Kit Kat Milkshake

I hope everyone had an amazing Halloween! Whether you dressed up or not, I hope you at the least got to eat a TON of candy. I definitely ate more than I should have, and since we got almost no trick or treaters, I have an absurd amount of candy leftover. And while I'm more than happy to just eat it straight, it's always fun to mix it up into something new.

A milkshake is my favorite way to go about this.  Three years ago, I shared a Snickers and Pretzel Milkshake and it was a huge, huge success. I thought it was such a great way to use up my favorite goodies from Halloween as a kid, so I wanted to make a new version this year. My tastes have changed since I made that milkshake--back then I was a die-hard Snickers fan, but today, I'm all about Kit Kats.

This Kit Kat milkshake is just your basic chocolate milkshake with a lot of Kit Kats blended in. There's nothing crazy about it, but nevertheless, it's pretty amazing. A couple scoops of chocolate ice cream (or any other flavor you want) get blended together.  The mixture is then poured into a tall glass that's been drizzled with hot fudge or chocolate sauce, and is topped off with a generous dollop of freshly whipped cream and finished with two more Kit Kat bars. 

Baileys and Shortbread Milkshake

And the booziest day of the year has arrived! I've never been much of a St. Paddy's gal, and since I've been commuting to work or from school over the past few years, I've come to associate the holiday with nothing more than a mass transit and commuter nightmare. Penn Station is awful on its own, but it transforms into this hellish, rowdy black hole, the kind of place where all you want to do is head in and head back out, as fast as you possibly can. I think based on those facts alone, it's clear that I'm no St. Patrick's Day partier, but it doesn't mean I'm a party pooper either.  I just celebrate with food instead of booze! Marrying the two and incorporating my one true love, ice cream, is the best of both worlds. 

Strawberry Grapefruit and Pomegranate Smoothie

I've reached the point where I just can't wait for winter to end. I know there's still a long way to go until spring arrives, and I'm not asking for warmer weather necessarily. I just want a little more sunshine in my life and some vibrant flavors to accompany it. I've got the wintertime blues, and they're hitting me hard.

My blues were only made worse by the fact that I had a horrible cold during my three-day weekend. Instead of relaxing and having fun in my extra day off, I spent my time buried in tissues and counting down the minutes until I could breathe through my nose again. Talk about timing! I felt that my body needed something fresh in its system in order to feel a little better, and there was no better way to do so than with a healing smoothie. I blended up a fruity concoction and while it didn't cure my cold, it definitely made me feel a whole lot better for a few minutes. It was just what I needed.

Apple Cider Soda Float

My schedule has been a little out of whack lately.  I had been hoping to share this quick and easy drink over the weekend, but my timing has been off these past couple of days.  I've had busy days at work, tough days at the gym, and one very exciting weekend that I needed to prepare for.  I was in Philadelphia all weekend, and it threw my normal weekend routine off.  Not that I minded though, because I love Philly, and I was in town for a Weezer concert (which was seriously, pretty darn amazing), and I got to eat some delicious food.  I had planned on sharing this post on Friday or Saturday, but I just didn't get around to actually typing it up. I think being a few days late on my post isn't the worst though...at least we're starting off the week with something simple and delicious!

This apple cider soda float came out of having an excess of cider in my fridge.  Cider is one of my favorite things about the fall, and I love using it in all kinds of ways.  I love it in baked goods as much as I love drinking it straight, cold or hot.  It's comforting and got such a great warmth to it.  I thought it would be fun to use cider in a completely new way though, in the form of a soda float. 

Strawberry Lemonade Iced Tea for the Make and Takes Blog!

I hope everyone had a great Memorial Day weekend!  Mine was pretty uneventful, but I did get to eat some yummy barbecue, enjoy the nice weather, bake a ton of treats to share with you all in the upcoming weeks, take my GRE exam, and fulfill a major Shake Shack craving that I'd been trying to suppress for weeks.  Maybe my weekend was more eventful than I thought!  Now that we're officially in summer mode, I can't wait for more weekends like this.  I'm super ready and super excited for summer to start!  It doesn't seem like it'll take too long- the weather has been absolutely gorgeous these past couple of days, I've already gotten a bug bite or two, and I'm already feeling like I need to turn the air conditioners on in my house.  Yep, sounds like summertime goodness to me!

To celebrate the arrival of summer and barbecue season, I thought a refreshing summer drink was absolutely in order.  I love love love freshly made home-style iced teas and lemonades, so I knew that my first refreshing summer drink had to incorporate at least one of those...but then I decided to just use both!  I matched up lemonade and iced tea with a strawberry simple syrup and seltzer water to create a fizzy, beautiful, sweet and refreshing drink.  It's incredibly flavorful and takes so little effort and time to prepare that it's the perfect drink to keep as a staple in your summer barbecue party arsenal.  I loved it, and I'm sure I'll be making it and many variations all summer long.  Head on over to Make and Takes for the full recipe!

Honeydew-Lemon Soda

Hello!  I hope everyone had a lovely weekend!  I had a really nice weekend, complete with a layer cake adventure (if you follow me on Instagram, you'll have seen a few pics!) that I will discuss and share with you in much greater detail next week, an awesome brunch, and many laughs with friends who I hadn't seen in a while.  It was a lot of fun, but I'll admit, I was pretty pooped when it was all finished!  Given that, I needed something to prepare myself something nice and refreshing that was also really simple to put together, with the really simple part being the most important.

Now that we're in spring, I've been craving all kinds of seasonal spring flavors more and more, and it's such a bummer that the weather is windy, rainy, and still cold.  I've decided to pretend like the outside weather isn't happening, and fully embrace spring anyway.  I'd been looking forward to making some kind of fruity, refreshing drink, and since I had a pretty hectic weekend, Sunday afternoon was the perfect time to mix up such a drink.  I decided to make a homemade fruit soda, because really, what could be more refreshing than that!?

New Year Smoothies, Two Ways!

I thought we'd ease into this new year of blogging with something quick, simple, and refreshing.  I'm a huge fan of eating lots of fresh fruits and vegetables as often as I can, whether it's in the form of an extra salad, a blended drink, or simply as a light snack.  Smoothies are one of my favorite ways of incorporating some extra fruits and veggies, and I love them because they're so effortless to prepare and can come in a zillion and one different flavor combinations.  Fruit smoothies don't really have any kind of science together, so they're a really great way to use up random bits of fruit or veggies that you may have left over from other recipes.  Smoothies are also perfect for using up fruit that's just starting to get a little bruised.  Whenever I have fruit in my house that's no longer at its peak for eating fresh, but doesn't really deserve to be tossed out just yet, I throw it into my blender with a little juice, yogurt, or milk along with some ice, and I instantly have a great healthy snack that will hold me over until my next meal.  

Since smoothies are really no-brainer recipes, I figured I would offer two different variations for you guys to start playing with.  The first smoothie is one of my favorites, and is made with banana, blueberries, and oats.  Now, oats blended into a smoothie may sound a little strange at first, but it's definitely something you should try out, because it's really delicious!  In fact, avena, a cold, blended oatmeal drink that's popular in Colombia is one of my favorite drinks to enjoy in the summer, and this smoothie is like a quick, instant version of that.  I added a little peanut butter for extra flavor and some crushed ice to make the smoothie seem almost like a shake. So good! The second smoothie is a gold old green smoothie.  I love using spinach and avocado in my green smoothies, and for this version, I decided to sweeten it up with a little frozen mango, for the sake of convenience, and some orange juice, something that's always well in stock at my house.  The measurements listed below for each smoothie are approximate, and you should feel free to adjust them to your taste, especially for the liquids in the smoothies. Add more or less juice or milk depending on how thick you like your smoothie, and of course feel free to make any flavor substitutions you like based on what's lying around in your kitchen.  The best type of smoothie is one that not only tastes good, but also helps clean out your refrigerator!  Experiment, and see what flavor combinations you can come up with.  Cheers to 2014!

Strawberry Soda Floats

I'm a huge ice cream fan.  I don't know if that's been made perfectly clear to you guys yet, but now you know.  I'm a major ice cream fan.  The kind that is both obsessed with finding the craziest, most delicious, and most unusual ice cream flavors I can find, yet is also obsessed with finding the perfect PLAIN chocolate, or the perfect PLAIN vanilla, or the perfect OLD-FASHIONED butter pecan.  It's important to have a balance of crazy and classic, or at least I think so anyway.  Every type of ice cream has its own time and place for being most appropriate.  Scoops of perfectly creamy vanilla ice cream are pretty much required to sit on top of warm brownies and pies.  Nothing beats sweet and crunchy rocky road ice cream whenever you've had an annoyingly awful day. Sometimes, you just need a really tall Snickers and Pretzel milkshake for whenever your silly mood strikes. I get those mood swings every now and then, and they've always demanded some kind of crazy, slightly-overly-sweet treat to remedy them.  The kind of treat where, once I finish, I find myself thinking, "wow...did I really just eat that?" and then I tell myself that whatever I just ate was so good, that it was totally worth it.   

While I've always been a milkshake kinda person, soda floats were not something I was ever a big fan of.  The ice cream to soda ratio always seemed to be in favor of the soda portion, and that soda, typically, happened to be root beer. There's no easy way to say this, so I'm going to be perfectly blunt and just say it.  I HATE root beer. There's not many foods or flavors that I can honestly say I dislike, or even hate, but root beer is one of them.  I really just can't stand the stuff, and I don't understand how it's as popular a drink as it is. Just thinking about root beer brings back a funny taste to my mouth.  I remember the very first time I tried root beer.  I was on a class field trip in elementary school to some kind of old-fashioned farm from wayyy back in the day. On the field trip, we were offered what I thought was homemade Coke.  I took a big sip, and immediately realized that what I was drinking was most definitely not Coke.  It was a major disappointment, to say the least, given that my family hardly ever drinks soda and any opportunity to drink soda was a special treat.  I tried to give root beer a chance a couple of times after that, but I always ended up regretting my decision.  I really just don't like it. 

Fizzy Blackberry Limeade

Hello again! In this post, I finally feel like a true food blogger.  All my fancy blogging essentials are present: fizzy homemade soda, pretty wooden boards to take photos on, and those birch paper straws that everyone, including me, seems to have become obsessed with.   I mean seriously, these birch straws are featured in nearly so many food blogs lately, that they seem to be a drink post essential.  I finally made my first (yes, my FIRST) Etsy purchase the other day, and I bought nothing more than a bunch of pretty paper straws, some in birch and some in more colorful stripes.   It was about time I jumped on the Etsy/paper straws/cute  props bandwagon and I'm glad I did.  My birch pattern straws are adorable and they make my sodas look fancy.  My paper straws make me feel like I'm one of the cool kids.  Anyway.  As abnormally excited as I am about these paper straws, I'm much more excited to share this awesome drink recipe with you guys.  Fizzy blackberry limeade.  How good does that sound? The answer, my friends, is really good. It should sound really good because it totally is.

I got the idea to make this particular soda after watching Bobby  Flay make a homemade raspberry ginger ale. It looked so simple and refreshing that  I decided I needed to make my own, but my way.  Instead of going with raspberry and ginger as my main flavors, I used one of my favorite combinations instead: blackberry and lime. Now, I know that I only recently posted another dessert using that same combination, but once I got the idea in my head to make this soda, I just couldn't see it coming together any other way.  I've always loved blackberry limeade, and for me, it really just screams summer and refreshing.

Avena [Cold Oatmeal Drink]

It looks like summer is here to stay!  We've had some really lovely summertime weather these past few days, so with that being said, and the fact that I am somehow, once again, busy enough to only be able to write a short post, I bring you a recipe for avena, a cold oatmeal drink.  It's one of my absolute favorite drinks, and is a treat I always looked forward to in the summer. 

I've been so busy lately these past few days, simply because I've had some of my family from Colombia staying with us since last week.  My aunt, and my cousin, her husband, and their twins (remember this chocolate birthday cupcake post? It's the same twins!) flew down to spend a week with us, and let's just say that I've found myself a bit preoccupied with playing with my super adorable 16-month old cousins.  They're at the stage where they've been walking for only about a month, so they've been busy stumbling around my house and just being overly cute at all hours of the day, so as a result, I've gotten a little sidetracked from my usual posting. Nevertheless, I have not forgotten about the blog, so I have a short and sweet little recipe to share with you that's perfect for these 90-degree days we've been having.  

Frozen Hot Chocolate with Baileys

I'm officially on spring break!  Woo!  Finally!  Time to relax and take it easy right?  NOPE.  I wish that were the case.  I have so much planned for this break, it's kinda crazy.  I didn't go away anywhere, but I am home for a few days, meaning that I have lots of baking projects planned out (they are perfectly organized on a sticky note and a massive last minute ingredient shopping list has been made) and I'm really excited to tackle that list. Aside from my ambitious baking plans, I also need to get a decent amount of work done for my independent research project and my portfolio, the deadline for which, is rapidly approaching. Oh boy...

Regardless of how much I am somehow supposed to get accomplished for school during spring break, I'm definitely most excited for the baking part of my days off.  I have such great things planned, and the three other recipes I've managed to prepare and photograph in the day I've been home...let's just say I'm very excited to get to share them with you in the coming days!  But first things first.  This frozen hot chocolate with Baileys is something you should definitely make soon, especially since St. Patrick's day is coming up this weekend!  The recipe was inspired by David Lebovitz's recreation of Serendipity's Frrrozen Hot Chocolate, which is seriously one of the best frozen drink creations I've ever had.  If you haven't had a chance to stop by Serendipity 3 yet, you should definitely put it as a destination point on your list of things to do in NYC!  It might be a little cliche and overdone, but I love it, almost as much as I loved this version of their frozen hot chocolate. 

Hot Chocolate Affogato with Peppermint Ice Cream

Christmas is without a doubt my favorite time of year.  Thanksgiving is a close second, but no amount of stuffing or cranberry sauce can compare to the amount of enjoyment I get out of spending hours baking cookies, wrapping presents, putting up lights on my Christmas tree, and stressing over finding the perfect gift for every person on my list (I actually enjoy this kind of stress, somehow).  There's another kind of stress around this time of year though, one that I enjoy much, much less.  Sigh.  Yup, it's finals time.  

I got pretty lucky with finals this year though.  I only have one exam, and two final projects to work on.  My exam isn't until next Tuesday, and one of my projects is due later on tonight, so it's not too bad.  I definitely need to put in a lot of time to study for the exam, and my other project (not the one that's due tonight), is actually something that I'm really looking forward to working on.  I'm in a small seminar called, "Curating Architecture," and as part of the class, we get to work together to write articles organized around a central theme (this year, the theme is "public"), and then create a publication and an exhibition that stem off of our articles.  I'm one of the three people in charge of creating the publication layout and developing its graphic identity, and I'm secretly very excited to work on it.  Creating the mock layouts was really surprisingly fun, and I'm excited to see how the publication will look once it's finished!  But ANYWAY...

Regardless of how many things I need to do during these last 6 days or so at school, I will find the time to enjoy lots of holiday treats and traditions.  I went to Rockefeller Center last weekend (one of my favorite things to do), and am planning on baking up some holiday cookies to share with my friends and co-workers.  Holiday drinks are of course to be included in the next couple of days.  I've already had lots of hot apple cider, tried eggnog for the first time ever (and probably last time, it was just wayyy more sweet than I could handle), and had a few mugs of hot chocolate.  There's one more seasonal beverage that I'm sure I will make again to enjoy very soon though...hot chocolate affogato with peppermint ice cream.  

Woah.

Piña Colada Milkshake

The weather is finally starting to cool down, and it feels like fall is just around the corner (it technically already is, but now it actually feels like it).  With only a week left until the change of season becomes completely official, I've gotta say that I'm super excited.  Fall is without a doubt my favorite season, and fall in New York is just amazing.  Gotta love the changing colors of all the leaves!  

That's not to say that I don't love summer too, or any of the other seasons.  Fall just happens to be the best one I think.  However, with only a week of summer left, I figured it was necessary to make one last summer-related post, and a milkshake was definitely the way to go.  Now that my schedule is a little busier since classes are picking up, milkshakes are the perfect way to enjoy something special without having to invest a lot of time into making it.  Not to mention that I just love milkshakes in general, so really, I think any time is perfect for a milkshake!

Spumoni Milkshake

If you've ever been to New York, or had an encounter with a New Yorker, you know that there is a serious distinction between New York (as in "the City") and everywhere else, as in Long Island, or upstate New York. There's also a distinction to be made between the different boroughs of New York City, with some people going as far as claiming that only Manhattan is actually "the City," because heaven forbid you refer to Queens or the Bronx as "the City."  That's just blasphemy.  I don't buy into all that though.  I've had the privilege of living in Queens (although this doesn't really count; I was only 8 years old when we moved, so I didn't really do much living back then, as the extent of my solo adventures consisted of traveling to the corner store to buy a newspaper for my dad), Long Island, and most recently, Manhattan.  I've gotten to know both Long Island and Manhattan pretty well, and I actually think that each has their good components.

Avocado-Banana Smoothie

It's almost June...gahhh, how quickly time flies!  I feel like I've been home for only a couple of days, when in reality I've been at home for several weeks, which is completely crazy.  It's so hard to believe that I'll be at work at this time next week.  As excited as I am for it, I still just want to be at home in my lazy summer mode.  But alas, life is just not like that.  Going to work is just something we have to do!  It probably won't be that bad. The one thing I noticed about working everyday last summer was that it made the days go by super quickly, which was great because before you knew it, the weekend had already arrived and I was back in my summer mode, baking in the mornings and photographing in the afternoons.  Working everyday during the week ended up being a good thing, as it forced me to become organized and use my time in as productive a manner as possible.  I'm not gonna lie, but I am really looking forward to having this sense of structure once again.  

In any case though, I am going to make sure that I take full advantage of the few precious days that remain of pure summer laziness.  One of my favorite ways of doing this is by making smoothies.  With the abundance of fresh fruit that's available at this time of year, I find myself craving fruit in every shape and form, but smoothies almost always seem to win.  Sure, pies and tarts and muffins are great, but there's just something about a refreshing smoothie that just can't be beat.  It's nice to have fruit still in their raw form, unaffected by added sugar or heat.  This avocado-banana smoothie is one of my favorites.  Avocados are one of my favorite fruits (yes, they're fruits!), because they instantly give anything they're combined with beautiful color and a lovely creamy texture.  Combining them with a banana, orange juice, and some yogurt yields a perfect summer-y smoothie.

Cupcake Milkshake

Hello again!  It feels like it's been forever since I've posted something here, even though it's only been slightly over a week since I last brought you all a recipe.  In any case, this past week my life was completely consumed by studio, where I spent way too many hours to count making digital models, and working on Illustrator and Photoshop to create my final presentation boards.  My final review was yesterday, and after legitimately not sleeping for nearly a week, let's just say I attempted to make up for it yesterday, by passing out on my bed at 2:30 pm and sleeping without interruption until 9 am this morning...is it bad that I'm still a little tired?  To say the least, I got a bit flustered when I had to open up Photoshop today to look over my photos for this post (ughhh Photoshop AGAIN?! NO!!!), but then my mood changed completely after seeing the photos I had opened up. 

Cupcake milkshakes!!! What a relief it was to see something not-architecture related, and instead see something pretty and colorful, and full of sprinkles!  I could feel myself getting all happy and in just a better mood overall.  I made these milkshakes a couple weeks ago in advance, because I knew that right about now I'd be swimming in the amount work that I'd have to do and such, so looking back at the photos I took for this post made me really want a cupcake milkshake!

Hot Chocolate

It seems like the weather in New York is finally beginning to get back to normal.  It's been so unseasonably warm!  Don't get me wrong, I love 60 degree weather, I really do, but there's definitely something nice about just getting to put on tons of layers and bundle up before having to brave the cold weather that's right outside.  We're not quite there yet, but the forecast shows the temperature is starting to drop, and I can't wait for it.  Really, I can't. That's why I made hot chocolate. 

Watermelon Limeade

I really love having fresh fruit drinks in the summer; my mom always makes fresh juice everyday during the summer months, with whatever fruit we have at home, whether it’s pineapple, mango, or strawberries, to name a few. With all the abundance of fresh produce, it would be ridiculous to not enjoy a glass of freshly made juice or lemonade…it would also be ridiculous not to enjoy both at the same time…

Strawberry Lassi

The end of last week was brutal and unbearable.  It was driving me crazy.

I’m referring to the absolutely ridiculous heat wave that struck New York on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.  Temperatures rose to well over 100°F, and the humidity in the air only made things feel even worse.  I dread when the temperature goes past 85°F, so this was just madness.  Friday was by far the worst day of the three; all the weather stations said the temperature reached 111°F, and for once, I believed the weatherman!  It certainly felt that hot.  The ten minutes that I spent outside on Friday afternoon to buy something for lunch were probably some of the worst ten minutes of my life.