Back Again…

I know I have blogged about this place before, but it’s so good I could blog about like once a week…  Hollister Brewing Company is my favorite restaurants in Goleta and one of my favorites in all of Santa Barbara.  I usually mix it up a bit when I go there, but I never stray from the fried pickles as appetizers.  They are so so so good and dipped in ranch, (my favorite sauce for anything/ everything) it’s just heaven.  This time I got a cup of the tomato basil soup and a side garden salad.  They don’t always have the soup because it was a special, but it was a rainy night and it was the perfect thing to have.  My little brother ended up eating way too many pickles so I only got one and I was sad, but it was okay because he let me have a piece of his pizza.  My favorite dessert there is the brownie and it is amazing!  Comment if you love brownies too!

The Road House

Last week before the boys CIF game, my family wanted to go out to dinner.  We wanted to go somewhere near the school but we weren’t feeling Mexican which is a first because we always have Mexican.  Most of the restaurants around Santa Barbara High School are Mexican so we went somewhere downtown.  We ended up deciding on the Road House.  We go there a lot because my parents are friends with the owners and it has pretty good food.  My parents also love the beers they have on tap there, so I’m always a DD when we go there.  One time my dad was meeting my mom, my brother, and I there and he told us to order him some oyster for when he got there; they came out before he got there and my mom and I pretended Michael accidentally ordered them and he hate to eat them…  He almost started crying so we told them they were for dad.  I usually get the Summerland salad or the chicken picatta and it’s always delicious, except this time they forgot the apples in my salad and I was sad.  Comment if you have ever been here!

Late Night Snacks

A few weekends ago, my friends, Lexi, Ashley, and I went to our friend Johnny’s house.  We were kinda bored so we decided we just wanted to eat some food.  The chocolate milk from his room wasn’t really cutting it like it usually does, we wanted more.  We went downstairs to get some food and we were overwhelmed.  There was so much food to choose from and I am glad I don’t live there because I would be ten times the size I am now and that would be bad.  We went into the pantry and got some Oeros which are always my favorite.  We opened up the fridge in the pantry and found some pasta and we wanted to heat it up.  After we ate all the pasta that was left over, I was pretty full my dear friend Lexi is never full.  Somehow she snuck back in the pantry and came out with a meat Panini.  She heated it up and said it was the best thing she ever had.  Comment if you love late night snacks too!

Volleyball Food

I have been playing club volleyball for five years now and never once has there not been enough food.  All the years before this one, Lynn Bean was the team mom and if you don’t know Lynn Bean that is really sad for you because she is the best person in the world.  Most of the time I get really bored and just eat because that is the only fun thing to do at a volleyball tournament.  We always try new combinations of foods and the weirdest one was with my friends Lexi, Dane, and Jacqueline.  We tried chicken curry with chocolate covered pretzels and surprisingly it was delicious.  This tournament I was surrounded by a bunch of fruit choices.  The only one I didn’t like was the banana chips because I hate bananas.  My favorite thing was the coconut crisps things.  You have to buy them.  They are the most delicious things ever!  I don’t know where these ones were from but I know you can get them at Trader Joe’s.

COOKIES

The other day my friend Ale, who I have talked about before in some of my previous posts, got a little bored and decided she was going to bake cookies.  She has very strong self-control because when she bakes, she chews gum and doesn’t eat any of it!  That is unreal to me because I usually eat spoonfuls of cookie dough and then when the cookies are done, I eat about five of them.  I just don’t understand how she can do it, but she always does.  The cookies she made this time were just normal chocolate chip cookies, which you just cant go wrong with.  They were delicious, but she did not stop there.  She added Carmel on top of the each cookie and they were so good.  Since she doesn’t eat whatever she bakes, shes gives them all away and luckily I get some of them.  If you haven’t had anything Ale has made before, you really should.

Easiest Dessert to Make

If you love food and especially desserts, but you are not a great cook or baker, I have the solution for you.  You need to go to the store and buy the Ghirardelli brownie mix.  It is super easy and it is soooo delcious.  The only thing is, brownies do take a while to cook, like 45 minutes or something which I don’t get because cookies are only like 12 minutes but whatever. This weekend when I decided I was going to be really nice to my sister and i said I would pick her up from a party that night.  I had some time to kill… It was only 11 and I was going to have to pick up my sister later, so I decided to make brownies.  I was thinking I would be done just at the right time to go and pick up Emma but I was wrong.  I ended up eating basically the whole thing of brownies that I put Oreos inside just for fun, until Emma finally called me at 2:30 in the morning to pick her up… Good thing I had my brownies to keep me awake. I have never heard of someone who doesn’t like brownies, have you?

Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner

My favorite Mexican restaurant to get nachos is Little Alex’s.  Actually Little Alex’s is one of my favorite Mexican places to go just in general.  I go there for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and I love it every single time.  They have the best breakfast burritos there and could probably eat five in one sitting.  For lunch I usually get nachos there and they are delicious.  I have never been disappointed with them.  My mom used to be obsessed with them and we used to get Little Alex’s all the time, but now its like once every two weeks.  For dinner my favorite thing to get for dinner is the taco salad.  I would definitely recommend this place for a quick little meal to eat there or to take home.  If you do take out, I advise you to check and make sure everything you ordered is in there because we have had so many times where they forgot something and it is really sad.  I love Little Alex’s, do you?

Lakers Cupcakes

No I am not a huge fan of the Lakers or even basketball in general, but one of my good friends, Ale, is a huge fan and happens to be a huge fan of baking as well.  For their most recent game that made it so they were in the playoffs or not, Ale went to a Lakers party.  She wanted to bring cupcakes to the party so she went all out!  She made vanilla cupcakes with homemade buttercream frosting and to top it off, she made homemade fondant.  This is the stuff you see on the TV show Cake Boss and it tasted so good!  It did take her a while to make everything, but it was definitely worth it… well at least for me because I went over to her house to try the fondant and then the next day I came over and got the cupcake, with the frosting and the fondant.  BEST DAY EVER.  If you have never tried Ale’s baking that is really sad for you because she rocks!  If you ever need someone to bake for a party or anything comment and I’ll let her know!

Pizza Making

One of my family’s favorite dinners is pizza.  We are trying to find an outdoor pizza oven right now because we make pizza so much and it would be quite cool to have one.  Right now we have these pizza stones that we bought and you put them on top of the BBQ.  It still makes pretty great pizza, but we think the pizza oven would be even better.  My favorite pizza to make is not even a classic pizza, it is more of a flat bread type thing.  I have talked about it before in one of my earlier blog posts, the rosemary, salt, and olive oil one.  Yesterday we tried a new dessert pizza.  We happened to have a calzone maker… I am not exactly sure why, but we used it and make a Nutella and strawberry calzone.  It really was delicious and I would definitely do it again because it is a homemade dessert that it pretty easy to make!

Cute Little Dinner Date

This weekend, my friends Dane, Jacqueline, and I had a cute little dinner date.  We spent the whole day at the beach tanning, meeting cute little surfer boys, stared at mean girls we knew, and had a great time at the beach.  When we got home we decided we were very hungry and wanted a huge dinner.  We ordered a margarita pizza and a butterhead lettuce salad from Via Vai, but obviously that is not enough for three hungry girls.  Danes dad made us a capresse salad, strawberries and honey, and bread and olive oil.  We were having a nice dinner eating everything until Jacqueline started getting silly and spilled all of our salad from Via Vai.  It was a very sad moment but luckily we had plenty of food to share.  Once again I love Via Vai and i would highly recommend it!  I have never heard of someone who doesn’t like it!

please ignore the food in my mouth