Kyle and I are contemplating buying a house. In preparation for this possible life-changing and scary event, we are trying out living within the tight budget that we would live under if we had a house. This is both to save money and see if we can do it. It’s making me think about money way too much.

Actually, so far it hasn’t been bad, living under this budget. Turns out if I cut away all the extra things I have on a daily basis, I don’t really miss them (as long as I get to do one or two fun things). It’s trite but true that it makes you appreciate what you have.

And after all, a lot of the fun in life–picnics, hiking, etc.–is free or cheap. In fact, I wrote a list of cheap things that we can do instead of spending money, and it was surprisingly long. I also wrote a list of things that we have but never use, like our tent, craft supplies, and tennis rackets. Why have things if you never use them? We are going to start using them.

Also I have been cooking at home a lot more. I decided to make a game out of using up some of the odder ingredients in my cupboard, those things you buy once for something and then they sit there taking up space until they go bad. It’s kind of fun. I’m making food I would never usually make. So far that includes:

I have others planned. They include:

So this whole budget thing is going all right. I’m distracted by games like the above. And I’ve been reading, drawing, painting, making jewelry, gardening, playing with the kitten, going on a lot of walks with Kyle, watching movies at home, having candle-lit dinners, turning off the TV, and hiding from the heat. Nothing fascinating, but then again, not so bad either.

I made up some oregano pesto since my plant is going crazy. It was delicious! I thought the oregano would have too strong a flavor for pesto, but it works wonderfully. Here’s the recipe:

1 c fresh oregano
20 pistachio nuts (pine nuts, walnuts, and hazelnuts would all work too)
3 garlic cloves
pinch of salt
3 tbs Parmesan cheese
1 tbs romano cheese (I used swiss, actually)
2 tbs butter
olive oil

Grind salt, oregano, and nuts together in a food processor. Add olive oil until it forms a paste. Add everything else. Put on pasta. Enjoy!

On Saturday I went wine tasting (again) in Healdsburg with some friends. It was gorgeous weather, 75 degrees, a gentle breeze, and pretty gorgeous overall. We went to: Armida Winery; Hop Kiln Winery, which also has delicious dipping sauces you can taste; Wilson Winery, where we bought quite a few bottles–guess we like that place; Bella Vineyards, one of the prettiest wineries I’ve been to for awhile; and Everett Ridge Winery. Afterwards we had thai food in Healdsburg. It was a great day.

Naturally, I took some pictures.

Eddie, Kyle, me, Marcia, and Dan

Kyle is from Kentucky, so at some point, we decided to have a Kentucky Derby party. Never mind that neither of us had ever been to a horse race, we wanted to eat fried food. On Saturday, we invited a bunch of people over to do just that. Here’s a rundown of the day.

Guests begin to arrive:

Marcia

Chris

For food, we had delicious drinks in Laura’s Kentucky Derby glasses. I made bourbon balls and Derby Pie, but that is not enough to feed people, so we got KFC:

Yup, fried chicken, gravy, biscuits, mashed potatoes, coleslaw, and cheese curds. All food we hardly ever eat, so it went over big.

Eric (in the mirror), Justin, Stephanie, Kat, Aaron, Dustin, Kyle, and Chris

Next was the race. Did you know it lasts only two minutes or so? It does. To make things interesting, we all bet on the horses–a dollar a horse, all even odds.

Aaron, Robin and Laura watching the race

Likewise Stephanie, Kat, and Chris

No one called the winner, Street Sense. However, Aaron, Paul, and I called the 4th place winner Imawildandcrazyguy. We split the pot three ways, $5 a piece.

Afterwards, we went outside to play Horse Shoes (Get it? Horse shoes?) Justin took some pictures of that in his recap of the party. Meanwhile, I dragged Marcia and Laura to the Artist Colony to see where I’ve been writing.

Laura

Me and Marcia in the tent

Finally, we played with the hacked X-Box, which our friend helped us set up. Kyle and Stephanie are both awesome at DDR. Toward 5 p.m. or so, people started to go home. Still, more fun was to be had when Kyle and other guests started using the DDR pad as a controller for old Nintendo games. You haven’t lived until you have played PacMan with your feet.

Kyle on the second level of Mario Bros.

Good times.

Baby Anaheim Chile Pepper plant

Kyle’s chocolate Easter bunny–The Professor. He is reading a book!

Centerpiece with daisies from the yard

A not-so-good picture of a delicious dinner–herbed pork roll, roasted asparagus, risotto.

I wish wish wish I had taken a better picture of the best dessert I’ve ever made. The perfect strawberry cake, for real. Very proud of myself.

ETA: Oh my gosh, Kyle, get me this! Or this or this! Hooray!

Also, this is cool.

Lately, my days seem sunk in routine and feel like they are running together. So my goal for March is to stamp each day with something to makes it unique and stand out in my head. This can be something small or big. It doesn’t matter, really, as long as it’s memorable.

Today’s thing (don’t laugh): I made carrot soup.

Normally, I wouldn’t make a recipe like this. For one thing, I am not a soup person. For another, Kyle hates carrots, so making this soup means I will be eating it by myself. And on top of that, it’s a vegan recipe, which in my experience tend to be bland and kind of gross. But this soup turned out delicious with just the right balance of flavors.

I got the recipe from Pound, Wendy McClure’s blog. She is on a (vegan) soup kick. Of course, I doctored it a bit and made it non-vegan by adding chicken stock instead of water and I made it more fattening by adding extra peanut butter and I made it bad for your body overall by adding more salt than is called for. The result? Less good for you, more delicious.

My doctored recipe:

Spicy Carrot Peanut Soup

• 2 tablespoon vegetable oil
• 1 large onion, thinly sliced (about 2 cups)
• 2 pounds carrots, peeled and thinly sliced (about 6 cups)
• 1 celery stalk, thinly sliced
• 1 tablespoon Italian parsley
• 1 fresh stemmed and chopped chili
• 2 minced garlic cloves
• 4 cups chicken stock (you can use vegetable stock or water to keep this vegetarian)
• 2 cups water
• 3.5 tablespoons peanut butter
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons fresh lime juice
• 1 tablespoon salt
• pepper

In a soup pot on medium heat, warm the oil and add the onions, carrots, celery, parsley, chili, and garlic. Saute on high heat for 5 minutes, stirring often. Add the water/broth, cover, and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and simmer until the carrots are soft, about 25 minutes.

Stir in the peanut butter, soy sauce, lime juice, salt, and pepper. In a blender, puree the soup in batches. Reheat if necessary. Serve with lime slices as garnish.

It’s really very good!

What made your day unique?

The other day, someone gave us some Pepper Plant barbecue sauce, made in Gilroy, California, and we decided to give it a try on some chicken breasts.

The bottle of BBQ sauce.

My husband has barbecuing down to a fine science. We use a Weber Grill and plain charcoal, which we light with the use of a chimney starter.

The chimney starter lights your coals quickly and without the use of lighter fluid. I think we learned this trick from an old episode of Alton Brown’s show Good Eats, and it definitely works more efficiently than lighter fluid does. (Not to mention it’s more cost-effective in the long-run, since you never have to buy another bottle of lighter fluid again once you have a chimney starter.)

In the end, we had chicken breasts and kabobs with leek, bell peppers, and mushrooms. We sat at the top of the hill in our backyard looking out over the Petaluma hills, watching the sun set. Since it was January, we needed some blankets and candles, but otherwise we were quite comfortable.

Oh New Cup! So fresh and clean. Yet to have coffee stains, yet to have cracks and chips. How I enjoy drinking lattes out of you. How I enjoy looking down at your cheerful-yet-elegant design. I thank you for brightening my morning.

Hail new cup!

The other night, my friends and I were walking downtown for pizza at Bricks when someone stuck his head out of Vine and Barrel, the new wine shop we were walking by.

“Hey, do you guys want to come in for a free wine tasting?” he said.

“Okay!” we said.

Inside at the back, the winemaker from St. Francis Winery was showcasing their new Wild Oak wine to a crowd of people hovering around the tasting bar. We tasted three varietals, chatted with some locals, and listened to the winemaker explain about the wines.

I ended up talking to shop owner Chris Sawyer. He and his partner Jason Jenkins had been thinking of opening a wine shop together for the past six years. Since they both went to high school in Petaluma, they wanted the store to be in town, but nothing had worked out until their current location–143 Kentucky Street–went up for rent last fall.

With his peach tie and long sideburns, Chris Sawyer looked like he would be more comfortable in a tee-shirt and jeans than the suit he was wearing. His attitude was direct and unpretentious.

“When I don’t like a wine, I will tell the winemaker,” he said. “I don’t care how good it’s supposed to be. I’ll say, This wine tastes like gerbil food if that’s what it tastes like.”

The wine buyer, Lee, laughed. “He’ll be like, This tastes like Dog Chow,” she said. “This tastes like, green olives and … scalded milk.”

This kind of thing may be why I found the shop’s wine selection more interesting and accessible than that of most wine shops. And in any case, I definitely liked the wine we tasted that night.

It’s a well-known fact that wine tasting has gotten more expensive. In Napa, for example, it used to cost around $3-$5 per winery to taste about five samples of wine. Now, many wineries charge $5 per taste of wine. As such, I don’t go wine tasting in Napa unless I want to spend a lot of money.

Sonoma, however, is still pretty inexpensive. Many wineries are free, and others refund the fee when you buy a bottle of wine or compensate by giving you a free glass or food paring.

On top of that, tasting in Sonoma is more fun than it is in Napa. Not only is the wine just as good and the vineyards just as pretty, but there are fewer crowds and the pourers tend to be friendlier (read: less snooty). Tasting in January has lots of benefits too–it’s a slow time for the wine industry, so you get the vineyards to yourself. And, while the leaves are off the vines, the land is lush and green from winter rains, and a host of spring flowers, like mustard and acacia trees, are starting to bloom.

(vines in winter)

Of course, wine tasting isn’t about getting free booze. It’s about sampling the wine to get a sense of the winery’s style and to decide what you want to buy. I hardly ever go wine tasting without getting a couple of bottles of wine. But having to shell out $5-$15 per winery adds up and tends to feel more like bar-hopping after awhile instead of the educational experience it’s supposed to be.

And besides, we just had the holidays and I’m broke.

So, this Saturday, my friends and I decided to go wine tasting around nearby Healdsburg to see if you can still taste for free there, something that was very doable five years ago. It turns out that more places are charging these days, but the whole endeavor is still a bargain. Here’s where we went:

Clo du Bois–$5 to taste five wines and we got to keep the glass. Because we were tasting in January, the Clo du Bois tasting room was empty, giving us the undivided attention of our pourer. He explained how the winery makes the wine and the difference between French and California oak wine barrels. Very educational! Cost: A friend and I shared our taste, so $2.50 per person.

Preston Vineyards–$5 to taste four organic wines and to pet cats. The last time I went to Preston Vineyards, it was an adorable family farm complete with fresh fruit and a basket of kittens to pet. Now, a couple of years later, the kittens are cats and the vineyard has gone organic, complete with slightly unfriendly alternative types to pour your wine tastes. The pourer informed me that Preston doesn’t use any chemicals in the making of its wine, even insecticide soap. You can also buy tee-shirts there that say “I Veg To Differ” on them. I didn’t dig the wine, but I did sample some delicious olive oil that Preston makes on the premises. Too bad it was $32 per bottle. Cost: A shared taste at $2.50 per person.

Raymond Burr Vineyards–Free to taste seven wines. Actor Raymond Burr, star of the TV show Perry Mason and Hitchock’s Rear Window, was a partner in this vineyard before he died in the 1990s. It has a great location on a hill overlooking the Dry Creek Valley. We tasted several excellent wines and talked about the actor. The pourers lamented that people in their early 20s are often unfamiliar with Burr, and then somehow we got on the topic of Burr’s ghost. Once, one of the pourers was in the office of the winery when a bell rang. When she looked, no one was there. Spooky! Well, if Burr’s ghost is around, he’s supervising some fine wine. Cost: Free.

(view from Raymond Burr Vineyards)

Lunch at El Sombrero–$2 taco, $1 diet pepsi. The town of Healdsburg is full of fancy restaurants and $10 gourmet sandwiches, so thank goodness for El Sombrero, a Mexican joint just off downtown. There, a chicken taco fills you up for next to nothing. Cost: $3.

Roshambo Winery–Free to taste six wines. Roshambo, whose slogan is “fighting for fun in a winey world,” is in the process of moving to new premises, but you wouldn’t know it. Unlike the other places we visited, Roshambo’s tasting room was packed with people, most of whom were in their 20s and early 30s. A little kid was kicking beach balls on the side of the tasting bar and people were using rubber chickens to launch wine corks into the air. I think Roshambo is the funnest winery in the North Bay. Cost: Free.

(a rubber chicken at Roshambo)

Wilson Winery–$5 to taste five wines. I have wanted to taste at Wilson for awhile because it keeps winning awards for its red wine. It did not disappoint. Our pourer told us that she prefers working in Sonoma County over Napa. “I’m not going to lie to people,” she said. “If people ask me what I think of certain wineries, I am going to tell them. And in Napa, that kind of thing is frowned upon.” Of course, we then got the inside scoop about those certain wineries and also got recommendations for next time we go wine tasting. On top of that, because it was the end of the day, she waived our tasting fee. How nice! Cost: Free.

(Wilson Winery)

So, if you don’t count the three bottles of wine we bought, a whole day cost $8.50 per person. And while those bottles of wine certainly add up, they are great additions to our collection. Money well spent, in my opinion.