Now that the warm summer season are here, many people are usually out for adventure, spending time with loved ones, absorbing some rays at the pool, or enjoying the summer sport opportunities available where they live (rock climbing, anyone?). And, it goes without saying, but at any time there are folks united to play in the sun, people definitely get hungry and want something to snack on. No matter what you’re craving, we hope these kinds of suggestions will make a hit and help you pack well so you can play hard when travelling with Rochester charter bus!

SALTY. It looks like time in the sun often makes you want stuff that’s salty. There’s nothing like getting a canister of smoked, salted nuts around or your favorite bag of seasoned sunflower seeds. It’s easy to get a box of different individual chip bags so everyone can find a flavor they like, and pretzels make a great snack as well. Crackers and trail mix are always a good option, too.

SWEET. Vacations with Rochester charter bus always seem to be the time when you let loose a little bit and have some treats. Starbursts, salt water taffy, red vines, peanut M&M s, Swedish fish, and fun size candy bars all can hit the spot, and they’re easy to pick up in bulk or get several different kinds in smaller bags. If you’ve got the time for it, nothing beats a batch of homemade cookies, and fruit by the foot and fruit snacks are sweet, quick, and don’t leave any mess behind (always a bonus).

CONVENIENT. In some cases you don’t really have time to do much once you’ve got everybody ready to go with Rochester charter bus. That’s why alternatives like jerky, pre-popped popcorn, granola bars, breakfast bars, or some cookies or donuts from the store are excellent to grab and go.

HEALTHY. Try hummus with chopped vegetables, sliced fruit, cut up melon (so good! … especially if it’s chilled), snap peas, raw nuts, craisins or raisins, blueberries, cherries, homemade granola, or some fruit leather.

CHILLED. When you’re alloting numbers of time in the sun, there’s absolutely nothing like something cold to help cool you down. How about a batch of homemade ice cream or a box of fudgesicles or ice cream sandwiches? Keeping the cooler stocked with ice cold sodas, fresh juices, or Gatorade is a nice thing for when you’re enjoyable, hanging out on the beach, or during the city’s big parade.

Plus, when you’re searching for some culinary ideas, consider calling to book a food tour with our Rochester charter bus! Be and come exposed to new flavors, try delicious bites, and give your culinary creativity a jump start with inspiration for things to make at home.

Food is beyond just calories; it’s a process of bringing people together, and it’s an infinite avenue of creativity: merging flavors, experimenting new combinations, applying fresh, seasonal ingredients to enjoy food throughout the year. If you’re a foodie and you garden on the side, it’s fun to pull stuff from the dirt, head into your house, wash it off, and set to mincing and mixing things up. If checking this makes you hunker down and howl cuz it reproduces with a hobby you’re excited about, let’s just explain seasonal meals for a minute. For most of the year, you can harvest something you’ve been growing and use it in what you eat. Winter may be the exception here, except if you’re a greenhouse guru or make safety tunnels and continuously harvest long after most of us are finished. But, without more ado, let’s speak about options for dinner parties in spring, summer, winter, or fall.

SPRING SEASON
Come spring, it’s not moment to break out the BBQ and paper plates yet, yet it still could be nice to not serve something as warm and heavy as you would in, say, January. Our suggestion? How about salmon fillets, broiled to perfection? When you pull them out of the oven, slice a few lemons and squeeze fresh juice all over those babies. Get a good cracked pepper and sea salt blend and shake some of that sass on top. As for what to serve on to, go out to the garden and harvest fresh lettuce, spinach, and peas from the dirt, and if you grew strawberries, pluck some of the first juicy, sweet ones. Come inside to create a simple spring salad of greens, strawberries, peas, jicama, and clementine sections, tossing it all as well as a just-slightly-tangy citrus vinaigrette. Bake some dinner rolls on the side and provide for them warm with salted butter. And, to top it all off? Make a wonderful rhubarb custard pie with a lattice top from your hearty rhubarb plant. (But yeah, do that the night prior to so it’s nice and cool and serve it with a high quality vanilla bean ice cream. The sweet and tart combo is killer.).

SUMMER SEASON
Absolutely nothing says summertime fairly like the smell of something cooking on the grill. And, with all the crops that begin in the warmer months, there are plenty of selections of what you can make to associate BBQ chicken or a juicy burger or steak. Utilize your homegrown cucumbers, tomatoes, onions, and bell peppers to add some yummy flavor and crunch to a crisp green salad. Throw the tomatoes and peppers and onions together for fresh salsa with tortilla chips (they make a good appetizer while you’re waiting for food … just sayin).

Make some bread dough in the afternoon and let it rise for the next couple of hours. Add a layer of cheese and fresh sliced tomatoes from the garden.

There’s nothing quite like a simple, straight up, unadulterated vanilla bean ice cream, and it’s easy to make, too. It may not be the first pairing you think of, but cantaloupe and ice cream are delicious together. As you’re sitting there with those you love under the patio lights, talking while enjoying something sweet and watching the stars come out, you’ll likely experience one of those life-is-so-so-good moments, the kind you just want to hold in your pocket because its warmth makes you happy.

FALL SEASON
And the food? The food is where it’s at. It’s not freezing out, yet, but it isn’t summer anymore, either, and the cooler evenings make it appropriate to serve something warm again.

How about certain roasted pork tenderloin with an apricot glaze, a quinoa pilaf, and a pan of roasted beets and butternut squash (the colors will be gorgeous together) from your garden? Throw up a fresh salad of greens, tart, thinly-sliced Jonathan apples from the orchard, craisins, cashews, pear, and Swiss cheese, tossed with a light vinaigrette.

To complement the sweet glaze on the tenderloin, make some cranberry orange scones, and don’t stint the butter, either in the dough or for serving. There is almost nothing as elegant as warm bread, and this is home cooking like nothing else when the nights are getting cooler.

To finish it off, take some more of those tart apples you got at the orchard stand and make an apple pie. Serve them by pouring some cool cream on top and a scoop of ice cream on the side or a slice of warm gingerbread.

WINTER SEASON
Snow falling, fires glowing, and candles burning make for some cozy times around the table. Something about the cooler temps makes you want food that’s hearty. How about the classic meal of roast with scratch gravy, served up with a pan of roasted carrots, parsnips, and red potatoes (the end of what you’ve got stored from your garden pickings)?

For something that is rich but doesn’t sit as heavy, get some butternut squash leftover from the garden, bake it, dig the soft insides, and make that into a delectable, melt-on-your-tongue soup by including butter, cream, and spices, too. Present it with a salad made from pomegranates (hello, it’s December, and they’re back!), apples, and sweetened whipped cream. No matter what entrée you utilize, make a loaf of artisan bread, that delicious crusty-on-the-outside, dense-and-soft-on-the-inside combo. Always a great idea to serve something that clings to your ribs when the wind is a’ blowin outside.

And when it goes to dessert, no need to be shy. A warmer night in calls for pulling out all the stops. Some opinions? A fudgy, triple-layer chocolate cake with buttery, sweet goodness spread between each layer. Blackberry bread pudding served with scratch vanilla pudding and cream on the top. A classic, rich cheesecake with a pecan and graham cracker crust, with some fresh berry sauce additional. Or, there’s always a lemon pound cake, served with a lemon glaze and fresh blueberry sauce and whipped cream.

Using fresh ingredients on hand, there’s no reason to be bland with food. There are endless options, and sharing food together is just another way to experience joy.

And, if you’ve run out of your own ideas and want some new culinary inspiration, consider booking a food tour with our Rochester charter bus! These tours with Rochester charter bus are great for being exposed to new flavors, taste testing, and finding out new techniques. When you want to add new recipes to your repertoire, call us today!

You might be a foodie if you spend a lot of time in the kitchen. You might already cooking up ideas of what you’ll make for dinner the next night, or the perfect mix of flavors for a dessert you’re making for a gathering of friends this weekend. You might be a foodie if you find that people talk about you when it comes to food: they ask your advice, they want to know how you make certain things, and basically, peeps know you for your food.

Do you find yourself in some of the above examples? If so, the kitchen is probably among your happiest places, the place you escape to when you will need to regroup after a crazy day, eat some home cooking, and feel as if everything is right in the world again. Cooking is resourcefulness and common sense combined: being able to explore endlessly, while also taking advantage of things that just make sense– like thyme and rosemary, for example, or mushrooms and onions.

If you love to get out into that warm room and knead bread, cook pasta, make pies and experiment with new sauces, we think you might take pleasure in some of the following apps. From apps for folks that might want to expand their cooking awareness and experience (and need variety!) to inspiration and simple guides, we bet you’ll find at least one that you’ll be glad to learn about.

Blue Apron
Even if you’re an aspiring cook that prefers to learn the best ways to mix flavors together or a seasoned cook that is bored of having to come up with new ideas of what to make for dinner, Blue Apron’s idea is an amazing one. They offer new procedures each week that make use of seasonal ingredients. You can receive meal plans every week for a party of two, or for a family of 4. Sign up for their service and get the ingredients for the week’s recipes rendered in a box to your door– no hassle of ascertaining what you’re wanting to make, and no need to run to the grocery store to do the shopping. Everything comes in the box, all set to go. If you’re going to be out of town, stop the service for when you’ll be away, and resume when you get home. The app boasts yummy photos, detailed instructions, and videos for certain instructional points, too. One of the things we think is accurate about it? You’ll get to try different recipes each week, and thus helping you to widen your flavor palate and your tried and true recipes won’t lose their favorite status by being made frequently.

Foodgawker
If you’re that person that pores over photos of food in Martha Stewart Living, Bon Appetit and Cook’s Illustrated, check out this app. For real … talk about photos that will make you want and salivate to put the apron on right now!!! This is a great go-to app for inspiration when you’re trying to decide what to make– whether you need a great new cookie recipe, some pasta, a crowd-pleasing beef dish, or something tasty to eat for breakfast.

Pepperplate
This is an effective spot to put your faves all in one spot: from bring in the ones you love from the Internet to personally entering the recipes your family has loved for several years. At the same time, the app makes things easy to plan menus for the week or month and set all together shopping listings so you really don’t forget those things you need for the next time you’re in the kitchen.

(Not)Recipes by Food52
Think of this app as the Instagram for food, and nothing else. Where Foodgawker’s app brings you tons of yummy photographs and you can search by category and have access to tons of recipes, Food52’s app is like an IG feed where users upload photos of stuff they’ve made and simply list the ingredients.

Thyme
Finally, this app totes comes in handy. You can set a separate timer for each burner using the app, as well as the oven, and you’ll get reminders when it’s time to take things off (or out of) the heat. This great little app removes the stress of trying to keep track of everything in your head, and streamlines everything to a cinch instead!

We basically think you can’t go wrong with these particular apps. Attractive photos, endless ideas, delicious flavors, and features that will make your life a lot easier. From the beginner to the expert, there’s a little something here to satisfy everyone’s inner cook! So why don’t you try our culinary tour to learn and experience various dishes that you might enjoy! Book with our Rochester charter bus today!

Ummmm yep, and we think it’s a crime not to enjoy good food every day. There’s always your favorite wine with the complement of a perfect cheese, the decadent chocolate dessert that’s a go-to whenever you’ve had a rough week, and your great-grandmother’s recipe for pierogi that has been handed down for a few generations and is still a family favorite.

See … you won’t associate to any of those things if you’re not serious about food. It’s an if-then clause that goes something like this: If I don’t eat, I’ll be hungry, grumpy and have less energy. Look for something to take care of that need, and they’re not choosy cuz it doesn’t even make a difference what it is.

Okay, so we probably each identify someone like that, but we don’t expect you’re one of them. There’s a foodie blooming in you if you identify with anything we said in the beginning. And whether you’re an inexperienced when it comes to cooking or you’ve guided your own cooking tricks to others, the world of culinary learning is an exciting place to be.

As a Niagara Falls charter bus service provider, we like participating in the culinary world by enhancing your options to explore new things, taste new flavors, and test new combinations. Culinary tours are fun and will give you fresh ideas to experiment with in the kitchen when you’re back at home and ready to entertain friends for dinner.

When a bunch of foodie friends met to enjoy the world of yummy eats, we’d love to come along to obtain you from stop to stop. Consider taking a Niagara Falls Charter Bus for your culinary tour if you’re looking for a vacation that’s different from any you’ve taken before. There’s no doubt the transportation will be on point, the conversation a delight, and the calories to die for!