creamy tomato basil pasta

sometimes, all i want for dinner is a bowl of pasta, dressed ever so simply with fresh tomatoes, garlic, and basil. it's one of my all time favorite dinners, both because it's packed with flavor and takes a mere 15 to 20 minutes from start to finish. and with summer approaching and the promise of fresh, homegrown tomatoes and basil, i can't wait to dig into this all summer long.

honey nut popcorn

while i have professed my new found love of coconut many, many, many times in the last few months, i have yet to profess my love of popcorn. see, before i discovered coconut, i was making popcorn four or five nights a week. i air popped a few cups, tossed it in butter and salt, and that became my evening snack. and as much as i love classic popcorn - when i was a kid, we ate popcorn for dinner a lot on sundays, after our roast earlier in the afternoon - after a couple weeks i was getting ever so slightly bored with it. i love caramel corn, but after many failed attempts and only a few true successes, i wasn't in the mood to mess around with it. besides, i didn't want anything that took more concentration than tossing some popcorn with butter and salt.

until i stumbled upon this honey nut popcorn. it's slightly sweet from the corn syrup and perfectly peanut buttery. and while it does require dirtying one pan on the stove, there are no thermometers involved, so i was able to watch an old grey's anatomy while mixing this up. and since i made such a large batch, i was able to snack on it all week!

slow cooker honey lemon chicken

even though it's may, and summer is starting to rear it's head with highs in the mid-eighties, my slow cooker is still going strong. and since it's may, my rosemary and thyme are also growing full speed ahead. so this time, i decided to couple two of my - and jason's - favorite things: lemon and fresh herbs with chicken.

it's the perfect way to usher in spring, especially if it happens to be raining on any eighty degree days or there's a break in the temperature and you're staring at a week's worth of highs in the upper sixties.

and sandwiches with the leftovers are amazing.

quinoa cakes

i had gotten pretty used to eating meatless meals about twice a week and looked forward to finding new foods and recipes we could have for dinner that would leave us feeling full without the meat. except for the last seven and a half months, when i've been busy growing a person - a person who needs a lot of protein. luckily quinoa is both meatless and a complete protein, making these cakes a perfect meatless meal.

coconut banana bread

it's no surprise that i've been eating a heck of a lot of coconut for the last few months. and that my preferred form of coconut is found in baked sweets - dredged donuts, nanaimo bars, coconut lime scones, homemade samoa cookies i devoured last week and haven't gotten to post yet - and this banana bread, made even sweeter and a bit more tropical with the addition of shredded sweetened coconut.