We just hit our one year mark since moving to Texas and it’s been an exciting year! We absolutely love it here and are so grateful we took the leap. The only thing we’re missing is our family and friends – but hopefully with time, some of them will move close by.

Downtown Austin is such a fun area to visit. Pre-covid, we would spend our weekends heading downtown for a little date night action and explore all the city has to offer. As far as downtowns go – Austin has it all! Tons of restaurants, music venues, comedy, nightlife and our favorite – escape rooms. One random night we decided to take an impromptu bike ride petty cab down 6th street and headed to a museum of weird, which definitely lived up to its name. I must have burned off the calories form dinner with all the laughing I did in that bike ride alone! There’s so much to do and I look forward to the day we can return to our downtown adventures.

Post covid, all this shelter in place business has put our exploring on hold and forced us to do more experimenting in the kitchen. Luckily, both Lou and I love to cook and it’s inspired us to try and recreate recipes we loved and miss from California.

One of those dishes we loved and would dine there just for the app, is the smoked trout dip at Coastal Kitchen in Dana Point. We loved that place! It was our go to for quick date nights, to take visitors when they came in town and even for girls night out. I’m drooling just thinking of it. I’m going through photos searching for the dip, I was reminded of so many memories we had at that place.

Luckily, one Cali favorite we do have here is Trader Joe’s about thirty minutes away. On my last TJ shopping trip I stumbled upon their smoked trout and instantly the trout dip at Coastal kitchen came to mind. This recipe doesn’t compare to the OG trout dip we love, but this one is pretty good and packs a fraction of calories.

Ingredients

1 – 8oz package smoked trout

1/2 cup Fage Greek togurt

1/4 red onion, finely chopped

2 Tablespoon fresh dill, chopped

Corn thins or crackers of choice

Directions

1. Flake the trout, removing skin and bones.

2. Mix the trout and Greek yogurt.

3. Spread trout dip on corn thins or crackers and top with red onion and dill.