6 Wineries, 2 Restaurants, 1 Loaf of Bread - A Review

Day 38 of Summer Vacation

I'm sitting here laughing and reflecting. Reflecting and laughing. Why you ask? Well a group of us went to Temecula together to go wine tasting. A total moms day out. A much needed girls day out...

So far this summer I have been doing so much. Taking the kids hither and yon. Movies here. Swimming there. Playdate over yonder. With all this activity I haven't had a girls day. So a few of us loaded in cars and headed to Temecula. Talk about a super fun day. Oh and we didn't take pictures...you know that ol, what happens in..........

We looked into one of those limo tours and decided against it simply because we wanted to pick the wineries we were going to, not have it chosen for us. Oh and we planned on hitting more than 3 wineries.

I like my reds. Could be the fact that I'm a natural redhead or could be the fact the grape is that much more robust. Either way I like me a red wine. I prefer a non-oakie Italian Red but I've learned to compromise. Most of the wineries we went to were not famous for their reds so that gave me a chance to try other types of wines on the menu. I made the conscious effort to pick one wine from each winery I preferred. One purchase each, if I was so moved.

~ Stops of the Day ~

IHOP - One must load up on pancakes to maintain proper consumption. Had the Cinna stacks. YUM! Tastes like a cinnamon roll.

Maurice Car'rie - The wines were ok but wasn't moved to a purchase of wine. Their Muscat was ok. If I had to pick anything it would be that. Did however pick up a nice big loaf of sourdough bread for later. It was still warm!

Van Roekel - '09 Viognier. Very yummy dessert wine. At first sniff one can smell the perfume of the fruits such as Apricot and pear. On the tongue it was light and airy, not too sweet. They were having a 2-fer so naturally I bought 2. Oh and it's time to eat some of that bread so we don't get plowed....

Wilson Creek - '08 Family Reserve Syrah. This is the most expensive bottle I have have purchased in quite some time. This bottle is sooooooooo worth the pennies I spent and I'm going to hold it for my Hubby's birthday in September. I know he'll really enjoy it. Wilson Creek is known for their Almond Champagne and there is no contesting its yummy taste. Being a red fan though, I was so happy to find that not only did I like their reds but their whites were very impressive. Purchased the reserve but give very special props to the Loyalty and will purchase that as well. Our server Jason was a cutie  and kept us 5 very happy during our stay. Will return to Wilson Creek again!

Danza del Sol - '08 Merlot. Tried the 09' Savignon Blanc, the '10 Orange Muscat, & the '08 Merlot. The Merlot was my favorite of their wines but would definitely purchase the other two some other time. Remember 1 bottle max per stop! Our server was not the most friendliest of servers. By this time of day we were definitely in the midst of the party time. Didn't feel that way with her. May have been an off day? Beautiful winery though. More bread please!

Leoness Cellars - '10 White Merlot & a box of french truffles dusted with cocoa powder. Now why is this the first time I've sampled chocolate and wine? This isn't my first rodeo mind you. I've done the whole Seattle wine tour, you know the one with the train. Santa Barbara and now Temecula. Not Napa; toooo hoity. Plus the few wine rooms here and there. But how come this is the first time I've been given a chocolate truffle to enhance the flavor? I love it! Now mind you, the wine was really good without the chocolate. Add the chocolate and Sha-Zam! amazing. The Chardonnay & Melange de Blanc were great whites. Tried the Cinsaut and loved the raspberry flavor. Not too dry or acidic. Lovely on the tongue. The Cabernet Sauvignon had a light oakie flavor but was not too overpowering. The Syrah was superb! Went with the White Merlot because I really enjoyed that blush and can't wait to crack it open. Loved the serve staff, they were awesome! I have to say this was my favorite winery, then Wilson in that order, the rest at this point kinda faded for me. Gotta thank my note taking!

Longshadow Ranch - No purchase. But such a lovely winery. To be honest nothing stood out for me here. Didn't really enjoy any of the wines. Now that doesn't mean it wasn't good. I think that means I sampled 6 wineries in one day and had enough. Given that I will give it another opportunity to wow me. We are planning on going back in September and have earmarked this to be one of the first wineries on our upcoming tour. That's when I'll Yelp them. It's only fair really.

Claim Jumper - OK, so we were going to attempt a 7th winery but when we discussed it after Longshadow we decided to call it quits. We had enough. So where does one go when they have had a decadent day such as ours? Naturally Claim Jumper. There was a 20 minute wait so we opted for the bar. Funny thing is though, not a one of us ordered anything stronger than an iced tea. Great thing about eating your meal in the bar is you get to eat freshly popped popcorn. and who doesn't love that? I was hungry for a hamburger so ordered the Widow Maker and some Ranch for my fries. We spent the remainder of our day laughing and chatting about the events. Oh and planning our next trip out. It was that time so we all loaded in the car and headed home tired & happy with our day.


My purchases (with exception to the bread) are still sitting on the counter waiting to be opened but I'm in no hurry. The laughter we shared and memories we made will be with me for a really long time. I so needed my MDO. Now it's time to plan for Septembers!

See ya round like a donut!, SoCal Marisa

laa-la-laa-la-laa-la-laaaa!

Talk about a roller coaster sort of day today! Oh man I'm just tuckered out here. It's round about 10:15 in the PM as I start to compose this blog post and I have to say my emotions are on the raw setting. I have had so many ups and downs today it's a little weird. With those ups and downs I get the emotional exhaustion. I don't know if you are subject to exhaustion when you've gone to battle but me, yup, I get physically exhausted. So with today's ups and downs I definitely feel like I'm dragging my hind quarters around this house here. I need to spend some quiet time with God to center myself.

With that said I have to say there have been some high points too. For instance I went to Harvey's today and got me a Rosette for my Trail Mix. That's a very good thing. I spent a lot of time in the store talking to my friend there and played with the new handbags and took a gander first hand at the new Caddy and Razzelberry (think I like the Razzelberry better.) Contemplating a boxy next hopefully something will catch my eye soon ;-)  Oh man, I don't need to get as addicted as some of my friends! [silently she thinks to herself; Can't wait til the 19th to get here.]

So as we round out the 10:30 mark I realize I need to get my 20 visuals done for the OC Auction and I should get started before Friends comes on the tele. (I still find that show cute.) We have sooooo many items coming in and they are hitting us fast and furious. Getting ready and excited for this years benefit dinner. Taking a look at the list of items I notice there are a few interesting Teacher Experiences up for bid. Principal For a Day, Girls day, Build a bear, Lunch with the Librarian, and a pool party. All of these items with different teachers. I am sitting here wondering what I'm going to bid on! Man I need more income! You wanna give me a job?

All right, enough procrastinating Miss Marisa. It's time for you to get to work on those visuals. They aren't going to complete themselves! Maybe I'll sneak some ice cream too! It should make me feel better after this [a-hem] bad day.

Oh BTW - I'm down 18 pounds! teehee. OK. Time to work!

Until Next Time, SoCal Marisa

Pretty In Pink

You know, I just finished watching Pretty In Pink with Molly Ringwald, Jon Cryer, & Andrew McCarthy. I love, love, love the movie. The music just totally saves it for me. The Furs, OMD, Echo, & even some Manilow. Ok, I'm a Fanilow so I have to admit to liking the man's music. Don't shoot me. INXS, New Order, MORRISSEY. Some serious good music compiled. I remember owning the tape (totally dating myself now) and playing it until it stretched beyond repair, or maybe the tape deck ate it? Either way, once upon a time I owned the soundtrack. New quest: regain music soundtrack.

The storyline is your typical John Hughes 80's storyline. That I can cope with. I am after all a child of the 80's and still think it was the greatest decade to date for music. But that's just MHO. One thing though. I can get over Andie's (Molly Ringwald) annoying lips and bad teeth.  Blane's (Andrew McCarthy) inability to man-up in the movie (seriously why does Andie go back to Blane after he wimped out on her? Disaster!) I still don't understand why Duckie (Jon Cryer) was not given the respect he like totally deserved. I mean after all he is the Duck Man! Duckie has the best lines throughout the whole flick...yeah, I went there. Flick.

What I cannot and will not get over is Andies dress. I mean seriously. She's supposed to be this phenomenal sewer, a worker of miracles. She screw's up the courage to show up to prom with no +1 and her high noon showdown dress is that? I remember back in the day when I originally saw this movie at the theatre by the bowling alley...ALHS people, you know the one I'm talkin bout...seriously she wore that unflattering thing? I just don't get it even to this day. I mean seriously. She had the potential to really wow them and let them know she is not a loser, but she shows up in that pink on pink polka dot sack? Bad show. Now Duckie on the other hand...looked Sharp! Go Duckie!

Even though I once again experienced the sad disappointment that is/was Andies showdown dress I still had a good time listening to the great music of my generation. I will of course watch again. Need to repurchase the DVD/Blu-Ray. Now to start out on my soundtrack quest....

There! Now I feel better!

Until Next Time, SoCal Marisa

Homemade Yogurt

So earlier this week the boy and I decided it would be fun to make yogurt. A while back I purchased a yogurt maker and it's been sitting here mocking me. Every time I walk into my office and see it on the shelf it yells at me and laughs. Why, you ask? I love gadgets. I have sooo many gadgets in this little sixteen hundred square foot house. Gadgets for the kitchen and my crafting - there really isn't enough room for them. What I need is a couple hundred extra square feet and a few hundred thousand dollars to make the types of rooms I need in order to actually use all of my gadgets properly. Oh and I need the time to play with them.

Back to the yogurt maker. I was at Tuesday Morning looking for a birthday gift for my MIL and saw the Waring Pro Yogurt Maker sitting on their shelves. I have been wanting a yogurt maker for quite some time and have just not made the purchase. So naturally since I was already in a buying mood I purchased 2. After all my MIL shouldn't be the only one who benefits from this gift.

The gift was wrapped and given and she even used it a while back. & still my yogurt maker mocked me. I didn't ignore it completely I did open the box and check everything out. Read the manual and recipe book and have to say I wasn't too impressed with the recipes. They just didn't make sense to me about having all those ingredients for yogurt. So I decided I needed to research further.

More mocking from the yogurt maker in the other room. This time its voice is getting louder. Oy. I decided it's time for some internet research. Recipe searching begins. I even check out youtube to see if anyone has posted about this subject and YES they have. To be honest I wasn't interested in regular yogurt, I was more interested in Greek Yogurt which is a lot thicker than standard yogurt. We tend to like that more in this house. All of my searches proved successful. I found a few recipes that weren’t too involved and looked decent enough. Watched a couple videos on how others made their yogurt. One guy did it all on his stove and was very careful. You see successful yogurt making as mostly about temperature. I don't have the patience it takes in order to watch a stove for several hours in hoping my milk doesn't scald and ruin the batch. Which solidifies the thought that purchasing this particular gadget was a smart purchase for me. So I decided it's time to get started.

Out comes my Waring Pro Yogurt Maker. Everything is cleaned and dried. Ingredients come out. The recipe I chose was a very straight forward recipe. Milk and Yogurt. You apparently need a yogurt starter in order to make yogurt. Kinda like good sourdough bread, it always needs a starter. Pan hits the stove and milk goes on to heat but no higher than 185 degrees. Then a quick cool to 110 degrees. In a separate bowl I mixed a small portion of the store-bought plain yogurt with some milk and add that to my cooled mixture. Mix together and pour into my little yogurt jars that came with my yogurt maker.

Now we reach the hard part. These steps are really easy since like I said I am a gadget person and I got to use my digital candy thermometer to warn me of liquid temperatures and such. My son Hayden was with me every step of the way. Aside from the stove cooking this is a really good kitchen project for you and your 5 year old. He enjoyed pouring in the milk and mixing the starter base. As he helped me load up the jars into the maker I explained to him that now comes the hardest part....the waiting. If you do this on the stove you can make yogurt in about 4 hours but if you're like me and don't have to patience to do that nor the patience to entertain a 5 year old while babysitting a stove then you will appreciate this next step. We cover the machine and set the timer for 10 hours.

Poor Hayden, he really did wonderfully in this process. Every now and then he would drag out his step stool to see just how far the process was going. To be honest it took a few hours for me to even notice anything. Most of the changes are visible at the tail end of the process. He would return to see the numbers change on the digital reader. Another feature made specifically for a 5 year old. The digital reader is not like what is on our ovens or microwaves when using a timer with hours and minutes. This digital reader just indicated how many whole hours remain and in the last hour it counts the whole minutes. Every now and then I would hear a little voice in the kitchen declare "4 hours more."

Finally 10 hours arrive and the buzzer buzzes. At this point we could cover and refrigerate the jars and call it done. We however prefer Greek Yogurt so there is more work to do. Out comes the step stool yet again and the boy helps empty the jars into a kitchen towel lined strainer that is placed in a bowl. We tie up the towel and place the whole in the refrigerator for the morning. Now off to bed.

In the morning the boy is up before I am and I waken to the familiar scene of a mom being gently awakened by her son without him speaking a word. I am talking about the silent stare at mommy until she wakes up - but one must do this at about a foot from her face so she can feel the breathing....you been woke up that way? Nothing like starting the heart with a good 'ol fashioned scare before coffee hits the veins. I'm up now.

He is so excited now because he gets to eat his long awaited yogurt. We open the refrigerator and everything is done the way it should be done. The whey drips from the yogurt collecting in the bowl beneith and we now have a nice thick yogurt that is now called Greek Yogurt. I see it is a little too thick, really it's the consistency of cream cheese so I add some of the whey back in, mix, stir, and load of the kids bowls.

Now I must let you know that the yogurt is as plain as plain can be. It's up to us to add our ingredients to suit our tastes. The first day we opted for just plain 'ol honey. and I enjoyed it but the kids thought....eh. This morning I mixed it up kid style. Got granola crunchies out of the pantry, added a sprinkle of brown sugar, a drop of vanilla and for my son a spoonful of berry jam his grandma made for him. Let the kids mix and eat and I have to say if they could have licked their bowls they would have.

Yogurt making takes time but we really enjoyed the exercise and the kids want to make some more. All I have to do now is save a little bit of the plain yogurt from this batch for our next batch and keep it going. Considering how much yogurt this family eats on the norm I can just imagine how much money we will be saving in the long run. This was a most excellent purchase for our family. Granted if you had more patience than I then you could do this all on your stove with your canning equipment but I am glad I did it this way just because of the anticipation factor for my son. Now if you have a yogurt recipe you would like to share with me I’d be happy to try it. Please post away!

Until Next Time, SoCal Marisa