Lemony Cucumber + Feta Pasta Salad

According to the calendar summer hasn’t even started yet, but we have already had our fair share of 95 degrees days. It’s days like these that a salad for dinner feels like the best option — for both your sweaty body and your vegetable-craving soul.

When we aren’t making this Italian Chopped Salad this summer, we will be making this cucumber and feta pasta salad. It’s light, refreshing, and really hits the spot on those hot summer nights. Pair it with some grilled chicken and string lights and you’ve got yourself a summer night’s dream.

Lemony Cucumber + Feta Pasta Salad

Makes 6 servings as a side dish

• 8 ounces of bowtie pasta, prepared according to package directions

• 1 large cucumber, diced

• 4 ounce block of feta, diced

For the Lemon Vinaigrette:

• ¼ cup fresh lemon juice

• 1 small garlic clove, grated

• 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

• ¼ teaspoon sea salt, more to taste

• Freshly ground black pepper

• ½ teaspoon maple syrup

• ⅓ cup extra-virgin olive oil

Optional Additions:

• fresh herbs for topping (mint, cilantro, parsley)

• Hazelnuts for topping

• chickpeas

Making The Vinaigrette: Meanwhile, In a small bowl, whisk together the lemon juice, garlic, mustard, salt, pepper, and honey, if using.Drizzle in the olive oil while whisking and continue to whisk until the dressing is emulsified.

Making the Pasta: Prepare the pasta according to package directions. Drain (do not rinse) and then while the pasta is still hot drizzle the lemon vinaigrette over the pasta and then toss together in a bowl. This will allow the noodles to soak up as much flavor from the vinaigrette as possible.

Bringing it all Together: Allow the pasta to come to room temperature on the counter and then add in the cucumbers and feta. If you’re adding chickpeas this would be a good time to add in as well. Allow the pasta salad to chill for at least an hour before serving. Serve the pasta salad up in individual bowls and then top with the herbs and hazelnuts. Enjoy!

Will keep in the fridge for 3 days. If the pasta is seeming a bit dry after it has been in the fridge overnight just drizzle it with a little extra olive oil and toss it together.

Italian Chopped Salad AKA The Salad of The Summer

This is like the salad for when you’re on the fence of whether or not you even want a salad or not. It’s jam packed with so much goodness that it will make all other salads seems boring — in fact, other salads ARE boring in comparison.

This salad was inspired by one we had at Pizzeria Ruby during our trip to Bentonville, Arkansas. After we had biked 18 miles in the heat of the day to get to this little pizza shop, all I wanted was their refreshing chopped salad. Don’t worry, we also got a pizza (and some gelato), but I might risk saying that the salad was the star of the show. It was full of olives, pepperonchinis, pickled onions, provolone, and salami (I’ve opted for pepperoni here, but to each their own). It was the perfect salad to fuel the remaining 18 miles of our journey and inspire a summers worth of lunches and dinner.

If you’re still skeptical that a salad can actually be that delicious, I challenge you to give this one a try. I can guarantee you’re gonna make it once and then have it on repeat all summer long.

Italian Chopped Salad

Makes 6 servings

For the Italian dressing:

• ⅓ cup olive oil

• 3 tablespoons red wine vinegar

• 1 teaspoons honey or maple syrup

• 1 clove garlic, finely minced

• 1 teaspoon dijon mustard

• 1 teaspoon italian seasoning

• ½ teaspoon salt

  For the salad:

• 1 large head of romaine lettuce, chopped

• 1 (15 ounce) can chickpeas, rinsed and drained

• 6 oz thinly sliced pepperoni, chopped

• 1 ½ cups cherry or grape tomatoes, halved

• ½ cup pitted sliced kalamata olives

• ¼ cup sliced pepperoncinis

• 4 ounces pickled red onions

• ½ cup cubed provolone cheese

• ¼ cup shredded parmesan

  Make the dressing: in a medium bowl, whisk together the olive oil, red wine vinegar, sugar/honey, garlic, dijon, italian seasoning, salt and pepper.

  Chop and prep all your other ingredients.

  Assemble the salad: Next add in the chickpeas, pepperoni, tomatoes, olives, pepperoncinis, red onion, provolone cheese, + parmesan. Drizzle the dressing over the salad and toss to combine. Serve immediately. To make this ahead of time keep the dressing separate until ready to serve.

Our Favorite Coffee, Food, + Sights in Northwest Arkansas

Bentonville, Arkansas has been on our radar for a while now because of the famous coffee roastery, Onyx. We finally made it down to explore this area for a long weekend and found ourselves impressed with the emphasis on both nature and art. We spent most of our time in Bentonville, but ventured down to Eureka Springs and had a great time exploring what is likely one of the hippiest towns in North America. If you’re looking for a unique long-weekend experience I think that Northwestern Arkansas is definitely worth exploring. Here’s a round up of our favorite coffee, food, and sights we discovered during our time there.

Where we stayed

This is the Airbnb we stayed at. It was about a 7 minute drive from downtown Bentonville and provided easy access to everything we wanted to go and do. If we return to Bentonville I will probably try to stay closer to downtown so that we can bike more easily around.

Coffee

Onyx Coffee Lab - This coffee shop was our main draw to Bentonville. They’ve made a worldwide reputation for themselves as serving some of the best coffee and we knew we had to experience one of their shops for ourselves.

We visited both the downtown Bentonville location as well as the HQ location in Rogers. Both locations had a small pour over menu that consisted of a rotating selection of coffees. We tried a natural kenyan as a pour over as well as a shot of espresso. It was fun to see how different the profile was using the same beans, but different methods of brewing. During our next visit we both opted for a straight forward drip coffee made using their Southern weather blend and honestly prefered the flavor of this over the pour over and espresso that we had. Overall our experience at both shops was great.

Considering the fact that we drove almost 6 hours to get here I was expecting the coffee to blow my mind in a way that it didn’t. Did I enjoy the experience? 100%! Will I come back if we’re driving through? For sure! Do I think it’s a really great option if you’re in the Bentonville area? Without a doubt! Will I drive 6 hours agaun just to go to the shop? Probably not.

Airship Coffee - As far provdiding an experience, this coffee shop knows what it is doing. We visited two different locations and got two very different, but both equally fantastic experiences.

The Coler location is nestled in the woods and only accessible via biking or walking. The hidden nature of this coffee shop captured our attention and we knew we had to visit. Admittedly the coffee itself wasn’t our favorite (a bit too roasty for our taste buds) BUT the experience was still superb and I would 100% go back again. Here are three parking lots where you can get to the shop from. All parking lots are under a mile from the coffee shop.

• Coler Mountain Bike Preserve South Gateway (NW 3rd Street)

• Coler Grove Parking Lot (Just up the road from the South Gateway on the right)

• Coler North Trail Head Parking Lot (Peach Orchard Rd)

The Pumphouse Location gets 5 stars for the midcentury-science-lab vibes. We sat and worked on our computers here for over two hours and it was perfect — bright light, lots of outlets, and very spacious. We tried two pour overs and they were a bit better than the drip coffee we had had at the Coler location, but still not necessarily our chosen flavor profile. That said, this shop is still a place I would 100% come again and again if I lived in Bentonville — even if the coffee wasn’t my favorite. The vibes really got me.

Food

Crepes Paulette - This food truck turned brick-and-mortar is serving up some innovative crepe combos. All the savory crepes are made using a buckwheat flour based batter which lends a nice nuttiness to the crepes. We tried the thai, rubenesque, and strawberry with chocolate ganache. Be warned that the wait can be LONG. I was anticipating it would be a place we could pop in and out of quickly and head out of town, but it ended up being over an hour from the time we walked in to the time we actually had crepes in front of us. It was definitley worth the wait, but just temper your time expectations.

Yeyo’s Mexican Street Food - A modern take on Mexican cuisine that emphasizes the use of freshly grown ingredients. We split the taco plate which consisted of a variety of 8 different tacos and each and every one was to die for. Everything felt super fresh and flavorful! We didn’t get any cocktails, but their drink menu looked really interesting.

Pizzeria Ruby - This east coast style neighborhood pizza place was everything we hoped it would be and more. The pizza was phenomenal, but the salads were equally delicious. We literally ate here twice and would have gone back for a third if we had another day. Between our two visits we got the vodka pizza, mushroom pizza, house salad, and chopped salad and continually raved about all of the above. The cherry gelato was also amazing — served with a drizzle of olive oil and sea salt. I really can’t recommend this place enough.

Markm and Fitz - A bean to bar chocolatier that is creating true masterpieces. I think my jaw genuinely dropped as we looked around at all the different chocolate bars. Timing never worked for us to go back and get some, but the smells we got to experience and the rave reviews I have seen have me convinced it is nothing short of magical.

Sights

Eureka Springs - I’m calling it a sight because we kind of treated Bentonville as our home base and so driving an hour to visit Eureka Springs and walk the shops makes it feel like a site. Eureka Springs might quite literally be the hippiest place I have ever been. The hilly streets of the quant town are lined with crystal shops, local artist, and knick-knack stores. It was totally worth the drive just to take in this little town!

Inspiration Point Overlook - Definitely worth a quick stop on your way to Eureka Springs if you’re coming from Bentonville.

Crystal Bridges - This incredible art museum was FREE and captured our art-loving hearts. We didn’t get back from Eureka Springs until there was only 2 hours left to closing, but I would say you could budget closer to 3-4 hours to spend at the museum if you really enjoy reading about art and taking your time walking around. This is a MUST if you are in Bentonville. Don’t miss out on walking through the Frank Lloyd Wright home. Tickets are free, but timed so make sure you get your tickets before you walk out to the house (like we did).

Compton Gardens and Arboretum - Another free place that I highly recommend checking out! There are lots of beautfiul walking trails that will inspire you.

Walking to the top of the ledger building - There’s a ramp that zig zags along the front of the building that is available to the public. It’s super fun to walk up the ramp and look inside the building and when you get to the top you’re rewarded with a really nice view of the city. Bonus: plan it at sunset for an even more spectatcular view.

Farmer’s Market in downtown - Located in the Bentonville Square, a dreamy park with a fountain in the middle, the Farmer’s market takes place on Saturdays from 7:30am-1pm and there are lots of vendors. Definitely worth a stop even if you don’t plan to buy anything.

Biking Trails - Whether you are looking for mountain biking trails or just regular paved biking trails, Bentonville is the place to be. There are lots of trails to choose from and they are maintained really well. We don’t have mountain bikes and truthfully paved biking is more of my jam, so we checked out the Razorback Trail and the Applegate Trail. Both of those trails are paved and were so fun to ride on. There are lots of bridges over streams that make the trails engaging and enjoyable. Next time we go to Bentonville, this is probably what we will spend most of our time doing! They were seriously some of the best trails I have every been on.

Springy Green Bucatini

I had bucatini for the first time a few weeks ago and fell head over heels. Like, what have I been doing with my life? One might think that a pasta is a pasta is a pasta is a pasta, but this bucatini will prove you wrong. The thicker texture and straw-like interior of the noodles is so fun and brings an arguably superior experience to this pasta dish. After discovering these magical noodles I knew I needed to use them in a version of this super green pasta dish I had been making on repeat. Now, I’m not going back.

The sauce for this dish was born out of a desire to enjoy a bowl of pasta, but also get a LOT of veggies in at once. I happened to have some kale in the fridge, a bunch of peas in the freezer, + some broccoli just begging to be used. To round this pasta dish out I would recommend adding in some protein — salmon, chicken, etc. When you think pasta you probably think heavy and indulgent, but this version will make you think differently. The sauce is bright and refreshing and the perfect dinner for these spring nights.

Springy Green Bucatini

Serves 6

• 1 lb bucatini pasta

• 6 large leaves of kale

• 1 garlic clove, minced

• 1 cup frozen peas, thawed

• A handful of basil

• A few leaves of mint

• 3 tablespoons olive oil

• 1/2 a lemon, the zest and juice

• 1/4 cup shredded parmesan, plus more for topping

• 1 cup broccoli, chopped

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• hazelnuts, optional but add a nice crunch

• protein of choice

Bring a large pot of salted water to boil. Once boilding, add the pasta and cook according to package instructions.

Add the kale to the pasta water. After about a minute, remove the kale using a pair of tongs. Remove 1/4 cup of the pasta water as well.

While the pasta is cooking, add the kale, garlic, half of the peas, basil, olive oil, lemon juice, parmesan, and the 1/4 cup of reserved pasta water, and salt in a blender. Blend until smooth. Taste and adjust the salt as needed.

When there are just a few minutes left of the pasta’s cooking time, throw the brocooli and remaining oeas into the pan to cook. Drain the pasta and veggies in a colander and return them to the pot. Toss the pasta and veggies with the sauce. Serve topped with shredded parmesan and hazelnuts.