Lavender Honey Ice Cream

Someday in the near future, I hope to begin a post with something other than an explanation of where the heck I've been. Today isn't that day.

My new excuse for being the worst food blogger on the planet is my recent move. I moved to the Clizzle-Dizzle at the end of July and took my sweet ass time unpacking my kitchen and otherwise getting my ish together. I've been wanting to live in this neighborhood for a long time, primarily because it's super walkable to about a bajillion restaurants and bars. Bonus: my new place is only 15 minutes from my office, has a huge balcony that I could do a cartwheel on if I knew how to do cartwheels, and so much closet space that I actually have a prop closet. Fellow food bloggers totally get how exciting this is. 

One of the first things I made in my new kitchen was this ice cream. As I mentioned back in February, I'm obsessed with Nancy Meyers' food-porny movie It's Complicated. Since I'm a weirdo, I decided that I want to make all the foods that Meryl Streep's character makes in the movie. I started with Croque Monsieur several months ago, and now I'm onto lavender honey ice cream.

The culinary lavender required to make this is kind of a pain in the butt to track down, but it's worth the trip to a specialty store (I found mine at Dean and Deluca). Also, the ice cream container you see in the photo is from Sweet Bliss. I bought a pack of their disposable pint sized containers and a pack of their quart containers a couple years ago, and pretty much have ice cream storage for life. Homemade ice cream gets freezer burn much more quickly than commercial ice cream, and these containers buy you an extra couple days.

Blackberry Pie Bars

I suffer from a very unfortunate affliction known as secondhand embarrassment.

I can usually pinpoint when it will occur. For example, I know I'll cringe while watching the awkward antics of characters on Girls or The Office. I always feel it when I walk into the office bathroom and someone is pooping and goes dead silent in their stall until I hastily leave. When I'm stone-cold sober, and people around me are drunk and actin' a fool, the secondhand embarrassment is brutal.

You guys probably feel secondhand embarrassment all the time when you read the weird stuff I write here.

This quality isn't necessarily a bad thing. I'm an empathetic person (humble-brag?), and feeling shame on behalf of others just goes with the territory.

Last Friday, I discovered a new situation where I feel a horrific level of vicarious embarrassment.

I was grabbing dinner at a bar in Arlington with my boyfriend*, and halfway through my french dip, I noticed something on my plate that was very out of place...

...because it had wings. That's right, nestled underneath my waffle fries, there was a greasy, crispy, deep-fried house fly.

Sidebar: I don't think I've ever mentioned here that I'm deathly afraid of bugs. A few years ago, I slept on my couch for a whole week because there was a spider near my bed that I was too afraid to kill (I finally killed it in a valiant battle involving a bottle of Windex and a giant wad of paper towels.) When I was five, my parents allowed me to watch Arachnophobia for some bizarre reason, and I'm convinced that it's the reason I've spent the past 24 years petrified of all insects. I don't even want a butterfly near me. Those bitches are creepy.

Anyway, I don't know whether it's my irrational fear of bugs, or the fact that finding a fly on one's plate is just plain gross, but I obviously lost interest in finishing my french dip. My disgust quickly devolved into a case of preemptive secondhand embarrassment for what our waitress was about to endure. I've been a waitress. I once waited on a table that found the finger of a latex glove in their chicken wrap, and was absolutely MORTIFIED even though I didn't make their wrap and had nothing to do with it.

Obviously our horrified waitress apologized profusely, whisked away the offending plate, and removed my food and beer from the bill. If only I'd had the foresight to pound half a dozen Miller Lights prior to finding the fly...

As is the case with most of the stories that precede my recipes, the fly incident has absolutely nothing to do with these blackberry pie bars.

These bars may be the best dessert I've made all year. They have a shortbread crust, an amazing blackberry and lemon filling, and a shortbread crumb topping. Those of you following me on Instagram probably saw that I brought them to a party a couple weeks ago, and it was extremely hard to avoid eating them all before I even left.

*Look at me just trying to slip in that little detail! So you know how I've barely posted for the last few months? Uhhh...now you know why. My evenings and weekends have been quite busy. 

Tomato, Sausage, and Spinach Risotto

I've totally procrastinated posting this recipe because I'm not really digging the photo. Pretty photos take time, and I refuse to let my risotto get cold and gummy while I stage a photo-shoot. 

Please don't let my mediocre photography skills deter you from trying this, because this is the BEST EFFING RISOTTO IN THE UNIVERSE.

I'm sorry for cursing, shouting, and making sweeping unsubstantiated claims.

But listen you guys...

THIS IS THE BEST EFFING RISOTTO IN THE UNIVERSE.

Trust me. I've made a lot of risottos over the years, and they all pale in comparison to this one. It's so flavorful and creamy and perfect that I texted approximately four different people while eating it, just to tell them how amazing it is.