Arroz Con Pollo

Check out Williams Sonoma's Simple Suppers book for this great arroz con pollo recipe. I love this book, but I must say there's really nothing simple about most recipes in this book, they're good but they aren't the fastest to make. This arroz con pollo was VERY good, but took a good hour and a half to make. I halved the recipe because it called for 2 cups of rice and I only had 1.

First you've got to season the chicken

Enlisted Austin's help to dice the onion

Heat the olive oil to brown the chicken

Browning the chicken only took about 10 mins.

Then you cook all the veggies in the chicken juices

Then you add the chicken and rice and put it in the oven for 30 mins.

Out of the oven

Close Up

Dinner time!

Macarons!!!

Ok, I have to admit I LOVE macarons! But, by golly, they are expensive! This weekend I got the cheapest macaroon I had in a while for $1.50 at Unique LA's Local Love event, but they sometimes run up to $3. So when I saw this macarons book in the Anthropologie sale section last December I absolutely had to have it.

I had this book for a good month before I dared to try my first attempt at macaron making. On a gloomy day in January I tried my first shot at it and I SUCKED!! They never quite hardened and I still put them in the oven and they broke and just looked depressing. So I cooled off on making macarons for a while till last weekend, with Austin's help and a little more whisking of the egg whites/sugar mixture they came out pretty good. Quite a few broke or sunk in and I didn't love the buttercream recipe in the book, but they were overall pretty good. I filled these little guys with butter cream, ganache and Dulce de Leche. I will try to make these again and I'll post the tricks I learn along the way. 

Buttercream

Dulce de Leche

Ganache

Yummy!

Bay Cities Deli

Last weekend we checked out Bay Cities Deli in Santa Monica. I've wanted to go to this place forever!

I was definitely not disappointed! This place has a great selection of Italian products as well as some South American stuff, which is pretty typical for Italian markets. The only downside at Bay Cities is that we had to wait over 40 minutes to put in our sandwich order! Although I must say, it was totally worth it and I will be back.

Ham Sandwich and Salt & Pepper Pop Chips

Around this Place

Hey there!!
Well, I don't have too many pictures because es place, pre-Stephanie's touch, because I wasn't around much those first couple weeks. First thing we did was put drywall over the popcorn ceiling, we hired a few guys to do that and Austin supervised. Second, the place got all new paint, ceiling included, and Austin supervised that too. Then we started moving in some stuff and by the new year we put down wood floors in the two bedrooms and, well, I was busy helping with that so I didn't take any pictures. Today I'll start a series of posts walking you through Canterbury (that's the street we live on and how I refer to this place). When you first walk in you're in the living room and so it seems fitting to start here.
So first up, the living room!!


I wanted a wall to pop in the living room, so we painted the wall behind the TV this beautiful shade of blue from Martha Stewart's Home Depot collection. I'm slowly trying to incorporate some coastal stuff since we're a short drive from the beach. I bought a few new pillows in light blue and green from Pottery Barn and incorporated some of the sea shells from our trips to Mexico and Uruguay.

I'm so in love with how the blue turned out

This is a view from the hallway into the kitchen

See some seashells to the left of the lamp?

Close up of shells on the TV console

Remember my beloved console?

Check out a close up of some new stuff that now lives on the console. I got these three things from my last trip to Uruguay. I bought the camera at a faire in downtown Montevideo and collected the keys in the hurricane throughout my trip. The tango dancers are made of different sized screws, I bought this decor from a street vendor in Buenos Aires, pretty cool.

That's it for now!

Eva Restaurant

Austin got a Bottomless Mimosa Sunday Brunch deal on Bloomspot and so we got to check this place out. Our deal included botomless mimosas and a first and second course. I got the homemade granola and Strauss Yogurt, which was sooo good, and the french toast! Overall, this was a great restaurant, I love that it's a farmer's market restaurant and that the menu changes with the availability at the local Farmer's Market.

We loved the yogurt so much that we bought a big tub of vanilla Strauss Family Farm yogurt, some strawberries and I made some granola (recipe next time).

I'm baaaaaackkkk!!!

Hey there! Been off the blogosphere (posting-wise anyways) for nearly a year, but I'm baaaaackkk!!! Last post was February 13th, since then we spent the year mostly doing the same old, same old. We kept exploring LA, started shopping for our first home, ate at all kinds of yummy foods at new places, I kept knitting and working on all kinds of crafts. I also took a trip to Uruguay in April and we spent a week in Cabo during the summer.

Other highlights included finding my new fave restaurant Escuela Taqueria (I'll post in detail next time I'm there). The biggest and best thing that happened at the end of 2011 is that we bought OUR FIRST HOME!!! I've always wanted this blog to be about fixing up your home and really making a house a home, so that's what I'll be doing. I'll keep telling you about craft ideas, giving recipes, posting about restaurants and knitting projects and whatever life brings. We are so excited and will be posting many posts about the new place in Culver City soon.  Can't wait to explore Culver City, home renovation and the joys of homemaking this year with you!

Sneak Peak of our living room

Weekend Roundup

I hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day weekend! We had a great time in Santa Barbara on Saturday and laid low running errands and such on Sunday. 

Saturday morning we made an apple pie for the First Annual Pie Competition Night at our good friends' Stephanie and Reed's house. 

Austin helped me roll out the Crust

Used the Spiced Apple Pie recipe again

Third try IS the CHARM!!

Here are the pictures of the Pie Competition Night, in addition to the Apple pie, I also mad Boston Cream Cupcakes and our favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies

Isn't this just PERFECT?

Turns out the other reason we went to Santa Barbara was that Austin was going to PROPOSE!!!

Yes, we are now ENGAGED!!

It all went down at The Sunken Gardens, Santa Barbara

Wrapped up our evening at our favorite Santa Barbara Chinese restaurant, China Pavilion

Their decor

Potstickers

Beef Chow Mein

Well, as you can see we had quite an eventful weekend! We are so happy and we wish you a very happy Valentine's Day! We'll be at a restaurant in Pasadena with our friends so I'll be back in a few days with a review of the place.