Happy 2015!

Happy New Year! I hope you've all enjoyed and recovered from your holidays. I have! A couple of people have asked me what my new years resolutions are so I've compiled a little list. You'll see that many are food related. Enjoy and tell me what changes you are making in the new year or what resolutions you are keeping from previous years.

1. Continue to strengthen my relationships with my family and friends. 
2. Go on at least five vacations. We started the year with a staycation at the Loews Coronado Resort and we have two more vacations booked. My little family is off to a good start.
3. Drink green smoothies daily. I make them with spinach, almond milk, chia seeds, and frozen blueberries. Sometimes I switch out the blueberries for PB2.
4. Drink a shot of apple cider vinegar mixed with Emergen-C daily.
5. Start my day with a warm cup of water with juice from half of a lemon. 
6. Pull coconut oil.
7. Make fish for dinner at least once a week. 
8. Make soup for dinner at least once every two weeks.
9. Of course exercise more often. I already bought new workout clothes, my sweet husband gave me blue tooth Beats headphones for Christmas, and my cousin bought our entire family Misfit Flash fitness monitors.  They're pretty awesome.
10. Organize and decorate my home so I enjoy it more. You can follow along with me on Pinterest.

I wish you much love and happiness in the new year. 

Ribbon Cutting Ceremony at The Headquarters

Sunday night we had the privilege of attending the ribbon cutting ceremony for The Headquarters at Seaport District. It was a great event that showcased the restaurants and retail occupying San Diego's Old Police Headquarters and really celebrated the SDPD history of that location. Yes we did have our photos taken in a jail cell with actor inmates and our drinks were served by bartenders dressed in SDPD's old tan uniforms. It was very very cool.

It's open! It's finally open!

There are many fabulous restaurants occupying The Headquarters and our first stop was Pizzeria Mozza. We got inside and my husband made a reservation for next weekend and I went straight to the counter to watch the cooks using the pizza oven. We were served refreshing spritzers, savory pizza, and their famous butterscotch budino. People! You need to try their budino! It's a thick velvety pudding topped with a caramel sauce and rosemary pine-nut cookie. 

I snapped an action shot of the pizza oven on overdrive.

Fennel and sausage pizza, really fresh. 

This is THE budino. Try it. 

Our next stop was Puesto. We have eaten at their La Jolla location so we knew what to expect, delicious tacos and drinks. That's exactly what we were served. What was new to us was the space and the design of Puesto. It's great! It's industrial and contemporary and the perfect spot to visit with your friends and family. There are many stylish sitting areas, inside and out. 

Just one of the sitting areas.

See the black and white floor? That's tile. Pretty cool.

Tacos al pastor and chile relleno. 

I've never eaten at Seasons 52 but have been wanting to. I thought I'd wait for The Headquarters location to open. Last night their staff was offering desserts. My husband tried the cannoli and I jumped at the pecan pie with vanilla mousse. OMG... So good. I'm looking forward to returning and trying their full menu where they proclaim all items are less than 475 calories. I've heard nothing but good reviews and can't wait to come back. 

Cheesecake Factory is one of the big anchor tenants at The Headquarters. Of course it is. They are famous for their big delicious entrees and their desserts. Guess what I sampled? Rich, creamy, dense chocolate cheesecake. Because The Headquarters is a historic building, the Cheesecake Factory had to do some custom design for this very special location. I must say that I think it's their best one. 

I was sad to see that Eddie V's won't be open until Februrary 2014. However, that is perfect timing for our wedding anniversary. ;) Even though their space isn't ready, the staff from Eddie V's was out in full effect offering succulent scallops for us to try. Delicious, and I can't wait for the grand opening.  

Delicious bite

In addition to all the restaurants, The Headquarters has specialty food shops and retail like Kitson, The Sunglass Hut, Venissimo Cheese, Geppettos, Starbucks and more.We loved it all. 

Venissimo Cheese

The night ended with a special performance by The Temptations and a sky full of fireworks. It was quite the evening and I hope that you will be enjoying The Headquarters at Seaport District. You'll have to see the transformation for yourself. The restaurants, the retail, the plaza, the fountains, everything. Enjoy! 

Fireworks over Puesto

Baked Eggs Over Chorizo and Potatoes

Back to reality... I just spent a really fun weekend at a friend's gorgeous cabin home overlooking Lake Cuyamaca. We played games, we drank tons of wine and champagne, we ventured into Julian, and overall just had a perfect little weekend.  It was a really good group of couples, no drama, everyone just getting along.

Here are the ladies, tasting at Orfila. I enjoyed the 2008 Old Vine Zin and the 2012 Element 119 Pinot Noir.

I picked up these goodies at the Julian Cider Mill. This morning I added the apple butter to my son's peanut butter sandwich. I'm hoping he eats it all. He's been a terrible eater lately.

Before going, we divided up the meals. Let me tell you what a treat this was. We did this when we went camping too. Each couple was responsible for a meal and by doing that, we get to taste what other people cook. One of my favorite things in the world is eating a home cooked meal, THAT SOMEONE ELSE PREPARED. We had Mike's famous lasagna, garlic bread, breakfast burritos, we had meatballs, buffalo chicken dip, nachos and more. Such a treat!

My turn to provide a meal was Sunday morning. After consulting a foodie friend of mine, I decided to make baked eggs over chorizo and potatoes. I found the recipe on Food and Wine's website. This recipe was pretty spot on and I only changed a few things to make it easier to prepare.

Browning the potatoes

Chorizo and onion mixture

The finished product

The perfect bite!

This recipe serves 5 and will take about 45 minutes to prepare.

Ingredients
3  16 ounce cans of whole potatoes
2  10 ounce Mexican pork chorizos
10 eggs
1/2 large sweet Mayan onion
10 tortillas

Directions
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
Chop up your canned potatoes and set aside.
Heat your pan over high heat and cut open the chorizo. Break down that chorizo and move around. It's done when the stringiness is gone and it's brown.
Chop your onion and add.
Cook and stir the chorizo and onion mixture for 5 minutes and empty it into a separate bowl.
Put your chopped potatoes into the pan and season them with salt and pepper. Cook them until they brown up, about 5 minutes.
Add the chorizo mixture to the potatoes and combine.
In a 9x13 pan (I lined mine with foil for easy clean up), add the chorizo and potatoes.
Using a spoon, try to make little dents for your eggs and crack your eggs into the dents.
Bake for 10 minutes. It's done when the whites of the eggs are opaque.
Enjoy with tortillas.

Our Family Staycation at Hilton San Diego Bayfront

Let me clear the air and admit that I haven't posted on The Good Life since June. It's October people and I'm finally going to write something down, upload photos, and post.  I just need to get back in the habit and I already know what I'm going to post next.

Many months ago, we stayed at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront. It's a lovely hotel with great views, sleek rooms, fantastic service (you'll see when you read about my son's bee sting), a pool to die for and good food and drinks. If you're a San Diego resident and looking for a weekend staycation, I highly recommend staying here. It's one of my favorite places in San Diego. And if you don't live in San Diego, like maybe you live in Reno, Nevada or Bismarck, North Dakota, plan your next trip and make a reservation here.

We requested a corner room and here's why, THE VIEW. We were able to look out at  Embarcadero Marina Park South, the convention center, and the Coronado bridge. Seeing these views feels like vacation. 

Heavenly salt water pool

 

 

While relaxing at the pool, we were able to enjoy the view of the beautiful San Diego Bay and Coronado. 

My poor boy was stung by a bee. The silver lining was the attention we received from the staff. When he started screaming in pain, two staff members were there immediately with a first aid kit. My husband removed the stinger and they gave us something to clean his owie. Then they gave my son (they asked me first) a chocolate dipped Rice Krispie treat and a chocolate chip cookie. I'd also like to add that one of the staff members stayed near us for at least 15 minutes to make sure my son didn't have an allergic reaction to the bee sting. Thankfully he didn't.

This is the toddler splash pool. Fun! Behind it is the water slide with a giant TV playing Sponge Bob.

What hotel stay isn't complete without a little dessert room service?  That's carrot cake and an ice cream cookie sandwich.

How To Clean Your Tarnished Silver

I had a handful of silver that was tarnished and in dire need of cleaning but I'd been reluctant to take it in for whatever reasons, mainly forgetful. So, it was all just sitting in my jewelry box hanging out and not being enjoyed. After I came across this pin on Pinterest and clicked through to Cleanmyspace.com, I decided it was worth a try to clean it myself.
I've also been a little absent on this blog so I knew I could document my experiment and results here to share with you. ;) Sorry, I've been on a diet.

Supplies
1) 1 cup boiling water
2) 1 tablespoon baking soda
3) 1 tablespoon white salt
4) 1/2 cup white vinegar
5) 1 sheet of tinfoil, shiny side up
6) large bowl
7) towel

Adding the vinegar to the salt and baking soda makes a big fizz so go slowly.

Add water and then add your jewelry. Move the silver so that all surfaces make contact with the foil.

Before

Before

After. All shiny.

 I think that this was worth the try. I wouldn't say that this was better than a professional cleaning at the jeweler's but this simple solution has made my beloved silver wearable again. 
Now you try it! XOXO

Breakfast, Boozy Movie Goin', and Beer

I've been meaning to share with you about the great day I had last weekend. Last Saturday started with breakfast with my BF Jill. We went to the Naked Cafe in Carlsbad. Thank you Yelp for the suggestion. Our food was fantastic and the al fresco dining was lovely. I ordered the pesto scramble, four egg whites, pesto, green onion, and tomato served with a side of baby organic greens. It was very fresh tasting. 

my yummy breakfast.

Next we drove south a bit to La Costa to check out the new Cinepolis. From start to finish, the experience here was luxurious. The lobby was beautifully designed. You'll have to check it out if you haven't already. What makes this theater so unique is the food and drinks that you can enjoy before and DURING your movie. For you 21 and uppers, that means booze! Certain movies and showtimes allow alcohol during the movie. 

That's me reclining all the way back while my order is being taken. Hess Chardonnay please!

 

I know I know. It seems like a full day already. However, I had it in me to go out on the town later that evening. The Mr. and I along with two other couples went to this place called Dragon's Den. It's located in East Village across from Petco Park. The selling point of Dragon's Den are the pour your own draft beer tables. Our table had Shock Top and Bud Light. Pretty cool!

Taste of Hillcrest 2012

The Mr. and I found ourselves at another Taste of event. This time it was Taste of Hillcrest. We had some outstanding food and alcoholic beverages worthy of The Good Life.

I made a serious attempt to photograph everything. I even photographed signs for brunches that served bottomless mimosas. That's important information.  

Clockwise from top left: pheasant sausage and polenta from Tractor Room, tostada from Brazen BBQ, boeuf bourguignon and chocolate mousse from Au Revoir, and a miso chicken wing from Empire House.

burrito from Freebirds World Burrito

Bombay served drinks and a good size buffet in their Sapphire Room

Thank you Bread and Cie for the coconut macaroon and Pinkberry for the lychee yogurt topped with mangoes. 

Oretga's has bottomless mimosas with their brunch.

Huapango's also offers bottomless mimosas and sangria with brunch. Nice!

Taste of Shelter Island 2012

I've been tweeting about this event I went to, Taste of Shelter Island, all week. And I've been talking to other people about it and everyone's been like, "yeah, that's so great, we went to Taste of Downtown and have you heard of Taste of blah blah blah?" Jeez, how long have these things been going on and I didn't even know about them? Too long. Taste of Hillcrest celebrated its 10 year anniversary in 2011. 

Since we had such a great time visiting some of our old favorites and trying some new ones on Shelter Island, I thought I would share it with my readers. FYI, if you haven't experienced one of these before it works like this, you pay one price and you get a voucher you take with you to the participating restaurants. There you present your voucher and the restaurant gives you a sample of what you can expect from them. They also offer great drink specials. Those get me every time.  

Below you'll see some of the food we enjoyed from just a handful of restaurants that we stopped at. After a while I couldn't keep up with photographing and writing down everything that we ate. We were also running out of battery on our phones. If you are friends with me or my husband on Facebook, you can see why. He checked us in everywhere. We hit up 13 places in 3 hours. Needless to say I was extremely full and was begging my husband to just split our tastings.  A couple of places that didn't get photographed were the Bali Hai and Pizza Nova. 

Enjoy the photos and consider attending one of these Taste of Events if you haven't done so already. Here's your chance, Taste of Hillcrest is tomorrow. Enjoy!!

This was from Red's. They served us to die for desserts; a red velvet cupcake and a double chocolate stout brownie with ganache and crispy cereal. Not pictured are the catfish cake and jambalaya.

We stopped at Old Venice and they served us pasta and foccacia. Delish.

Old Venice served $3 glasses of prosecco. Yes please!

These soy ginger wings were from Harbor Town Pub. We will be returning.

Here we have octopus ceviche from Gabardine. Very fresh.

Suppanee House served egg rolls and chicken mango curry.

The Elegant Truffle offered lemon ricotta cookies and a caramel truffle.

This tasty bite came from the Blue Wave Bar and Grill located in the Best Western Island Palms Hotel. It's salmon on a bed of pureed English peas.