Wine Room Kitchen & Bar - Delray!

A fun new wine bar opened up on the Ave last summer, featuring those amazing wine machines! You put money on a wine card, and away you pour! The make-your-own cheese/charcuterie board is pretty excellent as well. Website link here!

Spring 2020:

Oli's Boca!

A new spot opened up in Boca called Oli's (website link here). It has a fun decor inside with a gorgeous waterfront patio. The appetizers are delicious, as are the cocktails. The best deal is to go Tuesday evening for happy hour, when appetizers are 50% off. My favorites are the Brussels sprouts, flatbread (either margherita or mushroom), filet medallions, eggplant stack and calamari.

Summer 2020:

Oceans 234 - Deerfield Beach!

The best scallops!

Hopportunities Bar Delray!

Hopportunities is a fun new bar that opened up last fall in Delray. They have plenty of beer, wine and cider on tap and use an interactive bracelet to charge pours to a preselected credit card. They have karoke, and adult size versions of games like Checkers and Jenga. It's a fun spot to bring some friends! They don't serve food, but you are encouraged to order takeout delivery from any nearby spot. Website link here!

Ripe Delray!

Ripe is a new restaurant that opened up last year in Delray (website link here)! It's a casual, healthy place with plenty of interesting options (and plenty for those with food allergies or who eat a gluten/free or vegan diet). I tried their cauliflower bread grilled cheese, tostone burger and avocado gelato. My favorite was definitely the tostone burger - instead of buns, it had two tostones (flattened fried plantains), with a beef patty, spicy sauce and crumbled white cheese. It was delicious! The cauliflower bread grilled cheese was good, but next time I would like to try their avocado toast on that same bread. The avocado gelato did not have too much flavor, so I ended up adding some mini chocolate chips I had in my baking cabinet to give it more sweetness.

Korean BBQ Tacos!

My favorite food blog, Pinch of Yum, posted a recipe for Korean BBQ tacos using an Instant Pot (although you could make them in a slow cooker as well). I was intrigued by the marinade recipe - it seemed to call for all the usual suspects of an Asian marinade (soy sauce, sesame oil, garlic, ginger), but also featured canned pears! The marinade was absolutely delicious. I put all the ingredients in my food processor, and then poured it over been sirloin chunks in the Instant Pot. It shredded up nicely once it was all cooked through.

For taco toppings, I used sliced avocado, unsalted peanuts, and Pinch of Yum's Yum-Yum sauce. Delicious! No cheese or sour cream needed here.

You can find the recipe link here!

Summer 2020:

Butternut Squash Pizza Crust!

I am a big fan of Trader Joe's frozen cauliflower pizza crust - the flavor is delicious! So when I saw the butternut squash pizza crust last fall in the freezer section, I grabbed one. A quick look at Pinterest showed me that pesto was a good combo for this type of crust. I used a marinara sauce, shredded mozzarella cheese and dollops of pesto for this pizza. It was tasty, but a bit on the sweet side, so I have not bought it since. I will say the colors were fun here! TJ's website recipe link here.

Lemon Mini Loaves & Fudgy Chocolate Quinoa Mini Loaves!

As a big Trader Joe's fanatic and lover of all things baking - when I saw a mix for lemon cake and a mix for fudgy chocolate (with quinoa!) cake last fall, I knew they would be a part of my Halloween baking.

Trader Joe's link to lemon cake mix can be found here, and I could only find an Amazon link for the chocolate fudge quinoa mix here.

I used my Wilton mini loaf pan that I bought at Michael's last year (link here).