Even though the weather forecast is looking pretty lousy for the Boston area this weekend, I’m still hoping to do a lot of grilling.  In addition, we are going to have our first lobster night of the summer- can’t wait!  I’m also going to try to make some of the 10 summer recipes shown below.

10 Memorial Day Menu Ideas

Salt Potatoes: an upstate NY summer tradition

Baked Beans: a great side dish for summer cook-outs

Greek Pasta Salad: the perfect side for hot dogs and hamburgers

Orzo and Spinach Salad with Lemon-Cranberry Vinaigrette: a family favorite (and a 2S2C old-school photo flashback!)

Tex-Mex Pimiento Cheese Dip: serve with red and blue tortilla chips! {I realize I put this dish in just about every round-up that I do, but you will not regret making this for your next party!!}

Mediterranean Dip: this recipe is great for showcasing fresh summer produce

The Classic Margarita: get the weekend started off the right way with this perfect margarita (5 more weeks to go until I can sample one!)

Sausage, Pepper, Onion, and Potato Bake (I’m making this tonight- one of my favorite summer dishes!)

Frozen Cupcake S’mores: a great summer treat!

Patriotic Star Sugar Cookie Cut-outs: for the very ambitious Memorial Day celebraters!

Well, it looks like K is a way better summer-blogger than I am considering that 80% of the above recipes are hers.  I can’t promise that I’ll be able to catch up to her pace this summer with baby #2′s arrival, but I am still hoping to share a few of my new favorite summer recipes over the next few months.  What do you have planned for your Memorial Day weekend menu?

I’ve mentioned in a lot of my last posts that I have been busy nesting and getting ready for baby #2′s arrival.  This time around, I realize that the nursery does not need to be finished by the time the baby comes since he will be in a bassinet next to our bed most nights, but time will likely be a rare commodity with two little munchkins.  I’m trying to get as many things done ahead of time with just T around.

I wanted to share one of the latest baby projects that I just finished- DIY baby closet dividers.  These baby closet dividers are all the rage on etsy and I was originally going to just buy some.  I realized they would be fairly easy to make myself however so I decided to give it a try.  I had a few rolls of gray chevron contact paper that I picked up at Marshall’s a few months ago and I had put them aside for any projects that might come up.  I decided this paper would be perfect for making my own baby closet dividers.  {Side note: I’m not sure I’ve mentioned this in a past post, I decided to decorate this baby’s nursery in dark gray, bright green, and white.  Check out this post for a peek at baby T’s airplane-themed nursery that I did a few years ago.}

DIY Baby Closet Dividers

Materials

• empty cereal, cracker, or snack cardboard boxes
• large circle trace (I used a plastic take-out container)
• small circle trace (I used a spice jar)
• pencil
• scissors
• decorative contact paper
• stickers or labels

Instructions

1. Use the scissors to cut two large squares out of the decorative contact paper (make sure the squares are larger than the large circle trace you plan on using.)
2. Remove the backing from the contact paper and place on both sides of a flat piece of cardboard.  The squares should match up so that when you cut a circle out of the cardboard, the contact paper will fully cover the circle on both sides.
3. Using a pencil and large circle trace, trace a circle on one side of the square contact paper.  Then, using the small circle trace, trace a small circle in the middle of the large circle that you just traced.
4. With your scissors, follow the large circle trace and cut the large circle from the piece of cardboard.  Then, cut two small even slits to cut out the small circle trace from the center.  Neaten any edges so that both circles appear even and smooth.
5. Repeat this process 5-8 times depending on how many baby closet dividers you want to make.  (I made six of them since I will likely be storing away the baby clothes once the baby grows out of them.  I will then change the sticker out on the divider for a larger clothes size.)
6. Label 6-9 stickers with common baby clothes sizes: newborn, 0-3 months, 3-6 months, 6-12 months, 12-18 months, 18-24 months, 2T, 3T, and 4T.  Apply sticker or label to top of clothes dividers.
7. Hang in closet and organize baby’s clothes by size!

I love how this project turned out!  Plus, I love being able to look at that first newborn onesie every time I open the closet door- I can never get over how little and cute newborn clothes are.  It barely even fits on the mini hanger!

T never had a closet in our city condo since the closet in his nursery served as my husband’s main closet.  I used a lot of baskets to divide his clothes by size and type and stored them on a bookshelf.  While that system worked well, I really like having everything organized and hanging in a closet this time around.  It’s much easier to visualize what I have by size with everything in sight.  I still need to do a little more organizing once I move the dresser and changing table into this room, but it’s come a long way from the catch-all closet it used to be.

Have you ever seen an idea on Etsy or a retail store that you decided to make yourself?

Well, I missed the Cinco de Mayo train with this recipe.  I was getting ready to post this last Sunday, but I got into a cleaning mood all Sunday morning and completely cleaned every surface in my house.  I even vacuumed my balcony.  Who does that?   It was one of those moments when your realize that you are totally turning into your mom.   I am having those a lot lately!

I feel like May is going by so fast.  I was shocked the other day that it was already May and now we are already halfway through.   We are on summer time already apparently.   I know it’s no longer Cinco de Mayo, but one of the great thing about Mexican food is that you can eat it all year round.

Since I have moved to California, Carnitas have become my favorite kind of taco.  What are Carnitas you ask?  Carnitas are the Mexican version of pulled pork.  The pork is shredded and then cooked a little longer to caramelize.  What’s better than carnitas?   Well I would say carnitas in a corn tortilla topped with salsa verde and your choice of pickled onions or cabbage slaw.   Oh yeah, that’s what I am talking about.

Source- Carnitas and Pickled Onions adapted from Shared Appetite, Cabbage slaw adapted from Skinnytaste

Unfortunately, neither K nor I will get a chance to see our mom for Mother’s Day this weekend, but we will see her next weekend for little sister M’s big college graduation weekend!  If we had the opportunity to see her this weekend though, we thought of some recipes we would consider making for her.  This list originally started off as our top 10 recipes for mother’s day, and quickly grew to 20!

For a Fun Brunch:

Baked French Toast

Chocolate Chip Skinny Scones

Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Bread

Homemade Cold-Brewed Iced Coffee

Bacon & Green Onion Quiche

Blueberry Muffins

For a Mid-Afternoon Snack

Caramel Corn

Soft Pretzels with Jalapeño Dipping Sauce

Blueberry Lemon Popsicles

Basil Lemonade

For An Easy & Elegant Dinner:

Girls’ Night Pasta

Corn Pancakes with Smoked Salmon and Lemon-Chive Cream

Slow-Roasted Beef with Horseradish Cream Sauce

Roast Chicken with Garlic, Lemon, & Parsley

Chicken Piccata

For a Special Dessert:

Chunky Monkey Cupcakes

Sea Salt Caramel Brownies

Raspberry Linzer Cookies

Coconut Lemon Bars

Homemade Vanilla Bean Ice Cream with Hot Fudge Sauce

Happy mother’s day mom, our #1 reader at 2 Sisters 2 Cities!

P.S. If you are also looking for gift ideas for mom, check out my often-updated gift guide on Pinterest for some gifting inspiration!

I started looking for Cinco de Mayo recipes to make last weekend.  I found really good-looking recipes for guacamole, pico de gallo, and salsa verde on the blog Shared Appetite.  I was so inspired by all of Chris’s photos and Mexican recipes, I planned a whole weekend of Mexican foods to cook.  There are even more recipes I want to try, but I decided to start with these three.

Guacamole

What goes more perfectly with margaritas than a bowl of fresh homemade guacamole and tortilla chips?  M and I have given you several recipes for guacamole over the years.  Think of this as an update to those.  I have to say this recipe is the closest to restaurant guacamole that I have ever made.  The best part of making guacamole is that it is so easy to make and you don’t need to cook anything-  just mix!  If you use my bag method, it is even easier.

Source- slightly adapted from Shared Appetite

Pico de Gallo

Pico de Gallo is basically a fresh tomato salsa.  Salsa is one of my favorite condiments.  I like salsa with chips, tacos, fajitas, quesadillas, taco salads,  baked potatoes, and even perogies.  When I was single, I used to go through a huge jar of salsa every week.   When I go to Chipotle, I love their mild fresh tomato salsa on my burritos and in my salads.  I love it so much that I even get a side of it to go with their lime & kosher salt chips.  I have been searching for years for a recipe that is like their salsa and this recipe is totally it!

Whether you call it Pico de Gallo, fresh salsa, tomato salsa, or mild salsa, it is delicious and so easy to make!

Source- slightly adapted from Shared Appetite

Salsa Verde

Let’s talk some more about salsa.  This salsa is green from the tomatillos that you put it it, instead of tomatoes.   There is a taco place in San Fran called Tacolicious and they often come to our market lunches and sample sales.   I love their carnitas or brisket tacos covered in some of their salsa verde!  Sooooo good.  My mouth is watering just thinking about it.   I made all these sauces and salsa this weekend like they were going out of style!  Can you tell that I love Mexican food?!

This salsa is easy to pull together by roasting all your veggies on a baking sheet.  You then simply process everything together and you have salsa.   Dip it with chips or top some tacos and you are good to go.

Source- slightly adapted from Shared Appetite

Check back soon for more Cinco de Mayo recipes- taco and quesadilla recipes coming up!

I typically buy healthier items when I grocery shop at Whole Foods (versus a typical Boston-area grocery store such as Stop & Shop or Shaw’s.)  However, the one thing that gets me everytime is the tres leches cake from prepared foods section.  It’s always located on the last end-cap we have to go around before we head to the cashier.  I can practically hear it calling my name from the shelf!  I often find myself picking up a slice to split with my husband for dessert.

While K and I were discussing what Cinco de Mayo recipes we were going to post, I told her about my obsession with the WF tres leches cake.  I’ve never made one before and she told me that I had to try making tres leches cupcakes instead.  K just bought me some awesome new cupcake pans for my birthday so I figured it would be the perfect chance to use them.

If you haven’t had a tres leches cake (or cupcake) before, tres leches means three milks due to the three varieties of milk used in the recipe.  This recipe actually has four types if you count milk and heavy cream as separate types of milk (the other two are evaporated milk and sweetened condensed milk.)

Source: Adapted from The Pioneer Woman, Alton Brown, and The Latin Kitchen

You all know how much I love themed-blogging!  I made all sorts of Mexican food this weekend to share with you this week to help plan your Cinco De Mayo celebrations for this upcoming weekend.  Or, if you are like me and love all Mexican foods all the time, there will be plenty of new recipes for you to try anytime.

I am going to start this fiesta off right with my favorite margarita recipe.  I made this for a group of friends at a bachelorette party I was at last year and for my family last Memorial Day weekend.  It was a hit both times.

As I have mentioned before, I am not a huge liquor drinker  Until last year I didn’t have to much experience with drinking margaritas.  In search of the perfect after-work happy hour place with two of my co-workers in NY,  we found a restaurant close by that served amazing margarita for five dollars during happy hour.  You are probably thinking that’s a rip-off, but in NYC that is a steal for a drink that is served in a glass cup.  Sad, but true! Anyways, I fell in love with margaritas and especially love them served with freshly made tortilla chips salsa and guac.  Needless to say, we frequented this place a lot and always had a good time.

Making your margaritas at home is always the best because you can control the amount of liquor you want in it and you can put extra salt on the rim!   This recipe makes four drinks so feel free to double or halve it as needed.   Serve with a salt-rimmed glass and ice!

Source- adapted from Confections of a Foodie Bride

As promised, here is a post with another toddler-friendly recipe!  Every couple of months I try to make a huge batch of chicken tenders and freeze them.  I can then just pull out a couple and reheat them for a quick lunch or dinner for T.  I usually serve them with a small bowl of homemade ranch dressing or ketchup and a side of steam veggies.  I’ve tried a lot of various recipes for chicken tenders, but this one for Baked Panko Chicken Tenders seems to be the biggest hit with him.  I prefer baking versus pan-frying them since it’s usually easier to cook and clean up a large batch of baked chicken tenders.

While I’ve categorized this recipe for baked panko chicken tenders as a toddler and kid-friendly recipe, I will admit my husband and I both heavily “sample” the tenders as soon as I pull them out of the oven.  These chicken tenders could easily be converted to an “adult meal” by serving them on top of a mixed greens salad dressed with the aforementioned ranch dressing.

If you’ve ever made any kind of chicken or fish that is dunked in buttermilk or an egg wash, then flour, then the liquid, and then another layer of breadcrumbs, you may have encountered what I like to call “monster hands.”  All four layers stick to your fingers and after repeating this process for a few times, your fingers look like they have contracted elephantiasis.  To avoid this, I recommend dunking your fingers (or tongs) in a bowl of warm water each time to rinse off all the layers.  This will help keep each individual bowl somewhat clean as well and prevent huge clumps of ingredients falling off your fingers and  into each bowl.

 Source: Adapted from The Picky Palate Cookbook and Recipes for Baby and Toddler: 365 Quick & Healthy Dishes

Last weekend, my family and I went to Chicago for our cousin’s wedding.   It was a great trip for several reasons.  First, I got to see my family for the first time since Christmas and my extended family since Fourth of July weekend.   Secondly, both my boyfriend and I had never been to Chicago before so it was all new to us.

My boyfriend and I had a better time of getting to Chicago than the rest of our family.  The majority of my family’s flights out of Syracuse got canceled because of flooding in Chicago (which oddly enough didn’t affect me coming from California.)  My two sisters (Our very own M and little M), my brother-in-law, and my nephew (plus soon-to-be nephew) were locked down in Boston because of the search for the Marathon Bomber suspect #2.  One second, I was so excited to see my family and the next my mom called to tell me no one except me, my boyfriend, and my sister C were going to make it to the wedding.  Of course this was right before take-off so for the whole four and a half hour flight, my boyfriend had to console a very sad and disappointed K.   Upon landing, the texts started to come in that everyone scrambled to get new flights and would be coming staggered throughout the weekend, but would all be there for the wedding.

Excited and hungry we got off our non-dramatic SFO-to-Chicago flight and cabbed it into the city.  We quickly checked into the hotel, dropped off our stuff and were on our way to find some Chicago-style grub.   It was windy and cold mixed with a little snow/hail as we walked to find Al’s Deli,  which in my mind is how I imagined Chicago all my life.   Our hotel was in the middle of everything so it was only about a 10-15 minute walk.

Our cousin had listed some places to visit for food in Chicago on her wedding site and Al’s Beef for a “hot dog dragged through the garden”  was one.  As we were ordering, we ordered an Italian Beef Sandwich with hot peppers and I then asked for a “hot dog dragged thru the garden.”  The girl looked at me strange and said “I don’t know what you are talking about,  dragged thru the garden?”  I then explained that I didn’t know what it meant, but my cousin said I had to get it.   The check-out girl went to go ask her manager and he responded with “yeah, that means everything.”  Rest assured, I got my hot dog “dragged thru the garden”  or as I will now just call it “everything.”  We split both and liked them,  but were especially impressed with the hot dog.

Right across the way from Al’s Deli is Portillos.  This place wasn’t on our list, but it looked pretty hopping.  After checking it out on our iPhones, we realized it was also pretty famous for their hot dogs and Italian beef as well.   We decided we had enough room to split another hot dog so we proceeded to do so.  Also very delicious,  and we both sort of liked it more then our first!  Sorry Al!

As we headed back to hotel, we saw all the places for Chicago-style pizza like the original Pizzeria Uno’s.   I promised Matt that we would try some the next day because there was no way I was going to eat more before the rehearsal dinner that night.   The next day, my sister C, my mom, and I got our hair done at this awesome Blow Dry Bar called Blow-By Blow, highly recommended if you are ever in the area.   I also think I found my new love for Blow Out Bars,  mimosas and getting my hair shampooed and styled…ummm, yes please!    My boyfriend and dad went out to get more hot dogs and to possibly try to get a pizza to bring back to the hotel.   The pizza places all had a 45 minute wait for pizzas because that is how long they take to make.   They ended up not having enough time to wait so they brought back more hot dogs for all.   We never did have time for the Chicago-Style Deep-Dish pizza.

The week we got back, I decided to surprise my boyfriend by making a deep dish pizza since we never did get any.    It was surprisingly easy to make and so tasty!   I had one piece and I was so full!   I put turkey pepperoni on ours because that is what we had in the fridge- that’s why its sort of curling up, but you can top with whatever you like.

Source- adapted from Annie’s Eats, originally from Cook’s Illustrated

Hello again poor, sweet neglected blog.  It’s been so hard to find the motivation to blog these past few weeks, but I am finally feeling inspired once again on this sunny spring day.  I have a whole series of kid-friendly (and especially toddler-friendly) recipes lined up.   First up on my list is homemade ranch dressing.  Many of the family cookbooks that I own recommend dipping sauces to get your toddlers interested in eating healthier items.  I can certainly attest that T literally licks his plate clean if I give him a little bowl of homemade ranch dressing, ketchup, or hummus to dip his food into.

While it’s certainly easier to buy a bottle of ranch dressing at the store, I prefer to make my own salad dressings for two reasons.  First, I like to have control of what goes into the dressing…fresh herbs, organic ingredients where possible, a controlled amount of salt, and no preservatives.  Secondly, I think homemade dressing just tastes way better than any bottled stuff.

This homemade ranch dressing is pretty versatile…kids can use it to dip chicken fingers and baby carrots.  I know some people cannot eat a slice of pizza without some ranch dressing on the side.  It tastes really awesome with a bowl of potato chips (I know, I ate all the chips for my lunch after taking these photos!  I ate the carrots too!)  Or, simply use the ranch dressing as it was originally intended- to dress up a simple mixed green and tomato salad.

Source: Adapted from The Pioneer Woman

If you are interested in other salad dressing and dips, check out our recipes for

Thousand Island Dressing:

Dill Dip:

Baked Potato Dip:

Cheers to a great weekend!