A few weeks ago I asked people on my Facebook fanpage to share which candy bar they like to eat frozen. I was astounded at the response. I always thought I was a little weird for freezing candy bars, but it turns out you all like frozen candy bars as much as I do! I try to be good about only indulging once in a long while, but I always keep a nice stash of Snickers Bars (my personal favorite) in the freezer just in case I need a quick fix. Let’s face it, even though we all love naptime cooking, there is nothing, NOTHING, faster than tossing a candy bar into the freezer during naptime and calling it dessert a few hours later.

A lot of your remarks made me curious about candy I had never tried to eat when frozen, so I decided to host my own frozen candy bar taste test on vacation in Cooperstown. To prepare for our candy feast I factored in a few extra long runs and my mother shimmied her way through Zumba class for a solid week prior. As for the friends we snagged into taste testing, well, they played a few extra tennis sets the next day to counteract the effects of their mass candy consumption.

This is the latest installment of my Powernap column. The series where I share quick, easy food that can be made for all kinds of situations. Powernaps are short and sweet, and so are these recipes. These are the things I make in a jiffy when I need a quick snack, am in the mood for a recipe experiment, or simply need to clean out the pantry.

This ice cream was an experiment based on a recipe idea my friend Kirsten and I exchanged on Facebook earlier this month. She shared that her friend loved to drink pink lemonade while eating dark chocolate and we both agreed this sounded good. The sweet-citrusy flavor pairing had the same appeal as a chocolate dipped fruit peel. (Have I ever mentioned that chocolate dipped orange peels are my absolute favorite gourmet candy?)

My mother has an ice cream maker, thank god, so while my daughter was napping earlier this week I decided give our idea try. I whipped up a creamy lemon ice cream and added dark chocolate chunks. The creamy mixture chilled during naptime and we churned it right before dinner.

I am currently in Cooperstown on vacation so I am stopping in with a few great recipes and shorter posts this week and next. When my daughter naps on vacation I am generally away from my computer having fun cooking with my Mom, canning with Dad and catching up on the latest editions of Vogue and House Beautiful! At night, when I usually work, I am out with old friends!

On that note, I wanted to drop in today to share a fabulous recipe from the most recent Bon Appetit and a great menu we had at a dinner party last week. It was a bit of a potluck situation where three families brought dishes to my friend Peggy’s house for dinner. All of the dishes we brought were easily made during naptime earlier in the day. Truth be told, they could even had been made the night before after my daughter had gone to bed if I had to make them further in advance. Since the weather has been hotter than usual up here I elected to make a cold salmorejo, a chilled Spanish tomato soup that is a close cousin of gazpacho. This recipe, as stated about, is from Bon Appetit and my friend Caroline made it for us recently at their house. It was so fabulous I was waiting for an excuse to make it again and this was definitely the perfect occasion.

Magnolia Bakery Peach Crisps

Magnolia Bakery is one of my favorite NYC institutions. Come check out all of their great peach season specials on Babble!

(photo courtesy Magnolia Bakery)

I am spending some time in Cooperstown with my family right now and am enjoying the break from my normal routine. Vacation has proved positively exhausting for my daughter and while she takes her daily nap I’ve been cooking all sorts of fabulous summer foods with my parent’s. Stay tuned, I will be sharing some of those goodies next week! (Hint, hint – I hope everyone has their canning equipment ready!!) Being away from my own house and my to-do list has given me a little more free time to read books, magazines and some fun internet articles. Here are a few of the things I’ve been enjoying lately and think you might, too. Have a great weekend!

Cup of Jo is my newest daily blog visit, I was so inspired by her Work/Life Balance Series I plan to do my own soon.

I have never been to Sweden, but every time I read Fine Little Day I want to book a trip there immediately. Preferably during the summer so to enjoy the long hours of sunlight and gorgeous ponds and lakes. (I also have to wonder if I would ever run in to Lisbeth Salander?)

Caitlin McGauley paints the most delicious watercolors, I am already saving up to order a print for my office. I can’t get enough of the cheery colors and sweet images.

Jamie Beck is a well-known photographer and her personal website, From Me to You, showcases both her personal professional photography. Check out these cool images she calls cinegraphs, photographs with cinematic movement. I have to learn how to do that!

I love Honestly WTF for the name alone

This is the latest installment of my Powernap column. The series where I share quick, easy food that can be made for all kinds of situations. Powernaps are short and sweet, and so are these recipes. These are the things I make in a jiffy when I need a quick snack, am in the mood for a recipe experiment, or simply need to clean out the pantry.

When I visited my friend Katie two weeks ago I brought these cookies. It was just the two of us with three kids for the weekend and I knew lavender shortbread would be the perfect foil for the endless bowls of goldfish crackers and cheerios we would see throughout the most of each day. Of course, I let my daughter try a bite of the shortbread after she spotted them on the counter, but she wasn’t a huge fan of the floral flavor, preferring her bag of classic Tate’s cookies instead.

What’s Going on Today: Heat wave city – beaching it all day!

Naptime Goals: Prepare burgers and leave in the fridge for the afternoon, prep Caprese Pasta Salad

Tonight’s Menu: Blue Cheese & Bacon Burgers, pasta salad.

The only blessing about the heat wave two weeks ago was that my daughter tired out much more quickly than usual and spent a significant time each afternoon napping like a pro. The heat took so much out of her it was all she could do to stay awake until 1pm after playing outside all morning! During naptime, I’ll admit, I had no interest in turning on the oven. Even though our air conditioning works well it still felt too hot to cook with heat. Instead I decided to prep a favorite summer meal that requires barely any heat to make: grilled burgers and cold pasta salad.