Stuff 'n' nonsense

Greetings!! What's new in your part of the world? We haven't been having too many adventures, but I would like to tell you about our new favourite wine bar, Grapevine in Willow Glen. We ventured down with the usual suspects (you know who you are!!) on Saturday night and loved it so much we were back there on Tuesday! They have a really good selection of wine and speciality beers, and a truly scrumptious appetiser menu. The ham and Gouda grilled cheese sandwiches, and prosciutto, cheese and arugula flat breads will definitely keep us coming back for more!!

We also got our Vegas trip booked - woohoo!! :-) We were planning a longer road trip there but Hubby will be very busy at work so we are going to fly there Wednesday night and come back Saturday afternoon - that should be just enough time to pickle our livers without destroying them completely!! Thanks to everyone who has suggested restaurants and things to do - I think we have enough recommendations to see us through at least another 5 trips!

I got round to making one of my new recipes that i've been meaning to try for a while last night, and I can confidently say that spicy basil chicken has gone straight in to my top 5 recipes - hurrah!! I made the sesame rice as suggested, but I used white rice as we were too hungry to wait for brown to cook, and it came out a bit soggy but the flavours were really yummy and went well with the chicken.

This will be a good meal to make when our friends Greeny and Nadine get here for their visit (19 more sleeps - squeeeeee!!) as Nadine doesn't eat meat, and it would be very easy and equally delicious made with shrimp.

Well, now I shall go back to contemplating the gym. I went on Tuesday and did a couple of new upper body exercises but have shocked some new muscles in my arms and chest in to life, and dear god they are sore!! I only got 3 or 4 hours sleep last night as no matter how I lay something was hurting just enough to keep me awake :-( Maybe I'll skip the gym today and get some exercise walking around the mall instead .... ;-)

Laters ..... x

And how was your weekend?

Happy Tuesday, my friends! Did you have a nice weekend? We had a rather busy one.

We were supposed to be going to a classical concert outside San Jose State University on Friday night but I was exhausted and incredibly sore after a new routine at the gym and three hours of baking, so we joined the neighbours for some wine and hot tubbing instead. It was a wonderful way to spend a Friday night and my
muscles were very grateful!



Saturday morning we were off to the Guglielmo Winery nearby for their quarterly bottle your own wine event. This is a great wee event where they blend up their excess wine and sell it off for $7 a bottle, and if you buy a case you get free access to the buffet of sausage, garlic bread, cured meats, cheeses and baguette.

The wine can be a bit hit and miss depending on the blend, and sadly this was not one of the better ones. It's still better than a lot of the crap you can get for the money in the supermarket so we got a case to put by for when Greeny & Nadine get here next month (5 weeks today to be precise - WOOHOOOOOO!!!)




Once we were home we had a short space of time to frost the mountain of mini cupcakes I had made the previous day to take to John & Teo's housewarming party. Luckily my handsome assistant, aka the Hubby, took care of the frosting duties while I was busy clearing up and working out how to successfully transport 70 mini cupcakes on a train. The answer? Carefully!!!

The featured cupcake this weekend was the butterscotch with salted caramel frosting, and everyone appeared to enjoy them. They might even be rivalling my chocolate chip cookies and my Oreo truffles for the top spot in my friends' affections!!

Fun times were had at the party, including a thorough testing of John's new BB gun. No people or animals were injured during these tests, but a Diet Coke can was disintegrated and a broken garden chair was, well, destroyed further!

Just another Saturday night in sunny California!!











After a brief hangover on Sunday I surprised everyone, including myself, by making it to the gym - more for a muscle stretch than a real workout it, but I felt better for at least trying.



In the evening we finally made it to one of the free classical concerts that Symphony Silicon Valley and San Jose State University put on every summer. We really enjoyed the ones we went to last year with Eric and Rose and were looking forward to them again this year, but unfortunately we managed to miss all but the final one on Sunday :-(

We spent a lovely hour or so listening to the music in the sunshine and enjoying a glass of wine and some leftover cupcakes. Oh yeah, and some free ice cream! :-)

Well, I'm off to the gym now. I have a fun afternoon of tidying out my shoe closet to look forward to - but don't worry, I'm not getting rid of any of my babies!! We just ran out of room so we got some more shelves to help make them more comfortable :-) If you behave yourselves I might show you some pics when I'm done ......!!

Laters .... x

Dish of the Day

Good morning!! How are you all today? Just wanted to stop by and tell you about the rather tasty snapper I made for dinner last night! Snapper with zucchini and tomatoes and orzo, to give it its full title.

As I mentioned yesterday, i haven't really cooked fish before - especially without Hubby at my back to monitor my progress! But he was upstairs slaying dragons or something so I was left to my own devices, armed only with Nadine's earlier advice to poke one bit of fish to see if it was ready then give Hubby the intact portion (cheers, hon!!)

It became clear towards the end of cooking time that I hadn't fully prepared for this recipe so I was somewhat running around at the last minute, but I was fairly pleased with the end result.

The fish was a little overdone, but that was down to my panic cooking and then having to spend a wee bit longer keeping warm in the oven than it should. The pine nuts in the orzo were a little under-toasted, but that's because i'm an idiot and didn't notice until two minutes before serving that they needed toasted! I thought it might have been a little lacking in flavour, but that's probably because I used dried herbs instead of fresh and may not have used enough.

Even so, Hubby proclaimed it to be delicious and of restaurant quality!! Yeah, right!! I think he may have been a little generous with his praise, but i'll take what I can get - thanks Hubby!! Definitely one to transfer into my recipe notebook! Thanks again to Cooking Light for their inspiration! For anyone who cares, here are the recipes - snapper with zucchini & tomato with parsley orzo

In other news, my parcel from pinupgirlclothing.com arrived and I was very disappointed to find the dress of joy I had ordered was too small *sob* Now trying to decide if it is something I will fit into once my latest goal is reached or if I should send it back for a bigger size. FYI, here is the dress in question ... pinupgirlclothing.com

There will be no kitchen adventures tonight as it is Wednesday, therefore eating out night. I'll let you know if we have anything noteworthy. Today's challenges shall be limited to getting my ass to the gym (third time lucky this week?) and clearing up the paperwork shitstorm that appears to have accumulated in the corner - fun times!!

Laters .... x