Styled by Jess

Homemade Butter

Do you know just how easy it is to make your own butter? EASY! You don’t even need one of those old fashioned butter churners or live on a farm. I got my husband this butter kit for Christmas, thinking it would be involved and it is actually really simple. We have been making our own butter for a few months now.

All you need is heavy cream, a jar with a lid, and salt if you want salted butter.

Poor the cream into the jar and screw the lid on verrrrry tightly. *Important – make sure your cream is room temperature! It’s very hard to make cold cream into butter.

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Then shake. And shake. And shake some more! You want to shake until the milk fat has come together, you will hear the cream sound less liquid-y and come together as a solid. This process of shaking will take between 10 and 20 minutes.

Once you hear the solid, open your jar and pour off the liquid. The liquid is buttermilk so save it and make biscuits or pancakes with it.

Put the milk solid into a bowl and pour very cold water over it and massage the butter to help get the rest of the buttermilk out.

Once you feel as much of the buttermilk is squeezed out as you can get, put it into a tupperware container (or something similar) and add 1/2 tsp of salt and fold it in. *Note, at this point you could also fold in other herbs or seasonings to make a flavored butter. Cinnamon sugar, herbs de Provence…

Chill the butter overnight and serve on toast, corn on the cob, whatever you like to put butter on. Enjoy your fresh butter!

Banana Republic Milly Collection

There have been so many designer collaborations over the past few years and it’s become such a regular occurrence that it’s hard to get excited for them all. Well here’s one that I have been waiting for since the announcement back in January – the new Banana Republic Milly collection in stores and online May 30th. The limited-edition capsule collection features designs which embody sophistication of the Hamptons for both men and women.

The lines will offer more than 60 pieces of men’s and women apparel and accessories. Milly’s women’s design will include maxi dresses, mini skirts, and shorts with a variety of fabulous colors and styles.

The menswear serves up striped and patterned separates including bright polos, woven tees and shorts.

“I’ve always been a fan of Banana Republic, and when I met Simon we had an immediate and lasting connection,” says Michelle Smith, Founder and Designer, Milly by Michelle Smith. “This was my first experience designing menswear, which was a cinch with Simon’s expertise. It’s a very positive, happy collection and I think the colors and patterns really capture the modern spirit of summer.” The collection will also have jewelry and accessories. Can’t wait!!

Asian Salad with Salmon

With all the heavy French food we had since our croissant date and coq au vin dinner we HAD to switch to lighter fare last week. One of the meals we made was this deliciously light and fresh Asian Salad with Salmon, we adapted the meal from a Martha Stewart recipe. This meal was great and we can’t wait to make it again this summer when the cabbage is fresh and plentiful in our CSA.

Cut your cabbage into thin strips, you can even shred it if you wish. We used purple cabbage and regular green cabbage.

Whisk your dressing ingredients – rice vinegar, sesame oil, honey, and s&p.

Drizzle over your cabbage, shredded carrot, and diced onion.

In the meantime, grill your salmon – the unseasoned little piece was Z’s.

Serve the salmon over the salad, the heat of the salmon will wilt the salad a bit and make it extra yummy. Enjoy!

Couple Things…

What a week. I don’t have much else to say about what happened here in Boston earlier this week other than we are traumatized, praying for those affected and all the while trying to look on the bright side. We tried to maintain normalcy in our house all week for our Little Z even though we were riveted by the news and updates as they came in. This article helped a lot, I suggest you read!

Here are some fun moments that happened around here this week:

We continued our French Food Week and made coq au vin for dinner Sunday night. It was delicious – we used this recipe.

Our Z LOVES the swim lessons she started recently, here’s a cute shot as she was getting out of the pool. This is a Daddy/daughter activity but I went this week to take some photos and video.

I also took Z to get her 18 month portraits taken even though she’s not quite 18 months yet (2 weeks!). We managed to get some really great shots, it’s so hard to choose which ones to buy!!

We went out to dinner and had these awesome calamari fries – so good! I also met some friends for dinner on Wednesday when over 50 restaurants in the Boston area contributed 10-50% of their sales to the victims of the Marathon Monday attack. We had a great night and I didn’t get any good photos to share with you…perhaps because we seemed to polish off 2 pitchers of sangria? Anyways…

Have a great weekend, here are some links for you!

This little printer is so stinkin cute.

Underwater spinning, this is so cool.

A day in the life of J. Crew’s Jenna Lyons.

John Hamm and Elmo.

A new DVF for GAPKids line launches April 25th, can’t wait! Here’s a cute video to preview the pieces.

The One Fund

So many have been asking how they can help those affected most by the Boston Marathon tragedy. On Tuesday, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and Boston Mayor Tom Menino announced the formation of The One Fund Boston, Inc. to raise money to support the victims of the attack.

What to Wear – Earth Day

Since Earth Day is next Monday, April 22nd, I thought I’d put an outfit together that is environmentally green – whether the items are made from recycled material and/or made in a green certified factory. It’s not an easy feat, even in these times, to know you’re buying something that hasn’t hurt the environment – but the options are out there if you just dig a little deeper. And you can clearly still look great while saving the Earth.

1. Adorable striped cashmere sweater from Chinti and Parker, a clothing company created by 2 cousins with the mission to create beautiful, ethically made garments that value style on par with substance.

2. Ultra Tee – Made of 100% Tencel Lyocell Fine Jersey, it is produced exclusively from the wood pulp of Eucalyptus making it one of the most environmentally friendly man-made cellulosic fibers.

3. Large wood bangle bracelet from Green Diva Jewelry. Only a few of these bangles can be produced each year as they are handcrafted using palm wood from South America only after it has naturally and sustainably fallen to the ground, rather than being harvested.

4. Jessica Alba’s new book The Honest Life: Living Naturally and True to You where she writes about her personal journey of discovery and reveals her tips for making healthy living fun, real, and stylish, while offering a candid look inside her home and daily life.

5. Hot pink skinny jeans from R.E.U.S.E. where jeans are made from 80% recycled cotton.

6. FB for VPL Clutch in pistachio (my favorite spring color) by Fleabags, a company that strives to create products that are as green as possible while maintaining high quality and covetable design.

7. TOMS sustainable wedges in Oahu – not only are these shoes made with sustainable material ( they are made with materials that contain recycled natural fiber and/or organically grown components, and are grown or manufactured using processes that minimize negative impact on the environment) but you’re also supporting TOMS’ one to one program where a child will receive a pair of shoes when you purchase yours.

HAVE A HAPPY (AND STYLISH) EARTH DAY!

Boston – You’re My Home

I can’t believe everything happening in my city right now. It’s scary, frightening, and terrifying all at once. But the biggest takeaway as I watched the news, read through Facebook updates, and my twitter feed is that as much fear as an event like this brings it also brings a huge sense of community, brother and sisterhood, and hometown pride. I think I’ll focus on that.

Asparagus Couscous

As always, we are looking for seasonable side dishes to serve for dinner. Since our CSA doesn’t start for a couple more months, we thought for spring we’d eat a lot of asparagus and peas. Well, adapted from this Martha Stewart recipe I saw on Pinterest, we made this very simple (and quick!) Asparagus Couscous. We used chicken stock and a few squeezes of lime juice instead of just water for more flavor.

Cut your asparagus into 1-inch pieces and boil in 2C chicken stock for 2 or 3 minutes.

Add zest and juice of half a lime. Add 1C couscous, cover, and let sit for 5 minutes.

Uncover, season with s&p, and fluff with a fork.

Serve and enjoy (we served with herbed salmon)!

Croissant-Making Class Date Night!

Last week, my husband and I went on a little mid-week date. Instead of our usual date of trying a new restaurant or catching a movie…we went to a class at our local Community Education program on how to make croissants! Who doesn’t love a croissant – flaky, buttery…delicious. We especially fell hard for this pastry on our honeymoon in France where we did so much biking it didn’t matter if we started each day with pan au chocolat. So what better way to spend a date than learning how to make them ourselves! In all honesty, we did not become french pastry experts at this 2-hour class held at the local high school’s basement kitchen (shocker) but we sure did have fun, which is always the point of a date, right? Here’s how our night went:

It was daylight when we arrived.

Here’s the kitchen – one of the stoves (and spell-check) didn’t seem to be working.

We made our dough.

We rolled it out and incorporated one flattened stick of butter into it with a series of folding and rolling.

Did you know once you’re done folding, rolling (and repeating many times) you end up with 72 layers in a croissant?!

Since the entire process of making the dough, letting it rise, chilling it, rolling it, folding it, repeat! takes about 7 hours start to finish, the teacher brought some croissants she had made beforehand for us to bake and enjoy.

We took our uncooked croissants home with us for one last chill in the fridge overnight and then baked in the morning for fresh croissants for breakfast!

Couple Things…

Hope your week was good! As you may have noticed my site was down for a few days, so frustrating. I had a little trouble with my website hosting service but we’re all good now. We got to spend so much time outside this week which was great. Our Z is just big enough now to enjoy the playground! Well, it’s a mini playground with a mini slide and a mini table and chairs but she LOVES it and I LOVE taking her, she squeals in delight as we drive up – what’s cuter than that? Here is a photo recap of our week:

She found the Swiffer!

My husband and I had a date night this week and attended a class on how to make croissants. We came home with croissants AND dough to make many more… more on this on Monday’s post!

We went out to dinner and Z’s meal came with a Hoodsie – her first Hoodsie, I think we were more excited than she was. She wouldn’t eat it, she just picked at it with the little wooden spoon thing. I’ll have to tell her someday that she refused to eat sweets at this age…I’m not complaining and am sure it won’t last long!

It was finally warm enough around here to wear sandals earlier this week!

Maxine made her way to her favorite hiding/nap spot in our bedroom. I was in the room for about 10 minutes until I knew she was there! We have a bell around her neck for a reason, she’s sneaky that Maxine…

Here are a few fun links – have a great weekend!!

Hunger Games will be filming in Boston this fall!

A little photo tour of Kate and Andy Spade’s Southampton home.

How to find a 25th hour in your day!

Here’s Gwyneth looking fabulous and fashionable on her book tour.

Just a little PSA about skin cancer – get your moles checked!!

And I’ll end with this little prank aimed at all of us who love to Instagram pics of our food, ha! I love when he brings in his lighting guy.