Happy New Year!

I hope wherever you are in the world that you are sharing a toast with the people you love.
Happy New Year and Hello 2011.
Cheers-
Raechel

Parlours - I Dream of Chicago

While doing some facebooking I found this band on a friends page and decided I'm now in love with this band. I love the ethereal dreamy look of the video and the song is really beautiful too!


Parlours
I hope you love them as much as I do because I have a feeling I will be humming this song all day.

Ornament Swap 2010 - Assigned

Hi All-

You should all have your ornament swap info by now! If you don't please let me know and I will get you signed up with someone right away. I apologize again for it being so delayed but I was laid up all weekend recouping from the evil cold/flu that is going around my work! So I'll leave you with this pretty Louis Vuitton for Portugese Elle photo

Via we heart it

Last Chance for the Ornament Swap!!

Please make sure to email me your info for the ornament swap if you'd like to join! Today is our cut off!!

Deets are here but otherwise just send me the following at jackandtill@gmail.com

Your Name
Your Address
Your holiday scheme if you choose otherwise I'll let your swapee to choose something special!!

Cheers-

Raechel

Roasted Pepper Macaroni

Ever since I started working again I have felt really adverse to cooking. I always think about making wonderful yummy recipes but when it comes down to it I'm too tired and lack much extra time. This weekend, we spent all day home on Saturday and I got a cooking bug. We had the cinnamon apple cornmeal waffles from here for breakfast and for a late lunch we had roasted pepper macaroni and seafood sausages. Man oh man do I love macaroni and cheese but its really unhealthy for you! I wish I could take credit for this recipe but a friend made it for me and I've been hooked ever since! I don't have a specific recipe but I follow a loose guidelines of this:

Roasted Pepper Macaroni

• 2 peppers ( yellow, red, orange) cut into slices
  
• 3-4 cloves of big garlic cut in half or quarters
• Olive Oil
• Walnuts/Pecans (1/4-1/2 cup)
  
• Parmesan Cheese (1/4 cup)
  
• 2-3 cups of Farfalle / Rotini

On a baking sheet covered in foil place the peppers and garlic cloves and drizzle with olive oil.
Peppers waiting to be roasted!
Roast at 350 for 10-20 minutes. This part is tricky as I'm not a fan of the roasted aka burnt peppers so I roast mine until they are soft and light brown but you can go the whole way and dark roast them. Take out of the oven and let cool a bit, otherwise I seem to have problems with my chopper not sealing but if you don't go ahead and go to the next step. I reserve the oil from the baking and put into my chopper in the next step but you can throw it away but why!? its Roasted pepper and garlic olive oil yum.

Place the peppers and garlic in a blender, chopper, etc... with a handful of nuts (from whichever you have chosen), drizzle a bit more olive oil and Parmesan cheese.

Blended pepper concotion
Blend until smooth ( usually a few minutes) and voila you have roasted pepper sauce. While the peppers are roasting I will start the pasta and they usually end up being done at the same time. I combine the sauce with the pasta. I had enough for 2-3 cups of pasta and than I saved about 1 cup of sauce for pizza/dipping.


L-R and starting at noon - roasted pepper mac, steamed snap peas with salt, pan fried seafood sausages from Trader Joes ( shrimp, crab, red peppers, cilantro yumminess!!)

Also, don't forget to get your names and addresses if you're interested in doing the ornament swap! Deets here

Cinnamon Apple Cornmeal Waffles

This morning we made breakfast at home. Sometimes we go out but we're trying to continue to save and work towards a healthier spending vs saving ratio. We went out last night for sushi so breakfast in it was. While laying in bed and discussing what to make I suddenly got a craving for cinnamon apple waffles. One of my favorite quick tricks is to use a box of Jiffy Corn bread mix for waffles. It gives you a crispy but slightly salty sweet dough. Its the only way I really like waffles now. First, I chopped up two small apples. I chopped 1/2 of one of the apples into small pieces and mixed those in with the batter.

The rest I put in a small saute pan with some butter and olive oil ( for some reason this is a good combo for sauteing/browning fruit) along with some cinnamon and brown sugar.
They smell fantastic while cooking and tasted equally as good! The only advice I'd offer is that the apples make the batter a little bit wetter. To remedy this you could cut back on the liquid a bit or leave the apples out of the batter. We cooked a few eggs to go with the waffles. I like sunny side up with the runny yokes and surprisingly a little bit of yoke with the waffles was really good combination.
We put on a Regina Spektor and Ray LaMontagne record while eating breakfast and sipped on giant mugs of hot coffee.

Today, I wish....

I was at a street cafe in Paris having an espresso and a pain au raisin. Even the fast food restaurants have excellent pastries.

Incase you haven't already! Please sign up for the Ornament swap 2010!! Read about the details here or you can email me if you have questions at jackandtill@gmail.com.

Ornament Swap 2010

I was going through my emails and I found one from Anthroplogie and they were taunting me with all of the fun ornaments for the upcoming holidays and I thought " hey why don't I host an ornament swap?"


So I'm hoping to get this going! The cut off for sign up will be Wednesday, November 24th at midnight. We will randomly assign people and lets send out the ornaments by December 3rd to allow for ample shipping time. The price limit is $15 but the ornament can be handmade/crafted.

Please email me jackandtill@gmail.com with the following:

Your Name
Your Address
If you have a specific theme going - (ie..my tree is gold, bronze, and glittery) or if you want someone to pick something on a whim!

Only 43 more days to go till Santa Claus brings us lots of goodies!

We're back!

After traveling for almost 24 hrs! (15 hours of flight plus layovers and time changes!) We are finally back in Sunny LA. The trip was simply amazing. I fell deeply in love with Paris. Je T'aime Paris!!

We had such a great time and once I go through all my photo's I will blog some more but here's a few for now!

Jack and I in front of Notre Dame. It's breathtaking once you realize thousands of people have walked thru this amazing church. Its very beautiful inside. The amazing rose windows, the flying butresses that hold up the large stone ceiling. Simply breathtaking.Eating a crepe on the last day we were in Paris. I loved ordering Un Jambon et fromage crepe. I had this maybe 5 out of the 8 days we were in Paris. Otherwise, I'd order Un crepe avec abricots. Paris has amazingly delicious food and pretty inexpensive ( 3.50euro) for a meat/cheese crepe.

Well lots of unpacking and sorting to do now!

Au Revoir-

Raechel

Could it be?

That is already been a month since I last blogged ( almost) and will probably be another month?! We leave tomorrow for our trip to Europe. Despite the riots, the protests and the ever increasing euro rate it will be amazing, I hope.


You can read more about our planning here! I promise once we're back and sifted through the photography there will be many blogs and postings about our trip!

Cheers-

Raechel

I wish I wasn't working today

I would go to movie theaters


and eat candy

and watch a girly movie like "going the distance"

Fall Snuggly Clothes

Even though the temp yesterday hit 101 degrees ( by the Ocean!!) I'm still dreaming of cool crisp weather. This weekend I did a short stop at Anthropologie and found a few sweaters in the clearance section that I absolutely "needed". I am considering just wearing layers in Europe. I think a shirt and maybe a warm wool sweater and a scarf might be warm enough during the day that I won't need to lug around a jacket. I hate jackets. Growing up in Wisconsin you'd think that I understand the necessities of having a jacket but I don't. I really really hate them even if they're super cute.

This cute little orange top to put under the sweaters. It reminds me of pumpkin pie!
This oatmeal wool sweater with the asymetrical details on the front.
This wrap wool sweater. I actually bought a dark green version and I might switch out the belt with a big thick other color belt.

Come on fall!! I'm ready for you!

XoXo
Raechel

30 Days Exactly.

Till we leave. I'm dreaming of Eiffel Towers, Crossiants, Chanel and Cafes.
via weheartit.com

P.S. If you have any suggestions of things to do ( besides the obvious - tower, louvre, etc..) Please feel free to leave me a comment!

xoxo
Raechel

The Dog Days of Fall?

Holy bejebus. I came here the other day to write a long post about how wonderfully cool and crisp and fallish it has been here in socal and bam. Its 90 degrees with no breeze what so ever. Its the summer days everyone has been hoping for all summer but instead get them in September. Personally, I think its gross. I tried to combat it by trying on wool sweaters at Anthropologie today. In my mind its sweater, jeans and boot weather.

A few pics from the weekend
I love this one of us.
Thought this one was hilarious. I was just about to sneeze when he snapped the pic
Myspace style photo
Pure nerd.

Hope you all had a fantastic weekend.

xoxo

Snuggly Sunday Nights

via weheartit.com

The air has gotten cooler and crisper here in Southern California. I'm hoping its for keeps but one can never be sure! It is only the end of September and occasionally we have scorching hot falls. Today, we slow cooked a big old chunk of beef with potatos, carrots, turnips, rutabaga, onion, celery and garlic. Poured on a black currant and cabaret marinade and thoroughly enjoyed it tonight. I enjoyed it so much I forgot to take a picture before I ate it. Oops.

I hope everyone is enjoying a snuggly sunday like we are!

Cheers-

Raechel

Hi There

Apparently August slipped away with me barely even popping in to say hi! I spent my August working long hour with few days off in between so I apologize for not stopping in more often.

The bright side of working lots is that we were able to completely save to the high end of our savings goal for our Fall Trip. Yippeeee!! You might remember these posts . We leave in less than 2 months for our trip and I'm extremely excited.



I can't believe its less than 2 months till we will be there! Are you looking forward to any big trips in the near future?

Cheers-

Raechel

Puppy Whistle

I long for these days when my pups were this big!




So precious little warm fuzzballs that just wine and wag their tails.




These are circa 2007. I'm not sure which pup out of the litter this is but man oh man I am smitten when it comes to little puppies. If I am this crazy over puppies I can't image how I will feel when I have a baby.

Shut your mouth and Hold the Phone

This "Notebook" inspired engagement photo session is too die for. It doesn't hurt that the bride to be and groom to be look similar to Rachel and Ryan. Oh my goodness these are ahhhmazing. I'm a huge fan of the movie and have watched it tons of time. The very first time I saw it was in Ireland and have been smitten ever since! I remeber walking back to our hotel room from the movies and crying its such a heartbreaking beautiful story. This movie is one my favorites of all time. I die for this photo shoot.




via green wedding shoes

See more pics here!

Sunday Traditions

I keep on finding myself on Sunday nights drinking wine and eating cheese. Its a pretty fantastic Sunday ritual if you ask me! This weekend we tried a new to us tapa's restaurant, Manchego, which is also one of my favorite cheeses. The place was BYOB with no corkcage fee....Get out town! We stopped at the liquor store next door and brought in a bottle of spanish wine and ordered a cured meat and cheese sampler. It was amazing.

Not my picture but this is similar to what ours looked like - dry ham, prosciutto, salami, pepperoni, 3 different hard Spanish cheeses, gazpacho, membrillo paste and spicy olives. Yum Yum. Afterward, we ordered hot teas and drove down to the beach and watched the sunset. It was breathtaking and a much needed ounce of tranquility in what is going to be two very busy weeks for me.

Love my new body wash

I was bored with my usual body wash and this Dove one looked fresh and smelled good. The scent is grapefruit and lemongrass. Its amazing and smells so good.



I also like supporting Dove and their campaign for real beauty. It's nice to see a company that tries to embrace real women. A link to their website. They've got some fantastic video's on how the beauty/fashion industry changes women.

MUTANT STRAWBERRIES ARE TAKING OVER THE WORLD...

or just my cereal bowl. This weekend strawberries were on sale and Jack pointed out that we got a mutant strawberry in our box. I of course declared that it would be mine ( yeah I've got a case of the youngest child persona). This morning I got the mutant strawberry in my cereal bowl. We figured that it probably would have been at least 3-4 normal strawberries if it hadn't mutated. It was pretty delicious in all its mutated glory.
narm narm narm

Got to see this movie

about Serge Gainsbourg. Looks amazing.



Speaking of amazing french things. I leave in less than 3 months for my trip to France and Belgium! Eeek!

It's kind of nice

to wake up a bit early and go for a bike ride. This is my bike and I love it.

Its not very good for going up hills being that it is only 1 speed but its amazing on flat even ground. I've written a few posts about it here. I've been vying to get my hands on some bike accessories from Bobbin Bicycles in the UK but sadly they don't ship to the US. Boo. How rad are some of these accessories they sell? How abouta giant picnic basket booboo? ( imagine that said in a yoggi bear voice)



or these amazing yellow leather fingerless gloves
or this rad herringbone bike helmet/hat.
Such cool accessories. Its almost tempting enough to make a detour on our fall trip to London to pick up some cool gear.

Addicted

to True Blood. It's soo good.

via images

I'm getting to be an old lady

and I'm getting really predictable. I really like oatmeal, like every morning.


This is my usual breakfast. Cut up banana, strawberries and blueberries with a splash of milk over oatmeal. Yum.

Friday!

weeeeeeeeeeeeeee......its Friday already! Normally I'd be pretty stoked for the weekends but found out that for work we are on a 6 day schedule until September. Boo. Also, I've got a long list of chores that need to be done Boo x2.

1. Clean the house - working 12-14 hour days doesn't equal a clean house ( this is bizzare who messes it up when I'm not even home to mess it up!!)
2. Ballet class
3. Maybe a hair cut and color
4. Going to see an indie film, Winnebago Man in Hollywood

via weheartit

Sleep Vampire

I swear someone in the middle of the night is coming and sucking the sleep out of me. I have a full nights sleep but instead of waking up refreshed I wake up feeling exhausted. What gives?

Adrien Brody

is kind of nerd hot. Never been a huge fan to be honest but all of the sudden he just got a lot hotter.

For an example - not as hot Adrien Brody
via we heart it

and now really hot Adrien Brody:

Yum look at that body. "Why sure I'd love to go for a ride on your yacht!"
via google images

"ohh you need me to hold your pull up bar? Anything else?"
via we heart it

"What's that you want to cuddle?!"

via we heart it

Come on, even if you've never been a fan before you'd got to be one now!

Anthropologie Lounge Wear

is to die for. I seriously love their line of swim suit cover ups, cotton dresses for lounging/sleeping, and light cover ups. Something about the super soft cottony fabric and the beautiful detailing makes that whole section irresistible. Also, lets be honest, who wouldn't want to wear your PJ's all day long? I bought this dress this weekend.

I have a rule. I'm trying extremely hard not to buy anything from Anthro unless its on sale or I would die if I didn't have it. While, I simply love the brand and adore the uniqueness of the stores. I can't stand that a few weeks after buying something full price it will be on the clearance rack. So instead of being impatient I have to wait the few weeks. Oh anthro why do you torture so many innocent people?

If you need further proof of my Anthropologie addiction check out some of my other blogs here.

Sunday Night Bonfire

A friend was in the area on Sunday afternoon so went to Whole Foods and got a smattering of cheese, wines, olives, cured meats and some bonfire wood. We drank, laughed, relaxed and roasted marshmallows. It was maybe the best Sunday evening ever.

4th of July and Big Bear Lake

Thought, I'd share some photos from our 4th of July trip!

We stopped a few times on the way up the mountain to take some photos. In total, I think we were around 7,000+ above sea level.



The view from the deck at our cabin.
Soaking in some sun and scenery
Cute little sign on the cabin


The pups started getting anxious to get there.

Amazing views everywhere you turned


The hot tub and as we discovered some of the most amazing skies late at night. The sky was chocked full of beautiful twinkling stars. Wish we would have brought the tripod to take some pics of the night sky.
This is a bit further down the mountain where its a bit more dry and not as lush.

It was such a great little vacation! I wish friends would have been free to join in on the fun but the cabin was amazing and being forced to relax and not do much is really good for the mind. It sure helped me battle my extremely long work days once I got back.