Comfort, Texas

Comfort, Texas. Not too shabby. Neddie and I have been in Texas, visiting fam and friends and we've taken a two-day sojourn into Hill Country. We're treating ourselves with two nights in Comfort, a small town outside of Austin. Pretty much the cutest place ever. The B&B sits creekside, and we've spent the last few hours either swinging by the water or on the porch admiring the bougainvillea and watching the (nice) locals drive/walk by.
Our Texas trip has been great. I love visiting with Neddie's parents and we even managed to coordinate with Uncle Solly and Aunt Bets for a delicious dinner in Houston. And the weather in Comfort right now? About 75 with a light breeze. Um, yes please.
Each time I'm in Texas I like it more and more. And, I've realized that Texans are right - Californians have NO IDEA what real barbecue is. :)

the landscaping projects begins; happy fourth!

Ned and I have taken the first step to our new, fabulous yard! On Saturday a landscape crew came out to clean out almost everything in the backyard and trim down a ton of other stuff. In the 3+ years we've lived here, we've never really addressed the yards before; other than mowing and some minor planting/weeding. Things had gotten out of control! Messy and out of control.
Here's an a before/after shot:















I LOVE the rock wall! So cool. So we're going to start drawing up some plans and figure out what to do to make over our yard. Exciting! we can't wait to spend some more time back there with the boys.

Also, today is the Fourth of July! Weeee! We started off the morning with some salmon for the doggies and some homemade blueberry pancakes for us. They were bomb! I had never made pancakes from scratch before, super-easy and just about as fast as using a mix. Later, we hung out with the fam at Uncle Jeff's place and played horseshoes and drank tequila. Awesome. Hope to catch fireworks tonight off the deck. Double Awesome.

happy faja day!

To celebrate Father's Day, we're having my parents over for dinner. I made arroz con pollo, one of my pop's favorites, and for dessert - lemon bars! I hadn't realized as I never made them before, but lemon bars are almost entirely butter and sugar - escalando!
So I found a solid recipe and just kinda winged it, left out a bunch of butter (a whole stick!!!) and some of the sugar. They came out awesome - a little sticky, but super delish.
I have to perfect my arroz con pollo recipe and then I'll add it here. Right now it's kinda from memory, which means it's a bit different each time, ha!
Happy Father's Day!

our estate sale find of the year (probably)

On Fridays, Ned and I have been nerding out and hitting up the local estate sales. We're mainly looking for records, but of course we sometimes see cool stuff we have to have. I've found a few small art pieces, retro kitchen stuff, mid century knick knacks, that sort of thing.
Well, a cool bar has been on our want list for about three years now - and we finally discovered great one at an estate sale just down the street. It was a total score, complete with all the glassware (that fit in custom-made niches) and in great condition for just $140. We were stoked! Our record room is really turning into a hip, pulled-together space. Haha it's only taken us like 4 years to do it.
Also this weekend we went to Antiques Roadshow! How funny is that? They were filming in San Diego and my parents won the ticket lottery - they would have totally gone, but they had a vacation this wknd, so Ned and I got the tickets!
I have to say we had fun, but it was a lot of waiting - I mean like Disneyland-in-Summer-want-to-go-on-Splash-Mountain kind of waiting. We had to queue to get into the event, then again to get into the main room, then again in the individual item line. But, I did get the see a few of my favorite appraisers, and there was definitely some good people watching, so we had a really fun time.
Have to run and do some housework, then we're making some BBQ!

flag day

Summer is finally here and we did so much cool stuff this weekend. Chad, Esther and Sylvie came in on Friday night as my braja was going to work on his car with my dad. We got to stay up late that night drinking on the jazz deck and chatting while Sylvie killed hundreds of noobs playing Call of Duty online.
Saturday Ned and I took Sylvie to the La Mesa Flag Day Parade and met up with Tina nd Robby. If you haven't checked this parade out, I highly recommend it. It's a very cute small-town American type event - with high school marching bands, Girl Scouts passing out flags and Tootsie Pops and a salute to veterans. Totally cool. We also took Lucky and Boo and everyone had a great time!
Later that night we met up with everyone at the Ranch for dinner - my mom made some amazing oven-fried chicken, I have to get the recipe! All the activity led Neddie and me to just chill at the house today - lunch and a beer on the deck followed by some NBA Finals. A really great start to summer!

memorial day vacation

Wow - this has been a great Memorial Day! My new work schedule has me off on Fridays and Ned's schedule this week was pretty light so we started our three-day weekend early :) I finally made it out to Mission Hills Nursery (had a Groupon for 50% off, woohoo!) and we picked up new pants for the deck and the cute planters outside the guesthouse. All drought tolerant - so if I forget to water every one in a while it won't kill them. Let's hope at least!
We also did some good cooking. I had been wanting to try a homemade onion dip, and I found a recipe online that was quick and easy. Um, if you're ever doubting whether or not it's worth making your own, it is. So tasty and healthy, we had it with pop chips and veggies. Also made some cookies - a new chocolate-cherry combo. Also ridiculously good.
Going to watch a funny movie tonight and hang out with the doggies on the sofa. Good times.

Here's the recipes! Happy Sunday!

- Caramelized Onion Dip from Southern Living
On this one, I added in my Kitchen Stories french herb blend and I also did a slightly higher onions-to-sour cream-ratio, cuz I cannot get enough of them.

- Chocolate-Cherry Heart Smart Cookies from Cooking Light
A really yummy healthy-ish cookie. I did all whole-wheat flour, mini semi-sweet chips instead of bittersweet and took the sugar down to one half-cup, lightly packed. Tasty noms.

la getaway!

Wow! We are having a blast in LA. We planned a short trip up to the big city for a Sonny Rollins concert and we're having so much fun knocking around. This morning we had brunch at Real Food Daily in West Hollywood - a fab vegan place I found. Above is a pic of my super-yummy tofu benedict (grilled tomatoes and spinach topped with tofu and corn hollandaise, with tempeh (bacon substitute) and fresh fruit. It was awesome to eat something on vacay that didn't make us feel fatty bo batty. We even had a carrot-apple-beet-celery juice for breakfast dessert, so it was just like home :)
Today we'll be doing a bit of window shopping, heading back to Amoeba for some more music (scored some good stuff there yesterday afternoon) and then tonight - steak at Taylor's and Sonny Rollins with Chad, Esther and Sylvian. Ned wanted to share the concert with them so we're all going together, should be fun!