Finally! The Boards and the Bar are over, and the lazy days of summer are here at last.

No tests; no studying. Just popsicles and air conditioning and sleeping late. These are my last weeks before I begin my life as a real working person, and I am intent to do nothing with them.

But enough about my leisure. We made popsicles.

Alex gifted me these beautiful star-shaped molds for my birthday and April, and we’d been meaning to fill them for months. I’m glad that this was our innaugural recipe, however, as these peanut butter yogurt pops from Serious Eats are amazing! They’re super peanut buttery, and with lowfat yogurt and soymilk, practically healthy! They took all of 5 minutes (plus freezing time) to prep, and made a great summer dessert to share with friends.

Ingredients (makes 6-8 popsicles):
2 cups lowfat vanilla yogurt
1 cup milk or soymilk (we used soymilk)
1 1/4 cups smooth peanut butter
1/4 cup honey
1 banana (optional)

Instructions:
Blend ingredients together in a blender. Pour into popsicle molds and freeze overnight.

We made the mistake last week of using the oven, and since then dinners have been strictly no-cook. Too hot.

This was refreshing and required merely boiling water and chopping somethings up. I put mine over rice noodles; Alex opted for lettuce wraps.

Would do again. Yum yum.

Ingredients:
1/2 lb. medium cooked shrimp
1/4 cup red onion
juice of 2 limes
1/3 cup chopped cilantro
1 large mango, chopped
1 cucumber, peeled and chopped
1 jalapeno, chopped
salt and pepper to taste
rice noodles or romaine leaves

Instructions:
Toss ingredients (minus noodles/leaves) together in a large bowl. You can chill if you like. Serve with noodles or romaine leaves.

The most wonderful thing happened this week.

On Wednesday, we received an email from our dear friend Eugene sending us a video link, and instructing us not to open it until we received “a small package in the hands of the united states postal service, en route from palo alto to manhattan.” We were so excited! We checked our mail approx 5x per day both Wednesday and Thursday, and speculated anxiously about what our mystery package might contain.

Today, our package arrived, and lo and behold, it is the most beautiful work of handicraft we have ever seen! Our dearest brilliant and talented Eugene MADE us this gorgeous sign with his own robo-laser hands! It’s simple and stunning and looks fabulous atop our chalkboard menu–we love it so much.

As if that were not enough, we should mention that the tfa logo matches the logo on our new beer labels (photos to accompany the next brew), which Euguene ALSO designed! Not even 1,000 E’s cookies could repay our debt to him, and they are our higest valued currency.

Oh, and remember the video mentioned above? Here it is:

Strawberry-kiwi is a flavor I associate with Lipsmackers and Snapple–not salmon. But summer is for salsas and we are equal-opportunity salsa enthusiasts, so we gave this recipe from Whole Foods a shot.

This may be a testament to how boring it’s been around here, but it was actually exciting to make this recipe because it differs from the ho-hum mango/pineapple salsa usually abounds this time of year, and we weren’t sure how it would turn out (great!). That’s not to knock mango salsa, which we love (see intro to The Frugal Foodie Cookbook, in which I describe the first meal Alex cooked for me), but rather is to say that it’s a treat to taste something new every now and then. It’s the little things that keep us going in the doldrums of studying (2 weeks to the Bards–the Bar/Boards).

We tweaked the original version a bit by throwing in scallions and upping the cucumber ratio, which I would definitely do again. For a recipe so low in calories (we were skeptical when it called not for oil), this was full of flavor and well worth the 20 or so minutes it took to prepare.

Ingredients (serves 2):
2 salmon fillets
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1/2 lb. strawberries, diced
1 kiwi, diced
1 cucumber, diced
1 jalapeno, seeded and minced
1 tbsp fresh mint leaves, chopped
2 scallions, sliced
Juice of 1/2 lemon
1 lb. baby spinach leaves, wilted

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350. Place salmon on a baking sheet and sprinkle with lemon zest. Bake 15-18 minutes, or until cooked through. Meanwhile, stir together strawberries, kiwi, cucumber, jalapeno, mint, juice of 1/2 the lemon, and scallions. Divide spinach among plates, and top with salmon and salsa.

The crust would be too thick and the sauce too heavy, and we cooked it on baking sheets. Yuck. But in our minds, we were like, “this pizza is homemade, it’s supposed to be like this.”

Again, wrong, wrong, wrong. Now, our pizza had better be at least restaurant quality or … I don’t know what. Probably we would get cranky. But the truth is that it wasn’t really our fault that we were making iffy pizza. We didn’t have the proper tools. With a fabulous All-Clad pizza stone and Williams Sonoma peel, we have no excuse–and no need for excuses.

I still prefer homemade white pizza to homemade red pizza unless the sauce is homemade as well (store bought can’t compare). Adding sliced tomatoes as a topping is a great way to keep the pizza flavor, even with a white pie. We also like arugula for color and bitterness, which the ricotta balances out.

Scoff to our former selves for calling what we used to eat pizza. We had no idea how good it could get.

Ingredients:
1 small ball of pizza dough
1/2 cup ricotta cheese
1/2 cup Mozarella cheese, sliced
1 handful arugula
1 tomato, sliced
1 handful of basil, chopped
olive oil
salt and pepper

Instructions:
Preheat your oven with your pizza stone to 500. Roll out your dough, and drizzle a little olive oil over it. Top with cheese, tomato, and arugula, then sprinkle with salt and pepper. Bake for about 10 minutes, then remove and sprinkle basil over the pie, and if you feel like it, some crushed red pepper.

It will come as no surprise to friends and readers that Alex won’t stand for a food rut of any variety–especially one dealing with involving his top two meals of the day. So on Sunday we mixed it up with a batch of home fries, served alongside delicious ricotta scrambled eggs for visiting friends. For a first attempt at home fries, I think we nailed it! We managed to get the potatoes crispy on the outsides and soft on the insides, and Alex’s legendary caramelized onions were beyond par.

We used 3 huge potatoes for 5 people–that’s a lot of home fries. And yet after brunch, not one fry remained.

Ingredients (serves 4-6):
3 potatoes, cut into small cubes
3 onions, sliced thinly
3 tablespoons butter, divided
1 teaspoon Goya Adobo seasoning
salt and pepper

Instructions:
In a large bowl, microwave potatoes and 1 tablespoon of butter for 5-8 minutes, covered, until they begin to get soft. Meanwhile, melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a frying pan over low heat. Add onions and caramelize slowly, for about 20 minutes (you can add a spash of water if they begin to burn). In a separate non-stick or cast iron pan, melt the last 1 tablespoon of butter. Add the potatoes, and let them cook for about 3 minutes until beginning to crisp, then stir/flip, and let them cook for another 3 minutes on the other side. Flip one more time, and let potatoes cook for another 3-4 minutes until golden. Add caramelized onions, and season with Adobo, salt and pepper.

There’s nothing more fun than eating lunch with Alex at home on the weekends because he has the most incredible ability to turn the random ingredients in our pantry and fridge into the best lunches of my life (no joke–my LIFE).

He gets really into it and forages like a madman before landing on a concept and running with it. I always think he won’t be able to pull it off, and I’m always completely floored by his delicious creations. Because he’s tasked with using only what’s in the house, ingredients that I would never think to pair come together in a quirky and delightful way. And just in case you were wondering, his genius is not lost on himself–this is an exact quote: “From 1985 to 1992 I was the Prince of Lunch, and then I became the King of Lunch.” You can tell he was a well-loved child.

Maybe it’s been too long since my last tuna melt, but I could not believe how good this tasted. The capers, dill and scallions gave the tuna plenty of flavor, and the texture combination was pure heaven–soft, crunchy, and gooey rolled into one phenomenal, melt-in-your-mouth melt. Mmmmm.

Ingredients (serves 2):
2 whole wheat English muffins
1 can tuna fish
1 tablespoon mayonnaise
juice of 1/2 lemon
1 tablespoon dill, chopped
1 tsp capers
1 scallion, thinly sliced
1 roma tomato, thinly sliced
4 slices cheddar or pepper jack (or both) cheese

Instructions:
Toast English muffins until lightly brown. While they are toasting, mix together tuna, mayo, lemon, dill, capers and scallions. Layer English muffins with tomato slices, then scoops of tuna, then cheese. Broil in the toaster until cheese is melted.

I even started scrolling through some of our older posts, and so many wonderful food memories came flooding back! For starters, I nearly forgot about Gourmet Club (in which each Sunday night, our friends from our college newspaper took turns cooking for the group), my yearlong obsession with baking muffins, and these–the best peanut butter cups of my life! My trip to memoriesville also made me realize how much the blog has actually improved over four years–in recipes, photography, and hopefully writing. To demonstrate, here’s a little TFA: Now and Then.

Then: Leftovers, Now: How to Build the Ultimate Fridge Wrap (Oof. Leftovers are never appetizing.)

Then: Guacamole, Now: Super Guacamole (Same recipe, but photos are 10x better in the 2011 version.)

Then: Smoothies, Now: Homebrew (We came of age.)

Then: Dear Two Fat Als, Now: Seashell Napkin Rings (On second thought, we should get Dear TFA back up again…)

Then: Tofu Mousse, Now: Mocha Chocolate Cake (Tofu mousse was just disgusting. Probably the worst thing we ever made.)

See? We’ve come … some distance. That is or is not to say that we were completely inept then, and are only mildly less inept now.

One of my all-time favorite posts of yore is a delicious chilled soba salad with photos that rival anything we’ve posted more recently. My love for soba is no secret, and making it at home is almost as much of a treat as going out for it. Today’s recipe is pretty different from the one we posted way back when, but just as delightful. It’s a modified version of one found on the Perfect Pantry, and we loved the combination of the tangy sauce and soft noodles with all of the crunchy toppings. Mark it with the recipes that we won’t be embarassed to read four years in the future.

Ingredients (serves 2):
6 oz. cooked soba noodles
1/2 green pepper, chopped
1/2 cucumber, chopped
3 scallions, chopped
1 block of tofu, pressed and sliced about 1/3 inch thick
2 tablespoonds ponzu sauce
2 tablespoons soy sauce
1 teaspoon honey
Juice of 1 lime
sesame seeds

Instructions:
Cook soba noodles according to package instructions. While they are cooking, season tofu slices with salt and pepper. Drizzle a griddle with a touch of olive oil, add tofu and press down on tofu gently with a spatula. Cook tofu for about 4 minutes per side until golden, then set aside to cool. Once cool, cut into 1/2-inch squares. Whisk together ponzu, soy sauce, honey, and lime. Pour dressing over soba noodles and toss gently. Divide soba among bowls, and top with peppers, cucumbers, scallions and tofu.

Our foreign-ness was obvious, and being New Yorkers now, we had to start talking about the city and how amazing it is and how eeeeveryone should visit. When asked specifically what we like about living in New York, Alex and I launched into our usual “it has the BEST food” schpiel, which involves listing every dish we can think of and concluding that New York has the best version of it.

It goes a little something like this:
Alex: And if you want a sandwich, you can find the BEST sandwich in the world.
Me: The BEST. And you can find the BEST ramen!
Alex: Oh yea, the ramen is the BEST.
Me: The coffee is the BEST you’ve ever tasted.
Alex: The BEST.

And so on ad nauseum until we convince whomever we are speaking to that New Yorkers are the BEST at being obnoxious and therefore they should definitely not visit.

But it’s true. We rarely go out to eat without loving our dishes. Just a few days ago, I think I had the BEST soba of my life at Cocoron, a 15-seater down on Delancey.

Now, all that said, some of our greatest food experiences in the city have involved just hanging out in our apartment with friends, snacking and having some brews (lately, Sixpoint cans are Alex’s beverage of choice). For such evenings, these crackers are a great food to put out. They’ll impress your friends who don’t know that crackers are extremely easy to make, and they’ll go great with any dip. We served them last Saturday with this edamame hummus from the Food Network.  We love our city, but nights at home with wonderful people are truly the best.

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon chopped rosemary plus 2 (6-inch) sprigs
1 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup olive oil plus more for brushing
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
sea salt

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 450 and preheat baking sheet or pizza stone. Combine flour, rosemary, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Create a well, then pour in water and olive oil, stirring to combine. Divide dough into three balls, and roll one ball out thinly (on parchment if using a baking sheet). Place dough on baking sheet or pizza stone. Brush with olive oil and sprinkle with some Parmesan cheese and sea salt. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, until golden brown. Repeat with other dough balls. Let each cracker cool on a cooling rack, then break into large pieces then serve.