Brunch Deliciousness

O.M.F.G.

I am indebted to the person who created this recipe for life. 

I came across this on Pinterest like 2 months ago and it's all I've been able to think about since then. 

I decided to make it for my friend Holley and I for brunch Sunday morning after I realized I'd have left over brie cheese from that appetizer I had the day before. 

Roasted Strawberries, Chocolate, and Grilled Brie Cheese

Ingredients: Makes 2 sandwiches

- 4 slices of whatever bread you prefer. [I used 12 grain. You should probably stay away from sourdough, I can't imagine that would taste very good.]

- brie cheese. [I have no idea how much I used, the original recipe calls for 2-3 ounces]

-8 strawberries, quartered.

-1/2 tsp of canola oil. [Confession: I have no idea how much I used, I just filled the cap of the oil when that part of the recipe called for it.]

-1 pinch of salt.

-2 tbsp of butter.

Directions:

Pre-heat your oven to 350 degrees.

Wash and quarter the strawberries and throw them in a bowl. Mix them with the canola oil and pinch of salt. Spread them across a banking sheet and place in the oven at 250 degrees for 20 minutes.  

Marty Messup: I wanted to see what the strawberries looked like mid-roast so I opened the oven and within seconds the fire alarm went off. Crap. It normally wouldn't have been a big deal except Holley has 2 boston terriers and the alarm pretty much scarred them for life. I seriously got death stared from them. Oops. Sorry Addie & Mabel!

Anyways, next step...once they're done roasting [idk if roasting is the right word, but it is what it is...] pull the sheet out of the oven and let them cool. 

In the mean time, butter one side of each slice of bread and place two on the baking sheet, butter side down. Stack the brie cheese, chocolate, and strawberries for as many layers as you'd like and then place the other two buttered bread slices on top.

Left: Milk Chocolate for Holley         Right: Dark Chocolate for Marty

So I didn't do this next part like the recipe or making a traditional grilled cheese calls, instead of flipping it over on a skillet, I just threw the sandwiched onto the baking sheet and slid that back in the oven and let it bake [? i guess...] at 250 degrees for like 15 minutes until the cheese melted.

Even though I already posted a picture of the finished product, it doesn't hurt to look at it again because it was oh. so. delicious. It was perfectly paired with a mimosa and some leftover [un-roasted] strawberries.

Weekend Update: Spring Break

Whoooo hooo, weekend update :] This is gonna be a long post so hopefully you have some time on your hands!

I go to two different schools right now, the local 4 year univ. [where I will graduate from in May!!] and the community college where I take 2 classes that fit into my schedule since the ones available at the 4 yr. don’t. As much as it’s a pain in the ass to go to both schools, I gotta get it done to finish! One of the sucky things about this situation is the spring breaks don’t match up. My break for the community college is this week, and the 4 yr. break is next week. That kind of puts a damper on any kind of celebrating because I still have crap to do. Hahaha.

Instead of a tropical drunken vacation to Cancun or Cabo San Lucas, I did a weekend getaway to my friend Holley’s place in Irvine, CA which is about an hour North of me.

I was planning on taking the train up, bought my ticket and everything, but I took the back way of connecting to the 76 to the 5 but didn't realize that connection was past the train station! Not even kidding, the next exit for me to turn around and go back to the train station was like 20 miles down the road in San Onofre/San Clemente! By that time I’d already be halfway to Irvine! Hahaha. I made the executive decision to just continue driving all the way up instead of turning around and catching the train. Big Ol' Fail. Hahaha.

Got up there Friday night, stopped by the Ralphs across the street and grabbed some movies…and wine. Props to the cashier for upselling me and convincing me to buy 2 more bottles to complete our 6 pack and save like $37.00! IDK how that works, but it did…and I’m okay with that :]

Woke up Saturday morning, had some Einstien’s bagels [best in the worldddd.] and made our way to Laguna where Holley’s grandparents live. It’s a super nice community called Emerald Bay. We hung out with her family for a little and then hit the beach…the community has their own private beach! We walked along the shore and did a little house shopping before we ventured to the rocks and checked out the sea life! 

^^ Found my dream home :] ^^

It’s crazy to see star fish and sea urchins and sea anemones for real in their natural habitat! I’ve seen them at the aquarium but hey’re in captivity, and that’s not that cool.

How freaking beautiful is this?!! 

#artsyfartsy

We then cruised over to downtown Laguna, and tried to be as tourist as we could by getting some toe rings and pooka shell bracelets! Hahaha. We went out for a late lunch/dinner but only have like an hour before we headed out to the comedy show which was our entertainment for the night. We called ahead to a place called Nick’s and were told that the wait was 5 minutes. We were about 3 minutes away but by the time we crossed the street and got to their door, the wait had increased to 40 minutes! WTF?!! Ugh. There was a BJ’s down the road but their service is always super slow so we didn’t want to risk it and went to an emptier place called C’est La Vie. The picture of a chocolatey/strawberry crepe pulled us in. We sat at the bar and has quite possibly the worst bar tender ever! Not friendly and got pissed off at the servers right in front of us!

Thankfully our food was delicious. I ordered the brie cheese platter as an appetizer and some burger sliders for my dinner. 

We weren’t allowed to photograph or record the comedy show, so there’s no pictures of that :[ but it was fun! The opening act was also the MC for the night, some dude named Nick, a chick from MadTV, and the headliner named Aires Spears from MadTV. No idea who any of them were, but all super funny! I’ve heard of people walking out of shows because they’re offended but I never thought I’d actually see it in person! Super cool people acting totally dramatic. A white dude got called out for not laughing at the black jokes. The comedian kept saying “nigga” and the guy wasn’t laughing so he got called out about it, especially since he was sitting next to a black guy! The comedian told him to lighten up and that it was cool for him to laugh. The wife of the white guy got pissed and they took off. There were some jokes that crossed the line that I wasn’t comfortable laughing at, but for the most part they were all pretty funny!

We got home and poured some wine and headed to the Jacuzzi! It felt so good on my feet after climbing rocks ALL DAY! Ouchhh.

Sunday morning, I woke up and headed to the grocery store to grab some stuff for brunch…

I made the brie grilled cheese with roasted strawberries and chocolate! SO GOOD! Washed it down with some yummy mimosas!

I'll post the recipe later this week :]

Holley lives in a super nice complex that has it's own theater! We slept through most of our reservation for it, but figured we'd go and chill out for an hour or until people kick us out. One one had it reserved at 3:00 but never showed up so we got to see 2 of our movies!

The sunset from Holley's place!

I wanted to go out for a nice dinner but felt kind of bad because Holley wasn’t feeling too well :[ She summoned all her strength to go out and it was probably totally worth it! There’s this restaurant called Seasons52 in South Coast Plaza and it’s supper cool because they change their menu with every season change, and also change their side panel of the menu once a week! Also, everything under the menu is under like 480 calories! Too cool! And I must say, when you tell cooks in OC you want something medium rare, they know what medium rare means! San Diego isn’t so good at that. We ordered their famous flat bread, some steak and dessert!

WOOP WOOP WINE! 

Dinner collage :]

I love the fact that I don't have to fly out of town to enjoy some beautiful scenery, the ocean, etc. It was such an awesome weekend, so great to get away and hang out with my friend all weekend! I owe Holley big time for for letting me come over and crash :] I had such a great time.

Jack's Mannequin

Remember when I talked about about my favorite music over here? Jack's Mannequin was one of my favorites mentioned. 

I love that guy. A lot. Enough to have camped out for like 10 hours a few years ago to see him open for The Fray. He wasn't even the headliner! Which was SO worth it because I was totally front and center!

I haven't seen him since...2009? Welp, I got to see him again Wednesday night, and he was just as amazing as I remembered.

This week's show was at the House of Blues in Downtown San Diego which I was super stoked about because I haven't been there since I've been 21+ so for the couple of shows I have seen, I was up in the top seats. This was the first time I could be in the GA Pit all up in the action!

But first we ate some dinner at the HOB restaurant. They have this deal where if you spend over $20 you can cut infront of the line that was waiting outside to enter into the venue. We totally planned on taking advantage of this, but got distracted because it was trivia night and I love me some trivia! haha. 

[Sara had a rough  day, which called for shots!]

Once we finished, we entered the venue like 30 minutes after the doors opened and it wasn't packed. Which was a good thing for us :] We were in the 3rd-ish row which normally would be very cool, but I'm kind of a shorty so my view was kind of obstructed.

The opening opening band was pretty freaking legit. I think they were called Erland? Either way, I was thoroughly impressed with their musicality. 

Something noteworthy...they keyboard player was really hot. Ready for a creeper stalker photo?

Their guitarist was pretty cool. He was wayyyyy into their music. He was fun to watch...when I wasn't busy oogling the keyboarder.

 

[Fun guy on the left, lead singer on the right]

The next opening band was a group called Barcelona. Never heard of them but they had some fans in the audience. Two of the guys looked like brothers, and the drummer looked pretty out of it, but was really good.

The lead singer was a really good story teller, talking about sweat pants among other random things. 

And now for your feature presentation: Jack's Mannequin.

The lead singer's name is Andrew McMahon. He was once part of a group called Something Corporate (SoCo). You should actually go check out his story. It makes him so much more of an inspiration and gives his lyrics so much more meaning.

I don't smoke anything, but I love that this sticker is on his piano <3

He gets SO into the music, that he's rarely in his seat. And goes between the two microphones the entire concert.

One of my FAVORITE things he does during his shows is that he jumps ON his piano. You read that right. JUMPS. ON. HIS. PIANO.

He played my favorite song of his...Holiday From Real :]

And one of my other favorites, Swim.

We stuck around for a bit and guess what happened?!!

I. GOT. TO. MEET. HIM.

Unfortunately I have a sucky and super gross picture to show for it, but picture none the less!

And some cool merch & autographs!

'Twas a marvelous night. I can't wait to see him in concert again!

Happy Friday everyone! Have a great weekend <3

Miguel & Alicia Keys

O.M.G. 5 days later and I am still on SUCH a natural high from the amazingness that was her show. I've been to my share of concerts and I can honestly say this was hands down the best concert I've ever been to.

I bought the tickets as a birthday present for my friend Monique's birthday since we both LOVE Alicia and I knew she'd thoroughly enjoy it.

I was anxious alllll day and couldn't wait for the show to start :] My smile was pretty much ear to ear all day. I know I've posted this picture last week, but I'm gonna post it again :]

We stopped and grabbed some dinner at Miguel's Cocina before the show, the fajitas were SO yummy! Unfortunately I didn't have an alcoholic beverage because Monique is on a huge health kick and I didn't want to tempt her with a margarita. Between our order and getting a meal we had a mini photoshoot but the sun was kind of being a jerk and only gave us one picture to work with...

We cruised over to the sports arena and got there about 40 minutes early and kept talking about needing to go potty...the minute we decided to get up, the opening act has started. It was an amazingly talneted singer named Miguel so we decided we could hold it and not miss him!

My camera and phone pictures were kind of really sucky, but here are some of the videos I took!

Miguel. Adorn.

Miguel. Do You Like Drugs.

His performance was really great. Loved his dancing! I also loved his shirtlessness :] Bummer I couldn't get a good picture of it :[

Intermission. Pee time. Except for the fact that there were 50 girls in line. Whomp. Not waiting in that. Hahahaha. 

There was an announcement during intermission to tweet Alicia Keys for a chance to have her dedicate a song to you. I jumped on that ASAP. 

Intermission photo shoot :]

The main event finally started and it was the best 2 hours of my life. She opened with Empire State of Mind and did a meledy of old an new songs. I am so in love with her amazing piano skills, I never thought I'd see the day that I'd be able to witness it in person. 

About 3/4 of the way through her show she played on of my favorite songs on her new CD, Not Even The King. I immediately started recording and before I knew it, she announced that she was dedicating this song to a chick named Ashley...who was 4 rows infront of me. Super sad face it wasn't me, but this girl had 3 generations of her family there so that was pretty cool! Here's the video :]

Alicia Keys. Not Even The King.

I went down to her seats when the show was almost over and told her I got it all on video and her whole family was super stoked. I offered to e-mail it to them in a couple of days. 

Now...kind of a venting moment because this is my blog and I can do whatever I want. At the end of the show, Monique and I wanted a photo with the stage in the background. We stopped somebody in this chick Ashley's family, an older woman (mom or grandma?), and I asked her if she could take a photo. She straight up looked me in the eye, didn't say a word, and turned around and kept walking. Who the hell does that?!! Without saying a word? After I did your family the favor of a lifetime and told you I had a video of the best moment of your life? Ugh. If your family is leaving behind at least say "I'm sorry, I can't...I'm being left." Don't just freaking leave after looking me in the face!

Anyways...back to good times. I was pretty excited when Alicia Keys played my favorite song of hers, If I Ain't Got You. Definitely shed a tear on that one!

Alicia Keys. If I Ain't Got You.

Over all, the concert was amazing. Besides the bathroom and photo nonsense. It was kind of fulfilling a dream since she's one of my favorite artist's of all time! Monique and I kind of joked around that if her leg wasn't broken we'd make the trip to Vegas a couple of days later for the concert out there! haha.