Red and Wine

That's what I said. Red and Wine. Not red wine. I'm talking about a red wall and wine (which was white).

On Sunday, Josh and I wanted to get out of the house a bit. We thought we should go out to someplace we've never been in the general Seattle area. Yes, we like to do this kind of random stuff. Sunday's pick was to go to the Eastside and Woodinville was the place. We thought we'd grab lunch and then see a winery or two out there.

And that's what we did. We had lunch at a cute sandwich place called the Twisted Cafe. It was a tasty sandwich with homemade bread. Then off we went to a winery.

We ended up at Novelty Hill winery. I'm not a huge wine fan, which I know for some of you is shocking considering I'm my father's child (if you don't know, my dad is a big wine affectionato). I do, however, enjoy a nice sweet, white wine. Yes, the kind you drink for dessert that are all syrupy sweet. Those wines. Maybe in time I'll develop some taste for nicer, red wines. For now, this is it. So it was lucky for me that the "bonus" wine on the tasting had lots of residual sugars (aka sweet!). So we bought a bottle.

As for red, well, the patio of the winery had a red wall at the back. See a red wall in the background...

And here's some close ups at the wall:

There was also red in the front of the winery. I like the gray to red contrast (trying to be artsy).

Then we headed home.

A Hearty Meal

Happy ♥ Day!

Today could have been any other day, except for two cool facts.

Fact #1: I made our polenta cakes into heart shapes. How cute is that? It was a sausage ragu sauce on top (which happens to be red). Then we sat and ate a heart-y meal together. (PS the recipe is from Anne Burrell on Worse Cooks In America)

Fact #2: I got Josh a cute card and had it sitting on the table for him when he arrived home from work. Isn't it a cute card and fitting for us Seattle-dwellers?

National Frozen Yogurt Day

This is a big deal people. Big. Today is National Frozen Yogurt day [Learn more]. Finally people are "getting it" - taken them years to realize what I've known practically my whole life. Frozen Yogurt is the BOMB. (<--do people still use that phrase?).

Anyone that becomes my friend finally sees the light after my insistance upon the glory of froyo (and forcing them to go ALL the time). I've even created other froyo monsters along the way. I think my friends in Germany and Holland are mad at me because I got them to love the stuff and then they returned home and couldn't get it anymore. I'm glad I'm able to impart the love of froyo around the world. Perhaps that's why people call me the Froyo Queen (or, the fact that like 5 people send me the article about it being National froyo day).

In honor of National Frozen Yogurt day, I shall tell you about the beginning of my love for froyo. It started when I was in junior high. My soccer team had a pizza part in the Ralph's shopping center in Encinitas. Some of the team members left saying they were going to get dessert. I shrugged and kept at the pizza place. When the girls returned, I saw the deliciousness in their hands. I HAD to HAVE some. So I gathered some other friends and trip #2 to the froyo shop ensued. I got vanilla with oreo topping. Heaven in a cup. I remember the night vividly. The froyo shop was called Penguins. It's not there anymore, but it'll always remain in my memory. And now, in it's place, there are mega froyo chains: Menchies, Yogurtland, Red Mango, Pinkberrys (the last two are more tart, ehh, not quite the cookies n' cream brands that are my fav). Awesome.

Now do your duty and go get some froyo.

Wallflower

This weekend Josh had a lot of work to do, so I had to find a way to occupy myself. And I had the perfect craft in mind. I noticed a friend had this awesome flower thing on her wall. It was love at first site. I really thought she bought it, so I asked where she got it. It turns out it was handmade! It was made out of book pages. She took it off the wall and showed me how it was done. I was impressed (and jealous). I found myself thinking, "I want, I want."

(To get you to read on, here's my final product)

So I did some rummaging online and came across a few sites that did wreaths with book pages - eh, close enough. With seeing the actual product up close and some DIY sites, I managed to figure out how this would come together. This is how I did it...

1. I went to Goodwill and found an old, cheap book with some solid pages (e.g. a hard bound book with thicker pages rather than a flimsy romance novel (not that flimsy, romance novels are bad)). My book was about Pompeii...odd, but the pages were too good to pass up.
2. I went to Bartells (drug store) and bought a small glue gun and some glue sticks.
3. I had a hefty poster board that I had left over from my wedding projects. Then I took a big bowl, made a circle, and cut it out.

Those are the supplies, and then came the putting it together.

• Rip out all the pages in the book (this hurt a little being an avid book reader).
• Roll about 1/2 the book (it was a big book) into curl-cones. To make the cones, I took the bottom, right corner and rolled toward the top. It should look like a sugar cone almost. And staple the bottom.
• Grab the glue gun, and starting from the outside, glue the cones along the edge. After you've made a full circle, start again one layer down.

• Keep layering until you get to the tiny center. Here I had to ripe more pages length wise and make smaller curl-cones. Then glue those in until you get so no more fit.
• I used the top of a soda can to make a little thing to hang with. I just glued it to the back, and then hung it on our bedroom wall.

And that's it. A beautiful wall flower.

Here's the artist with her piece + Josh admiring my craftiness:

[Note: This is not a DIY blog now. I just had a crafty spirit take over me. I am not a crafter, although I sort of aspire to be one; they're so crafty.]

Yuppified

I think it's time to announce it. Josh and I are yuppies. No, that is too drastic. Let's say we're on our way to becoming yuppies.

I liked how Urban Dictionarysays yuppies "usually congregate in Starbuck's, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, and a wide variety of vintage clothing boutiques." Dang. We go to all those places except the vintage clothing boutiques. So, 75% yuppie maybe?

What makes me think we're on the edge now? The fact that we just join a produce delivery service, Full Circle. This service brings fruits and veggies from local farms to your door (or drop off place). This means you get fresh, organic goodness every week.

Our first order was supposed to come on Friday; however, you may have heard on the news or by reading my blog that we had a tiny storm here. That basically stopped everything. Instead our order arrived Saturday.

We opened the box and what did we find:

As you can see, we received carrots, cauliflower, oranges, chard, kiwis, pears, and apples. Some of it's hiding in the photo under the leaves of the chard.

I made the chard last night. This was my first time using it. A friend told me what to do since I didn't feel like scouring the web for recipes. I basically tore the leaves off and chopped them. Then I chopped the steams alongside some leeks. I put some butter and olive oil in a plan and sautéed the leeks and stems. Then, once they softened, I added the leaves. Add in a pinch of salt, pepper, and some crushed garlic. Voila, a veggie side.

This is our trial period. We'll see how this yuppified life goes...

Down Low, Up High

On Saturday our bed went from being down low to up high. How? We got our bed frame!

You may recall back in early November I wrote about our new mattress (Comfy at 35 and 60). This was our wonderful Sleep Number mattress bed. Unfortunately, our mattress came before the frame because the frame was on back order with Crate and Barrel. Translate this to mean: we've been sleeping on the floor.

Okay, well it wasn't the floor, but the mattress sitting on the floor. Luckily, the mattress is pretty high, so it turned out to be a relatively a normal height. HOWEVER, now that we have the bed frame, that normal height isn't so normal. We are now sitting a royal 30 inches from the ground.

We sort of feel ridiculous being so high. If it were a bigger house and a bigger room, it would look very elegant. But being a smaller apartment with a smaller room, it's a bit tight. My feet dangle as I sit on the edge of the bed. I'm just fearful, I'll wake up in my usual slump to get out of bed, forget it's high and fall flat on my face. I can picture it now.

 

Take a careful look at the pictures. Look at the bed stands...see where they compare to the bed? Yes, my friends, that's how Josh & I roll, I guess you could say we're high rollers in a way.

Snows Hits Seattle

Before snow ever comes to Seattle, there is always chatter around town. You hear people talking, "Did you hear? We're getting snow." And then everyone starts to freak out--people posting stuff on Facebook (for instance, this video), articles in the paper come out, people get worried about our buses and streets. And while everyone who has lived in a city where snow is normal, laugh and chuckle, it's really quite a production when it snows here.

This snow news has been up and down since Friday. While we've been getting some snow everyday since Saturday (none of it really sticking, at least by us), we are all waiting for the "big day." The day we'll be bucketed with snow. And that day kept changing...Wednesday, no Tuesday, no wait it really will be Wednesday. Then, Wednesday, but not as much snow as predicted.

And Wednesday it was. Last night we got our first real snow of the winter. And the snow stuck. Not a huge amount, but a solid few inches here in the city. I do know that outside the city, there was quite a few more inches though.

While I'm in my cave (cough, I mean office), I look out and see swirls of snow falling. I also hear kids laughing since apparently folks have picked up sledding down the street. Even when I walked out at lunch to take a few photos, I saw a few teens with their snowboards walking up the street. Did I mention I'm still working today? No snow fun day for me (nor Josh for that matter). Jealous glare.

 Now let's just hope SeaTac is open and running like normal for my flight to Portland tomorrow.

 

Things I've Been Doing

Sorry I disappeared for awhile with posts. Here's a peek at what I've been up to...

Reading

I've been swept away with the Hunger Games. Those of you who have read the series know what I'm talking about. I mean holy cow this series is good. It like Harry Potter all over again; I just can't put the book down. It's serious a problem. I'll be working and then find myself thinking about the book.

I actually thought I wouldn't like the books. I read the synopsis a few times since I've heard people say its good. But really, a books that takes place in the aftermath of a wasted North America? Sounded lame to me, but my friend highly recommended it so I thought why not. At the Orange County airport after Christmas and on our way home, I downloaded the first book to my new Kindle (my big xmas gift). As soon as I started, I was hooked. Now I'm on the third and final book and already half way down. I can't believe I've managed to stop reading to write this post - must have serious guilt for not writing. 

If you're feeling lazy, or you can't really take on another book at the moment, you can always just go see the movie in March. I know I am!

Soup

I've been spending a fair amount of time in the kitchen lately. Since the year started, ever Sunday I've made a soup. I'm going to try and keep it up too and have a little Sunday tradition. The past three Sundays we've had Chicken & Dumpling soup, Butternut Squash Chowder soup, and Vegetable-Salad soup. The inspiration for all this? A book Don & Nada spent me for my Kindle called Mr. Sunday Soups. The favorite so far is the Butternut Squash Chowder soup. Yum.

 

Organization

I'm generally an organized person, however, I always have this desire to be even more organized (oh, and the little fact that I married an unorganized person). As I was reading my Better Homes magazine, I came across an article on home organization called In-Box Rx. It's a system that helps you organize all the paper that comes into the home--mail, receipts, bills. The article suggests setting up a Paper Processing Center. Sounds right up my ally. So last weekend, we stopped off at Storables (a secret favorite store of mine) and bought a few items to create this system.

How's it work? Well you made a main inbox and you put any incoming papers into it. The everyday (or so) you go through this pile and sort it into one of three piles: Do Now, Do Later, or Pending. Then you go through Do Now every couple of days, the Do Later every week, and Pending once a month. The last been something to file away (which is another project for me--a filing cabinet organizer).

So far, it's been working out. Check with me in a few months.

 

Dinner & Movies

A favorite thing Josh and I do on weekends is go get dinner and watch a movie whether it been at home or in the theaters. The other weekend we saw Tin Tin in 3D at the theaters. It was cute and fun. We both agreed the 3D effects were pretty cool and made the movie. Otherwise the plot is pretty predictable, but hey it's really a kids movie. I haven't seen too much in 3D so it was fun and a nice change for the norm.

As for dining, we've been trying some new places. The restaurant that sticks out the most is Ocho in Ballard. It's a tiny restaurant and really only meant for parties of two (three max), but it makes for a great and delicious date night. We shared yummy tapas with my favorite being goat cheese balls fried with roasted pepper almond sauce. Josh's favorite was the trout ( I can't remember the preparation, sorry). Oh and the sherries mushrooms. Mouth is watering.

With my friend Beth, I've also tried the Back Door at Roxy's which had tasty but reasonably priced drinks and food. Oh, and the Leary Traveler which was a fun, pub-like place. Good food. Good times.

Farmer's Market

Yes, we still love to go to the farmer's markets. If you attended the wedding, you may recall the caramel favors we had from Jon Boy. These were from our farmer's market adventures. This time we bought some new items (new to us, that is): 

• Jam - I recently got on an English muffin kick (had one over xmas at the Brown's house). But with two crucial ingredients on top: butter and jam. We ran out of jam (probably from all my muffin eating), so we got some blueberry jam. The verdict: it's delicious with butter on muffins.
• Pasta & Sauce - This was actally a new stand at the market, so we had to try it. Everyone was crowding around. I finally got a taster and thought, "this would be excellent on pasta." So we bought some. And we also bought some pasta at another booth (pasta not picured, it was in the freezer).
• Mushrooms - Just a booth on mushrooms. We love mushrooms, so we bought some (and that's how we roll).
• Toffee - This was deliciousness. They had several kinds, but we ended up with the scrap box. It's all the crumbs that the place gets sold in a box. I put it in some chocolate chip cookies - uhh, yum. And Josh has enjoyed it on ice cream.

 

That's really not ALL that I've been doing, but it's a good preview. Well, actually, this is a rather long post so maybe we have been doing a lot. I take all that back.

Maybe next weekend we'll doing something exciting and I can blog about it (Josh needs to stop working weekends!).

Twenty 12

Before we go all crazy about 2012, let's remember 2011. It was a fabulous year. I had so many awesome things happen. To name a few: 2 bridal showers, a bachelorette trip/party, snowshoeing, visits to SoCal & Chicago, people visiting me, a Hawaii honeymoon...oh yea, and got married. Not to mention, I continued to bake and drink coffee (even though I left the SBux position) ((hence those pics in my collage).

Now off we go into 2012. This year I'm a Brown. My first year as a Brown; should be interesting. Will it be easier to tell people my last name? Will I be the first to be called or in line? Only time will tell.

You know, everyone talks about resolutions in January. Honestly, I think they are a bit overdone. I mean, how often do people finish, or even remember, their resolutions? Oh sure, I make a few myself, but they tend to be pretty broad - be healthy, go outdoors, bake more often. I think I can manage. I usually do these things anyways.

I read a blog called Joy the Baker. She has some good stuff. She says some funny stuff too. For instance, her blog about resolutions (last year, still applies tho). I really like her approach on mini-seasonally resolutions (here). Now that's more like it.

Okay, enough on resolutions. How about NYE (that's New Years Eve), you say?

That was fun. Chill, but fun. We had our friends Aaron & Liddy over. I made some mojitos, we got some Vietnamese take-out, and we played Bananagrams (<-- it's like speed Scrabble). Fun times. Sorry, no pics, we were too busy chatting and playing. Imagine a small living room, a small coffee table, and four people sitting around the table. That's what NYE was like.

Here's to a great 2012!

Family + Festivities

To sum up Christmas this year in one word I would chose: Great! It was Josh and my first Christmas together as husband and wife. Although our Christmas festivities were the same, there was that tinge of something extra in our hearts. More complete. (Aww, isn't that sickenly sweet?! At least, that's what my sister would say.)

Now that I have the sentiment stuff out, let's talk about what we did. Well, we headed down to our dear families in SoCal. Wednesday night after work, we caught a plane down to Orange County. Josh's parents picked us up (with hot cocoa and tea in the car) and drove us to Palm Springs. We spent a few days in Indio (to be specific). Christmas morning we all--Don, Nada, Josh, me, and Gus--got in the car and headed to Encinitas. We spent Christmas day with my parents including Christmas dinner. Josh parents stayed at a hotel, but then drove home that morning after breakfast. Then Josh and I spend until Tuesday with my parents.

That was our trip in a nutshell, but let's talk some specifics:

Dates.

We ate quite a few dates in Indio. Did you know that Palm Springs area grows most of our nations dates? There is a famous store there called Shields that sells dates and date shakes. They have a little cafe where I enjoyed some date pancakes. We bought some dates for our Christmas appetizer, Goat Cheese stuffed dates (recipe here). Not to forget, we had a salad with dates and then Christmas Eve we order proscuitto wrapped dates. Whew, lots of dates.

  

Dogs.

I've been on a dog craze lately. I want a dog so bad I can't see straight. Alas we can't have a dog in our apartment, especially the kind I want. So I got my dose of dogs with Gus and Keely. Aren't they the cutest doggies?!

  

Food.

I could have made dates part of this section, but I thought it deserved its own (seriously, we ate a lot of dates). We had all sorts of yum-yum foods over the holidays. Nada and I made some dark chocolate walnut fudge and peanut brittle. We also made the date appetizer. Then we had a feast for Christmas dinner--turkey, ham, carrots, mashed potatoes, cauliflower, & jello. Along with dessert which included a selection of cookies and an apple spice cake. Deliciousness.

  

Family.

This is the #1 thing about the holiday. We got to spend some awesome time with both of families and time with the families all together too. Nada, my MIL, and I got our nails done. Josh and Don went to Salvation Mountain together. We played scrabble. My family went to dog beach together. We watched movies together. It was lots of togetherness.

  

Friends.

Although our trip was short, we got to see some friends too (and eat out a bunch). In the desert we saw Kevin and Genny with their two kids (@Red Robin). We also saw the Harvey family (@ Tommy Bahama restaurant). Pat and Heather Richardson (@ Solace). Don & Sue Hartley (@ Solace too). Jonathan Hartley and Nikki (@Xmas Dinner).

 

Gifts.

You can't deny it, the gifts are fun too! I got some aweome gifts this year. Josh got my a Kindle. The Browns a great jacket, shoes, and a few other winter weather wear. My parents got me a useful gift for Seattle...a new rain jacket. I got slippers too. Then all the little stocking stuffers. Awesome. Some gifts I gave include: Josh lots of of clothes (I hit it big with Gap and Black Friday weekend). My mom some sapphire earrings (I lost the ones I borrowed for the wedding-sad), dad and Nada both got wedding calendars. My sister a Lucky shirt. Don got a Kindle too. Lots of gifts all around.

    

Want more photos? Go to my Wintertime Flickr album.

Merry Christmas

O' Christmas Tree

My tree is decked out with all sorts of new and wonderful ornaments this year. I love them so much I had to share.

We got two "Our First Christmas" ornaments. The first is one I bought myself. I just was so excited about having my first married Christmas I had to commemorate it with an ornament. I ordered it from Etsy from Something About Silver. It's simple and light weight so it won't make the branches hang too low. Plus I loved the packaging it came in.

The other one is from my lovely new parents-in-law. It has a little picture from our wedding inside. A true Hallmark memory.

Then I got an ornament from my friend Beth. She got us this awesome Seattle Space Needle ornament. I just love it!

All my other ornaments are stored at my parents home in Encinitas. Some day I'll have an apartment big enough to store more Christmas stuff. Not to mention, figure out a way to transport them all up here.

And on the decoration-front. Josh and I also got this super adorable Christmas sign from Brown family member Julie. It's freaking cute.

Do all my posts about Christmas have you in the spirit yet?

Tis the Season

To be jolly...and boy, am I jolly. I just LOVE Christmas.

Yesterday we went downtown to catch some of the Christmas spirit with retail and shoppers. We also wanted to see some of the Seattle decorations. My favorite was the Santa drive-by. Pretty awesome.

As we roamed, we bought some hot chocolate at The Chocolate Box (sooo good). Then we walked down to Pike Place to see the decorations. I loved the reindeer pigs.

That's about it besides it being a beautiful Seattle day. There couldn't be much better than some vitamin D sunshine and Christmas spirits.

Crafty Christmas

I was a bit crafty this Christmas. I made my own little Christmas sign. The idea was sparked by my wedding when I made a Hitched sign. I thought, "hey, I did it for the wedding, I can do it for Christmas." And so I did.

How did I do it? Simple. Follow these steps:

1. Buy awesome paper. For instance, Paper Source or a craft store. Personally, I went to Impress Rubber Stamps. I also bought a cool snowflake stamp on the same visit for our Xmas cards.
2. Buy some sticky letters. That's not the correct name, but I'm sure if you tell someone at the store, they'll know what you mean. I went to Michaels. While at the store, remember to get some string if you don't have any at home. Some twine would be neat too!
3. Find a medium sized bowl in your kitchen and a scrap piece of cardboard.
4. Make a stencil by making a half dome on the cardboard. Do this by using a pen and tracing the edge of the bowl. Cut it out.
5. Use this stencil on your cool paper.
6. Spell out whatever you want to say. I went with "Merry X-Mas."
7. Use an exacto knife to make little slits on the edge of the letters - two of them, one on the left and one on the right.
8. Thread the twine or string through it.
9. Hang it in your home and smile.

Here's my result (I tried to get artsy fartsy with the photo):

It's Cookie Time

The title of my post makes me think of this and then I starting sing to myself. I know by admitting this, I seem even more dorky. But, hey, it's who I am.

On Sunday, my friend Beth came over and we had a baking & decorating party. We both get Cooking Light magazine and saw the front cover with the beautiful iced cookies. We were talking about it and since we both like to bake, we thought we'd get together.

So we made the dough, refrigerated it, rolled it out, cut out the shapes, baked, and then decorated them. The decorating was the most fun. We got really into it, and would notice we stopped talking occasionally when we got really focused on a cookie.

They didn’t quite turn out like Cooking Light’s professional snowflake cookie, but they were tasty and pretty. We decided the snowflakes were the most exciting to decorate – and our best cookies.

The snowmen are a different story. Mostly they are happy, except one, he’s sad.

This weekend it's my infamous pepparkakor cookies. Maybe some other too. The Christmas cookie countdown begins!

Deck the House

With trees and garland, fa la la la la la la la la....

I am just now writing about last weekend, but we've officially gone one week with our apartment all decked out for the holidays. Last Sunday we bought our Christmas tree and I decorated our place with boughs of holly. Well, not boughts of holly, but with garland and all sorts of red and green. 

To get a tradition going, we went back to the same Christmas tree lot as last year. However, this year we decided to upgrade on the tree size. I didn't want no dinky tree, I wanted a really, normal sized tree. So we added a few feet to the tree compared to 2010. It's about a five foot tree and it's absoluately beautiful. 

  

I decorated it with the few ornaments I have (the rest are with my parents until I have more storage). Then some fake (yet very live looking) poinsettias, as well as fresh baby's breath. Finished off with a healthy dose of lights. 

 

The rest of the house decorations mainly lie on our little IKEA cabinet that runs next to the kitchen table. It's got my singing Hallmark snowmen (from my mom), candles, and some other random things.

Now, whip out the Christmas music and get in the spirit...I certainly am!

Straight No Chaser

A few years ago, when Josh and I still lived in the Bay Area, we went to the San Francisco Symphony's Christmas concert. We have such fond memories of that evening. So much so, that every year we reminisce about it and say, "remember that year we went to the symphony for Christmas..."

This year we wanted to do something similar. That when I came across Straight No Chaser was playing this December in Seattle. Now, if you don't know this about me, I should say that I tend to get slightly obsessed with certain songs or artists. For about a month, I play that song or artist non-stop. I eventually get tired and move on to my next song or artist obsession. That's how my music goes. However, given Christmas is only 1 month, I generally don't have enough time to get it "out of my system" so Christmas songs and artists can just be terminal favorites. That's exactly the case for Staight No Chaser. I just love their holiday songs. 

In fact, I can remember hearing them for the first time. I was living in the Bay Area and I was working. I wanted to find some new music to listen to as I worked (because I love to listen to music as I work especially Christmas music). In my search, I came across the 12 Days of Christmas on You Tube by this a cappella group from Indiana University. I listened. And became obsessed. 

Sorry for the tangent; to get back on track...so when I saw they were in Seattle, I seized the opportunity. So yesterday evening we had a night with Staight No Chaser. Preceded by a little dinner at my favorite crepe place, Citizen. Perfect evening.

Here's some songs (they did some non-Christmas too) that they played...awesome:

• Madonna  
• Lady Gaga - Bad Romance with Poker Face
• Michael Jackson mash up with Poison 
• Coldplay Fix You
• Cee Lo Green & Jason Marz
• 50's  mash up
• Christmas Can Can
• The Grinch
• 12 days of Christmas
• Carol of the Bells

Listen to some of their tunes online!

 

His New Look

This weekend Josh changed is his look...literally, he looks out of his new glasses and sees more. Amazing what new glasses can do to your look. 

Josh has been sporting these babies since before law school. We got them in San Francisco at a place called Bjorn. We thought they were so cool, so hip. 

 

These new glasses are from a place at University Village called Market Optical. We think these glasses are so sleek and hipster-estc. 

 

What do you think? (Warning: this could be a trick question)

Out with the Old

IN WITH THE NEW.

By now you've probably noticed something has changed with my blog. It had a makeover. 

I actually just switched services. In case your like geeky stuff, I'll tell you the details. My previous blog service was WordPress. It was great when I started, plus it was free. However, I kept having to update the program (and I'm not very good at that, as evident from the red circle with the number on my iPhone indicating updates needed). 

Anyway, the service grew old and slow. Posting took ages and got rather annoying. After some presuasion from Josh and a free trial, I decided it was time for a switch. I switched to SquareSpace. The service isn't free, but I got 10% off since Josh heard a discount code on some podcast he listens to. Being a paid service, I find that the application is much better. It's faster, No manually updating is required, and there are some cool features. 

I'm still working on some tweaks, but this is the new look for now. I hope you like it. :)

And we'll always remember the old blog:

A Feast for Two

This Thanksgiving, Josh and I spent together on our own in Seattle. We couldn't decide... Eat out or cook & eat in. If we ate out, I wanted to eat a Lola's like we did last year. If we ate in, I wanted to cook a bone-in breast. The decision kept dragging on until we finally decided on eating out. Done. Decision made.

I called Lola's and bad news, they were booked! So I went onto Open Table and explored. My backup options...booked. I found one place, Palisade, and grabbed a reservation. But this made us go back to the decision board: eat in or eat on. After much back and forth, we decided on eating in.

With very little time to consider recipes, and having never really cooked a whole thanksgiving feast, I had to find something and go with it. I found most of my recipes in my Cooking Light magazine and a couple at All Recipe (allrecipe.com). Then the grocery buying began.

We got our bone-in turkey breast from a local butcher called Bill the Butcher. Either the meat was super good or my brine and turkey recipe rocked our worlds (or both), but my turkey came out dang delicious. The best part of the whole meal.

The sides we enjoyed were a green bean casserole, fennel-sausage-caramelized apple stuffing, and a mashed potato casserole. The best of the three being the potatoes. As for dessert, I made a pumpkin bourbon tart. Which also turned out quite tasty. All in all, a wonderful feast for two.