All I want for Christmas

O doesn't know it yet, but we're asking for matching red rosette leotards for Christmas...

Enjoy: 

Merry Christmas! Have Some Mulled Wine.

After couture and chardonnay day, it's time to try out the mulling spice I bought at world market!

To make this recipe: you'll need one bottle Electric Reindeer Cab aka: very fine wine

World Market Mulling Spice and Triple Sec (my own addition to give it a little kick)

Add brown sugar, throw in a pot to warm, and you are in business!

Cheers!

-Claire

Thankful

The time has come for us to look back and reflect, reconnect, and rejoice with family and friends. It is time for us to remember why we're so lucky for the things we have, and forget the things we have not.
Are you hurling from the cheesballsness of this post yet? The holidays may be drawn out longer every year and completely over-dramatized by the retail industry but when I look back on this year, I am truly thankful for how amazing it was! 

First and foremost I'm thankful for:

The most amazing, fun, lovely day of my life.

Which resulted in:

The growth of a family.

Which was preceded by:

The wildest, sparkliest, rowdiest weekend of my life.

And Followed by:

The most luxurious, delicious, appreciated vacation of my life!

But of course none of this would be possible without:

A down-right wonderful hubby who loves me and brings me pretties when he's away for too long.

Parents that will try to give me the world and support me through anything.

Glorious friends who will drink wine, tailgate, and dress up for tea with me.

AND last but not least:

The cutest, craziest, sweetest duker-poo the world has ever seen!

  

Have a wonderfully wonderful Thanksgiving everyone!

-Claire

Oh no she didn't

Hi, my name is Claire and I've gained 15 pounds since I got married (and NO there is no little Sassy on the way!). After a week of pure gluttony in gastronomical proportions (i.e. Eating and drinking my face off), shit is about to get serious. The holidays are quickly approaching and if things continue with the current trend, it won't be long before buttons are flying off my pants and there's a quadra-boob sighting. Terrifying!

It's time that this blog help motivate me and maybe it will provide the tiniest bit of motivation for you as well. Goals, goals, goals people. That is the key for me! So here they are:

1) Keep training for Turkey Trot- five miles through Austin on Thanksgiving morning. If that doesn't earn some corn bread stuffing and sweet potato pie, I don't know what does.


2) Try out these healthy recipes in the next two weeks:

Peanut Butter Protein Energy Balls
From thediva-dish.com

Everything Green Smoothie 
From thediva-dish.com

Sweet Potato Souffle
From: With Style and Grace

3) I will have one, count it, ONE thanksgiving meal this year. No three or four rounds of left overs for me! If I have left overs post thanksgiving day it will consist of one leftover item plus some sort of veggie.

4) Whooooaaa portion control (cue Prinz music). Eat, but for goodness sake stop cleaning your plate woman! Unless, it's saucer sized and contains celery and carrots.

5) Do at least four weight training workouts over the next two weeks. This app from skimble is so awesome. If you're like me, you go to the gym, have no plan what-so-ever of what you want to do/accomplish in said gym session and end up spending 20 min on the elliptical then staring at the weight machines for 10 min trying to decide which one to pick. What if I do triceps machine and biceps gets his feelings hurt? If you can get past the animatronic trainer voice, the workouts are great and the only thinking required is which one to pick!

Well there ya have it. Five goals seems sufficient to begin my journey through fitness (corny). I'll keep you updated on my progress and pitfalls!

-Claire

Bleeding Purple

Today is a big day for TCU football. We're playing Boise State who beat us out of the Fiesta Bowl title in 2010.

My beef with Boise is their heinous blue field and the blatant faux pas of thinking royal blue and orange actually compliment each other...

So here we are, being eye-raped by Boise's horrific 100 yards of blue on the 80 inch screen.

See? Heinous.

Well, at least we have beer. 

GO FROGS!!!

Cough, Achew

Somehow a pesky amoeba of a virus infiltrated my iron clad immune system and I'm home sick today. Not that anybody likes it, but I especially HATE being sick. My sick time and vacation time are one in the same at my job, sickness=less vacay.  No bueno. 


After laying on the couch for hours and wallowing in my misery I decided I had enough energy to sit at the computer and finish designing our first Holiday cards as a matrimonial couple! I've narrowed it down to three: 

1) Casual and Playful

2) Romantic and Soft (the white bar is where our last name will go)

3) Traditional and Straightforward

All designs from simplytoimpress.com

I never thought it would be so difficult to choose a holiday card! Having over 2000 wedding pictures to choose from might have something to do with it. 

Anybody have a favorite of the three? I'm at a loss here and until hubby gets home tonight I will have no outside input whatsoever. I'm in agony I tell you! 

Alright then, time for some soup and couch time. *sniffle

-Claire

It's a bird!

It's a plane!

No, it's SUPER DOG!!!

And his psychedelic parents....

Happy Halloween!!

I Feel Pretty!

It's been a while since my musical theatre itch has been scratched so last night the parentals and I went to the music hall at Fair Park and saw...

I love musicals, like love more than college football saturdays and sunday brunch. The singing, the dancing, the story! This rendition of West Side Story was really, really well done. It ends this weekend so, if you live in the Big D, get your tush down to fair park and add some culture to your life pronto! 

-Claire

Sweet Potato Gnocchi- That's pronounced No-Key*

Last night I decided to get a little Fall-ish and make a hearty meal with some nummy brussel sprouts! "Brussel sprouts?!" you say (with flared nostrils of disgust). Yes, over the past couple years, the little sprouts have become one of my favorite fall veggies. The key is, and I can not stress this enough, SEASON THEM APPROPRIATELY! And then, season them some more. I roasted the mini cabbage with apples and balsamic vinegar drizzled on top. Viola! Delicious roasted brussel sprouts. 

I paired them with sweet potato gnocchi in sage brown butter. 
I was surprised at how easy gnocchi is to make! The only difficult part is working with the dough when it's sticky. Other than that, it was a piece of cake. 

I substituted pureed sweet potato for pumpkin puree because 1) sweet po's are by FAR my favorite variety of potato and 2) the store was out of pumpkin puree

Happy little gnocchi, ready to be dropped into the hot tub!

Sage brown butter. Hands down the best part of this dish! DO NOT SKIP!

Cooked gnocchis tossed with sage butter. 

Dinner is served!

-Claire

* I add this caveat due to the looks of "did you just speak Mandarin?" I received from my coworkers at lunch today while eating my leftovers 

Recipes:


Balsamic Roasted Brussels Sprouts and Apples

·      2 cups trimmed fresh Brussels sprouts, cut in half


·     1 large honeycrisp apple, cubed


·      1 tablespoon olive oil


·      Sea salt


·      Freshly ground black pepper


·      1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar

Toss Brussels sprouts, apple, olive oil, salt and pepper in a large bowl; place in a single layer on a baking sheet lined with parchment (be sure to spread pieces apart). Roast at 400 degrees F for 15 minutes or until just tender. Remove from oven and sprinkle with balsamic vinegar; return to oven and roast an additional 5 minutes or until tender. 

Sweet Potato Gnocchi

1 cup 100% sweet potato (or 100% pumpkin) puree

1 egg

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1 1/2 cup flour (approximately), plus more for hands and work surface

3 tbsp butter

1/4 cup sage leaves

Parmesan cheese, grated, for sprinkling on top (optional)

Sea salt, to finish

1. Set a large pot of water to boil. In a medium sized bowl, combine pumpkin, egg, salt and nutmeg. Add the flour in several additions, stirring to combine. Continue adding flour until the dough is firm enough to handle, but still somewhat sticky.

2. With floured hands, pinch off about a quarter of the dough. Roll between palms and on floured work surface to make a 1-inch thick rope. Cut rope rope into 1-inch pieces. Repeat with remaining dough.

3. Drop gnocchi into boiling water and cook until they rise to the surface, about 5 minutes. Meanwhile, melt butter in a large, heavy saucepan. Add sage leaves and cook, swirling frequently, until butter browns. Remove from heat.

4. Drain gnocchi on paper towels, then add to brown butter and toss. Serve sprinkled with parmesan and sea salt, if desired.

Courtesy of Stumbleupon

So fantastic, this had to be shared! I remember when my Dad bought me Aladdin, and yep, I've definitely purchased some St. John's Bay for my Dad.  Love!

-Claire

Bienvenido a Miami*

*I was this close to naming this post after a certain LMFAO HIT but alas, I restrained myself. 

Sort Of.

ANYways, O and I got back from a quick weekend trip to South Beach last night. It. Was. A. Blast. My wonderful, hardworking husband won this all expenses paid trip from his company for being such a rockin' employee, and I, being the ever supportive wifey, got to accompany him. What perks! One of our fav couples won this trip also so *BONUS* we got to travel with them too!! 


We arrived, and after spending a few hours in the airport (note to travelers: American is not very flexible with their "check you luggage at least 40 minutes before the flight or else we won't send your bag and we will try to book you as a standby passenger on the latest flight imaginable unless you pay us $50 and then you are guaranteed to get on the latest flight imaginable" rule). It must have been our good looks and undeniable charm that actually got us on our original 8:25 am flight with our bags to follow on the 10:45 am flight. So we hung out in Miami international, ate some lunch, and waited on our bag. No biggie.


We got to our hotel Friday afternoon and hit the beach. I don't have any pictures because unfortunately I'm not real keen on pictures of moi in a bikini right now ya know? But, the beach was beautiful white sand, the water warm and crystal blue, and I wore an amethyst purple bikini with ruffles so use your imagination folks. 


After the beach, we headed to Lario's on the Beach for some authentic cuban food and one of their famous mojitos. I had the cuban roast pork with plantains, black beans, and rice. It was delish. The mojito was quite strong and lovely. I may have had two...

Then we headed to The Shore Club hotel to hang out in the Redroom Garden, an outdoor lounge area with comfy couches and modern deco chairs. Very chic. 

We hung out in the garden for a while, explored the hotel then ended the night here:

Ahh yes, pizza. 

Saturday we laid by the beach again. Entertained the idea of renting jet skis but decided to lay on our beach chairs and drink instead. When a tropical thunderstorm threw us off the beach, we decided to go shopping. We walked up and down Lincoln Road, ate sandwiches, and then found me a very "miami beach appropriate" number from Bebe.

For dinner Saturday night we went to the Delano hotel and ate at The Blue Door Fish restaurant. Admitting that I am obsessed with this restaurant's decor is probably the biggest understatement of my life. IT WAS GORGEOUS!  My favorites were the mercury glass candelabra centerpiece and the etched mirror center table. Is that not amazing?! 

We were sitting directly next to it so when I wasn't having stimulating conversation with O, I was staring at the candelabra. 

The food was some of the best seafood I've ever had. We started the meal with Le Petit Plateau. Lobster, clams, oysters, mussels, shrimp, delish!

For the main course I had the halibut that was cooked to perfection and covered in a buerre blanc sauce. I was one happy woman. 

The Delano is an amazing hotel. Period. You enter the hotel through a small wooden door in the hedges. Consistent with the Alice and Wonderland theme, There is a giant "mad hatter's" chair when you enter the lobby.

I channeled my inner Mad Hatter

There's a bistro set in the beautiful infinity edge pool (apologies for my poor photography, head to the Delano hotel website to see better photos).

And a life size chess set on the lawn!

After dinner we met up with our friends and headed to LIV in the Fountainbleu hotel. This was the club the where Mavs celebrated after winning the NBA title so the boys spent a few minutes contemplating just exactly where Dirk Nowitzki might have sat that night. 

Fountainbleu lobby bar. 

We got a drink at the lobby bar. Got into the club, thanks to a little help from a friend. Then, we danced!

The theme at LIV that night was titled "Shit Show." I think they knew we were coming. 

 And keeping with tradition, we each ended the night with a bigasyourface slice of pizza.

Adios Miami.

-Claire