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Our favorite things week moves right along with 3 of our favorite locally-made frozen treats of summer. Our love of dairy extends beyond cheese every once in a while, and we spend a fair bit of our summers searching out the best and brightest ice creams and other frozen goodies. Like these…

1. Roasted Strawberry Gelato from Dolcezza — if you missed it, you’re out of luck till next year as the strawberry season here is so fleeting. But, you really can’t go wrong with any of Dolcezza’s decadent gelato flavors. Chocolate mint stracciatella is always a favorite of mine.

2. Salted Caramel Popcorn Macaron Ice Cream Sandwich from Milk Cult — discovered at the Farm-to-Street Party, Milk Cult is a mobile ice cream sandwich and cold brew coffee company. What a coincidence, those may be my two favorite things.

Goodies Custard Truck at Truckeroo from Colleen | GlassBottle on Vimeo.

3. Old school Root Beer Floats from Gigi, the retro Goodies Frozen Custard Truck we spotted last week at Truckeroo.

(Two favorites of previous summers still on our agenda: soft-serve at Northside Social and a visit to Pleasant Pop‘s not-that-new-anymore retail location.)

What favorite frozen treats have you discovered this summer?

Our favorite things week continues with a non-recipe — because I don’t spend much time developing new recipes here at the close of summer. Pretty much everything found at the market or in our CSA bag can be served fresh or quickly grilled with a little cheese and few slices of bread. Why make things complicated?

Here we also added some prosciutto with buffalo mozzarella, tomatoes and watermelon from the CSA, and peaches from southern Maryland. The tomatoes and fruit were sprinkled with champagne vinegar, and the mozzarella drizzled with olive oil. A pinch of salt and pepper and we were set. Oh, and a loaf of Atwater’s sourdough, also from the farmers market. The boy still doesn’t like tomatoes, so I composed the ingredients as shown above and let the kids mix as they desired.

We’d been to a Good Food Awards tasting earlier in the day, where the kids went nuts over this champagne vinegar. Really. {Kimberley Wine Vinegars from California. Check ’em out.}

The tot stopped to say hello to one of her pickle ladies, aka Sarah from Gordy’s Pickle Jar. They had run out of her sweet chips, though, so I had promised her we’d have some at home (fortunately we still had a jar in the fridge). So, this was her dinner creation, titled “The Pickled Lady”:

We may have eaten this meal a few more times this week…. and then we got more tomatoes and watermelon in our CSA bag yesterday, so I moved on to gazpacho.

What’s your favorite no-cook supper?

It’s birthday week at Casa de FoodieTots — mine was Monday, and the boy celebrates his this weekend. I know many of you are already back to school, but we still have two weeks of summer vacation here and are squeezing every last delicious bite out of it. So we thought we’d share a few of our favorite tastes and places this week. Up first, a local diner where you can feel good about what the kids are eating. No, really.

Our local Silver Diner chain, as I’ve written about in the past, sources local and natural foods from farms in the region. Earlier this summer they invited us in to sample their summer menu options, including more gluten-free and flexitarian choices. They offer an entire page full of options for kids, though the younger foodie tot is pretty set on her macaroni and cheese with strawberries on the side. I did talk her into sampling the black bean hummus appetizer with cucumbers and tomatoes, though, which was quite tasty.

The boy has a wider range of favorites, including the turkey and mashed potatoes, sliders, and pancakes. Kids can choose from a list of healthy sides that includes strawberries, edamame or mixed  vegetables.

The farm fresh ingredients include free range turkey from Koch’s Farms, PA; eggs from Martin Farms, PA; and goat cheese from FireFly Farms in MD — as well as fresh produce in season. I loved the bahn mi turkey burger (pictured above). Top off your meal with a classic ice cream shake or opt for a healthy pomegranate yogurt shake with wheat germ, my personal favorite.

And Tuesdays are kids night at the Silver Diner, with entertainment and activities to keep the kids busy while the parents finish their meals in relative peace. There are 15 locations in Maryland, Virginia and New Jersey. If you’ve been, tell us what your kids’ favorite menu selections are?

Disclosure: We received our meal for free to review the summer menu, but all opinions are our own. We frequently eat at Silver Diner on our own dime.

Did you know Arlington County, Virginia, has an annual county fair? Now, there are no working farms in the county, so you may be wondering what exactly an urban fair looks like. If you’ve ever lived in a rural area or visited an agricultural state’s fair …. this isn’t like that. It’s really more of a carnival, with piglet races and pony rides. But if you’re looking for something fun to do with the kids this weekend, there are rides and carnival games galore. And no risk of stepping in cow pies.

And I was thrilled to spot the Big Cheese truck at the end of the row of food stands. I’ll take a grilled cheese with Vermont cheddar and a natural, honey-sweetened lemonade over greasy fair food any day. (The foodie tot was thrilled over the baby pickles that came with the kids’ grilled cheese.)

But there are fried Oreos, Twinkies and Reese’s, if that’s your thing. And funnel cake. And cotton candy.

Visit the Arlington County Fair website for scheduled events and parking directions.

It’s time to come clean, dear readers. When they’re not nibbling their way through farmers markets or attending new store openings, the foodie tots have another secret identity: curd kids. One of the hazards of also authoring a cheese blog is that I often have a surplus of cheeses in the refrigerator. Really good cheeses. And I have made it a point to introduce those cheeses to the foodie tots from a really young age. Before birth, in fact — as children begin to develop taste preferences even in utero. So it should come as no surprise that a steady diet of decadent goat cheeses, stinky blues and Vermont cheddars while I was pregnant and nursing has left me attempting in vain to fend off the kids’ attempts to snatch a nibble when I’m photographing cheese for the blog.

And it’s also no surprise that when Vermont Butter & Cheese Creamery reached out to me about their “Kids & Kids” campaign, I jumped at the chance to share it with you here. Raising kids on real food extends to the dairy case, after all. And goats milk is fantastic for little stomachs — easier to digest than cows milk and less allergenic. Plus, the cheeses made by Vermont Creamery come from happy goats like these:

What’s not to love?

Vermont Creamery sent their fresh chevre logs and their creamy goat cheese tubs for us to play with. The first one we opened, roasted red pepper, was immediately devoured as a dip for pita chips. The second, olive and herb, was used to replace mayo for a super fresh and light-tasting tuna salad. The youngest tot’s only complaint was that there weren’t enough olives!

Recipe: Tuna Salad with Chevre
Makes 4 servings

Ingredients:

• 1 5-ounce can tuna
• 1 4-ounce tub olive and herb creamy goat cheese
• 1 tablespoon chopped green onions
• salt & pepper
• optional: additional olives for garnish

Instructions:
1. Use a fork to gently combine tuna and creamy goat cheese.
2. Fold in green onions/chives, sprinkle with a pinch of salt and pepper, and serve, as a dip for crackers, or use to make sandwiches.

Some other ways we’ve incorporated chèvre into our meals include:

• Spreading it on toast and topping with a touch of honey or maple syrup; Spreading the plain creamy goat cheese on toasted bagels (and topping it with farm fresh tomatoes;*
• On top of salads (especially the herbed chèvre log);
• Folding it into scrambled eggs;
• Making labneh (a Middle Eastern dish typically made with strained yogurt) by drizzling room-temperature chèvre with olive oil, sea salt, pepper, and thyme, giving it a quick mash with a fork, and serving with pita bread slices and fresh tomatoes and cucumber.

*Unlike the conventional cream cheese brands, full of additives, VBC’s creamy goat cheese is simply pasteurized goats milk, culture, enzymes and salt. Gotta love that.

GIVEAWAY! One lucky reader will win their own shipment of goat cheese from Vermont Creamery AND a $75 gift certificate to Zutano, makers of colorful and durable kids clothing that we’ve loved for years. Like Vermont Creamery, Zutano is a Vermont-based company dedicated to quality.

HOW TO ENTER: Leave a comment below with your kid(s)’ favorite way to eat goat cheese — or, how you plan to introduce it to them if they haven’t yet tried it.

For an additional entry, “Like” FoodieTots, Vermont Creamery and Zutano on Facebook and leave an additional comment below letting us know you have.

And be sure to visit the “Kids & Kids” Pinterest board for more ideas on how to share goat cheese with your kids.

A winner (US entries only, please) will be chosen at random after 11:59pm, Eastern time, on Sunday, August 11, 2013.

Update: Congratulations to Shandra! I’ve contacted you via email. And thanks to everyone else for entering and reading FoodieTots!

Disclosure: I have a relationship with Vermont Creamery through my cheese blog and they and Zutano provided product samples and the giveaway prize. No other compensation was received for this post and all words and opinions are, as always, my own.