Malibu.

What's better than an impromptu day trip to Malibu?

A friend at work needed to switch shifts, which meant I had a full day off and then didn't go into work until late the next night, so what to do? How about a mini-road trip to Malibu & Santa Monica?

We met up with our good friend, Caitlin at the Malibu Country Mart.

It is a totally cute area. Every store is a high-end boutique like john varvatos, Ralph Lauren, James Perse, kitson, JCrew, & alice + olivia.

Yes, we do have some of these stores in San Diego and other malls in the surrounding areas but these particular boutiques only carried super luxe items like the Globetrotter Collection at JCrew and other "collections" pieces that you can't find in normal stores, which makes sense why all the celebs shop in this particular country mart.

After walking around the entire mart waiting for Caitlin, we decided we needed to get an afternoon cocktail.


Obviously Caitlin was ready for a cocktail too!

I spotted this cute little place called "Crumbs". They sold cute little cookies, cupcakes, and brownies.

No, we didn't try any but they looked really fun. We ordered coffees instead and just enjoyed looking at everything. But seriously, do you think people in Malibu are eating these sweets?!


Like I said, the boutiques were super luxe. I had never been into a JCrew quote like this one. It seriously didn't even look like a JCrew store. I perused their collection for a while but it felt like I was in some kind of JCrew museum.

After a little shopping and drinking, we decided to get some lunch. We drove down to Santa Monica and decided to have lunch at BOA Steakhouse. It was a pretty nice day out and the heaters on the outside patio definitely helped.

We got this yummy Prawn appetizer.

Caitlin ordered the BOA Cheeseburger.

Joseph ordered his typical veggie panini.... even though I tried to convince him to get the Lamb-burger.


Since he decided against it, I ordered the Lamb-burger, which the server talked up. He was right, it was delicious. I want another one as I sit here thinking about it.

After lunch, we walked down to the Santa Monica Pier to get on the Farris Wheel. Some guy offered to take our picture, so we let him.


Turns out that he had just got married! I thought it was super cute, but Joseph thought it was weird.... what does he know ;) He did take their picture though... I see a Wedding Photographer in the making!


Before leaving, I wanted to make one last stop at cb2! Love it. It was so fun to be able to just get up and go for our mini-trip. Isn't it crazy how the different life can be from one year to the next?!

allspice.

One of things that I love most about Des Moines is their support for local businesses.

While we were back visiting for the holidays, we stopped by the East Village, of course. It's always exciting to see what is new or has newly opened up. I was really excited to stop into this little place...

allspice

We got a little box full of a small assortment of all of their ground Chile powders. I didn't even know where to start, there was so much to look and so much that I wanted. The store owner helped us pick out some of the best and a nice variety in spiciness. I picked up some bay leaves as well, since I knew we were out.

Jospeh's mom had already shipped us three types of peppercorns, but while we were there, we got some Tangerine Balsamic Vinaigrette and Blood Orange Olive Oil. The store owner combined the two and let us taste it.... sooooo good! We also got some White Truffle Oil. Seriously, the best. We have made Truffle Fries, Truffle Popcorn, and Truffle Fettuccine Alfredo.

Love, love love allspice, click here to check it out.

Mushroom Risotto.

I don't know about you, but I love risotto! Now that I am thinking about it, I like a lot of rice dishes: fried rice, paella, Mexican rice, Puerto Rican rice... the list goes on and on!

What are your favorite rice dishes??

Anyways, I was at work and really craving Mushroom Risotto. It was literally all that I could think about as I sat working on payroll. As soon as I got off, I drove over to Whole Foods and picked up some mushrooms, chicken stock, and fresh Italian Flat Leaf Parsley. I went to work as soon as I walked into the apartment.

I think I was most excited to use my new Le Creuset dutch oven...

I started with melting butter with onion, and garlic. Then added the mushrooms, celery, and a little bit of garlic. Once they were all covered with butter and lightly sauteed, I added the rice, white wine and some saffron. The hardest part of making this dish is having to slowly add the chicken stock over a course of (30) minutes as you are smelling all of the rich flavors.

I topped it off with a little more Parmesan cheese for garnish, freshly chopped parsley, and enjoyed my creation. In my experience with making risotto, it is very temperamental. But having cooked it more than a few times, I think I have gotten better every time. Cooking with my new dutch oven was life changing, I don't know how I didn't have one already!

Breadsticks.

Years ago, I went to eat at Bravo! for lunch in Des Moines and since the were full, we had a drink at the bar while we waited for our table. They had these amazing crispy bread sticks that you could munch on while enjoying your cocktail. I would crave them all the time. I've tried making them in different capacities but I finally found a recipe that reminded me the most of them.

I found the recipe in Thomas Keller's ad hoc cookbook, and just added a few extra spices like: Herbs de Provence & Rosemary. Keep in mind that they already had Parmesan cheese in the flour mixture, yummy! The thinner you roll them, the crispier the come out.

I had to bake them on the top rack for (8) minutes first, and than turn them all individually and place them on the second shelf for another (8) minutes.

I doubled the recipe because we had friends coming over for a little get together and probably made about (8) batches of them.... I think I over did it ...but....

Once they were out of the oven, I couldn't keep my little display full of them.

Along with hummus, veggies, and other little snacks, these suckers were the first to go! Soooo good. I want to eat more right now as we speak!

Presents.

Who doesn't love gifts?!

Let me share with you, some of the fabulous things that I got...

After years of wanting one, Joseph's parent's got us this beautiful Kitchen-Aid Mixer. Love, love, love it. We also got the Barefoot Contessa's new cookbook "How Easy Is That", (and have even used a few recipes out of it already), a new shower curtain & bed spread set from cb2, and tons of new clothes from J.Crew.

Joseph's sister, Sophie, got me the 1st season of Mad Men and Bethenny Getting Married? Two series that I love!

My mom got us this amazing Cuisinart Food Processor (we recently made hummus and our own bread crumbs). It came with a DVD with recipes and how-to instructions.

Jessica got me those mixing bowls because I always looked at them on my trips to Williams-Sonoma but never purchased them myself but always talked about getting them next time.

My sister, Grace, got me these cute little biscuit cutters.....

....and a metal sieve that I wanted.

Becky and Dan got us clothes and a cute Chicago ornament!

Kate & Tony got us both some really cute ties...

And Caitlin got us a little fondue set, candles, and ice cube makers :)

But this week, I finally got my gift from Joseph. The new Louis Vuitton iPad case! I have been wanting it for so long and they stopped making them but it seemed like all the celebs had one. I kept checking back at the store and after months of saying they were discontinued, they were re-released the first of the year by special order only. I love it!

Thank you to everyone :)

Christmas.

Experiencing Christmas in California was so completely different from any other Christmas that we have experienced in the past.

After having breakfast and mimosas, we quickly threw on some clothes and drove over to Coronado.

Instead of a "snow angel", Joseph made a sand angel.

We decided to walk up to the Hotel del Coronado and have a drink by the fire pits and enjoy the sunset.

While enjoying our bubbly, I ran into so many co-workers! We were all sporting the same Timex watch :)

Once, we were ready to head back home....(mostly because I had a ham in the oven)... we quickly stopped and watched the ice skaters before walking back to the car.

The rest of the night, we played with my gift to Joseph, an Xbox360 & the Kinect.

A few days after Christmas, we headed back to Des Moines to spend the New Year. More to come regarding the fun time we had there soon!

Christmas Card.

In case you were wondering how many pictures we had to take to get the right shot for our Christmas card.... it was a many!

This is me, posing for the camera.... trying to figure out if the lighting was right.

We "hired" Jessica to take our Christmas card pictures. And by hired, I mean paid her with food and wine :) She was more than happy!

We wanted it to look holiday but California too!

We drove up to La Jolla, near Torrey Pines State Park.

Another Test Shot.

This was one of my favorites, but decided against it....

We chose a winner! The sunset was beautiful and the temperature was great. My favorite picture of us in a very long time.