Happenings.

Tuesday night was dinner in with a gorgeous sunset:

and pork chops with chimichurri sauce on a bed of mashed cauliflower.

And this morning was spent watching England play Uruguay while eating breakfast at Coolers.

Roger, a Lahaina local from England, parked his Arsenal fan-mobile in front of Coolers during the match.  As you can tell, he went all out with decorations to support England.

It's been an absolutely gorgeous day in Lahaina.  I walked down Front Street after breakfast at Coolers...

...and I got to watch the kids from the Lahaina Yacht Club learn how to sail:

It's been a great start to the day.

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Meals and Sunsets

I've been a little busy the past week as I juggle two jobs, but I've still been trying to eat clean and healthy.

{fried egg over steamed broccoli and cauliflower with spicy ground turkey}

Eating healthy means trying new recipes...like this one pan chicken and potato roast with green beans:

{about to hit the oven}

{and plated!}

After eating so healthy, you gotta take a cheat meal here and there...like this ice cream sandwich from Star Noodle's food truck: Starstruck.

{sesame seed chocolate chip cookies with vanilla bean ice cream}

And then, you gotta go back to eating healthy.

{potato veggie frittata on Easter}

{and a roasted beet salad for breakfast}

Thankfully, all of these home cooked meals are punctuated by ridiculously gorgeous sunsets.

{all snapshots are from the same evening, shot at work--my best sunset watching spot}

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Drunken Cabbage Soup and a Silvery Sunset

I was battling a cold earlier this week, so I used loads of veggies from our Kula Fields delivery box to make a cold stopper soup.  And because I added wine to the broth, I dubbed it the Drunken Cabbage Soup.

I threw some chopped veggies in olive oil to let them sweat (an onion, a carrot and a few celery sticks), then cooked down peeled and chopped sweet potatoes before adding broth and water and about 2 cups of Sauvignon Blanc that I had sitting in the fridge.  I brought everything to a boil, then lowered the heat to let everything simmer for a good 10 to 15 minutes to cook off all the alcohol.  While the soup was simmering, I threw in my chopped roasted cabbage that I had cooked last night as well as bunches of chopped fresh kale.

The end product?  A delicious, body-healthy purple soup. 

During one of my days off, I also added to my stack of books.  Seriously.  My book buying is becoming a problem.

On Thursday, I was finally feeling good enough for a little exercise.  Bryan, Alexa and I hit Wahikuli Beach for some sunshine, reading and a swim.

We also caught a killer sunset.

The ocean looked like a mirror, and a huge thundercloud was loosing a torrent of rain over Lanai.

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Happy 2014

I hope that everyone has been having a good start to the new year.  I was lucky to get the first few days of 2014 off from work, and I took full advantage of that time to deeply recover (as best as I could) from a whirlwind of a work week.

I was reunited with Bryan on New Year's Eve, and we got to watch our neighbors light off an impressive smorgasbord of fireworks while sipping champagne.

I got to meet up with friends for lunches and dinners out.

There was shopping, sunsets, smoothies and haircuts!

Here are a few snaps from the first few days of 2014:

{discovered a good quote for the new year while shopping at Sand People}

{started making homemade smoothies}

{finally stopped talking about it, and finally did it: chopped off all my hair}

{I LOVE it!  Thanks to the amazing Ivy at Art & Soul Salon in Lahaina}

{more homemade smoothies while re-reading a favorite book}

{a lovely sunset during dinner at Kimo's with Bryan}

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More Homemade Pesto. And a Sunset.

In February, I made this awesome walnut-avocado-basil pesto, and it was delicious.  I happened to have all the same ingredients on hand today--minus a lemon (which was purchased at the store) and the basil (which was plucked from a towering basil bush growing in the front of the house).  It's an easy sauce to assemble and make, and tastes delicious on everything: toast, pita, and pasta, of course.

I food processed a huge clove of garlic, toasted walnuts, some lemon zest, the juice of half a lemon and a swirl of olive oil until the garlic and walnuts were pulverized.

I then added half an avocado, a huge handful of basil (about 1/4 cup), and some salt and pepper to the mixture and blended until smooth.  I added another swirl or two of olive oil as I went along to get the texture I was looking for.

While I was working on the pesto, I had a pot of salted water boiling for the whole wheat gnocchi I had picked up at the store.  

When the gnocchi was cooked (wait for a few to come popping up to the surface), I reserved a quarter cup of the pasta water just in case I wanted to smooth out the sauce some more when I mixed it in with the cooked pasta (fancy cooking tip).

I drained the pasta and returned it to the pot where I mixed in the pesto, a splash of the pasta water, and freshly grated pecorino cheese.  I had some leftover toasted walnuts that didn't make it into the food processor, so I used them to garnish the plate along with a palm full of teeny, tiny olives.

Fast.  Easy.  Homemade.  And delicious!

Before I leave you, a little sunset awesomeness from last week to feast your eyes on.

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Thursday Fun Day

Bryan and I spent the afternoon at the beach after getting lunch and bubbly at Leilani's.

I had my can't-live-without-it Hydro Flask, a stainless steel vacuum insulated water bottle that holds 40 ounces of deliciously cold water, and my current read: The God of Small Things.

The beach at Black Rock boasted sparkling seas and epic cloud swept skies.

The ocean was cool and sported a mega current that gave me one hell of a workout as I swam back to our spot on the sand after swimming half way to Black Rock.

After getting our full dose of sand, surf and sun, we came back home and watched a lovely pastel sunset and waited for our friends to come over for game night.

We have been enjoying our new game, Cards Against Humanity: A Party Game for Horrible People. It's not for the faint of heart.  It's for the dirty minded, sick and twisted people.  If this isn't you, stick to Apples and Apples.

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Snaps from the Second Week of November

Okay, so the second week of November isn't over, but there were some definite highlights in the past few days that need to be shared.

First off, over the weekend, we got some storm action in Lahaina.  This is a major rarity.

I was out and about in town (just came out of the movies) when it began to pour.  I ducked into the bar at Fleetwood's to wait out the rain, and I took that picture from their second story window.  You can see that the storm has already pretty much passed, but look at the sidewalks!  They are sloshing with rain.  The storm was a pretty big deal.  Winter has come to Maui.

Later that day, Lahaina closed a portion of Front Street for "Second Friday."  Every major town in Lahaina hosts a Friday each month where there is music, festivities and activities to draw in a crowd.  Typically, Willie K., a major Hawaiian rockstar comes to play at Kimo's on Second Fridays in Lahaina, but he got cancelled because of the rain.

Bryan, Will and I went into town to support Alexa, our painter roommate, at the Wyland Gallery--and we may have checked out some fancy hats at the new Chapel Hat store on Front Street.

   

{my Kentucky Derby look}

{Will going for the Wild Thing look}

We got more rain over the weekend.  The weather chased poor T-Bone up to our porch where he stayed tucked under the eaves to stay dry.

{He's looking pretty unhappy about the whole ordeal.  He's also absolutely terrified of the wind.  It makes for very entertaining moments up at the house.}

I took a few minutes in my afternoon before work one day to apply this super amazing Fresh Face Mask from Lush.

{Oatifix from Lush.  It looks like someone threw up on your face, but it's so worth the smoothing, soothing after effects.}

Shaina and I made the big trek to the other side of the island today to hit up Wailea for lunch and shopping.

We had an epic lunch at the only place I have ever eaten in Wailea: Monkeypod Kitchen.

We got the pumpkin raviolis to start, the Portuguese bean soup to share and then I wolfed down this Seared Ahi Tuna Melt.

As much as I wanted to murder a piece of cream pie for dessert, there was no room.

After a long, epic day of shopping with Shaina, I made it home just in time to catch the tail end of a killer sunset from my lanai.

Unimpressed with the sunset, T-Bone did some yoga on the lanai instead.

{T-Bone in Downward Dog.  How appropriate.  Yup, those are my toes.  And my trusty Reef flip flops that I purchased specifically for my Maui move before I left Portland three years ago.}

{T-Bone chasing his tail.  Actually, he's going in to take care of a scratch--but the poetry of T-Bone in motion cannot be missed.}

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Sunsets and Pau Hanas

The sunset was pretty epic at work last night.  It was impossible to resist snapping a photo, even though phones are a no-no on the floor, I grabbed mine anyway and got a couple of snaps.

One of my last tables left me a glass of wine, so I took that down to the bar.

I enjoyed my pau hana (translation: after work drink) with some good grub at the bar.

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