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.

Impromptu Wine and Cheese Dinner

I went to the grocery store in mind to have BBQ chicken and maybe some light summery salads - caprese and watermelon & jicama. After we got home and unpacked the bags all I wanted was cheese, fruit, and wine. So we saved the chicken for another meal and went to town throwing together an impromptu cheese platter. This is what we came up with! Starting from the cantaloupe slices going L-R ( once for the outer circle which stops at the balsamic cippolini's and then a second circle for the fish/meat area.)
Cantaloupe, An Italian Cheese ( similar to a Gouda), Espresso Lavender Cheddar, Candied Pecans, Boursin Gourmay Cheese, Red Grapes, Strawberries, Balsamic Soaked Cippolini's, Smoked Fish, Roast Beef, and Rosemary Ham

A close up of one of my little platters - cantaloupe wrapped in ham ( similar to cantaloupe wrapped in prosciutto) a few grapes, and bread with roasted garlic and boursin cheese with a glass of rose. That's some serious yum right there.An awful picture of us. We went for a 90 minute hike/walk/stair climb and it was upper 70's/80's here and hot. I got a bit of a sunburn going on and I need a shower but who cares right?


To end the meal, we had homemade vanilla bean ice cream with fresh strawberries. I haven't quite figured out how to make homemade ice cream without it getting a bit icy/slushy and not quite smooth and fully frozen. It just is more slushy and milky but still tastes yummy none the less.

I might add part of my favorite part of the meal was that we left the TV off and we listened to some of our favorite records and lit a candle. It was nice to spend some quality time together, talking, snuggling, eating and relaxing!

Cheers-

Raechel

Bower Birds

Through my daily blog porn readings I stumbled upon this band "Bower Birds" and they are fantastic. I'm always looking for some more music and these folks have definitely hit a chord with me. Now my only dilemma is do I buy a record of them or buy the iTunes. Right now, the iTunes has won out because I have $35.00 in iTunes gift cards and $0 in fun spending money. Besides at $7.99 for a 13 song albumn vs. going to hollywood and pawing through shelves of records trying to find them or gasp ordering them online and paying shipping iTunes is just wayyyyy easier; today.


Besides how cute are they? She plays an accordion. Adorable.

Cheers-

Raech

P.S. I found them through Skunkboy Creatures Blog who is also a friend of A Beautiful Mess. I absolutely love these girls and their style!

Fats Waller

I have a special place in my heart for listening to vinyl records. I absolutely love the crackly crispy warm quality that comes out from the record players. Plus you can get steals on great records of past great musicians. Lately, I've been listening to this giant TIME magazine sponsored vinyl set of Jazz Greats. I think the first 4 are all of Fats Waller.


This is one of my favorite songs below

• Your Feet's Too Big by Fats Waller

More Fats Waller music on iLike

I'm also a huge fan of django reinhardt

• After You've Gone by Django Reinhardt

More Django Reinhardt music on iLike

and least but not last one of my favorite french records

• La Vie En Rose by Edith Piaf

More Edith Piaf music on iLike

I know these few songs are quite a bit different from my music selection yesterday but they just are so charming. I love to put on a few good records and drink some great wine. They make such great background noise for a party too!

Hope your Tuesday brings you lots of good music (and wine)

xoxo
Raechel

Why Hello There!

One of my friends put this vid up on facebook and I told him I was going to steal it and blog about it. I love love it! Maybe its the music, maybe its the Rock-a-billy dancers but Tokyo looks like an amazing place to go visit! I'm booking my flight!

Its pretty gloomy out here in LA but I actually love it! June gloom is my favorite. In a way I'm totally just teasing myself because I know that is not acctually going to rain but I really wish for rain! I'm a soup girl so this weather makes me happy so that I can enjoy soups. Last night, I finally got out the crock pot and made split pea soup. I know, I know, you probably dont like it but I LOVE IT! I could have split pea soup probably everyday. My recipe isn't amazing but it tastes good. I experminted and tried "Not chicken bullion cubes". Basically it is a vegetarian base for soups but has the salty/chiky flavor of real chicken cubes. It does make a difference to use vegetable stock insetad of chicken/beef stock when making soups. Yummmmmmmmmmmm I had some for breakfast :)

My final big news of today, the car is finally here! Well almost, its on the truck and should be at my doorstep between 5p.m. and 6p.m. today. I am almost more excited because my record player and records are in the trunk of our new car! I've been missing my record player like no other and just recently discovered a record store at the end of my block! Yipppeee!!!

Ok I have lots of errands to do like get more air tanks for Mr. Fizzle, mail a t-shirt, get money to pay the car guy, return some stuff to anthro,etc...Who knew being a lady of leisure woudl keep me so occupied!

Cheers
R