Puppy Love

Yep... that's pretty much how I feel.

Il Terrazzo Carmine

This weekend we finally got to use a gift certificate we had to Il Terrazzo Carmine, an amazing Italian restaurante unassumingly nestled into Pioneer Square on First and Jackson.  The ambiance was rustic, the service was high-quality and the food and wine were to die for.  (The fact that our waiter looked exactly like Daniel Craig as James Bond, was an added perk.) 

I highly recommend treating yourself to lunch or dinner here sometime soon. I'll go with you! Here is what Steve and I enjoyed along with a mouth-watering Montepulciano red wine.......

Antipasti

Saute Di Vongole & Cozze

Manila clams and Penn Cove mussels sauteed with garlic, wine and parsley

Zuppe & Insalate

Bisque Di Gamberi

Bisque of prawns with roasted peppers

Insalata Cesare

Romaine hearts with shaved parmigiano

Piatti Forti

Risotto of the Day

Veal with porcini mushroom

Bistecca Al Pepe Verde

New York steak "Angus" and green peppercorn sauce, served with shoestring potatoes

 

I'd rather...

...just be a puppy today....

Happy Friday everyone. Lots of sleeping is in my weekend future. How about you?

Life's a Beach

Yesterday we took Molly to Golden Gardens to play on our day off.  She couldn't get enough of all the new objects and smells, other dogs and endless sand and water to run and play in.  She even ran full speed into the water at one point to fetch a stick only to learn just how cold the Puget Sound really is and turn promptly around. I think our little girl is going to be a swimmer... when it gets a little bit warmer.

She's getting pretty good at the commands she's learning - "come," "sit," and "stay"  - which made some of the following pictures and video possible:

 

Life's a beach when you're just a little puppy :)

What's for Dinner?

The hubs and I aren't super in to Valentine's day.  Never really have been.  But never-the-less, we decided to use it as an excuse to make ourselves a nice dinner and enjoy some fancy cocktails at home together the other night.  Oh alright, twist my arm!

I volunteered to be the chef for the night and make an old favorite - Pork Tenderloin with Balsamic Rosemary Cranberry Sauce.  Mmmmmmm. This is no pinterest find m'friends. This is straight from Mamma-O's recipe stack.  As always, it came out amazing. Recipe below.

To go with the pork, I made some lemon asparagus and decided to try this new mashed potato recipe - The Best Mashed Potatoes. Perhaps it was the name that drew me in, but oh boy it did not dissapoint.  Rich, creamy, flavorful - delicious!

For dessert, I decided to try my hand at individual Chocolate Lava Cakes.  I cooked mine too long and they ended up being just individual chocolate cakes, but the Tillamook Coffee Almond Fudge ice cream I bought to go along with it "came out" great and saved the day.

All in all, it was a nice night in with satisfied bellies and lots of puppy cuddles.  Oh yeah, and I got some pretty flowers too :) Thanks Steve. Valentine's Day isn't so bad....

Recipe for Pork Tenderloin with Balsamic-Cranberry-Rosemary Sauce 

 

Ingredients

• 1can of whole cranberries -  or make your own cranberry sauce
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 1 Tbsp chopped fresh rosemary - I double cause I LOVE rosemary
• 1 cup chicken broth
• 2 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
• 1 Tbsp butter
• 1 1/2 lbs pork tenderloin
• salt
• pepper

The sauce is the best part, so I encourage making extra by doubling (or even tripling) the first 5 ingredients - you can never have too much sauce! :)
 

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400.
2. Add olive oil to a saute pan over medium-high heat.
3. Pat pork loin with paper towels to dry. Season liberally with with salt and pepper and place in pan.
4. Sear pork on all sides, transfer to baking dish and pop in the oven
5. Roast until thermometer inserted into center registers 155, about 20 minutes.
6. While the meat is cooking, add butter, onion, and rosemary to saute pan and cook until onions are soft, about 3 minutes.
7. Add chicken broth and mix
8. Add cranberry sauce and balsamic vinegar and bring to a boil, reducing heat to medium-low and simmering for ~15 minutes, until sauce has thickened.
9. When the meat is done, let it rest in the pan for 5 minutes and then transfer to a plate and tent with foil.
   
10. Scrape meat bits and juices left in the pan into the sauce
11. Slice tenderloin to desired thickness and serve with sauce.

Valentine

Happy Valentine's Day from me and my Valentines, to you and yours!

 

Somebody has a case of the "Mondays"

Admittedly, I woke up this morning wanting nothing more than to bury my head right back in my pillow and hide beneath the blankets until it's Friday again. Go AWAY Monday!!!!! But then this little bundle of energy crawled on the bed and right up into my face with her big smile and sweet puppy breath... and suddenly taking on the week didn't seem so hard. 

Molly says, "Smile!!!! Monday's aren't so bad!"

 

 

On the docket this week - - - > Must get some swim training in (triatholon is in t-minus 110 days!!); Valentine's Day on Thursday (probably just a casual dinner at home with the hubs. I think I'll make one of our faves: pork tenderloin with cranberry and rosemary sauce); and a three day weekend coming up for President's day next Monday. Woohoo!   Do you have plans?

Very Pinterest-ing

As I've mentioned before, I'm a bit obsessed with Pinterest these days. I could literally spend hours stalking peoples bright ideas and "pinning" them for anticipated later use. I only wish I had discovered Pinterest while I was wedding planning! Those lucky brides with all that inspiration at their fingertips!

Yes, I've been a busy little pinner recently, but in the real world my experimentation has been fairly limited to forcing new recipes on Steve and messing around with a few new hair stylings.  I have several boards dedicated to home projects and DIY crafts, but I've been too busy or too scared to try them out - potentially for fear of realizing I'm not actually as crafty as all those other pinners out there. I mean, making a monogram 'J' out of old wine corks sounds easy enough, but.....

That's why I love this blog: "The Pintester. F'ing up Pinterest pins so you don't have to."  This chick cracks me up.  She tests out those pins that make you say "now, that's cool" or "why didn't I think of that" and shows you how they really turn out - usually while enjoying a cocktail.  I can relate. She's inspired me to take on a few of those DIY pins and not take it all so seriously. I mean, they can't turn out worse than hers, right? ;)

A couple other hilarious Pinterest-related blogs I've been enjoying (warning, R-rated):

• WTF, Pinterest?  - A collection of weird pins and pinners
• Pinterest, You're Drunk  - When pinners take it too far
• What Should We Call Pinterest  - Reacting to Pinterest trends via animated gifs

Happy pinning! And Happy FRIDAY!

Happy Birthday Steve!

Today is the hubs' 30th birthday! Happy Birthday Steve!

I'm getting off work a little early to take Molly to her first vet appointment, and then the mister and I are going on a special birthday date to Canlis.  It's our first time, so we are pretty excited. 

Last weekend I threw the ol' man a Super Bowl Birthday Party at the Tap House Grill downtown, and it was a blast!  A big thanks to everyone for coming out and making it such a special day for Mr. Johnson.  

With Steve's Mom's help, I compiled a bunch pictures of the birthday boy through the ages to make a  birthday banner for the party.  I mean, who doesn't LOVE embarrassing/adorable childhood pictures? I went with a football theme in the spirit of the Super Bowl.  The final product was all taped together in a long banner (about 7 feet long), but for the purposes of this post, I've inserted it here in segments.

So, once again, Happy Birthday Steve!!!! I can't tell you  how much I am looking forward to the next 30 years.  I'm sure there will be some fumbles and a few penalties for loss of yards, but I know there will be far more exciting plays, field goals and touchdowns <3

Gone Skiing

Yesterday, while Punsutawney Phil (Pennsilvania's famous ground hog) was predicting the coming of an early spring, Steve and I were up at Crystal enjoying a gorgeous day on the mountain.  It felt a little like Spring up there.  Pretty brisk, but not a cloud in the sky and visibility for as far as the eye could see. The sun shinning on almost 2 feet of fresh snow from earlier in the week made for a perfect ski day. Of course, every other skier and snowboarder within a 100 mile radius must have had the same idea.  We waited in some tedious lift lines and were forced to share the hill with more than a few packs of barely- in-control ski-schoolers, but it was worth it.  We had a fun time and got some great runs in.

We spent most of our time on the slopes around the Forest Queen Express and Rainier Express Lifts.  With a few pit stops into the lodge at the base of Cambell's Basin.  I stick mostly to the intermediate/blue square slopes - Mr. Magoo and  Downhill were my favorites from yesterday.   Kelly's Gap Road is a pretty fun little cat track that slices back and forth through a few black diamond routes that Steve would peel down and meet me back where Kelly's intersected.  I can make it down harder slopes and Steve definitely pushes me at least a few times a day, but my comfort zone isn't quite fully set into black diamond yet.

Steve tried unsuccessfully to push me up the High Campbell Lift, but even with a little liquid courage I couldn't muster up the gumption to take on the double diamond. So I sent him up solo and sat at the base of the lift and watched the show.  Steve later would tell me that he was SO glad that he hadn't talked me in to going up.

From the High Campbell lift drop off, he veered left.  He scaled across the peak to the upper left boundary of Campbell Basin via a narrow track with both slides of the mountain dropping off on each side.  He said the view was absolutely incredible up there.  When he reached about parallel with the base of the High Campbell lift, he said he had to take a deep breath and psyche himself up before dropping in and slicing down the mountain.  From my vantage point, he made it look easy! Traversing back and forth, looking like a bunny jumping down the snow.  But it definitely wasn't as easy as it looked. His face was bright red and his heart was pumping hard as he skied up to me at the bottom and plopped on his back in the snow in complete exhaustion/amazement. Classic.

 

Unfortunately, we didn't bring our phones or a camera up with us to capture the day, for fear of getting them wet or broken.  Steve's mantra is "if you don't fall, you aren't skiing hard enough."  Next time we go up, we're going to try and bring a Contour.  It's a wearable camera that my firm has invested in.  It was good to see a few up on the mountain yesterday.  I still saw a lot more of their gorilla competitor, GoPro. Though I have to say (even though I'm biased), the Contour is so much more attractive looking and according to the few people I spoke with, more user friendly too.  At any rate, hopefully next time I'll have a few videos and photos to share.  It was a really fun day.  

PS:  I have a pretty good family and friend's discount through March 31st for 40% off any of Contour's products. If anyone is interested, let me know.