Verburg Visit

Our dear friends Brian and Nichole came to visit last weekend with their 1 year old Micah. We are always so excited to have friends visit...it gives us an excuse to give tours of the Bay Area. This time, we strolled through Golden Gate Park on a beautiful day, and of course couldn't resist the call of Napa (even with a 1 year old).
At the park, Micah joined in on his first drum circle. This guy kept giving him instruments to try out, and he was dubbed "Curly" by the musicians.

First he tried the tambourines...
Then the maracas...
And finally the drum!

In Napa, we visited Frog's Leap, an organic winery in Rutherford. Scott and I toured their organic farm back in July after our honeymoon, and apparently I never blogged about it. They used to be appointment only for tours and tastings, but they just recently opened a beautiful patio for drop in tastings, so that's where we went. It was a perfect winery for Micah, as they have farms to walk through, and goats and chickens. I am thinking of moving into the winery, it is housed in a beautiful craftsman style farmhouse with wraparound porch, all built with sustainable materials (the wood came from an old railroad in Pennsylvania...they bought it off of Craigslist!) The interesting thing about Frog's Leap is their acres of organic vegetables, herbs, and fruits. They grow these plants only to attract the natural predators of harmful grape pests. Therefore, the winery workers get free reign on the harvest, and they even have the current harvest available for winery visitors to take home. I left with a few bunches of fresh lavender this trip.

A goat at a winery?
Kelly steals a raspberry from the gardens...possibly the best we have ever tasted!
In the vineyards with Nichole (yes, you can even tour the gardens with your wine)
My new home, please come visit!
Here I am in my dining room, open to the tasting porch and herb garden

Sangria and Burgers

Scott and I are seasoned veterans at cooking for masses from our tiny galley kitchen, but it's been quite awhile since we last accomplished the feat, so we were a bit rusty last Sunday when we entertained 10 guests in our little home. But we managed to cook a wonderful meal of burgers, home fries, fresh melon, sangria, and pound cake-nectarine sundaes for my parents, little brother and girlfriend, The Verburgs, and Kelly. Thank goodness our backyard has a picnic table we could all fit around!

The whole crew: Scott, Mom, Victoria, Max, Nichole, Micah, Brian, Kelly, Dad

Burgers made with organic meat...delicious!

Micah-sized burger

Mango-Peach Sangria

(inspired by Food & Wine)

In a saucepan cook 1/3 cup sugar with 1/3 cup water until the sugar dissolves; transfer to a pitcher and refrigerate until cold. Stir in 1/3 cup Grand Marnier, 1 bottle Viognier, 1 chopped mango, 1-2 peaches cut into thin wedges, and a few mint leaves. Serve immediately, or if you prefer it sweeter, let it sit a bit. I suggest not serving the mint leaves in the glasses, as they annoying get stuck in your mouth.

I look forward to enjoying this drink on those hot summer days...

$1 wine tasting

Who knew, every Saturday BevMo has wine tastings for $1. That's $1 for 8 wines. Now, some of the wines are not the finest (Gallo Chardonnay), but others are well worth a taste (Kim Crawford Pinot Blanc).

Kelly and her shot glass of wine....next time we bring our own glasses!

Kelly and I stopped by BevMo on our list of errands around town today, and were pleased to have stumbled upon a cheap wine tasting, it really makes the rest of the grocery shopping more fun. We met all sorts of "regulars", you can pick them out because they brought their own wine glasses...everyone else (including us) has to taste out of these plastic shot glasses, not so good for releasing the aroma of the wine. The guy in charge of the tasting was a sommelier, eager to answer our questions and guide us through each wine. Athough, I think that he thought Kelly and I were lesbians, as he kept referring to Kelly as my "partner". But then again, there were some old guys who were hitting on Kelly...it makes me wonder now what kind of image do we give off together?
Anyway, on our way out we found these pre-made drinks in martini glasses, looks pretty gross to me, wondering who in their right might would buy that?

Apple or Chocolate?? No thanks!!

Testing out a new summer sangria tonight, I'll post the results soon...

New blog!

My parents have started a blog! They are going to photograph their memorable meals (which are plenty, since they are home-cook gourmets). Here's the first post of What's For Dinner?

Zucchini Oven Chips

Summer's almost here, and with it comes a whole new season of fruits and veggies to cook with! Zucchini is getting good again, so its about time to make that wonderful zucchini and basil soup again. Here's a new zucchini recipe that's a healthy side dish. It makes a great french fry substitute, especially if you cut the zucchini lengthwise into french fry shapes:

Zucchini Oven Chips

1/4 cup dry breadcrumbs

1/4 cup grated fresh Parmesan cheese

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

Freshly ground black pepper (to taste)

1 egg, lightly beaten

2 1/2 cups slices zucchini (about 2 small zucchinis)

Cooking spray

Preheat oven to 425.

Combine first 5 ingredients in a medium bowl, stirring with a whisk.  Place the beaten egg in a shallow bowl.  Dip zucchini slices in the egg, and dredge in the breadcrumb mixture.  

Place coated slices on an ovenproof wire rack coated with cooking spray; place rack on a baking sheet.  

Bake at 425 for 30 minutes or until browned and crisp.  Serve immediately.  Yield: 4 servings.  

Nutrition facts: I changed a few things from the original recipe from Cooking Light, but with the changes I made, I am guessing there are about 100 calories per serving.  To make it even lighter, sub fat free milk for the egg, and that will bring the calorie count down to 61 per serving (but the recipe turns out better with the egg coating!)

Kelly's Graduation Weekend

My sister-in-law Kelly graduated with her master's in counseling from Sonoma State this memorial day weekend. She is now officially a MFTI (marriage-family therapist intern...that "I" part stays on until she finishes like a million hours on the job). So to celebrate her feat, the family made a weekend out of it in Santa Rosa. My mother-in-law and brother-in-law Jeff flew up from the OC, and Scott joined us toward the end of the weekend due to his work schedule. It was a great weekend...here's a quick overview:

Friday: Spent the day in SF, lunch at the Ferry Building, walk down Fisherman's Wharf, and Irish coffees. Then we made our way up to Santa Rosa, where we spent the evening drinking champagne and playing the wii. We all had wii tennis elbow for the rest of the weekend.

The wine bar at the Ferry Building

We watched a touristy break dancing show 

Saturday: The big graduation day! We began the day with a home cooked breakfast, and of course, more champagne. Then we attended Kelly's counseling department's reception, where the beverage of choice was champagne again. The graduation was HUGE, it was all the grad students and undergrads, and we didn't even get seats since we spent so much time at the reception, so we couldn't see a thing. (Hey, this happened last year at my little brother's graduation too, we spent too much time at cocktail hour prior to the ceremony and missed out on seats...but I have to say I would rather be a bit intoxicated to have to last through a long graduation ceremony!) Let me just say, state college graduations are not a Scripps graduation! They forgot to give the grads roses, and no one got the memo about the ivy train! Somehow during the ceremony, Jeff snagged more champagne ( I think he took the leftovers from the department reception), and so we had something to sip while watching all the heads infront of us.

The sea of heads (Kelly is somewhere in there!)

Champagne...

With the graduate

After the graduation, we headed to a pizza bar and grill in Petaluma called Brixx. We dined on gooey garlic bread, gourmet pizzas, and beer (what?? no more champagne??). We ended up staying at Brixx all night, as a band started playing, and we took over the whole upstairs and danced (thanks to this wonderful shot concoction the bartender kept serving us: red bull and orange juice, then you drop a shot glass of mandarin vodka into it and slam it..tastes just like sunkist...although I did no slamming, I was a shot sipper).  

Beer at Brixx

Check out the band...I loved the washboard player!

Kelly and I

This is the site Scott encountered when he finally arrived after work

Sunday: Of course we had to go wine tasting while in the wine country.  Usually we frequent the wineries of the Russian River Valley with Kelly, but this trip we decided to explore the Alexander Valley in Healdsburg.  First off, Healdsburg is the cutest town in the universe, complete with a grassy town square full of strolling people and local children selling fresh cherries.  There are tasting rooms downtown, which we tried on Monday afternoon, but Sunday was a winery day.  Our first stop was Simi, a favorite of ours.  I love their Sauvignon blanc and rose.  We had a great tasting experience there, where I learned that I preferred acidic sauv blancs (I learn little things everytime we taste!).  Our tasting room attendant recommended we visit Hanna winery next, so as we are always eager to find good wineries off the beaten path, we excitedly headed on our way.  Hanna is a beautiful craftsman style winery located on a small hilltop surrounded by vineyards.  They make delicious a sauv blanc and a rich Bordeaux blend.    After Hanna we went to Coppola, our favorite Healdsburg picnic spot, where we picnic-ed on salami, cheeses, freshly baked baguette, heirloom tomatoes, my mother-in-law's cookies, and a bottle of Sofia champagne.  Delicious!

Sunday night we celebrated a belated mother's day for Scott's mom by cooking her a down home New Orlean's crawfish boil.  Great end of the weekend.  

The McCarthy's at Coppola

Back in Business!

I'm back to the world of blog...and I come armed with a brand new macbook! So now I can finally update...watch for new posts! Oh, and my computer came with a free ipod touch (educator's special), and I am addicted to all the fun apps, this is a whole new world to me. I'm thinking if I duct tape my phone to my ipod touch, then I'll have Verizon's version of the I-phone!