Cookbooks to Gift
Gluten Free S'mores Board
HAPPY BACHELORETTE MONDAY FRIENDS. This week I had a sweet tooth so another s’mores board it was! These are so easy to put together and you can do them inside no problem! We’ve done this a couple of times in the past for a summer party, another bachelor night and then a movie night for Cruella… BTW, have you seen that movie?! It is BEYOND good! All you need is some chocolate, s’mores stuff and a little flame! But I will put exactly what we used below so you know what to get and/or can get some ideas!
This week is obviously a S’mores Board and next week will be a Charcuterie for Three board. Later on I have a Mediterranean Charcuterie board planned and a Popcorn Bar coming your way as well! That’s about all fluff I have for you so here is what you will need! Lol
Here’s what you will need:
Jumbo Marshmallows
Hershey’s Chocolate Bars
Nutella
Peanut Butter to drizzle
What are your thoughts so far on this season? I actually really like it and think that she was a good pick. I was defiantly hesitant at first, but I am glad she is the bachelorette! I am also excited for Michelle’s season, she was my first pick! I want to know your thoughts and opinions on the guys as well. I am a big fan of Michael A! Let me know in the comments below or you can send me an email at tarynintotravel@gmail.com!
Small Summery Charcuterie Board
If you have been here for awhile then you know about two years ago I started doing charcuterie boards for Bachelor/Bachelorette viewing parties that I went to with my friends. Fast forward through a pandemic and a move to Orlando, I am finally back to doing them and I am so excited! I mentioned on Instagram a week or so ago that I felt like I was back on my game with creating and making fun recipes, appetizers and fun drinks. This is one of the ways that I can share those things with you guys! This week is a Small Summery Charcuterie Board and next week will be a Gluten Free S’mores Board. Later on I have a Mediterranean Charcuterie board planned and a Popcorn Bar coming your way as well! Also keep in mind that these blog posts are fairly short because I can only tell you so many things about the meats and cheeses on the board lol.
Here’s what you will need:
Vintage Irish Cheddar Cheese {always}
Double Creme Brie
Black Pepper Bellavitano
Extra Sharp Cheddar Cheese
Honey Goat Cheese
Le Gruyere
Bite Size Dry Salami
Prosciutto Italiano
Pepper Salami
Hot Calabrese
Balckberries
Basil for garnish
I guess I am also curious.. are you watching The Bachelorette? Have you before? I started watching Coltons season and never looked back lol. I think as long as seasons are coming out I will be making snacks and watching! What looks the like yummiest thing on this board? Let me know in the comments below or you can send me an email at tarynintotravel@gmail.com!
Gluten Free at Epcot's Food and Wine Festival
So let me start this blog post off by saying that there reallllly weren’t a whole lot of options for us gluten-free people. But this was my first time ever going and it might have been because of the pandemic. I think I tried about 8 food items and then like 4 drinks!
It was nice because everything food-wise was labeled on the menu boards. So I wasn’t having to ask every time I wanted to try something. I appreciate that they added that. They also had things marked for vegetarians I believe! I am going to list the food items in order of my favorite to my least favorite! I will also put which stand they were at next to the food!
Crispy Citrus Chicken with Orange Aïoli and Baby Greens $5.75 {Citrus Blossom}
This was amazing and I kept saying to my mom that it tasted so good it felt like it wasn’t GF.. obviously it was but if you’re gluten-free then you know when you are eating something so good it tastes wrong. Lol 10/10 recommend this!
Lobster Tail with Meyer Lemon Emulsion and Grilled Lemon $8.25 {Citrus Blossom}
Another really great dish! It was a smaller little snack but it was good nonetheless. It was a delicious lemony lobster bite!
Wild Mushroom Beef Filet Mignon with Truffle-Butter Sauce {Canada}
I was really surprised by this one! It was great and was actually a pretty good size for the price! It was served over this really yummy mushroom sauce! The only downside was using a plastic knife. Lol But we were standing at a table anyway so it really wasn’t a big deal.
Chocolate Pudding Terrarium with Avocado Cream, Matcha Crumble, and Baby Herbs {Earth Eats}
I was SHOCKED that I liked this. This was the first thing that I tried this day and omg it was good. There were so many intimidating things that it said it had in it but I tried it anyway and I am so glad that I did. The avocado cream pudding situation was so creamy and delicious. The matcha crumbles..who knew that was going to taste good?! NOT ME. But it was so yummy! And then the herbs were just like decretive little flowers that we didn’t eat.
Crispy Pork Belly with Black Beans, Tomato and Onions $6.00 {Brazil}
This was just sort of meh. The black beans and the pork belly really didn’t make sense together to me but hey, who am I? Maybe it is and I just don’t know! They tasted good separately but I didn’t eat them together in one bite… now I feel like I missed out on something lol
Brazilian Cheese Bread $4.50 {Brazil}
This was okay but nothing special. If you have bought the Brazi bread from the grocery store it pretty much just tasted like that! They were a bit bigger than Brazi bites but still tasted the same.
Now for the drinks…
Bloomin’ Blueberry Lemon and Ginger Tea featuring Twinings of London® with Tito’s Handmade Vodka served in a Mason Jar $15.50 {Earth Eats}
This was absolutely delicious. We convinced the people next to us that they needed it and I would love to figure out how to make it at home. It was very tasty and it came in a cute mason jar. Note to self: don’t put the cup in the dishwasher because it will become deformed and you will have to throw it out.
La Vie en Rose Frozen Slushy $11.75 {France}
I really liked this! It was a great size and was really yummy! It wasn’t anything crazy special but it was tasty and I would order it for myself again for sure.
Orange Sunshine Wine Slushy $6.75 {Citrus Blossom}
It was tasty but it didn’t actually seem like there was any alcohol in it. It kind of tasted like an orange creamsicle! Plus it was VERRRY small.
Byejoe Punch: Chinese Bai Jiu Spirit, Lychee, Coconut and Pineapple Juice $11.00 {China}
It was okay. it had a really strong coconut flavor which was nice but then there was a punch of something not so great right after that coconut flavor and I ended up only drinking like half of it!
3 Daughters Raspberry Lemonade Dry Hard Cider $4.50 {Appleseed Orchard}
Puke. Gross. Worst Cider I have ever tried. I’m usually not this dramatic but I literally threw it away after two sips. The second sip was to make sure it was gross and I wanted to throw it away. Lol
Summer Inspired Charcuterie Board
Happy Friday you guys! Wow its been a minute since I have build a charcuterie board! I missed it so much and it was great to be back building them. During quarantine I really had no reason to make one just because it was just me and Dustin. I made one back in March but we ended up taking it back apart and eating it just in bits here and there. I was so happy to make this one because Dustin and I actually had it for dinner the other night. I like building them because it is usually a conversation started when I bring them to parties and get togethers. For this one, Dustin got back from the airport around 2pm and I needed to be at the airport the next morning at 5am. So we had this for a little catch up date night! It was perfect, I think it worked for dinner because it wasn’t all meat and cheese, I added fruit and tons of different textures!
What you will need
-Prosciutto
-Salami
-Red Pepper Stuffed Olives
-Cherries
-Blackberries
-Cheese Honey
-Basil {for garnish}
-Small cheese knifes
-Havarti
-Sharp Cheddar
-Rosemary and Olive Oil Asiago
-Everything but the bagel goat cheese
-Brie Wheel
-Swiss Cheese
-Marcona Almonds
-Parmesan Crisps
I always love putting together videos when I build boards because they are so fun to watch! You get to see the progression of the board and really my thoughts as I put it together. Nine times out of ten I change my mind and rearrange things up until the very end! You can see the video below!!
What is your favorite thing to put on a charcuterie board? Mine definitely changes with the season but usually a reallllly good aged cheddar must make it onto my boards. But surprisingly my favorite thing on this one was the rosemary asiago! OMG YUM. It is freakin’ delish. I would love to hear what your favorite thing is on a board. You can either comment below or send me an email at tarynintotravel@gmail.com!
Adult Popsicles Six Ways
I know I have mentioned this to you guys before but I eat no less than 10 of those Ice Freeze popsicles a day in the summer! I felt a lot better when I did a poll and most of you eat them in the summer as well. I mean probably not 10 but you do eat them a lot lol. Over the past few weeks we have been testing different kinds of popsicles.. adult popsicles and DANG they are good! We came up with six that we really like so I decided it was time to share it with the people. They are all really simple and most are 2, maybe 3 ingredients! I’m not even really sure if you can call them recipes! It’s more like… “put these two things together”. It took about 15 minutes to make everything and I love how versatile they are! You really can make it whatever you want. You can get the popsicle bags and funnel here!
I put 2 shots in a 16 oz glass and filled the rest of the cup with the juice {and fruit if using}. Each 16 oz glass made 5 popsicles! You could definitely make them not as strong or stronger depending on what you like and how you want them to taste. But I liked them how we did it with the 2 shots per 16 oz glass.
simply blueberry lemonade & vodka & frozen blueberries
raspberry lemonade & raspberry Smirnoff & muddled raspberries
orange juice & vodka
cranberry peach juice & vodka
watermelon juice & vodka & blended watermelon
fruit punch & raspberry Smirnoff
We’ve had them made up in our freezer for a couple of weeks now and I love having one after dinner! I also took them to the beach one afternoon and they were perfect to cool us off. One other thing I did was empty the popsicle into a cup and then poor about a half shot into the cup and fill the rest with the same juice and its a good way to chill your drink without it getting all watered down! I would love to hear if you guys make any of these! If you have any questions at all I would be more than happy to answer them. Comment below or you can email me at tarynintotravel@gmail.com!
Five Meal Delivery Services Reviewed
Grab your popcorn because this one is wordy. lol This was SUCH a fun review for us to do. I think it’s because Dustin was doing them with me and I was able to have confirmation on how I felt about each of them! We tried five different meal delivery services over the last six weeks and let’s just say we have some thoughts. Some were really good, some..one.. was REALLY not that great. I feel like there are only a couple that are out there that are commonly talked about but there are a TON to choose from and even then we decided to choose just five.
Gluten free info: Only one of these meal delivery services was gluten free and it was actually our least favorite but I will get into that in a minute. Some delivery services made it easy for me to modify things to make them gf, others didn’t. If they sent burgers I would just use my own bread. If they sent pasta, I would use my own noodles. It is something that is normal in my life so I just never thought anything of it!
I am going to list them from our least favorite to our favorite!
Freshly - This was sadly our least favorite but we REALLY wanted to like it because it is SO convenient and all of the meals we chose were gluten free! The whole gimmick with this meal delivery service is that all of the food is microwaveable. There is no cooling required. The meals weren’t horrible but they definitely were still microwaved and we could definitely tell. We even plated the meals on plates after they cooked to get the effect that they didn’t just come out of a microwave which didn’t really help. Another downside was they pretty much offered the same meals each week with maybe switching up a few. It was fine for one week but not something we could ever do for weeks at a time in a row. It was also weird because we both ate something different every night. We got Freshly delivered on Saturday. After the promotional sign up cost would have expired, we would be paying around $50 plus shipping for 3 meals.
Hello Fresh - This was the meal service that got this whole review started. I signed up for Hello Fresh before I realized that I was signing up for Hello Fresh. Lol I was trying to look at their meal options and thought I was just setting up my account {my mistake, I should have known when I entered my card} but I had actually been setting up my first order. So watch out for that! The second thing about this service is that they have a ton of options but the really good meals are an additional cost! Which is frustrating, I would rather pay for a higher level subscription than pay an additional $5.99 per SERVING. Besides that hidden fees, we did enjoy the meals! But it was pretty expensive. Like VERY expensive. We paid $79.91 for 4 meals for two people. Safe to say we canceled that as soon as we got the meals. We couldn’t justify the price for what we were getting.
Blue Apron - It was a good meal delivery service. Honestly the meals were either really simple and its something we already knew how to make or really extravagant and wasn’t something we would enjoy eating. The food was good and it was really fresh! The meals were easy to make but it’s not something I would continue to pay $60 a week for. After the promotional sign up cost would have expired, we would be paying around $59 plus shipping for 3 meals. Blue Apron will deliver based on your area but for us it was Wednesday, Thursday, Friday or Saturday. One plus with this service is that you don’t pay shipping with this one. But the other services are less a week with shipping.
Home Chef - So this service was really good. I had a hard time choosing if I thought Blue Apron or Home Chef was better and they really were neck and neck. With this one, I don’t really know how to put this but the meals were just kind of …blah. Like really nothing exciting or life changing. Another thing was that the week that we got meals from Home Chef, we were kind of hungry after our meal. For example one of our meals was a chicken breast and a corn/peppers mixture and we were both hungry about an hour later. I guess to sum that up, they were just lighter meals. Another con, we were going to give it another try so we ordered a second week and only one of the meals showed up which really sucked because we hadn’t gone grocery shopping for dinners. After the promotional sign up cost would have expired, we would be paying around $59.70 plus shipping for 3 meals. They don’t charge for shipping though which is a plus! This was another service though were the meals weren’t revolutionary lol like chicken breast and corn/peppers, steak tacos, nothing crazy.
Every Plate - This was hands down our favorite. We actually got it two times. We loved that these meals were easy for us to make gluten free for myself while Dustin could still eat the normal meal! Now I’m not saying that they are gluten free but they were just easier to make gf! If they sent burgers I would just use my own bread. If they sent pasta I used my own pasta and Dustin used what was sent and then we would actually have leftovers! It was nice though because they would use gf soy sauce. It wasn’t like they went out of there way to add gluten tp things. There was plenty of food for us with each meal and we felt great about it because there was no waste at the end of the meal! We liked that you could choose the delivery date. You get to choose to have them deliver on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays.. tons of options! This was also the most bang for our buck so to speak. We pay $48.91 for 4 meals for two people. This was the best deal for us! Plus we have the option of getting 5 meals a week! If you want to try Every Plate you can get $20 off your first box here!
Have you guys tried any of these services? I would love to know your thoughts and opinions on them! If you guys have any further questions on any of the meal services shoot me an email and I can answer them for you! I am an open book and always want to help you! You can email me at tarynintotravel@gmail.com or you. can comment below!
Cranberry Peach Cocktail
This is hands down my favorite drink to make at home! Its so easy I honestly probably didn’t need to write a whole blog post on it but I wanted you guys to have an easy place to reference it so here we are! I promise to keep this short and sweet and to not talk {write..?} your ear off. Its so simple, its just three ingredients and one of them is OPTIONAL!! Like seriously, so easy and so yummy and it doesn’t really even taste like you are drinking alcohol but boy let me tell you.. you are!
I feel like vodka is at the bottom of most peoples alcohol lists {probably because of college lol} but because I can’t have a lot of alcohols because they contain gluten - I usually reach for vodka rather than tequila. But I think that this combination of ingredients really makes it seem like you aren’t drinking vodka at all.. just trust me! The holy grail of this drink is the juice that you mix it with.. I find it at Walmart, Target.. Market Basket, I pretty much can find it anywhere! But lately I have been ordering the juice from Walmart.com and its like $5.98 for two of them!
I like to make this drink two ways, regular and frozen. I will make it frozen in the summer as a way to cool off! I like to bring it frozen when I go down to our pool in the summers because it will stay cool longer and that means fewer trips to the apartment and more relaxing time!
What you will need for this Cranberry Peach Cocktail:
1-2 shots of vodka
Frozen Peach chunks {optional}
Ocean Spray White Cranberry Peach Juice
Ice
I would absolutely love to know what you guys think of this drink! It is hands down my favorite! But I would also love to know what is your favorite drink?? Dustin’s is a Whiskey Sour and mine is this Cranberry Peach Cocktail! Let me know yours in the comments below! And if you make the drink tag me in stories and I will share it!
Caramel Macchiato Three Ways
A few weeks back I was realllllly wanting an iced caramel macchiato from Starbucks or really anywhere that could make me one at that point lol but our closest Starbucks is in a Target and closed so that just want going to happen. SO I started playing with the ingredients that go into a macchiato and came up with three versions of the caramel macchiato! I did a regular iced caramel macchiato, a hot caramel macchiato and a healthier version of an iced caramel macchiato. The majority of this explanation of these is in the video at the bottom of the screen but I wanted to type out the instructions and ingredients that you will need just in case you don’t have time to watch. But really its only like 5 minutes!
What you will need
ground espresso {regular coffee grounds honestly work just as well, I use this here}
Caramel Syrup- I used this here
Caramel Skinny Syrup {if you are doing the healthy version, I use this here}
Milk of choice
Ice
Iced Caramel Macchiato
Cover the bottom of the cup with caramel syrup
Fill half of the cup with milk and stir the milk and caramel until combined really well
Add ice to the cup {the cup should be about 3/4 full now}
Add two shots of espresso
Drizzle caramel on the top
Hot Caramel Macchiato
Cover the bottom of the mug with caramel
Two espresso shots into the mug
While that is brewing, add caramel and milk to a frother and froth that together
Pour the frothed milk and caramel into the mug
Drizzle caramel syrup on top
Healthy-ish Caramel Macchiato
Fill the bottom of the cup with the Skinny Syrup Caramel
Fill half of the cup with milk and stir the milk and Skinny Syrup until combined
Add ice to the cup {the cup should be about 3/4 full now}
Add two shots of espresso
Taste to see if you would like to add more Skinny Syrup- if you do, only add a little it at a time! Too much can really ruin the taste of the coffee so just be cautious!
ENJOY! My favorite way is the non healthy iced caramel macchiato and Dustin’s favorite is the hot version! I would love to know if you make this and if you do which version was your favorite?!