Friday, March 25, 2016

Birthday Dinner ... Stuffed Steak Rolls

I try to make a special dinner for my kids on their birthdays -- rather than going out, we stay in and have our favorites.  This year, my YD asked for something new:  stuffed steak rolls (recipe from here).

Ingredients:
  • Flank steak (2 lbs)
  • Onion
  • Mushrooms
  • Garlic
  • baby spinach
  • provolone cheese

Cooked up the onions and mushrooms...

Put the flank steak on the cutting board -- should have beaten it until it was much much thinner.


Layered the mushroom/onion mixture and then the spinach ...


and then the cheese .. then rolled it up, sliced it, browned the slices, and put them in the oven to bake for 15 minutes.


This is what it looked like out of the oven ...


and this is on the plate .. why do my daughter's pictures look so much better??? 
anyway, very yummy!

(This is just to prove that I do more than just have cocktails ...)


Cocktail Wednesday - Mimosa Sunset

This week's cocktail was the Mimosa Sunset (recipe from here), not to be confused with Sunrise Mimosa, which has many variations.  Sunset actually makes better sense with the colors ..


Ingredients:
  • Grenadine 
  • Orange juice
  • Pineapple juice
  • Sparkling wine
The proportions in the recipe seem to be a little heavy on the juices, however mixing the juices beforehand as the recipe says might be a good idea.  I just mixed in the glasses.  I put a little grenadine in the bottom of the glass, added some of the juices and topped off with the bubbles. 





The drinks were actually redder than they look in the pictures.  On my second drink, I went lighter on the juice maybe, 1/3 of the glass, and 2/3 bubbles and it was actually a little better, and I like sweet.

This is a nice variation of the mimosa.  a pretty good morning drink .. or nighttime ..

Happy Birthday!

Today is my younger daughter's birthday.  She turns 27!  Hard to believe.  So Happy Birthday Robin!



Saturday, March 19, 2016

Barrel Tasting in Napa

So, Nevada and I went to Napa last weekend.  She had a few wine shipments to pick up and had made reservations for us to have a barrel tasting at our favorite winery

Our first stop (after McDonalds) was Trefethen.  Nevada and I had shared a bottle of their Cabernet Sauvignon after she had left her previous job and thought it was great, so we had to stop by and get a tasting.  They sustained some damage during the earthquake last year, so the tasting room was actually in a tent.  Super fancy tent, with a fountain and drapes ..

It was rainy which made for great lighting for my pictures (I think).


The first wine was a dry reisling, which was quite good.  The rest we had were reds (but I didn't take any more pictures).

Next stop was Mumm Napa (as usual).


Then we had the barrel tasting at Raymond, which was really fun.  It was a private tasting where they take wine straight from the barrel and you get to taste it.  We tasted three different cabs, one from Oakville, one from Rutherford, and a Generations (which I think uses grapes from all over Napa).  The wine we were tasting won't be available until 2017.




Our final stop was Merryvale.  They were having an event which meant food and wine to your hearts content.  It was fun to be able to go in the rooms that are normally closed off and see everything up close, and the food and wine were good too.






Then we grabbed some pizza and drove home ...


One of these times we'll stay in Napa and not fight the traffic after a long day ...

Thursday, March 10, 2016

Cocktail Wednesday - Pink Lady

Soooo, we have been having cocktail Wednesday, but I haven't been writing about it.  We had a Blue Kamikaze and some others I don't remember ... guess I need to do this more often.  The last two weeks we had cancelled because of lack of participation .. though last week we had champagne.

This week's drink was a Pink Lady.



Recipe from here.

Ingredients:
  • Gin - 2 oz
  • Grenadine - 1 t
  • Cream - 0.5 oz
  • Egg white


The drink was very gin-ish.  Looked like Pepto Bismol.  My father claims that had I added more grenadine it would have been better.  I was so disgusted with it, I didn't want to try.  Hopefully next week's will be better.

Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Leap Day -- One Day Late

I had intended to post this yesterday but was too lazy last night. On February 18, my niece had her baby girl.  and since her name is Thea (well Thea Corinne).. I thought I should post these gorgeous pictures of her!  Can't wait to meet her!



What I learned in ... February

Here are some of the things I learned in February ...

how to dye polyester
I should always carry cough drops
It's okay to cancel things when I'm sick
It's hard for me to remember to do the things I want to do





Remembering ...

So, I was driving to my grandchildren's school for a grandparent's day brunch and was wondering why the flags were all flying at hal...