Sonoma and Swim Meets

This past weekend we stayed in California for my PacMasters swim meet on Sunday, which meant we had some extra time for fun and exploration on Saturday. We headed off to Sonoma, which included a beautiful drive through the countryside. We stopped by several wineries including Buena Vista, Bartholomew, Ravensclaw, and Sebastiani. We also walked around Sonoma's main square, peering in at the cute shops and restaurants. 

For dinner, we headed to Bistro Don Giovanni's in Napa. If any of you ever go visit Napa, I highly recommend this restaurant! The place was packed and reminded me of a lively Parisian bistro with tall handsome waiters hurrying everywhere.  We have been to a few other restaurants in the area, including Bottega Ristorante in Yountsville, and this was definitely our favorite so far.  The food was delicious and the service impeccable. We had the asparagus salad, duck ragu (homemade pasta), salmon, fresh lamb meatballs, and of course the chocolate nemesis cake to top everything off.  My mouth is salivating just remembering it all! 

Those extra layers of food "padding" were dearly needed on Sunday for my swim meet, which was outdoors in VERY chilly weather.  I got a personal best of 1:06 on my 100 Free, then swam 29 seconds on both the 200 Free Relay and the individual 50 Free.  It was fun to feel like I was back in high school surrounded by like-minded people in bathing suits.  :)

Have a great week everyone!

Pork Chops with Apples

Last night I tried a new recipe from FoodNetwork.com: Pork Chops with Apples and the results were delicious! I usually have a difficult time cooking pork chops, leaving them either under done or WAY over done, but this recipe had them cooked to perfection.  I added salad, asparagus, and scalloped potatoes to complete the meal. Yum.


In other news, I've been busy preparing for my first Masters swim meet this weekend.  In fact several of my swim buddies are going too, so our practices have been pretty packed the past couple of weeks.  The meet is this weekend, but all of my events are just on Sunday.  I'm swimming the 100 Free, 50 Free, and the 200 Free relay. Basically all the same events I used to swim in high school.. with maybe slightly different times. ;-) I'm both excited and a bit nervous for the big day! I'll try to get Todd to take some pics so that I can post them on the blog next week. :)


Happy Hump Day everyone!

Spring Treats

While my husband has been super healthy drinking his vegetable juices, I had my first frozen yogurt of the season yesterday.  The temp here in California hit 70 degrees, so I jumped in the car and drove to Davis for a cold treat.  Since it's a college town, there are several "froyo" places to choose from. I hit up Yolo Berry Yogurt, situated in a cute little house across from a park.  They had 4 different flavors of yogurt, plus hundreds of different candies, sauces, cookies, etc that you could put on top.  You can see here that I chose a pretty simple but delicious mixture: vanilla yogurt with strawberries, mango, and pineapple. Yum.

My husband, Todd, meanwhile has been very diligent about using our juicer to make himself healthy vegetable juices for breakfast and lunch, and has already shed a few pounds! I'll have a drink with him for a snack, but admit I cannot go 2 meals of my day on just the juice.  

Here's another recipe that I've been making every day this week for Todd: Sauteed Kale.  I'll admit, I am not a big fan, but Todd loves it. So maybe you will too!! 

My First Juicer Experience

The juicer has arrived! I braved the new machine with the following recipe from the Food Network: Rise and Shine Juice.  It actually turned out to be pretty filling and tasted really good! 

3 oz spinach

1 apple

1 carrot

1 celery stalk

1 inch piece of ginger

Juice and serve over ice... et voila!! 

Airport Architecture

Time to sit back in the airport and enjoy the .... view??  Gotta love airport architecture, where large window frames are conveniently placed at eye level to block views of the airplanes. 

However, I'm not complaining about this gorgeous Sacramento weather. Beautiful blue skies and high sixties.  After another busy week in California we're heading back for a weekend in Seattle.  

I haven't been doing much creative cooking lately, just some easy basics like chicken salads, fish tacos, and pasta. I've been doing a better job of including veggies in our meals though, one of our New Years resolutions. So two vegetable sides and no starch instead of 1 starch and 1 veggie. It's actually not much to adjust to, but means I'm exploring new vegetable dishes for some variety. Got any favorites to share? Please leave them in the comments section below! :)

Happy Friday everyone!