New Bun On The Block: Zucchini, Lamb & Avocado Sliders!

In our quest to consciously reduce carbs in our diet, we have come across many delicious and healthy bun alternatives (bun-ternatives?) that have made us never want to eat another bun ever again. Not that bread isn't delicious; it's just that it doesn't even stand a chance in our book against it's delectable competitors, such as the grilled zucchini we used in this recipe. Burgers beware, the mean green bun-killing machine is here!

We made the decision a while ago to try to reduce sugar and carbs when we learned about how the body processes these when found in excess in the body, too often raising insulin levels and storing these extra glucose contents as fat. The dangers of high blood sugar content, and the symptoms that come hand-in-hand with high sugar and carb intake such as weight gain, metabolic syndrome (increasing your risk of heart disease, stroke and diabetes) etc. are all unwanted effects that can often be avoided by limiting your sugar and carb intake. An easy and healthy way to do so is to replace one of the largest sources of carbs and sugar each day - buns and other sandwich breads, with healthy and delicious alternatives.

Ingredients: (serves 2-3)

Burger:

Ground lamb meat (1 lb.)

1 red onion, chopped

2 cups of feta or goat cheese

2 handfuls of spinach

1 ripe avocado

1 large zucchini

Step 1: chop onions and spinach finely

Step 2: Add the chopped onions, spinache and feta or goat cheese together in a bowl with the ground beef. Mix well with your clean hands, making sure everything sticks to the meat.

Step 3: Make burger patties out of the meat. Oven instructions: Place them on a bake tray and bake on 350 degrees for about 20 minutes. Alternatively, cook them on the grill (best flavor) or stove.

Step 4: Cut those zucchini bun slices! For best results, I found that a medium thickness is best. If the zucchini is cut too thickly, it can be more difficult to eat and get the patties to stay. Grill the zucchini for best results, or alternatively cook on the stove with some olive oil and season.

Also cut the avocado to fit on your sliders!

Step 5: Enjoy your delicious, nutritious sliders, guilt-free!!!!

Artist Obsession: Atlanta Photographer Lola Scott

The gorgeous Anna Farrar! Visit Anna Farrar Modeling.

I met Lola Scott through one of my best friends, who is now her husband. Her professional and artistic growth as an artist over the years has been incredible, and an inspiration for me and many others to watch. This girl isn't just another photographer. This girl is on fire - on fire for her craft and for capturing the little beautiful things in life. And it shows through in each piece of art she produces.

"If a picture is worth 1,000 words and a memory lasts a lifetime, the combination of the two could be remarkable. With that in mind, Lola Scott uses light, color, and symbolism in her images to depict stories. She believes that 'it is as important to document life as it is to experience it'" - Lola

I have done several shoots with Lola (one that resulted in my current blogger profile photo) and each time she impresses me more. She is always a fountain of creative ideas on everything from beautiful innovative lighting techniques to portraying a brand or complex concept through a single image.

Lola works out of her home studio in Metro Atlanta with her husband and their three children. She has a wonderful eye for multiple forms, including product photography, portraits, events, fashion photography and more. Visit her on her Facebook page or on her website at www.lolascottart.com

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Pretty In Green: Easy & Delicious Coconut-Mint Matcha Pie!

In my quest to find (delicious, quick and easy) organic, raw and vegan desserts, I discovered a beautiful thing: matcha.

Matcha is green tea in powder form, and aside from it's completely awesome bright green color that ensures any dish that includes it will make a big impression, it's health benefits are huge. From antioxidants, to stress relieving component theanine, to its hunger-repressing elements that can lead to weight loss - this magic green powder packs a mega healthy punch. Since matcha is green tea in a much more concentrated form, it has all the same benefits x 10. When you brew green tea, the water only extracts a fraction of the tea's benefits. When you use matcha in tea or food, you get the whole leaf, 100% of it's fat burning, cancer fighting antioxidant power.

Not to mention all the other super healthy ingredients in this dish including raw honey, flax seed and more! There are many versions of matcha cakes & pies out there. I chose to simplify this quick and easy version as a part of my new series on quick and easy organic desserts. Recipes including matcha run the gamut - everything from ice cream to sushi. Stay tuned to more easy & delicious matcha recipes.

Matcha In Asia & Tea Ceremonies

The benefits of matcha have been known in eastern Asia for centuries, going back to the Tang dynasty in China. The Japanese tea ceremony is often centered around the preparing and drinking of matcha. It is still widely popular in Asia; particularly in Japan, and is still used in these countries for tea ceremony purposes as well as to color food.

Ingredients: (serves 4-5)

Pie Crust

5 tbsp sunflower seeds, ground
5 tbsp linseed (flax seeds), ground
6 Medjool dates

Filling

1 cup coconut shreds
1 banana
3 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp sweetener of choice (raw honey, maple syrup if you're going for vegan)
about 6-7 mint leaves (use sparingly, mint's flavor is strong and can overpower the pie)
3 tsp matcha green tea

Pie Crust

This was my first time making a dough/crust out of these ingredients. I used a blender set on a high setting to grind the sunflower seeds and flax seeds. To my surprise, the blender I used worked well for this. You can also try a food processor. After the flax and seeds were ground, I added 6 dates to the blender and a little bit of water, and set it on a high setting first to pulverize the dates. Then I left it on a medium setting briefly to blend it up nicely, stirring with a spoon intermittently. Once it looks and feels a lot like dough, spread the ‘dough’ into your cake pan.

Filling

My filling has two layers. Some people use more layers, gradually adding more matcha to each layer to create a gradient color effect. Be careful not to use too much mint. I did this on my first try and it really overpowered the flavor.

Layer 1: Add all the ingredients except the mactha to a blender and blitz until you get them creamy. Scoop out 1/2 of the filling and spread it on top of the pie crust. 

Layer 2: For the other half of the filling, add matcha and blend it well, in the blender or in a bowl. Then spread it on top of the previous layer.

Refrigerate the cake for at least 30 minutes.

Before serving, dust the cake with matcha green tea! Serve and enjoy!

Burch Wedding Cake Adventures With Confection Perfection in Marietta, GA

This evening Brandon and I went to a cake tasting at a fabulous cake design studio in Marietta, GA: Confection Perfection. We were greeted by the shop's warm and enthusiastic owner, Jennifer Punch. Confection Perfection has a seperate design studio that they use specifically for designing cakes, and a separate building for baking and production. Immediately I was taken with the wonderful uniqueness and imagination of the many cakes on display. One of my favorites included a 5-tier peachy ombre creation, each of the tiers displaying a totally different texture and subtly different hue. It reminded me of some of my recent ombre wedding cake obsessions on Pinterest.

Another favorite was this lavender/mauve ruffled cake with tiny beading adorning the fondant in the center tier. Speaking of fondant, Jennifer happily informed me that most of their cakes (even very formal wedding cakes) don't include fondant at all - I was shocked. So many of the cakes had a perfect, flawless smoothness that I have seldom seen achieved with only buttercream. She explained that this is one of the things that her shop is known for. And apparently, people have really taken notice. She showed me a photo of a recent cake they did for Denzel Washington, celebrating his Tony Award nomination!

I am obsessed with lace. And contrast. So naturally I loved this black lace on white cake look. Pink flowers always add a soft finishing touch! I just think of Paris when I see this cake.

 I loved the subtle impactfulness of the ivory script on the ivory cake of the same color below. It allows for formality while adding a hint of personality and purpose. We decided that we would like to incorporate this into our cake. It's time to brainstorm some words and phrases that are meaningful to us. One advantage of this is adding that extra appeal to your wedding cake that will make people take a closer look and engage them a little with your personality and your story while they are at your celebration. I am all about finding ways to incorporate your personality in unique ways while keeping the elegance and formality of a classic wedding cake.

 Jennifer has been in the cake business for many years, so she has seen her share of cake ideas. She says that the artistic side of her really appreciates when someone comes into the shop with a creative idea about how to make their cake their own; to make it reflect their personality and their special story. We had more than a few ideas about our cake. That is one thing I find amusing (and also appreciate) about my soon-to-be husband. He always comes up with these great ideas where you might expect your guy to care much. But with Jennifer's help we were able to all come up with a design that incorporated things we hoped to incorporate: a little bit of our personalities, and somethig to tie in the Scottish influence in the theme and decor of our wedding. Jennifer sketched our ideas out on paper to give us a visual of what we came up with together. (Handsome & Rich were among Brandon's contributions to the words we brainstormed to add to the cake. Dream on mister!!! :-p)

Brandon wasted no time using his discerning taste buds to help sample every flavor and filling Jennifer offered! Haha. (You had us at Kahlua flavored filling.....!!!!)

The prices we were quoted for the 3-tier, totally customized cake for around 120 people left our jaws on the floor. I can't image how anyone can beat this quality and design for this price range. We had a wonderful experience at Confection Perfection and I would reccommend paying Jennifer and the girls a visit if you are looking for a gorgeous cake by cake designers who have a great eye for design and detail.

Lessons In Micro-Farming: Knowing When To Pull Early Summer Harvest & Mini Vineyard Update!

Kelly and Cecil showing off the latest harvest!

Marietta Micro-Farm Adventures

This is me and Brandon's second summer working in a community garden (aka the micro-farm). There are only a few people here that really spend time planting, cultivating and maintaining the plant life, so we have a huge amount of growing space. 

Cecil is the resident garden guru, with an impressive amount of horticultural and agricultural knowledge and experience. Cecil's laughter and silliness are highly contagious, and he is definitely one of my favorite people to hang around. 

Mini-vineyard update: the importance of pruning.

We have a mini-vineyard of about 6 long rows of grape vines that Cecil has been trying to coax into producing for a few years. Luckily this summer we have a resident viticulture expert (Cecil's nephew, Ben) who moved all the way from California to come help manage our vines (ok maybe not just for us, but we sure are glad to have him!). 

After a careful inspection, he concluded that there was one major thing we weren't giving the vines that maybe should have been obvious: a good pruning. This means more energy spread out over a smaller area, allowing more of it to be put towards fruit production. This only needs to be done about once a year.

About 4 weeks later and voila! Our little baby buds have turned into gorgeous green grapes-in-training!

Next week we will be transplanting some more wild muscadines to the mini-vineyard. I am really wild about muscadines. Native to the South East, they have a very distinct flavor that makes an incredible wine or jam. In September (or perhaps sooner at the rate these things are growing), I am going to try my hand at wine and maybe jam making for the first time.

Face-high by the fourth of July.

The Corn has grown faster than it's proverbially expected to.

Fully-grown garlic vs garlic rounds (leave them in the ground).

If you've never tasted organic garlic fresh out of the ground, you've got to. But then brush your teeth, please. 

This is what garlic that is ready to take home looks like. You can see all the big ol' cloves ready to throw in a summer stew, or spaghetti, or freshly ground hummus. The uses are endless, and the health benefits are many. 

Below, we have what are called garlic rounds. They haven't bloomed, and they probably won't - keep 'em in the ground until next year and they will blossom into the little cloves you see above! Or of course, you can cook and eat as is.

Baby egg plants and pumpkins are looking cute enough to eat!!!!! But we can't just yet.....

When golden cucumbers reach their golden age....

Sometimes, it's hard for us to tell if a vegetable is ready to harvest - or if it's a little to late to chop it up and throw it in your salad. With a few of our golden cucumbers, we had already missed the buck. 

When green cucumbers turn yellow, they've fully ripened and naturally are more bitter and mushy inside. Not ideal for your lunchtime salad. With golden cucumbers, you can tell they're overripe when they've grown past a normal, grocery store sized cucumber.

Sugarplum Visions In Marietta, GA

The future hubby and I visited my favorite cake and desserts bakery in all of the land today for our cake tasting: Sugarplum Visions on the Marietta Square. Jamie Fine is easily the most talented designer cake artist I have ever come across. She is also a very close family friend of ours. She is as sweet as her glorious cakes! I worked in her store for a time while I was in high school, and I could tell hundreds of stories about the mind-blowing cake creations she has produced that have defied imagination.

Mr. Burch waiting for me inside the shop!

Jamie uses the most amazing ingredients in her cakes. She uses only top-quality fondant, so if you're like most people and hate eating the rubbery stuff but have to have the polished look, Jamie Fine is the lady you need to come to. I'm not sure where if anywhere else in the Atlanta area you can find fondant this good.

The Sugarplum team is also amazing at crafting flowers and just about anything else you can think of for your cake! Love the elegant, life-like magnolia on this display cake.

This melt-in-your-mouth butter cream is still the best I have ever tasted. Not to mention her shop boasts some unique and incredible cake flavors, including her infamous lemon-lavender cake which is unmatched. Yes, it has real lavender in it! (Yes, lavender is edible!) There are plenty of adorable, mouth-watering Fourth of July goodies inside the shop! Be sure to stop by and pick one up if you are going to be around the Marietta Square tomorrow on the 4th.

From giant intricate replicas of Atlanta sky scrapers, to this photography inspired 50th birthday cake in the making; the possibilities are endless with Sugarplum. 

Stop in and tell Jamie that I sent you! :)