Holiday Season with Eliana
Saturday, January 7 Well if you pay any attention to my blog, you have noticed that I checked out for a while. I have been lucky enough to have a few weeks off during the Christmas and New Year holidays and even more lucky to have Eliana here with me for the whole time. For the most part, I left the laptop in its bag and focused on spending time with my family instead of my computer. So… Here is what has been going in our mouth-holes and bellies!!
Eliana shows off that she can finish her whole salad.
Its amazing what she will eat when there is dessert lurking in the kitchen.
Christmas eve at Apo Lulu’s house and only in our house, does our appetizer spread include sushi…
and even more interesting, hot dog sushi!
Typical Apo Lulu Style, we have an array of desserts.
This dessert made a trek across the country thanks to Auntie Betty and Uncle Mike, 
a Holiday Cheesecake from Juniors Cheesecake.
Christmas Day begins with Apo Lulu’s Fried Rice.
All of us had three bowls! Mom sure knows how to spoil us. For Christmas dinner, I don’t have to work too hard, but I make this puff pastry boule that oozes molten mozzarella, gruyere, and spinach.
A few people have hit me up for the recipe for this… I don’t use recipes, but for you… click this magical different colored font, and it will appear on your interweb machine. I also banged out the roasted beet salad with olive oil, crème fraiche, roasted beets, mint, thyme, lemon zest, shaved radishes, shredded carrots, goat cheese, and expensive salts.
After Christmas, I took Eliana to get her J-Lo hairdo done at Gene Juarez, much thanks to Charlie for hooking it up!!! To get some food in belly after this, we strolled next door to Lot No. 3, for some crostini with goat cheese, apples, candied pecans, and balsamic glaze. 
Also some Mac n Cheese. Eliana was so excited because Robb, chef of Heavy Restaurant Group (all the Purple restaurants) came out to hang for a few minutes. Thanks for hooking it up Robb!!
We are off to Sun Cove for New Years Eve Weekend and much thanks to the Dreyer’s for moving Schnitzel-fest up a couple days so we could be a part of it. 
They pounded a pile of meat, I helped bread it,
then somehow I had a few beverages and forgot to take pictures of the delicious finished products of schnitzel, spaetzle, and cucumber salad…. But it was hella bombers. spaetzle was so good, i immediately bought a spatzle maker on amazon.com
We spent some of the day playing at Rio Vista Winery, while eliana roasted marshmellows outside and ate smore's.
On New Years Eve, I got off easy and by request, I made the Cheesy Boule and Beet Salad… again. But I also added a load of Boneless Short-Ribs, that I sous vide for 30 hours, and directed my former boss/present buddy to do the searing and wine reduction. Eliana and Amber made Cake Pops, and K-Dub dropped her ho-hos on our presentation.
(I also stole this picture from her).
Holidays are over and its time for some Daddy-Daughter time. After a few hours of working up a hunger by fighting screaming children in American Girl, we head to Indigo Kitchen and Ale House where Eliana indulged in some Crawfish Cakes,
and a pile of Prawns.
Holy crap this is a long post….
Okay, Eliana is begging to make us Chicken Pot Pie, and I don’t mind having someone cook for me, so she gets on it.
If you want to see the whole process of Eliana cooking it in the past, click this magical button again.
Well, its Eliana’s last night with us, so I decide to take my two ladies to Tablas Woodstone Taverna in Mill Creek. We are stoked when we walk in to find that there is a Spanish guitarist playing and singing for us during our dinner. Eliana gets to gnaw on her favorite lamb chops in attempt to persuade her loose front tooth out of her face.
Like a good girl, she eats her veggies, on a butternut squash and arugula pizza.
We all dig in on a massive “Surf Tabla” of mussels, clams, croquettes, fish, papas, chorizo, bacon wrapped shrimp, Calamari, and salad.
Maiya and Eliana always save room for dessert!
I hope you were able to hang on and read all the way down here…
Awesome family time and great times with friends. Thanks to all my peeps for making the holidays so much fun!
