For Thanksgiving, we spent the day and evening with Micaela and her family.  I racked my brain (and perused Pinterest) to find some good ideas for appetizers. I decided that cheese is always good. So, I made some goat cheese ‘truffles’, inspired by an appetizer i’d tried at 1313 Main, a wonderful wine bar in Downtown Napa. It’s  very simple, and so tasty!

Note: all pics were snapped with my iPhone. I should’ve used my regular camera, but I hate to get food hands on it! LOL

Ingredients: Holiday grapes, Chevre cheese, pistachios (I bought pistachios, and used the tenderizer to smash ‘em good) I spread out a piece of wax paper to keep the cleanup to a minimum.

It’s time consuming, but you have to cover the grapes with the Chevre cheese.  I used a spoon to apply the initial bit, then rolled them around to make them even.

Then, roll around the ‘truffles’ in the crushed pistachios.

epic, tasty win.

For my 2nd appetizer, I found a pretty treat on Pinterest.

Ingredients: Water crackers,  brie, cranberries, sugar, maple syrup (I used Grade A amber), and honey (mint was used for garnish, I forgot it whoops) Follow the recipe as given HERE, but I used honey instead of chutney

stirring the fresh cranberries with the warmed maple syrup

After sitting overnight in the fridge, I sugared them, and let them dry for an hour.

so tasty on their own, BTW.

Assembled as follows: cracker, brie, drizzle of honey, 3-4 cranberries.

Finito, and I might have eaten like 5 of these. Whuuut.

What delectables made it to your Thanksgiving table? Any treats you want to make for the December holidays?

A couple of weeks ago, my office had a baby shower luncheon for a few employees that are expecting babies in the next month. It was a potluck luncheon, so I offered to make cupcakes (I’m known in the office for good desserts).

I ended up making two flavors: my chocolate covered strawberry (seen HERE), and a lemon-lime variation I made up as I went along. It turned out to be the BEST lemon butter cream I’ve ever had (and I am saying a lot there – I love lemon desserts!). I was so happy, and am sorry but not really to say that I ate quite a bit of butter cream with a spoon.

The cake batter was a basic white cake, but instead of adding the full amount of water, I substituted a smidgen of Odwalla Summertime Lime, and then a squeeze of fresh lime juice. It turned out light, with just the right amount of sweetness.

Anyway, the butter cream is pretty basic; all ingredients that I already had on hand: unsalted butter (some say full salt butter, but i really don’t like it – all preference), 2 lemons (zest and juice), powdered sugar.

Soften 1 stick of unsalted butter, and whip it in your mixer (beat it up, don’t be afraid). Slowly add the powdered sugar in (i ended up using about 3 1/2 cups). Add 2 tablespoons hot water (1 at a time)  and 1 tablespoon lemon juice.  I then added in 2 tablespoons of lemon zest to round out the flavor. If you like it creamier, you can add in a teaspoon of whole milk.

Look at the peaks! It turned out thick and creamy.

I have definitely perfected my chocolate butter cream – less powdered sugar, more Scharffen Berger unsweetened chocolate.. Diggin’ it. I added a few candy pearls to pretty it up.

For fun, I added some leftover zest and sugar as decoration.

Now I want to make another batch.

The holidays are beginning (anyone else totally freaked out that Thanksgiving is the day after tomorrow?! Where the heck did November GO?), which means it’s time to start compiling the recipe list for Christmas treats.  I’ve been spending a lot of time on Pinterest (internet crack), and have found so many great ideas for appetizers and desserts! I can’t wait to try them out.

Last week, I read a post over at Hello Miss Chelsea that featured a tasty treat!

Pretzels and chocolate are one of life’s perfect couplings – salty, crunchy, sweet…

I pretty much HAD to make them. So, I snagged the Snyder’s Snaps (regular, not the Butter) and Hershey’s Hugs and followed the super-simple steps:

• Preheat oven to 300 degrees
• Line up the snaps on a cookie sheet, and place the unwrapped Hugs on them.
• Place in oven for 2 minutes – don’t go over this time! You don’t want them to melt completely
• Take ‘em out, and place the remaining Snaps over them to create choco-prezt sandwiches.

After the success, I felt a little cocky. So I decided to mix it up a bit

This time, I used the Nestle Chocolate & Mint chips, and mini Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups

SO FLIPPING DELICIOUS! Thank you a million times for bringing this to my attention, Miss Chelsea!

What other combinations would work?

…AND YET!!

CAN YOU BELIEVE IT!? I was so close to Hugh! Probably the closest I’ll ever get…for now. Just kidding, Timmy!!

I did have to throw an elbow to get this close. I wish I’d brought my DSLR and the zoom lens, so I could get even CLOSER photographs! Phooey.

Saturday’s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass was 5 kinds of fun.

Marco’s first music festival! It was awesome! He was the cutest boy there.

Dude! Fried pickles with Sriracha sauce! Sooo good.

Marco just loves banjos.

Gillian Welch was great; some of you may know her voice from The Decemberist’s latest ‘The King is Dead’, or from the “O Brother, Where Art Thou?” soundtrack. Anyway, her voice carried over the park, and even from our position we could enjoy.

Next festival: I’m wearing makeup. I LOOK LIKE A GHOST.

The evening kind of ended badly, with Tim, Marco, and I walking across the entire city to get to our car (towed). No lie. Golden Gate Park to Mission Street next to the Bay Bridge. But…even that couldn’t exactly bring me down. LOL

Quick recap of my birthday dinner! Holy mac, can’t believe I’m 27 already.

Heck yes, I wore a tiara.

Check out my shoes!!

Favors for the guests! Mason jars filled with gummy bears, Dutch caramel wafers, English toffee, and madeline cookies.  I decorated them with ribbon and mini-chalkboards (yes, I gave out chalk, too!)

My birthday dinner took place at the 1515 Restaurant & Lounge in Walnut Creek. Food was good, and the cocktails were excellent.

I told them to act natural. Good spies they’d make, eh?

Adrienne couldn’t make it this year, so Justin acted as a placeholder. Personally, I think he should’ve worn the heels.

Adan and Tim lookin’ fly in their new suits

I had a wonderful time!! The restaurant was very cool inside, and though the food wasn’t amazing, it was good and I really liked their house-made hummus. Ooh and their onion rings were delicious!

For dessert, I’d brought cupcakes from Sift; Stud Muffin (Lagunitas beer and brown sugar cake, caramel buttercream frosting topped with bacon and fleur de sel) and Pink Champagne (raspberry and champagne cake with buttercream frosting).

We didn’t end up getting home until almost 2 am, but I was happy tired.

I love birthdays.

Yesterday’s haul!

Clockwise from top: Strawberries, sweet peas, Early Girl tomatoes, Roma tomatoes, green beans, Serrano chile, cherry tomatoes

Only a fraction of the tomatoes I still have left!

Toe-maytoe, toh-mahtoe.

 Last Saturday was my wonderful husband’s 29th birthday!  Adrienne and Justin came over to hang out with Timmy in the afternoon (aka eat Gott’s, play Wii, discuss books), and also to watch Marco so we could go on a date, ’cause they’re cool like that.

Tim picked Ubuntu for dinner, which is a vegetarian restaurant here in Napa.

Watermelon and cucumber foam amuse bouche

Canteloupe and sage gazpacho with pickled radish and spicy peanuts in an onion top oil

‘the garden snake’ : greens, leaves, flowers, roots and soil, dressed in olive oil and lemon

Toasted pearl pasta with fennel, chilis, corn, and a goat cheese called ‘Midnight Moon’ – DELICIOUS! I forgot to take a picture until we’d already started eating, lol

 We opted out of dessert, but the manager sent us out a small treat: it was some kind of blueberry pate di fruit, with a graham cracker crumble, fresh creme fraiche, and a lemon shortbread cookie. Quite tasty, mmmmmmmm.

The only downside to our meal was, unfortunately, our server; she was awful. We sat for 15 minutes before she asked us about wine, and repeatedly forgot to bring things we’d asked for. Hmmph!

After dinner, we walked to Fish Story and had a drink. The bartender noticed Tim’s birthday when he checked our IDs, and sent out a cornstarch pudding for dessert. OMG SO GOOD. I know cornstarch is bad…but what a way to go!

My cocktail was dangerous: blended lemon, peach bitters, green tea vodka, ginger liqueur, and mango. It tasted like a smoothie!

After our date, we headed back to the house, and finished the night eating cupcakes and chatting with the Gomers.

Nothing like an evening of food and friends to refresh you for the week ahead!

I know I’ve been SO behind on posts! I apologize!

Last week, the three of us took a ‘stay-cation’, and tried to relax. Marco’s daycare was closed for ‘teacher in-service’ and I was forced to use my vacation days to stay home…so we figured we’d make the best of it! We took a day trip to Bodega Bay (THE BIRDS!!!) on Thursday. My wonderful friend Micaela came up to chill with us, and we had a lot of fun at the beach – getting sunburns (Marco escaped our fate – he was covered in baby sunscreen!), eating salt-water taffy, and playing with Marco.

That night, we feasted on tacos from our favorite taqueria La Taquiza, caught up on The Daily Show, and watched “The Princess Bride” outside (details to be posted later).

Friday, after a leisurely walk to Starbucks (slowly, because our legs were sunburned), the four of us decided to head to Healdsburg for the afternoon. It’s a quaint town, but coming from the Napa Valley made it less interesting, I think.  It was kind of a cross between Saint Helena and Calistoga. There was a great antique store, where I found a 1930′s typewriter in good condition, but I couldn’t bring myself to spend money on something I’d probably never actually use. It would’ve been cool, though, on my desk in the library! Micaela had to mosey home after the trip, but she left us with hugs and Snickerdoodle cookies…so we were ok for a bit.

Saturday, unfortunately, my wallet was lost/stolen while Tim, Marco, and I were at Whole Foods. Needless to say, the day grew sour quite quickly. Luckily, I had my cards cancelled before you could sing ‘The Mariner’s Revenge’ twice over.

We spent Sunday indoors with the air conditioning on, only venturing out for coffee and a swim in our kiddie pool.

Marco LOVES splashing around in the water…and he looks so cute in his swim diaper.

On the 4th, we ended up in Berkeley to see the fireworks with the Gomers. We made a wonderful meal of ribs (none for me, thanks), grilled veggie mix (mushrooms, red and yellow bell peppers, red onions), grilled corn, and salad.  After our delicious dinner, the six of us went to the Berkeley Marina for the show. Marco thought the fireworks were soo cool! He watched the entire show with his mouth open, cuddled in a blanket on our laps.  Even though it was late, he was quite the trooper. There was a 10 minute period of fussiness, but once the show started he was mesmerized.

Wow…after reliving the weekend, I’m exhausted again.

My cherry tomatoes on Friday….

And same tomatoes on Monday:

How awesome is that?!

I made a watermelon salad on Monday night, and used fresh mint from our garden:

watermelon, mint, and feta with a mere splash of balsamic vinegar

I love planting! It is so exciting to see our garden flourish. We joke now that we’re headed to “the farm” when we go to the back to clip herbs, or pick tomatoes and strawberries. I want to plant more! We’ve tilled the side of our yard, and have begun planning out our fall and winter gardens.

Sorry for the late recap, readers!  Here’s my weekend update.

Read on for deets on the debauchery that took place in my household…

SATURDAY

I was awoken by my adorable girl Roux massaging my neck (seriously, I have pictures):

Then, I was surprised by Marco and Tim, who brought me a Skinny Caramel Machiatto (only 140 calories, which makes me feel less piggy) in bed.

After a leisurely morning, the three of us headed out for a few errands. We stopped at World Market and ended up purchasing two awesome leather chairs for our living room…and a HAMMOCK. YES. You will probably never seem or hear from me again, because I shall be reading and sleeping in MY HAMMOCK. Pictures to come once it is set up.

I then hit up the matinee of “Midnight in Paris” at the Cameo.

I really liked this film. I like a good portion of Woody Allen’s work (“Match Point”, “Hannah and Her Sisters”, “Annie Hall”), but I was not sure if I’d enjoy this particular piece, seeing as how Owen Wilson was the star; I don’t really like the actor. My advice: don’t avoid this movie for that reason. It’s adorable and fun; given to flights of fancy, and requiring a suspension of reality – but lovely!

Did I mention the walk with Tim and Marco to pick up frozen yogurt?! Will my devilish behavior ever cease?

Thanks, Yo Belle, for the delicious Plain and Blueberry Tart flavors

Although I didn’t get as much of it as I expected… SOMEONE basely stole my spoon.

At home, I cuddled, tickled, chased, and kissed Marco until his bedtime. Tim and I finished the evening trying to stay awake through “The Runaways”. Don’t really recommend. It doesn’t tell you anything you didn’t already know about the band, and in my opinion, gives you no reason to even care. I love Joan Jett, but I didn’t see much spark in the way she was portrayed, and Kristen Stewart will never have the amount of cool.

SUNDAY

We watched Sesame Street with Marco, and cleaned up the house a bit. After a trip to the gardening section of Home Depot (my new favorite place), we stopped off for a tasty lunch at Gott’s with my two men.

Marco DEVOURED his grilled cheese on wheat (happy camper!)

Tim ordered up the Wisconsin Sourdough

I had a green salad with sliced avocado and artichoke vinaigrette.

Before you think I was eating super-healthy, feast your eyes on the mounds of sweet potato fries and garlic fries present. Yummy in my tummy.

Some gardening, pedicuring, and a nasty bump on the coffee table (poor Marco!) later, it was the end of our weekend. SAD FACE.

I told you it was crazy around here.

What did you do last weekend? Spill the beans!