheese.

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This goes perfectly with…

A lemon infused vodka soda that you are going to LOVE! Click here for the recipe.

When I was a kid we ate Saturday Night Special on the regular. I’m 90% sure it was a “clean out the fridge” dinner - but we all loved it. Some nights there were weird things included like black olives but most of the time it was ground beef, veggies and noodles all in one pot.

I dressed this one up with kale and Banza noodles. We are generally a low carb family - it’s impossible to be totally low carb with teenagers but we do our best. Banza noodles are a game changer. They have more protein, more fiber and less carbs than traditional wheat pasta because they are made with chick peas.

This makes for a comforting dinner that also is healthy! And - best part yet - it’s done in about 30 minutes and it’s a complete dinner. You’ll love it, your kids will love it. Let me know what you think!!

Saturday Night Special

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 shallot, chopped

3 cloves of garlic, chopped

2 lbs ground pork

2 large carrots, chopped

1- 28oz can of diced tomatoes

1 bunch kale, stems stripped and chopped

1 tablespoon concentrated chicken bouillon

2 tablespoons tomato paste

8oz Banza shells

2 teaspoons dried basil

2 teaspoons dried oregano

salt & pepper

parmesan cheese for serving

STEP 1

In a large dutch oven, brown the shallot and garlic in olive oil. Add pork and brown - seasoning with salt and pepper as needed.

STEP 2

Pour in diced tomatoes then fill the tomato can with water and pour that in the pot. Add carrots, kale, noodles, tomato paste, bouillon, basil and oregano. Stir until everything is incorporated.

STEP 3

Pop the lid on the pan and let cook. Stir every few minutes to make sure nothing is sticking. If the pan seems a little dry, add a cup of water. Season with salt and pepper if needed.

STEP 4

When noodles are fully cooked, scoop into a shallow bowl and serve with parmesan cheese on top.

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I have been super interested in the Banza noodles - they are made with chickpeas instead of regular flour - which means they are packed with protein, fiber and have less carbs. There are definitely a few applications where these noodles aren’t exactly like their wheat filled counterparts, but when they are cooked in the sauce, they are perfect!

This soup is one of those dinners that I make when I have no idea what I’m doing for dinner. I almost always have carrots, celery and onion in the house. This goes even faster if you use a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store and shred it. I’ve gone that route before too as well and it’s just as delicious. And it cuts out about 10 minutes - which when you’re talking about 30 minutes total - that’s quite a bit of time.

Serve it with a big green salad, bread if you have teenagers, and enjoy!

One Pot Chicken Soup with Banza

serves 4

3 carrots, chopped

4 stalks celery, chopped

1 onion, chopped

4 cups chicken stock

1 bouillon cube

1/2 lb chicken breast, sliced

1 - 8oz box Banza cavatappi noodles

2 cups water

salt & pepper to taste

STEP 1

In a large stock pot, cook down carrots, celery and onion until soft. Season with salt and pepper.

STEP 2

Pour in chicken stock and stir in the bouillon cube (or equivalent - I like the paste version). Bring to a boil.

STEP 3

Add the chicken and cook until done. Then add noodles + 2 cups water. Bring to a boil and cook until the noodles are done. Season with salt & pepper.

Serve hot with a big salad.

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