What’s Been Cooking: June 2026

Summer is officially here! June was full of fun adventures and delicious treats, the way this time of year should be. Here’s what we were up to:

🌊 Weekend In Coastal Maine 

We finally checked off a bucket list trip this month to visit the puffins in Maine! 

Maine is the only state in the US where Atlantic puffins nest during breeding season. When we arrived at the island on our boat cruise, there were tons of puffins hanging out on the rocks and in the water nearby (so cool to see!), plus other seabirds like terns, ducks, and gulls. There was a naturalist on board to educate us about all the different birds we were seeing and share puffin facts, our favorite of which is that baby puffins are called “pufflings.” Somehow we turned into avid bird watchers on this trip and are now keeping close tabs on the puffins through explore.org’s puffin burrow livecam!

But even though we went for the puffins, we stayed for the food…

We picked the small town of Boothbay Harbor as our home base for the weekend and were surprised to find it had an amazing food scene. Our favorites were a small cafe and pastry shop called Harbor Treats, situated at the end of the scenic footbridge we walked across every day from our hotel into town, and a whiskey bar speakeasy tucked at the back of a sub shop that had the most unique cocktails we’ve ever tried. 

We also went to the local brewery nearly every day for blueberry beer, nachos, and soft pretzels (because how could we resist?), ate plenty of seafood (including an award-winning crab cake), and treated ourselves to an Italian dinner of rolled eggplant stuffed with ricotta, pasta (spaghetti alle vongole for me and bolognese for Alex), and tiramisu.

Oh, and we had to try the matcha and chai lattes from every cute little coffee shop in town. Which meant that we ate more, drank more, and consumed way more sugar than we normally do, all in the span of 5 days. But that’s what vacation is for!

And because life is about the journey, we took our time winding through the White Mountains National Forest on our way to Maine – which included a stop in North Conway for lunch at a gourmet grilled cheese shop called Cheese Louise – and then meandered back through rural Maine and stopped at a brewery for lunch on the way back. Food and nature are two of the reasons we love road trips so much: you never know what you’re going to find, and oftentimes the surprises along the way are just as exciting as the destination.

☀️ Summer Fun

Even though it’s been raining a ton this month, summer weather is finally here! And summer in Vermont is honestly the best time – the air is fresh and crisp, the sun is hot, the lake is sparkly, and everything is so green.

🍦 Alex’s parents visited us for a weekend with lots of great food, time outside, and sports as the World Cup kicked off! As out-of-staters, we had to show them the best maple treats in town, so we grabbed maple donuts for breakfast one morning and then enjoyed maple creemees (Vermont’s iconic soft serve ice cream) on a hot afternoon.

⚽ We went to a Vermont Green soccer game, which has become a summer tradition for us now! The atmosphere is unbeatable, especially on a warm summer night with a free Ben & Jerry’s sample in hand.

🌿 Since we’ve had so much rain, our garden is in full bloom! We’ve spent plenty of time tending to it and have already harvested so much basil for recipes like homemade pesto, pesto risotto, margherita pizza, gin basil mojitos, and herby yogurt sauces to drizzle on chicken and rice bowls.

🏖️ On weekends it hasn’t been raining, we’ve been soaking up the sun by the lake. Last weekend we took a little road trip to visit Lake Elmore and rent a canoe, which we followed up with a visit to The Alchemist brewery for dinner outside. It was a perfect summer day!

🍴 What We’ve Been Cooking Lately

Our summers definitely get busy and chaotic. Which means we’re leaning on easy, light, and fresh recipes right now that don’t require us to spend too much time in the kitchen, like:

• Tacos – One of our favorite go-to’s in the summer. They can be fairly quick to make, even when we always make our tortillas from scratch now, and we love the fresh flavors of pico de gallo, guacamole, quick pickled peppers, and Greek yogurt as toppings.
• Nachos – Similar to tacos, they’re quick, easy, and can be loaded up with fresh toppings. Nachos are in fact a meal (this is a hill we’ll die on).
• Pizza – Summer pizza date nights are our favorite! We take some time during the day to prep homemade dough, but we get two dough balls out of our go-to recipe so we can either do pizza two nights in a row or pizza one day and focaccia the next. (Pro tip, homemade focaccia with pesto is the best summer snack.) 
• Sandwiches – Absolutely perfect for warm summer nights when we don’t want to cook, or we want to take dinner on the go and have a picnic by the lake. If we’re using chicken, we’ll marinate and grill it ahead of time so it’s cold by dinner. Some of our favorites are chicken Caesar sandwiches, prosciutto and mozzarella sandwiches, and a loaded BLT club sandwich.
• Charcuterie – Cheese nights for dinner are a treat that happen a lot more often in the summer, mostly because they’re so easy and don’t require any cooking. We usually include 2 to 3 kinds of cheese, crackers and/or bread, a meat like pepperoni or chorizo, fresh fruit, and 1 or 2 jams for a flavorful spread that makes it hard to choose a favorite combo!

What are your go-to’s this time of year?