When I first moved to Southern California, I was pretty excited to live just a short drive away from the San Diego area's wine region, known as Temecula Valley. I would bring visiting family and friends there to go gallivanting around the area's wineries tasting wine, noshing on snacks, listening to live music, and enjoying the beautiful wine country scenery. This year, Temecula celebrated the 50th anniversary of its first commercial vineyard. These days, over 40 wineries exist in the small region. It's just a drive away for residents of San Diego, Los Angeles, and Orange County, so it's a popular spot for city dwellers to have a weekend country getaway. In fact, my husband and I visited Temecula in August for my birthday, and we've spent weekends there for our anniversary and ... [Read More]
wine
DIY Time: Wine Barrel Cocktail Table Tutorial
I wouldn't necessarily call myself crafty, but here and there, I work on a DIY project that turns out pretty well. DIY success: my wine cork Christmas wreath I think that becoming a homeowner has made my hubby and me more DIY people. For instance, recently he built a new pergola for our backyard with my father-in-law... ...after our old, seemingly sturdy and very heavy pergola flipped over into our pool during some crazy winds during a rare San Diego storm: This was not fun! We've since stained the pergola, added a solar cover, and planted flowers in the hopes that their vines will start to wrap around the sides of the pergola (fingers crossed): I think that it came out pretty great! We also recently re-painted our bedroom and redid the guest bedroom/my ... [Read More]
Watermelon, Feta & Mint Salad + 4th of July Weekend Recap
Hi everyone! I hope that all of you American readers had a great 4th of July weekend, and that everyone else has had a fabulous last couple of days as well. On the workout front, my long weekend included a mountain biking + swimming workout on Sunday... ...my first ever TRX class on Friday morning (more on that sometime soon!), and hiking with my pup on a hot but breezy Saturday. Fun and food-wise, my weekend included Sunday afternoon wine tasting with friends, followed by tempeh tacos with sweet potato fries from a cute vegan joint we found... ...spinach and artichoke dip making, muffin baking (also more on that later on!), and having another couple and their adorable baby over to hang out poolside on the 4th. My drink of choice that day was sangria.... ...and I made salsa and ... [Read More]
A Visit to Livermore Valley Wine Country
October 2nd was a special day in my household - my 4th anniversary! While Adam and I haven't made our anniversary a huge deal thus far, we definitely like to celebrate the occasion and spend time together. I planned on making my spaghetti squash casserole for dinner and having a low-key, relaxing night together. I happened to be coming back from Seattle in the afternoon, and wound up hitting crazy traffic on my way back from the airport due to a horrendous accident. Running late, I wound up nixing the spaghetti squash idea and making a quicker dish - spinach & ricotta stuffed shells. I also decided to make an oreo ice cream cake for dessert, because for some oddball reason, I was craving oreo cookies (I hadn't had an oreo in probably 10 years!). Since I was short on time, I needed to ... [Read More]
Thursday Travel Throwback: Across the U.S.A.
Happy Thursday, and welcome to my third Thursday Travel Throwback series post! Today I'm sharing with you the highlights of my adventures driving from the East to West coast. At the end of 2009, my Marine and I drove from our temporary residence in the Pensacola, Florida area where he was training, back to our home state of New Jersey for the holidays. Right after spending Christmas with our families, Adam and I packed up a Uhaul, sold his car, and trailered mine on the back, and we were off to move to San Diego! Weather-wise, it was a little risky driving cross-country in the middle of the winter. We did hit some snow, but we were lucky enough to not get stuck in a big storm or anything. One of my favorite parts of the trip was spending a few days in Missouri. We explored ... [Read More]
My New Favorite Dessert: Wine-Baked Peaches
This week my favorite nearby winery, Clos LaChance, was having a sale on a bunch of their wines. Naturally, I felt the need to stop by the winery yesterday to nab a couple of bottles on my way to the gym. Can't let a sale of yummy local wine pass me by! Besides buying bottles of grenache and pinot noir, I also got a bottle of their sweet late harvest semillon nectar white wine with one thing in mind: dessert last night. I had a couple of ripe peaches hanging out in my fruit basket ready to be eaten, and had the brilliant idea of baking them with some of the nectar wine, sugar, and cinnamon - because I love to sprinkle cinnamon on nearly everything - then pairing them with vanilla frozen yogurt. Oh.my.gosh. It was SO DELICIOUS and such an easy dessert to make. First I sliced the ... [Read More]