Yep, That's Right. I'm Growing Grass in my Second Bedroom.

As I prepare for a dog to arrive into our home come January, I was started thinking about how I'm going to house train a dog if we get one as a puppy. And even if it's older, I feel bad leaving it at home all day not being able to go to the bathroom. Yes, I know, people do this all the time, but for some reason it's bothering me.

So, thanks to the lovely Jen Miller, I got the idea to grow grass for the dog that we would keep out on our porch!  I was so impressed the first time I went to Jen's and saw her little Pomeranian, Duke, running out onto the porch to use the grass Jen had grown for him.  She leaves it open just enough for him to run in and out during the day while she's gone, solving the problem of having to rush home after work every day.  Brilliant!

Unlike Jen, I did not come across this idea until about two weeks ago, when it's already too cold to start growing grass outside.  Secondly, Jen has a concrete patio, so used metal oil trays to grow her grass in.  I, however, have a wood porch and metal would completely ruin it once it started to rust.  So after multiple stops at multiple places in Seattle, I went to Target in search of something that would work.  The best thing I found ended up being the top to the plastic storage bin you see above.  It's about three inches deep - perfect for a little bit of soil and grass seed!

So two Sundays ago, Jon and I went to work planting our grass. He wanted to buy the cheap $5 bag of seed, but wanting to make sure this worked, I opted for the $15 jug of supercharged, fertilized, mulch included grass seed.  As I said, it's too cold to grass outside now, so our creation is now sitting in our second bedroom by the window - it looks super funny/random when you walk in. It said it would take about nine days to grow, so I began watering my grass with a Windex bottle every day.  About five days later, I came home to find the grass was starting to go.  Two weeks after planting, it's not about 3-4 inches long and filling in nicely.  I'm a tad obsessed with it, but I know the dog will like it :)

Pet Adoption - A New Adventure

I've recently received some exciting news!  Our lease was coming to an end in January, so we were faced with the choice of moving or staying in our current condo.  We love our place (despite the somewhat questionable location in Northgate), but when we moved in last January, the owners told us we couldn't have a dog.  At that point, I could live with it, but it has now become a must for Jon and I.

Thanks to Jon's amazing negotiating skills and a crappy economy (they know they'd have trouble renting to anyone else for what we're currently paying), they said yes to a dog!  So now begins the search. I originally wanted to find a Boston Terrier from a breeder, but quickly changed my mind for two reasons: a) the cost from a breeder was looking like upward of $1,200 (and that doesn't include micro-chipped, spay/neutering or shots) and b) there are just so many dogs out there that are wonderful just waiting to be adopted.  Needless to say, we're planning to adopt.

Thankfully, there are a ton of options in the Seattle area for adopting dogs.  We're waiting until after the holidays to actually adopt a dog (too much traveling in the next two months), but that hasn't stopped me from scouring the adoption pages and Petfinder.com.  Here are the local shelters I have found so far:

• Paws (Lynwood) - http://www.paws.org/
• Seattle Purebred Dog Rescue (Redmond) - http://www.spdrdogs.org/
• Seattle Humane Society (Bellevue) - http://www.seattlehumane.org/
• Seattle Animal Shelter (Seattle - Interbay) - http://www.seattle.gov/animalshelter/Default.asp
• Everett Animal Shelter (Everett) - http://www.everettwa.org/default.aspx?ID=35

 If you know of any others, please let me know! I'll be checking them all out over the next two months so I know what to expect and what the procedure is once the time comes.  Until then, I'm going to begin puppy proofing my place and reading up on my "What to Expect When You Adopt a Dog" books!

Thrift Store Frames Redesigned - Project 1 of 2

I totally scored at the thrift shop this weekend!  I'm typically a Value Village shopper, but drove past Goodwill and swung in to take a look.  The clothing aisles were packed, so I headed straight back to the furniture and frames section where I stumbled upon these beautiful cherry frames for only $2.99 each.  A total steal for being so sturdy and having no visable dings or dents!

I immediately had two projects in mind.  The first, and the one I will show you here, was a place to hang my earrings.  I've seen frames adorned with mesh in a couple of stores and at the Fremont Market, and have always wanted to make one.  There's one vendor who sells them at the Fremont Market for $30, but there's no way I'm paying that much for something I can do on my own. So, after explaining my project to some poor guy at Home Depot (he obviously did not understand the struggle that comes with having multiple pairs of chandelier earrings in the same box and getting all tangled), he directed me to a couple of different places.  What I ended up going with was screen door mesh in a dark charcoal color.

Once I got home, I cut out a square the same size of the frame inset.  Then I realized I had never thought through how I was going to secure this thing...hmmm...

Thankfully, I have a glue gun that I just love (everyone must ahve a glue gun; you can fix just anything with it).  After gluing down one of the longer sides, I stretched the mesh across the frame and secured with pins to keep it tight while I glued down the other three sides.

And, PRESTO!  An organized and beautiful way to hang my earrings.  I'm thinking about adding hooks to the side for small necklaces, but we'll see.

Project #2: Corkboard made from real wine corks!  Coming soon...

The Season for Vegetables Has Ended

This weekend, I finally had to accept that winter is on its way and that my urban garden would soon be gone.  Both my tomotoes and peppers were still growing, but if they froze, all of my hard work over the summer would have been for nothing.  So, I swallowed the fear of chopping up my plants that I worked so hard to grow and did it.  Here's what I have left of summer:

I'm so happy that my peppers are actually turning yellow.  They were green all summer (I purposely picked yellow because they are sweeter), and I was at the point of thinking someone had swtiched the tags on the plants at Home Depot. I also have a ton of green tomatoes, that are slowly but surely turning red.  It will be nice to have a little flavor of summer left for the coming weeks.

Recipe of the Week - Sweet Potato Gnocchi

I have been trying to more creative with my cooking as of late and to help, signed up for the 'Daily Dish' newsletter from AllRecipes.com. There was one that came across last week for Sweet Potato Gnocchi and I just had to try it. I randomly get obessed with foods and sweet potatoes typically fall on my obsession list list for fall (during the spring, it's usually pears; corn in the summer; butternut squash in the winter).
First, I will tell you that it was SO good and totally worth the effort. Secondly, unless you have made gnocchi many times before, prepare for a rather lengthy preparation process. The rolling process took quite a bit longer than I orginially anticipated. You will find the recipe below, courtesy of Allrecipes.com. I've included my additions to the recipe in red:

Ingredients:
3 2 (8 ounce) sweet potatoes
1 clove garlic, pressed
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 cup brown sugar
1 egg
2 cups all-purpose flour


Directions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Bake sweet potatoes for 30 minutes, or until soft to the touch. Remove from the oven, and set aside to cool.

2. Once the potatoes are cool enough to work with, remove the peels, and mash them, or press them through a ricer into a large bowl. Blend in the garlic, salt, nutmeg, and egg. Mix in the flour a little at a time until you have soft dough. Use more or less flour as needed.

3. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil. While you wait for the water, make the gnocchi. On a floured surface, roll the dough out in several long snakes, and cut into 1-inch sections. Drop the pieces into the boiling water, and allow them to cook until they float to the surface. Remove the floating pieces with a slotted spoon, and keep warm in a serving dish. Serve with butter or cream sauce.

The key to making the gnocchi is adding the flour in slowly.  My additions and changes were made to help the sweet potato stand out more. Cinnamon and brown sugar are classic pairings with sweet potato and it just made sense. As for the salt...I just like a little more salt in my food. The night we made this, we paired the gnocchi with an alfredo sause and it was amazing. Thankfully, we had leftovers, which I ate today. I needed something a little lighter for lunch than alfredo sauce, so tossed the gnocchi with a little olive oil and garlic salt. It was just as delicious, and the taste of sweet potato stood out more.

While the effort was well worth the end product, I was thinking about how nice it would be to cook a big batch of the gnochhi and freeze it. This would not only cut down production time in the future, but also provide me with a quick and easy dinner. After a little research, it turns out you can freeze it! But before you go dumping a whole bunch of gnocchi into a bag and throwing it into the freeze, a couple of things to note:

• After cooking the gnocchi, drain it and lay out on a cookie sheet to cool.
• Put the cookie sheet in the freezer with gnocchi spaced out so they don't freeze into one big clump
• After about 20 minutes, dump the gnocchi into a freeze bag!

Let me know if you make this recipe and how it goes!

Lincoln Park in West Seattle - A Hidden Gem

A couple of weekends ago, Jon and I decided to explore a part of Seattle that we had not yet seen.  People are constantly going out of town when there is so much to be seen in their own backyard, and I'm trying to not be one of those people.  So, we narrowed it down to Golden Gardens beach or Lincoln Park in West Seattle.  Since Jon recently attended a wedding at the Golden Gardens Bath House, we opted for West Seattle and were so pleased with what we found.

On a nice day, almost everyone thinks of heading to Alki Beach (and almost everyone does).  But on the other side of West Seattle, Lincoln Park has beautiful scenery without the crowd. We wandered the beach - finding sea glass along the way - and enjoying the cool fall day.

And of course, we can't go anywhere without having a little fun :)

I highly recommend Lincoln Beach to Alki Beach if you are looking for a more serene setting with out the fear of getting run over by skateboarders. 

All the makings of an amazing (yet HOT) homemade salsa

There's nothing better than homemade salsa using tomatoes straight
from the garden. We made some today an while spicy, it was amazing.

If you like it spicy, dice up six tomatoes (add more if you like your
salsa more in the mild side), half a white onion, three tablespoons
lime juice and two Serrano peppers (again, if you like it mild, only
add one).

Serve with corn tortilla chips and you're good to go!!

Trip to Maryhill Winery - September 2009

You can't ask for anything more beautiful than the view from Maryhill Winery.  It's absolutely breathtaking. I was lucky enough to spend Sunday and Monday at the winery, and love it each time I do.

Voodoo Donuts - The Best Deal in Portland

Whenever you ask someone what you should do in Portland, they almost always say 'Go to Voodoo Dounuts and get a ______.'  Typically Maple Bacon Bar fills in the blank, but it can be substituted with any of Voodoo's strangely named and strangely shaped (yet oh so delicious) donuts.

As I mentioned in my last post, we were in Portland last weekend for the Rouge Marathon, which Jon ran in on Sunday.  As the race was about a two hour drive from Portland, we were up and ready to go at 6:30 a.m., but apparently no one else in Portland was...not even Stumptown!  Thankfully, I remembered that Voodoo Donuts is located just a couple of blocks down and donut shops are always open early. So we took everyone's advice and wandered down the block.

What we found when we arrived made the entire trip worth it! It turns out in the morning at Voodoo Donuts, they have buckets of donuts from the day before, most of which aren't even 12 hours old.  And to make it even better, they sell these buckets (which contained somewhere around 40 donuts) for just $6!  That's typcially what you'd pay for two donuts.  So naturally, we bought a bucket! I have absolutely no quorums against buying 12 hour old donuts at a discount.

Not the best neighborhood, but no one dangerous wakes up before 9 a.m., right?

They were just as good as if they had been cooked that morning - I swear! So next time you are in Portland, I encourage you to take up a little bit early and head to Voodoo to score this amazing deal.  You'll have plently of donuts for yourself, your friends, and even of few of the dozens of transients you'll pass of the way back to your hotel.

Rouge Half Marathon at Timothy Lake - Mt. Hood, OR

I will stop you now before you start thinking I am running this marathon. I can barely run around the block, let alone run 14 miles through the woods. Jon, however, is running this marathon as I write this post (I was going to look for a neaby trail and go for a short hike, but that didn't happen). I am extremely proud of him not only for his dedication to this race, but for the fact that he will accomplish this so early in this life. It's pretty cool in my book. He took off around 9:30 am with 400 other people and is estimating it will take him about two hours. So here I sit, anxiously awaiting his finish with all the other non-athletic people:

Stumbling Goat Bistro - Not Just A Clever Name

I have been slightly obsessed with the Phinney Ridge neighborhood in Seattle as of late. There's just SO much going on in this undiscovered neighborhood. It all started when Jon and I walked from Northgate to the Woodland Park Zoo via Greenwood Ave (it took FOREVER). We saw all these adorable restaurants and bars that we had never been to. So, we've slowly been checking them out when we have spare time. Last night was happy hour at Stumbling Goat Bistro (which is from 4-6, despite their website saying it's from 5-7). The food was great (I had a herb corn rissoto - $5) and a drink called the Peach Cobbler, which made me realize where the name 'Stumbling Goat Bistro' came from. It was strong and oh so yummy!

Problems with Blogger

I apologize to those of you who have tried to follow my blog as of late.  For some reason, it denies access to everyone (THIS IS SO FRUSTERATING) and I cannot get my Followers widget to work.  On top of it all, I would like to add Twitter to my blog, but that widget won’t work either.  There must be some sort of bug in my account, but I have searched and searched for the answer to no avail.  If anyone happens to know what is wrong, or can at least point me in the right direction of where to report this problem, I would really appreciate it.

So, until I can get my ‘follow’ feature working, I hope you just keep checking back J

Ronald McDonald House "All For Fall Benefit Bash"

Last night, Jen and I headed to the All For Fall Benefit Bash for the Ronald McDonald House of Seattle at Pacific Place and had an amazing time. It was an evening of shopping, wine and tasty tidbits...but I have to admit, we ended up spending most of our time chatting over wine and the yummy appetizers.

The All for Fall Benefit Bash, which takes place every year, was $25 per person to attend (all of which comes directly to RMHC) and included a glass of wine, hors d’ oeuvres from Il Fornaio, the chance to win fabulous door prizes, live jazz music, and shopping offers from Pacific Place merchants. As an added benefit, each guest also received a special gift box containing: $25 Pacific Place gift card; $25 United Colors of Benetton gift card; $25 Something Silver gift card; and $25 Twist gift card.

What a great deal!  Helping an amazing cause not only made me feel great, but also helped fun my holiday shopping. I encourage you to check in out next year!

Recipe of the Day - Chicken, Red Grape & Pesto Pizza

Homemade pizza is a favorite in my household, especially since we discovered the variety of pre-made pizza dough available at Trader Joe’s (seriously…for $1.59, you can choose from regular, wheat or garlic herb. You can’t beat the price or the sanity I save by not attempting to make the dough on my own). That said, we’re pretty traditional when it comes to the type of pizza we make. Margarita and Italian Sausage are our normal fallbacks.
I recently bought my first issue of Cooking Light, which I’m pretty sure has changed my life forever. Not just because of the amazing pizza recipe that I am about to tell you about, but because it is full of practical inspiration. There are some many meals that sound just amazing and the best part is they all are made from things I most likely already have in the house (or can easily pick up on my next trip to the store). None of this buying yet another bottle of spice just to use a teaspoon and never look at it again. So they won and I bought a two-year subscription. Good job, Cooking Light. Back to the reason I’m writing this post…I love pesto in the most recent issue, they had a whole section on what you can make with pesto. I though “perfect!” because I typically buy a bottle of pesto, use it in one recipe, then by the time I go to use it again, it’s gone bad. Since Jon was looking over my shoulder as I flipped through the pages, we decided to give the Chicken, Red Grape & Pesto Pizza a try first.

One word. AMAZING. Who knew grapes and pesto would even taste good together. It was the right amount of spicy and sweet, while being really filling. I’ve included the recipe below for your reference – courtesy of Cooking Light –and encourage you to try it out:
Ingredients

1 (11-ounce) can refrigerated thin-crust pizza dough
Cooking spray
1/3 cup refrigerated pesto
1 1/2 cups seedless red grapes, halved
8 ounces shredded skinless, boneless rotisserie chicken breast
3 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
4 ounces fresh mozzarella cheese, thinly sliced
3 tablespoons grated Romano cheese
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 cup sliced green onions
Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 425°.

2. On a lightly floured surface, pat dough into a 12-inch circle; gently place dough on a pizza pan coated with cooking spray. Spread pesto evenly over dough, leaving a 1/2-inch border around edges. Arrange grapes evenly over dough; top evenly with chicken. Top with garlic and mozzarella; sprinkle with Romano and pepper. Bake at 425° for 20 minutes or until crust is golden brown. Sprinkle with onions. Cut into 12 wedges.

Yum! Like I said, I love recipes that use things I have in the house, so we modified this a bit at our home. 

We chose a wheat dough from Trader Joe’s, replaced the rotisserie chicken breast with sundried tomato chicken sausage (Jon bought like a thousand of these things at Costco, so I’m trying to get rid of them in an efficient manner), and substituted grated Parmesan cheese for the Romano cheese. And yes, it was still amazing.

Automate Your Life With Alice.com

I am all about saving time and money when possible. Whether it be clipping coupons, shopping around for deals or waiting until an item goes on sale, I'm currently doing it. If you're like me, you love the fact that your efforts save money, but hate the fact that it takes up more of your valuable time.

Well what if I told you that you could stop doing all of that, but still get the same result? I subscribe to the RSS feed for Ramit Sethi's "I Will Teach Your How to Be Rich" blog (he also has an amazingly useful book that quickly rose to the top of the New York Times Best Seller list) and Ramit is a huge advocate of 'automating' your life. I recently received an email from him that talked about a new online tool called Alice.com.

Alice.com lets you set up automatic subscriptions and shipments for typical household items, such as toilet paper, shampoo, paper towls, toothpaste and more. Pretty much anything that you'd normally get at your local Target/drugstore/grocery store. Basically, search for your favorite shampoo, add it to your "shelf" and then set up how often you want it delivered to your house! I find this pretty exciting. You'll never have to think about it again or deal with your significant other "forgetting" to tell you that you're out of toliet paper. Plus, Alice.com offes free shipping and the same coupons that you would clip out of the Sunday paper.

As Ramit outlined, here are the basic benefits of using Alice.com:

• Automatic: You don't have to think about buying household stuff ever again. You pick the products (search by room) and they get delivered to your house at regular intervals, which you specify.
• Free Shipping: Never leave your house again to make basic household purchases. In the end, this saves time and the money you spend on gas.
• Discounts: Automatic coupons mean you're getting the best prices, so you don't need to shop around.

Now it does take a bit of time to get everything set up, but once you do, you never have to think about it again. The thing I'm most excited about is all the money I'm going to save by not going to Target anymore. I swear everytime I step foot in there, I come out with five things I didn't go there for in the first place.

Grilling in the City - A Bellevue Adventure

Apologizes for the hiatus. Work has been busy, to say the least. Either way, I'm back.

A couple weeks ago, I attend an event called "Grilling in the City" hosted by The Downtown Bellevue Network, 425 Magazine and Built Burger. The event invite mentioned free beer and free burgers, so naturally, Jon and I were there. Plus, I had heard about Built Burger and wanted to see what all the hype was about. Despite the drive getting to Bellevue from Fremont (see photo in post below), it was an amazing event to be at.

Photo courtesy of The Downtown Bellevue Network

The event was hosted on at the Bellevue Towers in their Urban Garden. Even without the event, this was a really cool space to see. But we quickly turned our attention to the crowd of people surrounding an array of yummy treats.

After grabbing a beer, we came upon a beautiful display from Trophy Cupcakes. I had a chance to chat quickly with Trophy Cupcake owner and founder Jennifer Shea (who is just darling) about the new store they are opening in The Braven, which opens this weekend, and how exciting it is to expand into the Eastside. I also let her know about my not-so-secret obsession for her Toasted Marshmallow cupcake (SERIOUSLY. You must try it. Anything involving chocolate and marshmallow fluff can't be bad.)

Photo courtesy of The Downtown Bellevue Network

Next on the list was Built Burger. Their website begs the question "What if you could cook a burger that stood on its own, sans bun, sans toppings - that would compel you to say - it's the best I have ever had?" And that's exactly what we experienced. With amazing flavors such as Brilliant Prosciutto, Stellar Short Rib, Pinnacle Bacon Bleu and Luxe Italian, there would never be a need for a bun! And toppings? Forget about it. Everything you need is in the burger itself.

Photo courtesy of The Downtown Bellevue Network

After tasting some of the best burgers I've ever had, I was completely surprised to find out that all the gourmet burgers from Built Burger are frozen! I would have never guessed or known had I not had the chance to chat with Rebecca and David Makuen, owners of Built Burger. After telling me a little about themselves (they met at Rolling Stone magazine and moved to Seattle from New York about four years ago - how cool is that), they explained how their company works. All burgers are handmade upon order, frozen, they shipped to the door step of people from all over the country. As a bonus for those of us who live in Seattle, they recently opened a store in Ballard, where you can order and pick up your frozen burgers (sorry, no cooked burgers at their shop...yet).

Photo courtesy of The Downtown Bellevue Network

All in all, a wonderful event and one I hope is a repeat for the future. In the mean time, I suggest you order up some of those amazing burgers for a end of the summer treat.

And People Wonder Why Seattlites Don't Go to Bellevue...

A Beautiful Day in Seattle!

Amazing view from the top of West Seattle...

New VIP Program at Alexandria Nicole Cellars

Alexandria Nicole Cellars has launched a new Wine Club VIP Program, providing some pretty sweet benefits to those of us on the west side of the mountains. The new benefits include exclusive discounts and benefits at select Seattle businesses, as well as some additional localtions across Washington State. Now, there's no fee to join Alexandria Nicole Cellars wine club, but you must pay for the three annual shipments of wine you will receive each year, each of which includes four bottles of their very yummy wine.
Once becoming a member of the winery's wine club, you will be able to present your Alexandria Nicole Cellars membership card at the following restaurants, wine bars, lodging and touring services to receive additional discounts:

Restaurants
Salty's on Alki, West Seattle
El Gaucho, Downtown Seattle
Cellar 46, Mercer Island
Russell's, Bothell
Barking Frog, Woodinville
Brix, Kirkland
O/8 & Twisted Cork Wine Bar, Bellevue
Brix 25, Gig Harbor
Uncorked Wine bar, Snoqualmie
Picazo 7Seventeen, Prosser
The Greystone Restaurant and bar, Yakima

Lodging
The Inn at El Gaucho, Downtown Seattle
The Cozy Rose B&B, Grandview
Sunset House Wine Country B&B, Prosser
4 Seasons River Inn, Prosser
A.N.C. Glamping, Alderdale

Touring Services
Butler Valet Services, Seattle
J.R. Helicopter Tours, Yakima

Now they don't say what the discount are (or at least I cannot find them - and yes, I did try), but I expect they're be pretty good. The winery will continue to add benefits as they become available. In addition to the wine shipments and discounts, members receive complimentary tastings and discounts on wines purchased at Alexandria Nicole Cellars tasting rooms, one of which is located in lovely Woodinville - just 20 minutes from Seattle - while the other is in Prosser. I got a sneak peak at the Wine Club member only room in Woodinville a couple of weeks ago, which is nicely hidden behind a big door disguised as a bookcase, and I must say that we're definitely considering joining Alexandria Nicole's wine club for that benefit alone!

Check out their website for more info: http://alexandrianicolecellars.com/wine_club.htm

"Glamping" or Glamour Camping at Alexandria Nicole Cellars

OK. My boyfriend and I joke about the term 'glamping' whenever we venture out into the wilderness for the weekend. For those of you who haven't heard the term, it's short for "glamour camping." I was invited to join a glamping group on Facebook a couple months back and we just found the whole idea hilarious. Granted I will not typically camp more than two days and I'm all about car camping, not so much about hiking in and carrying all of our crap. My car is much better at that than I am. However, I received an email from Alexandria Nicole Cellars and it may have changed my mind on the whole 'silliness' factor. Here's what it said:

Alexandria Nicole Cellars is now offering Glamping, also known as glamour-camping, at its Estate Vineyard, Destiny Ridge. Three tents are available for rent at a rate of $75 per night. Equipped with all the comforts of home, each tent includes a queen-size bed, electricity, hot and cold running water, air conditioning, a large wood deck and individual barbecues. Guests can enjoy a beautiful view of the vineyard and Columbia River along with a peaceful place to sleep. In addition to wine tasting and vineyard tours, glampers can also participate in a range of activities including fishing, bike riding, horseback riding, kayaking, hiking and wildlife watching.

Check out the digs!

REALLY? We can barely fit two people in our tent, let alone have enough room for a yoga class!! I must say though, I would camp for a week if these were the facilities. Oh, and here's what you should probably be wearing if you go glamping at Alexandria Nicole's Estate Vineyard location:

Ha! Far cry from my torn jeans, college T-shirts and hiking boots. However I think I could pull it off as long as I was still allowed to carry around my bottle of wine and drink from a tin cup. For more information on glamping with Alexandria Nicole Cellars or to make a reservation, call (509) 786-3497 or visit http://www.ancglamping.com/. Have fun and PLEASE let me know if you try this out.