ADD Christmas Recap: Snow, California & Secret Santa

Before I dive into my AWESOME trip back home, let me introduce tonight's post with the CRAZY news that it's been snowing in Arizona today... I'm not talking about Flagstaff or the Grand Canyon. I mean the PHOENIX VALLEY (link to a news segment on today's weather)!!!! For the first time in the near six months I've lived here, I turned on the heater this afternoon. Currently it's under 40° -- much colder than Iowa, Northern California, Washington D.C., you name it! With that, I'm enjoying my first mug of coffee and Baileys of the season :)

Now about the presents....

Going into the holiday, I was most excited for the blogger Secret Santa exchange put on by Tina! How awesome that idea was. Needless to say I was pretty stoked about what I got for Jamie. I'm such a French nerd and love reliving my time abroad, I knew she must feel the same about studying in Italy! So you know what's ironic about this gift exchange that I'm pretty sure included 50+ members? I was Jamie's Secret Santa and Jamie was Poppy's Secret Santa, and you guessed it, Poppy was MY Secret Santa! Our circle is complete :)

Anyways, I ended up driving back to California on Dec. 20. It was a long drive, was supposed to snow on the Grapevine (pretty much the only way out of LA), and I knew I couldn't make a 13+ hour drive solo. Well, I had Woodstock, so I had to stop even more frequently than normal to ensure he didn't ruin my seats! :) I made two days out of the trip there and back, stopping at friends' houses in Los Angeles/Orange County both ways. That meant my Secret Santa gift was going to arrive without me! Luckily J.D. was home to receive it and send me some pictures of all the lovely goodies Poppy sent me!

The card was adorable!

And I love everything in the gift! Chocolate, puppy treats, a notebook (she must know I LOVE to write), pomegranate fruit strips (my fav flavor), Pop Chips and a dog costume....

...Which Woody hated, but I LOOOOOOVED haha. He's so darn presh. In other news, we celebrated acknowledged his first birthday on Tuesday! Of course I didn't throw a party or get him any presents, he's a dog hahaha!!! But I do plan on baking some dog treats someday soon for the little guy.

I don't know if you noticed from the picture above, but I also went a little crazy and dyed my hair black! I think I love it. It's such a big change for me. My hair is usually light brown, I've streaked it blonde and have darkened it to a reddish brown color in the past. That's about it.

Not gonna lie, the black was inspired by my current celebrity crush:

(Source)

I downloaded Katy Perry's new album and have been playing it nonstop. I freakin' love her!!!! She had a Christmas special on last week and it's waiting to be watched on my DVR and you know I recorded her biography special on E! last night. And then watched it as soon as I drove in from California at about 9 p.m. And I've been watching her videos on YouTube. So obsessed... I think everyone knows about my infatuation, I keep getting texts from friends and family whenever she's on TV ha, thanks guys. You get me :)

Speaking of California, Woodstock and I really did make the Tour de Cali. I stayed in Santa Monica and ate at the most amazing restaurants. It's been my dream for years to live in LA, I'm going to see that it happens sooner rather than later. Then I stayed at my parents' house in the Bay Area for eight days, seeing old friends from high school and college, and enjoying amazing French food made with my mom and sister! We had a soufflé on Christmas Eve, Aimée made peppermint ice cream and candy cane-dipped waffle cones and I attempted to make pain au chocolat (chocolate croissants), but something was off because they basically turned into chocolate bagels ha. Oh well. Then I went to Sacramento, Stockton and Huntington Beach where my friend and I took his boat out around Huntington Harbour (in the rain) and ate sushi at a restaurant off the boat dock!

It really has been amazing and I can't wait to go back again! I don't know when my next trip home will be, but I am heading out to Washington D.C. next week!!!! I'm milking my unemployment for all I can get, because my job begins in February!

Finally, the presents! I made off with some amazing gifts. I love my friends and family! The past 11 days were a total blast -- I miss them already.

Work clothes from Macy*s

My dream recently has been to become a pastry chef (it's so expensive, I'm going to become self-taught haha)... I also received an array of cookbooks!

Jeopardy on Wii and Beauty and the Beast on Blu-Ray/DVD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Soon it'll be time to take down the tree J.D. and I have here... but before that, a celebration to end 2010 and kick off a new decade is in order! Happy New Year everyone :)

Pomegranate seeds: the versatile fruit

As much as I love fall flavors, it was pretty hard to get into the holiday mood with temperatures conducive to sunbathing back in Arizona. At least now that I'm back in Northern California, it's nonstop rain and fog (the grass is always greener, people)... Luckily buying fall and winter produce gave me a nudge in the festive direction, making me wish it were drizzly and foggy outside (in Arizona). Not like I'm one to complain about 80º temperatures or anything...

Whole Foods had pomegranates essentially for buy one get one free a few weeks back, so I bought my first two, ever. I didn't know how to cut one, let alone what I could do with the seeds. [Enter PBFingers, that did the trick]

From putting the seeds in yogurt to salads, I needed some other ideas to keep stretching out the pom seeds. So my two fall pomegranate meals spanned the spectrum from breakfast to dinner: Maple Pumpkin Berry Spiced Oats and Quinoa-Stuffed Butternut Squash.

Maple Pumpkin Berry Spiced Oats: This is probably my favorite preparation of oatmeal thus far!

Ingredients:

• 1/2 c quick cook oats
• 1 c water
• 1 T maple syrup
• 1 T chia seeds
• several dashes of pumpkin pie spice
• handful pumpkin granola
• handful pomegranate seeds
• handful Craisins
• 1/2 T almond butter
• splash of nonfat milk

While it doesn't look like much, eating the spicy warm bowl of oatmeal made me feel that if I closed my eyes, it would be fall and chilly outside. So basically the best of both worlds, winter flavors with summer temperatures! And now for a similar type of feel at dinner.

Quinoa-Stuffed Butternut Squash:

Ingredients:

• 1 medium butternut squash
• 1 c quinoa
• 1 c water
• 1 T butter
• 1/2 c onions or scallions
• 1/3 c chopped walnuts
• 1/2 c pomegranate seeds and Craisins
• 2 T grated Parmesan cheese
• salt and pepper for seasoning

Preheat oven to 350°. While waiting, half the squash and remove pulp, seeds. Oil a cookie sheet and lay halves flat side down onto the sheet. Bake for 45 minutes, or until tender.

While the squash is baking, melt the butter in a pot and sautée onions. Add water, bring to a boil and then dump in the quinoa. Bring back to a boil, cover, reduce heat and let simmer for 12 minutes. Once the quinoa has absorbed all of the water, remove from heat, fluff and then put the lid back and let sit for 15 minutes.

After the squash finishes baking, take a knife and score the insides, scooping out all of the squash and leaving just the shell. Set aside and chop the walnuts. Then mix into the quinoa. You could stop here (how I prepared J.D.'s squash) or you could add in pomegranate seeds and Craisins for an extra crunch.

Season the mixture with salt and pepper then divide evenly to fill the squash shells. Top with grated Parmesan cheese and return to the oven for 20 more minutes at 350°. Serves two, but realistically there is enough quinoa for four servings.

This quinoa side is what sparked my idea for the "stuffing" I made on Thanksgiving. Now, on to Christmas!

Fun with Pumpkin: Pumpkin crème brûlée and pumpkin martinis

I know the season for pumpkin is melting away faster than the snow in California. But if you're like me, you bought way tooo much pumpkin over the fall months. I cracked open the cans, used what I needed and stored the rest in the freezer for a rainy day.

Well, rainy days are few and far between here in the desert. In fact, it's still close to 80° here in Arizona....

Enter warm and frosty pumpkin treats!

You'll remember I raved about the pumpkin crème brûlée we had for Thanksgiving (not to toot my own horn, but this was pretty dang good). It was creamy, thick and tasted like a mini serving of pumpkin pie with a thick buttery and sugary crust on top. I recently watched the movie Amélie and was reminded of my favorite line (promise this is going somewhere):

"Amélie is a shy young woman with a pronounced taste for all life's small pleasures : immersing one's hand in a sack of grain, craking the crust of a crème brûlée with the back of a teaspoon or skipping stones on the Canal St-Martin."

Cracking the top sugary layer of a crème brûlée into a million tiny shattered pieces is one of my favorite things in life. Seriously, it's my favorite dessert, ever. It is with this in mind, I present to you my Thanksgiving dessert, and a recent apératif.

Pumpkin Crème Brûlée (adapted from Emeril Lagasse, I may or may not have said "bam" while preparing):

Ingredients:

• 2 c heavy cream
• 1/4 c light brown sugar
• 1/4 c sugar, plus 4 t
• 8 large egg yolks
• 1/2 t vanilla extract
• 1/4 t ground cinnamon
• 1/8 t grated nutmeg
• 1 c canned cooked pumpkin

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Arrange 8 (1/2-cup) ramekins or custard cups in a large metal baking pan.

In a medium saucepan, combine the cream, brown sugar, and 1/4 cup granulated sugar. Bring to a bare simmer over medium-high heat, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Remove from the heat.

In a medium bowl, whisk the egg yolks until frothy and lemon-colored. Slowly add 3/4 cup of the hot cream mixture, whisking constantly. Add the egg mixture to the remaining hot cream, and whisk. Add the vanilla, cinnamon, nutmeg, and pumpkin, and whisk until smooth. Divide among the prepared custard cups.

Add enough hot water to come halfway up the sides of the cups. Bake until the custards are just set in the center but not stiff, 45 minutes to 55 minutes. Remove from the oven and refrigerate until well chilled, at least 3 hours or overnight.

Sprinkle each custard with 1/2 teaspoon of the remaining sugar (I used a special crème brûlée praline-flavored sugar, it made the taste super buttery and gave it that extra step above regular sugar). Using a kitchen torch, caramelize the sugar. Place on small dessert plates and serve.

...Heaven in a ramekin!

Now prior to dinner tonight, I continued my pumpkin spice flavoring tradition to rid my freezer of canned pumpkin. Enter my pumpkin apéritif (pre-dinner drink in the French tradition):

Pumpkin Pie Spice Martinis

Ingredients:

• 1/2 c brown sugar
• 2 t pumpkin pie spice, divided
• 2 t granulated sugar
• 2 c skim milk
• 2 t pumpkin puree
• 2 c pomegranate cranberry juice
• 4 oz. clementine vodka
• ice

Directions:

In a small saucepan over medium heat, combine the brown sugar, 1 t pumpkin pie spice, and 1/2 c water. Stir until the sugar is dissolved and bring it to a boil. Remove from heat and cool for 30 minutes. Syrup can be stored in the refrigerator for up to 2 weeks.

Mix together the granulated sugar and remaining 1 t pumpkin pie spice and put it onto a shallow plate. Pour 2 tablespoons of the simple syrup onto a plate. Dip the rims of 4 martini glasses into the syrup, and then in the spiced sugar. Set aside.

In a cocktail shaker, combine the milk, pumpkin puree, juice, vodka, half the simple syrup and ice and shake until well blended. Pour into the prepared glasses.

**I realized halfway through I was missing a liquid base. So that's where the pomegranate juice comes in, but it's masked behind the creamy texture of the pumpkin puree and the frothiness of the milk. Pumpkin pie spice simple syrup seriously might be my favorite flavor ever!! This all combined to make a martini that essentially tasted like pumpkin pie... but with alcohol :)

Does life get any better than that?! (Note: I couldn't consume too much, it was quite rich. This is simply meant to be for sipping as an apéritif -- before eating)

It's like I'm in France... again!

It's official. I love French cooking. What, that wasn't a new revelation or anything? Alright, I lived abroad, loved reading My Life in France, loved Julie & Julia and received Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking for my birthday back in April. I tried making Coq au Vin and Suprêmes de Volaille à l'Écossaise. But for some strange reason, I haven't cracked open the book since April!! Maybe because it's so rich and decadent and I never have any of the ingredients on hand.

Well that changed last night. We had some left over heavy cream -- nearing its expiration date -- and butter from Thanksgiving. When one has butter and cream on hand, what little choice is there to do with it but make a French meal?! I had a half-opened bottle of wine and some potatoes so I decided to make Poulet au Porto and a spin off Child's Gratin Dauphinois (recipes are linked to both dishes).

I don't know how I have French genes but have a strong aversion to butter. In trying to make the dishes healthier, I not only cut the recipes in half for two people with leftovers, but also cut down the butter requirements to 1/4 of what she called for haha. The woman loved to rub everything in butter: the chicken thighs, the pan, the dishes, she even told me to rub my face with butter. Ok, maybe not. But that's what it felt like. I also cheated with the mushrooms. As in, I can't stand them! You'd think after 25 years they'd grow on me... so instead I opted for carrots, which I had on hand. It was still pretty dang tasty.

So here you have it....

Poulet au Porto (Wine-steeped roasted chicken)

and Gratin Savoyard, also known as a Tartifelette in the Alps region of France and Switzerland (potato gratin with milk, butter, gruyère and bacon). I added the bacon to make it more Swiss:

(P.S. How AWESOME are the iPhone 4 pictures?! They're waaay nicer than my point-and-shoot camera haha. Hope J.D. doesn't mind me stealing his phone every now and then...)

Fun fact, my dad lived in Annecy, in the French Alps, when I was living on the beaches of the Mediterranean. We'd make the 6- to 8-hour train ride back and forth tasting regional specialties. One of my favorites was the Tartifelette and of course, fondues of the Alps. Does anyone want to go back to France with me, RIGHT NOW?!?!?! :)

Well, if I can't, at least Julia Child can take me back there for a night or two.

Travel hates me

I'm sure by now you know it's always a giant cluster anytime I travel. Don't remember? What about the time I spent the night in the Denver airport? Or waaay back when I first began blogging in 2007, when I threw up the ENTIRE flight from Washington D.C. to London? Or when I arrived in France and didn't have anywhere to stay? Any of those jog your memory? If not, you probably now have a better understanding at how big of a mess I am.

(Source -- ok maybe not this big of a mess, but you get the idea)

So why am I bringing this up? Well I was having a blast back home in California last week. And I think the travel gods understood my apprehension to go back to Arizona on Sunday. It all started with a restroom trip.... that's a weird way to begin a story, isn't it? Anyways I was in the restroom at a college basketball game and my phone fell out of my pocket, somehow on camera mode, and snapped a photo of me doing my thing. What a creep. I deleted it immediately. That would have been funny to keep around, but sooooo not worth it. We ended up leaving the game in the second half because it got kind of out of hand and I needed to eat before heading to the airport.

At lunch, my dad suggested I check my flight status. Southwest's website said my 7:05 p.m. departure would be delayed 20 minutes. Seeing as how we live fairly close to the Oakland Airport, my dad decided we didn't need to leave as early as I'd originally planned. I kept checking often, nervous that I'd miss my flight, only to find a delay as long as 45 minutes. So the new time we aimed to leave for the airport would put me there about 45 minutes before my flight would have left normally. And I was checking in a bag....

As we're packing up the car, I checked one more time and then the flight status changed to ON TIME.

(Source)

I was going to have to mad dash to the airport if I wanted to be there on time! There is also a new policy that if you're checking a bag, you have to arrive more than 30 minutes prior to departure. This was going to be cutting it close...

As we get into the car it starts pouring. And then on the freeway, not more than 15 minutes away from the airport, a crash happened just ahead of us. Out of nowhere this cop car comes racing through all lanes, halting five lanes of traffic. We were at a dead stop, realizing that one of the cars had spun around to face the wrong direction in the shoulder. While I hoped they were ok, I wanted to get moving! The policeman ran out of the car, checked up on everyone, then pulled off to the side to only block two lanes. Slowly but surely, traffic resumed and we were back on the road. I still had about 55 minutes before my flight was supposed to leave.

By the time I arrived, I was relieved to see that Southwest had an express bag check lane with no one in it. I printed out my boarding pass at home -- after forgetting to do so and missed out on being in the "A" group -- so I didn't have to bother with the check-in line that pretty much went out the door. Except, I was in that line for about six minutes before realizing that the empty lane was for me! Crossing my fingers, I plopped my suitcase on the scale and was relieved to find out it wasn't 50 pounds... just 48. Oh well, it was under and I didn't have to pay an excess weight fee. Off I scurried to security.

I had to wait in the security line unnecessarily long because some dumb jock in front of me was probably high. It was this blond kid wearing a USC water polo shirt holding up his ID at the beginning of the security line. Then he flipped out and couldn't find his boarding pass. Instead of asking him to stand to the side while he rifled through his garbage bag -- yes, that was his carry-on -- they waited and waited. But all of a sudden he realized he hadn't even checked in yet and didn't even have a boarding pass. Silly boy... So he exited the security area and went back to the desk for his airline, while I passed right on through to the X-ray belt. I was waiting in line, all my belongings properly placed on the belt when a TSA attendant tapped me on the shoulder and asked me to come with them. Um, I wasn't doing anything wrong, at least I didn't think so. My shoes and jacket were off, I wasn't wearing jewelry and I was dressed pretty nicely.

Instead of going through the normal metal detector thing, I was randomly selected to test out the new TSA box. Although I've heard a lot of jokes about it in the media, I didn't have a clue what to do other than walk through it. But she stopped me. Literally, grabbed me while I was walking through and made me put my feet on the two yellow spaces facing outward in the box. I was instructed to lift my arms over my head, feeling awkward while the X-ray did its thing. It felt like an abnormally long period of time. It made a tiny ding at the end, prompting the TSA officer to brush both sides of my body and then send me on my way. I felt weird. Especially since my luggage had backed up and everyone on the other side was waiting for me to claim my belongings.

With about 20 minutes to go, I made it to my gate only to find the flight was delayed 20 minutes again. No big deal, I'll just text people and play games on my phone, which by the way, was dying. All of a sudden this dude sits next to me and rips one. Like majorly passes gas for me and everyone in a 30-mile radius to smell. I wanted to vomit. Instead, I got up and walked around to pass the time. When I finally sat back down elsewhere, I plopped down next to a couple discussing their eHarmony accounts. The woman apparently cancelled her subscription, but was still getting emails. Her boyfriend, financé?, the guy she met on eHarmony still hadn't deleted his account and this was causing some major drama. I tuned it out, because over the PA they were announcing that our plane still hadn't arrived and even after the 20 minute delay, we were still scheduled to depart in three minutes. No way we were leaving 20 minutes late. It ended up being 40 minutes after all.

But of course, while I was listening, I saw Farty McGee walking around crop dusting on the other side of the gate. Good thing I moved seats. When our plane finally arrived it was about 7:30 p.m. and we still had to board. I eventually made it home to Phoenix at about 11 p.m., when you factor in the one-hour time zone difference between Arizona and California. As much as I reallllllly miss California and all the people in it, I'm glad I'm not flying back in the foreseeable future.