Tequila Lime Marinated Chicken

I love grill season.  Well, for us grill season is year round or unless there's so much snow on the deck we can't find the grill. But there is something awesome about grilled meat in the summer.  Plus I feel like we use more marinades and made more interesting food on the grill in the summer than in the winter.  In the winter it's just throw some steaks on the grill and make sure they're cooked so you can get back in the house.  But this Tequila Lime Marinated Chicken is awesome.  Lots of flavor going on in that marinade and it all blends beautifully while it's cooked on the grill.  And to top it off, once you put the meat on the grill, you can cook the reserved marinade to make an awesome sauce like nothing else you've had before.  The tequila shines, but is still cut by the lime and the slight heat from the chili powder. It's quite a combination and we used the sauce as a vinaigrette for our salads.

For our wedding shower, my Mom bought Dave a couple of cookbooks. This recipe comes from Marinades and Rubs: 40 Tantalizing Recipes to Stimulate your Palette and Add Sparkle to Your Meals from the Love Food Collection.  It's easy and accessible, with ingredients you likely have on hand.  I whipped this up before work one morning and let it sit all day.  When I came home, Dave had the chicken grilled perfectly, boiled down the leftover marinade and together we built these killer salads.  We will certainly use this again--maybe this winter when we're in need of a little summer sunshine.

Watermelon Lime Sorbet

The heat of summer has even the most dedicated cook swearing off the kitchen.  If it can't be prepared without turning on the oven or stove, it's quite possibly not worth eating (at least at the moment).  So what's a blogger to do when she wants to create a post to share but doesn't want to start a battle between the oven and the air-conditioner?  Make a frozen treat!  Even if it does require a little stove top cooking, these fruity, sweet treat is totally worth making.  And possibly worth a little brain freeze to enjoy.  The lime flavor gently cuts the sweetness of the watermelon, but still lets the fruity flavor shine through.  And a frosty dessert is always a win in the July heat.

I got into the habit of picking up a watermelon whenever they were on sale this summer.  I'm so glad I did because they've been exceptionally sweet.  While I haven't grown tired of munching on chunks of fruit, when this recipe came into my Pinterest arena, I knew I'd be making it right away.  Shaina from Food for My Family did an adorable thing by scooping out the pulp of the watermelon and freezing the sorbet in the rind so that she could create sorbet slices.  While cute, it looked like a lot of work for just us to enjoy at home.  Although I may try it for a party in the future.  Shaina's recipe is great and  I did adjust the sugar a touch since the watermelon was plenty sweet, but otherwise it's straightforward.  It you're looking to cool off, look no further than this tasty, fruity sorbet.

Cookies & Cream Bars - No Bake

Soft, chewy and chocolatey.  I think that's good enough, don't you.  I love the sweet creaminess from the Oreo cookies and how chewy they are.  Simple and delicious--and no bake, perfect for summer.  These bars are essentially made like Rice Krispies Treats, subbing in cookie crumbs for the cereal.  My friend Kate had a birthday last month, so I knew I needed to send her some treats.  She loved these bars, texting me the morning of her happy day proclaiming she had Cookies & Cream Bars for breakfast. 

Like any good friend trying to figure out what the birthday girl would like, I stalked her Pinterest board...and found a recipe that I had pinned.  Which was perfect, because I really did want to try these treats from Sweet Pea's Kitchen.  Christina had a really good idea for these bars and I'm thinking of taking it further, perhaps using Nutter Butters for a full on peanut butter chewy bar.  But this time around, I stuck with the original only adjusting to use Double Stuf Oreos.  I think they extra cream from the cookies balanced the intensity of the chocolate very well.  If you need a treat for a summer gathering but are loathe to turn on the oven, make it easy on yourself and whip up these bars.

Bean & Cheese Burritos with Crock Pot Refried Beans

Lovely refried beans from scratch, made in the crock pot no less, and a delicious bean and cheese burrito perfect for lunch.  Easy, delicious, and wholesome, knowing everything that's going into these recipes, what's not to love?  Super filling and full of flavor, this a is a great recipe.  You can make it in two parts, starting the beans a head of time and either freezing or refrigerating them until you are ready to make the burritos.  Or make just the beans and use them for some other fun recipe, like a warm bean dip or as a side for enchiladas or some other fun dish.

Through a weird twist of fate, I was again assigned to Heather from Fit Mama Real Food for this month's Secret Recipe Club.  Since I posted Heather's hummus in May, she has welcomed her beautifully adorable Hunter.  But before he came along, Heather loaded her freezer full of quick meals for her and her husband to help keep them fed and happy while caring for their new little bundle.  While I thought about going back to some of Heather's recipes that caught my eye last time I spun through her blog for Secret Recipe Club, I stopped at Heather's post on stocking her freezer because she posted a refried beans recipe.  Not only that, but she posted something to do with the great big quantity of beans (freezer burritos!) and I knew Dave and I would love these.  You know our devotion to Mexican food and I thought these burritos would be perfect lunches for me to take to work or easy for Dave to grab and heat up when he has a busy day working from home.  So it's a two-for-one post thanks to Heather's perfect bean recipe and her excellent way to consume those beans!  I thought these were perfect as is, but definitely adapt the burritos to your liking (maybe a little less beans and toss in some shredded chicken). 

Butterfinger Cookies

I like candy and I would be hard-pressed to pick a favorite candy bar.  It would have to have chocolate, but I wouldn't be able to choose between a caramel and nut filling, a soft chocolate nougat, or a crunchy peanut butter center.  But no matter what kind of candy bar I choose, my favorite way to enjoy any kind of candy is to pair it with my absolute favorite treat: cookies.  So these cookies are  true treat, with a texture that mimics the Butterfinger candy bars as well as lots of peanut buttery yumminess sprinkled throughout.  They have a crunchy texture and lots of flavor--a perfect summer picnic cookie.

When I saw this recipe from Two Peas and Their Pod, I went out of my way to pick up a bag of fun sized Butterfingers.  I really liked the way this recipe came together and thought Maria did a really good job creating the perfect cookie based to feature the chopped Butterfingers.  I made the mistake of pulsing my mix-ins in the stand mixer rather than stirring by hand--don't do that!  I was concerned about crushing the cereal and chopped candy bars, so they didn't get distributed throughout the dough as well.  I ended up needing to go in a stir by hand anyway, so I should have just done that from the beginning.  These crispy cookies come together pretty easily and taste amazing.  Grab some Butterfingers and get baking!