As promised, here is the perfect weekend home that I just happened to stumble upon one day during a walk at Lake Chelan. I love the large back porch with arched entrances, the way the grassy green lawn slopes down to the blue water’s edge, the oversized adirondack chair, the large trees and beautiful landscape, and the unobstructed views of the lake and mountains as the home sits at the end of a small street almost on a point. The fact that there was an old-school wood-paneled land cruiser in the driveway (my most favorite car!) was a pure bonus! So, homeowners, if this is your beautiful home, I’d love to talk one day when we are in the market for our weekend getaway!

What a fantastic video of children tasting a food for the first time! I love that it was captured in slow motion…and, my heart absolutely jumps for joy at the girls’ reactions to an olive and yogurt! This will make you smile!

Recently, we spent a week at Lake Chelan sharing a vacation home with our dear friends- Amy, Phil, Johanna, and Britta. It was nothing short of gorgeous and immensely fun! The glacier-fed lake, which is nearly 55 miles long and located in northwestern Washington in the Cascade Mountain range, looks like the Caribbean Ocean with both turquoise, greens, and dark blues coloring its clear water. And, the surrounding hillside reminds me of Tuscany- gently rolling hills dotted with homes, villas, the occasional tree- ponderosa pines, vines of grapes, a patchwork of lush green orchards, and many wineries. One afternoon, I took a walk and was able to get to a height above an apple orchard- it was especially pretty looking down on the neat rows of apple trees leading to the Caribbean blue waters with the Tuscan-looking hills in the background. Off in the distance, the mountain peaks still held snow, making the landscape even that much more rich and stunning. What an insanely beautiful place!

We hit several of Lake Chelan’s wineries while we were visiting- there are more than two dozen wineries surrounding both the north and south shores of the lake. Our first tasting was at Wapato Point Cellars and the bonus here was that it is family friendly and has a small play area on the grounds. This means the kids were well entertained while the grownups tasted wine!

Both couples enjoyed a date morning (sans kids) where we did something active as a couple and then enjoyed a wine tasting at the Lake Chelan Winery. This winery had my favorite wine of the trip, a white Syrah, which went perfectly with our grilled vegetable and mozzarella pasta dinner.

We also did a girls only outing to Vin du Lac , a charming French inspired winery (note the Eiffel tower in the second photo) with amazing views! The weather was perfect and we indulged in a few wine flights on their lovely patio and then ended with a glass of sweet and florally Gewurtztraminer.

One morning, we hiked at Echo Ridge…it was fun to see a different part of the area and to try to picture what the cross country skiing would be like around there, but the older kids weren’t that into walking so the dads ended up carrying them and, of course, baby Britta was carried, which left me as the only parent free of carrying extra kid weight! We saw a few deer on the hike, lots of pretty yellow Baslamroot flowers, and great views! The kids had fun looking for bugs- we found a cool lizard- and building a “bird nest”.

We spent a lot of time playing on the beach and just really trying to soak in the views! Jack looked at us from time to time while involved in play and said, “it’s really pretty here, right?”. “Yes, baby, it is,” I always replied with a smile and a happy little sigh.

This was really a perfect trip to do with friends! The area is so relaxed…it was a joy to be able to spend so much time with our great friends with no real agenda. We ate fantastic meals, soaked in the hot tub for hours, indulged in many tropical drinks and local wine, and were able to comfortably spend lots of quality time with each other without rushing home for naps or bedtime! Our rental house, Lazy Creek, was the perfect find (thanks to Amy!) with a pool, hot tub, multiple outdoor seating areas, great views, and lots of space to claim as your own.

Jack and Johanna “got married” several times during the week which looked like lots of hugging and tumbling and spinning around…clearly, they are quite fond of one another!

On our last day, just the three of us visited Blueberry Hills Farm where we had brunch. It’s a few miles outside of town. Looking out from the restaurant’s elevated back deck, you see rows and rows of blueberry bushes which we explored after our meal. They smelled wonderful as they were in full bloom…too bad we weren’t there during the picking season! On our way out of town, we made one last stop to Lake View Drive-In. We weren’t overly impressed with our lunch there earlier in the week, but, man, their milkshakes are delicious- we had to have another one for the drive! My favorite was peanut butter hot fudge, which had a rich peanut butter flavor and a ribbon of thick hot fudge marbled evenly throughout…mmm!

I also found a home that I’m pining for right on the north shore of the lake!…I took pictures of the home and will do a separate post next week. Oh, house dreaming is fun!

Happy Mother’s Day to all of you Mamas, especially my own! I hope the day brings you fun and happiness and peace, and quite a bit of pampering! I’m looking forward to a bloody Mary brunch made by my boys…they went shopping together today to buy all of the ingredients!

Having such a long amount of time out here (which never seems to be quite long enough…), we were able to do lots of fun day trips and activities around the city with my parents. One of our first adventures was a day trip to Edmonds, which is only 11 miles north of Seattle yet it has such a small town feel with brick sidewalks, small cafes, and quaint bookstores and toy stores. It is situated on the Puget Sound and on clear days has views from the shore of the Olympic Mountains. Most people know it for the ferry service which takes travelers to Kingston, but it offers so much more with sandy beaches, easily stroll-able sidewalks, and good food. The sea life left on the rocks and sand at low tide was fascinating to explore- rockweed, bull kelp, sea anemones, sea slugs, snails, clams, mussels, sponges … this is reason alone to go back! If it wasn’t so windy and cold on the day we were there, Jack would have been happy playing at the beach for hours!

On the day after Edmonds, we played in Volunteer Park. After enjoying the new play area, we climbed the water tower and had a clear view of all of Seattle and its surrounding area.

One of our weekend day trips found us admiring the many fields of tulips at the Skagit Valley Tulip Festival about an hour north of Seattle. It was such a unique thing to see- hundreds of acres of rainbow colored tulips and daffodils amidst beautiful farms. Unfortunately it was raining when we were driving through so we didn’t get out to walk through the fields, but it was just as stunning from the car.

After all the tulip viewing, we meandered up Chuckanut Drive all the way to Bellingham. We stopped for lunch at the Rhododendron in Bow and explored the beach at Taylor Shellfish Farms, which is the largest producer of Manilla clams and Geoduck in the United States.

We ended our “tulip festival day” with a stop at Kerry Park, a spot where we love to go to admire the houses, to look out over the city, and to take photos.

As shown in the photos, we had tons of fun! There were lots of other memorable moments that I don’t have pictures of and that you should definitely add to your Seattle bucket list- a Mariners baseball game, a Huskies sporting event- we saw a baseball game, runs along the Burke Gilman trail, a driving tour and dinner in Madison Park, and a Pacific Northwest seafood dinner on the water- among others!

We started a tradition last year that Jack plants a jellybean on Easter Eve and in the spot where it is planted, his Easter basket appears the next morning…he loves picking out just the right place and making sure the jellybean is completely buried under the dirt. And, his excitement the next morning is completely infectious!

What a smile new Crocs (indoor shoes for school) can bring, especially if they are super hero ones!

I hope you had a fun Easter weekend too!

When you give your toddler the choice between a locally baked ooey-gooey cinnamon apple breakfast bread or baking your own biscuits, and he chooses baking your own biscuits despite how appealing you made the ooey-gooey bread sound…then, you march straight to the kitchen, roll up your sleeves, and start searching for ingredients for your baking project. After sighing and thinking it would have been so much easier to buy that loaf of bread, you smile and cherish the thought that you have a little food lover on your hands!

I’m so glad that he chose the biscuits. These were fun to make together and very easy (bonus!). I love how rustic looking they turned out and how scrumptious they tasted slathered with butter and topped with raspberry jam. They were the perfect accompaniment to our sautéed greens topped with fried eggs dinner.

And, just as soon as he finished the last biscuit, he said “We can make these again soon. Right, mama?”

Blueberry Biscuits
minimally adapted from Pink Pistachio

Ingredients:
2 cups white whole wheat flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

2 tablespoons sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1 cup blueberries

2 cups organic whipping cream

Directions:
Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, sugar, salt, and nutmeg. Add blueberries and toss gently in the flour mixture until coated. Gently fold in the whipping cream (it should look lumpy- the key to light and fluffy biscuits, like pancakes, is not overworking the dough).

Lightly flour your countertop and knead you dough (about four turns) into an 8×8 inch square, about 1 inch thick. With a pizza cutter, carefully cut the dough into 12 biscuits making sure not to cut all the way through (leave the dough as one large piece).

Transfer the dough onto a parchment lined baking sheet and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown and cake tester comes out clean. Serve warm with butter and jam.

Happy Spring to everyone! Yesterday, on the official first day of spring, our weather started out with heavy rain and gray skies. Then, the wind kicked up and blew the clouds and rain away to reveal beautiful blue skies and sunshine! The pops of color from the spring flowers, amidst the lush green landscape we are so accustomed to in Seattle, is so much more astounding when the sunlight hits it just right.

Oh, spring! We are ready for you…flowers, longer days, warmer weather cocktails (I’m craving a Dark and Stormy badly these days!), grilling, Easter egg hunts, and basketball!!! Who else is excited for the official start of March Madness today??! My loyalty lies with two teams. First and foremost, my alma mater, the Davidson Wildcats who play Marquette this afternoon (Go Cats!!!) and despite being such a small school nearly always score a spot in the Big Dance! And, the Florida Gators who play their first game on Friday evening…Go Gators!!!

Today is quite the perfect day for the slow cooker to cook your meal and to have it ready to be eaten right when you get home from work, when you’re ready to sit for several hours on the sofa watching all the madness of the games and updating your brackets! This chicken is really good! I prepped it the night before, cutting the onions and peppers and rubbing on the spices, then placed all of the ingredients in the slow cooker and popped it right into the refrigerator until the next morning. I started the slow cooker right before I left for work and when I got home the chicken was fragrant and very tender- I shredded it with a fork. And, it makes enough to have this same meal twice or to use the leftover chicken in a salad or on nachos! If you double the batch,you could even freeze half, which I love to do. A freezer full of stacked ziplocs filled with sauces or shredded meats makes my heart happy!

Slow Cooker Chicken Carnitas Tacos
adapted from Eat, Live, Run

Ingredients:

1 1/2 lbs chicken breasts

1 yellow onion, chopped

1 red bell pepper, chopped

1 jalapeno, seeded and chopped

4 cloves of garlic, minced

for spice rub—

2 tsp chili powder

1 tsp cumin

1/4 tsp garlic powder

1/4 tsp cayenne pepper

1 tsp salt

for serving—

corn tortillas

avocado slices

shredded sharp cheddar cheese

your favorite salsa

limes

Directions:

Mix together all spices in a small bowl. Rub the spices all over the chicken. Then, place the chicken on the bottom of the slow cooker.

Cover the chicken with the chopped onions, pepper, jalapeño pepper, and garlic. If you are prepping ahead, place in the refrigerator until the next morning. When you are ready to start cooking, turn heat on LOW and cook for 8 hours.

After 8 hours, remove meat from crock pot and shred with a fork. It should be incredibly easy to shred.

To serve, heat your corn tortillas in a skillet on the stove or in a toaster oven on 200 degrees. Spoon some carnitas on a tortilla then top with salsa, avocado, cheese, and a squeeze of lime.

David spent the day snowboarding two Sundays ago, which inspired me to cook a big pot of soup. What better dinner to come home to after a frosty day on the slopes? A house smelling of simmering sausage and vegetables in chicken broth, fresh bread warming in the oven…

I had been thinking of this pot of soup for a while, just waiting for an afternoon at home when I could put it together. I was inspired by a recipe I found in a 2011 issue of Sunset Magazine, which happens to be my favorite magazine for all things Northwest- restaurants, shopping, planting tips, travel ideas, etc.- and knew I wanted it to have chicken sausage, chard, and artichoke hearts, but I also wanted to add some more earthy elements to round out the flavors and to make it more hearty. I decided on potatoes because I have so many sitting around right now waiting to be used and mushrooms, both of which provided the earthiness and hearty element I was hoping for. The sour dough bread paired with the soup quite well and we were actually all wishing for a bit bigger of a loaf to sop up our broth with!

This was a very good bowl of soup, and quite pretty to look at too! It would be worthy of a shared meal, but also perfect for a casual Sunday supper or a quick weeknight meal with just your family. You can choose to simmer the broth with the sausage and potatoes for the afternoon or just enough time for the potatoes to soften- depends on how much time you have on your hands. The soup is yummy, versatile, and easy to make. I hope you try it.

Italian Chicken Sausage and Vegetable Soup
adapted from Sunset Magazine

Ingredients
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 pound Italian chicken sausage, cut into small pieces
32 ounces reduced-sodium chicken broth
3 small russet potatoes, cut into small chunks
32 ounces free range chicken broth
10 ounces cremini mushrooms, sliced
14 ounce can artichoke hearts, quartered
1 pound chard, chopped

Warm sour dough bread

Directions
Heat oil in a large pot over medium-high heat. Cook sausage until browned, stirring often, about 10 minutes. Add 32 ounces of broth and the potatoes and simmer for 30 minutes, or longer if you have the luxury of time.
Add the remaining 32 ounces of broth along with the mushrooms and artichokes and continue to simmer.
Right before you are ready to eat, add chard and cook, covered, until wilted, about 3 minutes. Ladle soup into bowls and serve with warm sour dough bread and unsalted butter.