Pretty in Pink

This week I received this beautiful handmade baby quilt from my grandmother. I love it - the design is really neat, and fabrics are subtle and sweet. Can't wait to use it! Need to purchase some nursery furniture next....

Muffin Mania

I tried a few new recipes over the last week. First, I made 2 different types of muffins from the muffin book I got for Christmas - apple cinnamon (pictured), and lowfat blueberry. Both were very tasty, and healthy too. The apple cinnamon used part wheat flour, part white flour, and the blueberry muffins used lowfat yogurt and only egg whites.

Last night I tried Giada's Tuscan Salad recipe, which I saw yesterday's Everyday Italian featuring 'light and healthy' fare. It was extremely good, and I will definitely make it again. It includes romaine lettuce, blanched green beans, cannellini beans, black olives, red onion, parmesan curls, and is dressed simply with olive oil, lemon juice, and salt pepper.

Then on a not-so-healthy note... I decided to try a recipe for a Cranberry Upside-Down Cake. Over the holidays, I was flipping channels and saw this cooking program 'Weir Cooking in the City' on a new digital public TV station called Create. The cake was inspired by a chef at Chez Panisse, and looked very fesitive. However, one glitch - it seems no one has fresh cranberries stocked after the holidays. So I reverted back to the standard upside-down cake fruit, pineapples. Will sample the results this evening - it smells very good and I just love that gooey carmely top.

Holiday Bake-off

Have a few posts to catch up on from the holidays... We had fun one Sunday baking Christmas cookies to send to family and friends. We made 6 different kinds this year - including sugar cookie cutouts, spritz, star-shaped shortbread, espress shortbread coins, chocolate chip, and ginger snaps. All-in-all, they seemed to turn out pretty well. We spent the next evening wrapping and prepping them to mail out :)

Roman Art

A few weeks ago we printed and framed some photos that we took while traveling in Italy this spring. I really like these gallery style frames, which we purchased at Pottery Barn. We hung them above the computer desk in our den. On another wall we have two Africa prints (one a giraffe, one an elephant), from Cost Plus. Ah, sabbatical seems so long ago....

Oh My Darling Clementine

Clementines are such a wonderful snack. So juicy, convenient, and best of all mess-free. We've enjoyed three 5-lb boxes since Thanksgiving! The last batch was the best, the peels were thick, and the fruit was so fragrant. But there is only one left :(

Crafty Fall Fun

I finally got a chance to put together an autumn wreath this weekend. Made it using a 24" grapevine wreath, an assortment of fall flowers/leaves, and a trusty hot glue gun. It was a little difficult keeping the cats away during construction (they love to nibble on any plant-like material be it real or fake). And I only suffered one slight burn from the glue gun - oops. I think I now have a wreath for each season.

Race to the Finish!

While Mom and Dad were visiting the other weekend, we decided to enter the 5K walk in the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure, in downtown Phoenix. It was a huge event - over 30K people! It was a lot of fun, and the weather was very nice, if not a little warm. We treated ourselves to breakfast at Chompie's afterwards - as it turns out, so did many other race-goers :)

iLike iTunes

So I finally checked out iTunes (yes, I know, I'm a bit behind the times). I haven't purchased anything yet, but I did enjoy browsing and sampling misc artists/songs. And I'm also thinking maybe I should upgrade my current MP3 player to an iPod one of these days..... They just look so cool.

We tried out a new recipe last night we'd seen in the Williams-Sonoma catalog (of all places) for butternut squash risotto. It was very rich and yummy - especially because of the browned sage butter you drizzle on top at the end. We couldn't easily locate butternut squash puree. So we ended up substituting butternut squash soup from Trader Joe's - using equal parts of soup and chicken stock (4 cups each), instead of the 6 cups stock the recipe called for.

Birdies Beware

Bulk pick-up is just around the corner, which means a weekend of trimming the trees. Stew began by chopping up our palo verde tree that had fallen over during a storm about a month ago. Back then, we had noticed 2 baby birds huddling under a branch, after having apparently fallen out of their nest during the storm. Well amazingly, they were still there - once Stew started up the chainsaw, the mom bird took off across the street. So not to harm the birdies, Stew pulled the branch in which they were now perched off to the side. Who knew we'd be such softies for a pair of pigeons (ok, well mainly me). Anyway, pigeons aside, after 2 hot mornings of hard work, our large pile is pick-up ready.

Roy's - A Good Choice

Last night we went to the newly opened Roy's in Chandler, to celebrate Stew's birthday, and I must say I'm looking forward to going back. We've been to other locations in Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Maui - and have enjoyed the trademark 'Hawaiian Fusion' cuisine. For this visit, I made the reservation online at Open Table and noted in my reservation that we were celebrating a birthday.

When we arrived, we were taken to table with a curly ribbon around the votive candle - a nice touch. Stew had the prix fixe menu, which included a 3-sampler appetizer, a choice of 4 entrees - he ordered the macadamia crusted ono, and a choice of 2 deserts - he went for their signature chocolate souflee (even tastier than I remembered). We also ordered the calamari - light, crispy, and perfectly salted. I had a mixed green salad, and ginger sea bass - which came served over snow peas, and with 3 wild mushroom raviolis on the side (kind of odd, but very tasty).

When the dessert came out, the waitress also gave Stew a 3-sampler desert, with a candle, and Happy Birthday written in chocolate on the plate. And they took a digitial photo and later delivered a printed copy in a Roy's card. Another nice touch.