River House Getaway

We recently rented an amazing house on Flipkey for a weekend out on the Russian River in Sonoma County, near where I grew up, and where a lot of my family still lives. All the rooms in the house had stunning water views, but the deck really made this place something special, with river vistas in both directions.

If you’re planning a trip to the wine country, this is a fun spot to visit. The weather is still warm into the Fall in this area- I have fond memories of my mom picking us up from school early on in the school year and heading out to the river for a swim before going home.

There was also a little dock on the water, right below the house, which was fun for afternoon swims and happy hour.

The house was very close to downtown Guerneville, which is a cute, funky little town (and much more wine-country-posh now than when I was growing up!). We had a great lunch at Boon and popped into several other places on the main strip. For picking up snacks to take to the river, I’d suggest Big Bottom Market or for killer deli sandwiches, try Berry’s Market. It’s always fun to rent canoes at Burke’s, and at the end of the day, go wine tasting at Korbel, or for a beer at Stumptown Brewery.

We were celebrating my parents’ 40th wedding anniversary and so we had a dinner one night on the deck and invited some relatives to join. Jonathan BBQed outside and we made a big summery buffet spread. With cocktails (or mocktails for me- this was before baby Ezra arrived!), we served Pesto & Onion Crostini and Strawberry Caprese Bites. On the dinner menu was BBQ chicken kebabs on a bed of arugula, Nectarine Tomato Salad, Farro Salad, and couple other dishes from my cookbook.

Cheers to late summer swims and cocktail hour on the water!

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This post was done in partnership with Flipkey, a vacation home rental website. I had a great experience renting with them and would do it again. All opinions here are my own.

Watermelon Tomato Salad

Hope everyone had a fun Labor Day weekend! Guess what- we had a baby boy! Little Ezra has arrived and we couldn’t be more excited, grateful, happy or in awe! Now we are a forest family.

As we enjoy these last days of summer, I thought I’d share a recipe that I did for the current issue of Remedy Quarterly, a fantastic foodie magazine that everyone should know about.

Enjoy!

Vegan Zucchini Almond Bread

We have so much zucchini coming out of our garden right now that I have started baking zucchini bread to freeze for when our baby comes (today is my due date!). I found this amazing recipe for vegan zucchini bread from Joy the Baker, and it’s so moist you’d never know it was dairy free. Joy’s version is “almost vegan”- she makes hers with buttermilk, but I have substituted Almond Breeze Almond Milk and it works beautifully!

This isn’t a super sweet bread, so to make it feel more like a dessert I made a simple almond glaze of almond milk, vanilla and powdered sugar (you could add almond extract to make it taste more nutty).

Happy Baking!

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VEGAN ZUCCHINI ALMOND BREAD

adapted from Joy the Baker's Almost Vegan Zucchini Bread

makes one 8×4 or 9×5-inch loaf

Ingredients:

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 ½ teaspoons baking soda

½ teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

3 teaspoons ground cinnamon

½ teaspoon fresh grated nutmeg

½ cup  Almond Breeze Almond Milk

1 cup vegetable oil

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

1 cup granulated sugar

¾ cup brown sugar

2 cups shredded zucchini 

¾ cup thinly sliced almonds plus a bit more for the top of each loaf

Place a rack in the center of the oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Grease and flour an 8×4-inch or 9×5-inch loaf pan.  Set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt and spices.  Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together Almond Milk, vegetable oil, vanilla extract, and sugars.  Shred the zucchini using a grater and squeeze it over a strainer to release some of the liquid. Whisk thoroughly, then add the shredded zucchini and almonds.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and fold together with a spatula.  Make sure all of the flour is thoroughly incorporated into the batter.  Spoon batter into prepared pan, sprinkle the top with sliced almonds and place in the oven.  Bake for about 1 hour, or until a skewer inserted into the center of the bread comes out clean.

Allow to cool in pan for 20 minutes before inverting onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Bread will last, well wrapped at room temperature, for up to 5 days.

Optional: Drizzle warm slices with Almond Glaze before serving. For the glaze, simply stir in a bowl: ½ c powdered sugar, 1 tablespoon Almond Breeze Almond Milk, and ¼ teaspoon vanilla or almond extract.

This post was done in partnership with Almond Breeze but opinions are completely my own. For this recipe I used the unsweetened original flavor Almond Breeze Almond Milk.

Peach Caprese

I recently went peach picking at a friend’s place up in Sonoma County and came back with a TON of peaches! (thanks for all your peach recipe ideas!) This salad is one of my favorites and I make some version of it all summer long!

Peach Caprese

serves 4-6

3 peaches, sliced

1 large (heirloom-type) yellow tomato sliced

1 large (heirloom-type) red tomato, sliced

small handful fresh basil leaves, chopped or torn

1 (8-oz) ball fresh mozarella cheese or burrata, torn into bite-sized pieces

olive oil, flaky salt (like Maldon) and freshly ground pepper

Scatter all ingredients on a platter. Drizzle the top with a good quality olive oil (try my Forest Feast x PRMRY finishing oil, it’s perfect for this), plus salt and pepper. Enjoy!

Strawberry Caprese Bites

For an easy summer appetizer just stack a strawberry, a mozzarella ball and a leaf of basil on a toothpick! Like my Watermelon Feta Mint bites, they are great for BBQs and picnics as they can easily be made ahead. They were part of a summer entertaining menu I put together for InStyle magazine recently- see the whole menu here!