Parisian Snack

{I guess this is a week of food for me.}

Now I don't really know if this is a Parisian snack, or un goûté, as they would call it.  But this is what I snacked on when I was living in Paris.  

And perhaps it's because I'm in the midst of planning a trip to Paris and because we're buying the plane tickets today (!!!), but in the afternoons I've been sitting down with a crusty baguette (it almost compares to the ones from the parisian boulangeries) and a few small bits of really good chocolate.

 That, and day-dreaming about the musee d'orsay, and the tuileries gardens and walking down avenue montaigne, has just made my afternoons a little bit sweeter.   

{Life is full of small pleasures}

Hope your weekend is full of small pleasures.

LMF

Oatmeal Cookies

My mom got a new cookbook that we poured through on Sunday.  You know, one of those where you drool over every page and earmark every recipe.  After we got all the way through, my mom said "Well, now I want a cookie!"  I love my mom :)

So we went back through and found a delicious looking recipe that we had all the ingredients for.  The recipe called these rolled oats cookies, but they looked and tasted like oatmeal cookies to me, so that's what we're callin' 'em.

I love oatmeal cookies, oatmeal raisin, oatmeal chocolate chip, all varieties!  We did these with golden raisins and dried cranberries.  Yum!  But you could use dried cherries, dried blueberries, chocolate...  I'm sure we'll get a bit of chocolate in there next time.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Cream butter and sugar together.  Add egg, milk and vanilla extract.  Mix until everything's incorporated.  In separate bowl sift flour and baking powder together.  Add dried fruit and rolled oats (or chocolate and cinnamon!).  Once mixed, fold wet ingredients into dry ingredients.  Put heaping teaspoon of dough on baking sheets (lined with parchment baking or non-stick cooking spray).  Gently press dough into a ball shape (you don't have to do this, they just come out a bit more uniform looking this way).

Bake for 12-15 minutes or until lightly browned around the edges.  Immediately transfer to wire cooling rack for a soft chewier cookie or let cool on the baking sheet for a minute, then move to a cooling rack, for a slightly crispier cookie.

Serve with a delicious pot of english breakfast tea.  Enjoy!

LMF

Blueberry Muffins

Yesterday I wrote about the comforts of home so I thought I'd make good on my promise and share one of the recipes.

These are my absolute favorite blueberry muffins.  I found the recipe a while ago in Self magazine when they did an article on Gwyneth Paltrow's cookbook.  I figure if it's good enough for Gwynnie, it's good enough for me.  That, and they taste delicious and they are the perfect balance between tart and sweet.  I don't like to eat cake for breakfast.  Well, that's not exactly true.  But if I do, I don't like to call it a muffin.  :)

I change it up just a bit and use 1/2 whole wheat and 1/2 white flour.  I like the texture it gives and also then I can call it healthy. Enjoy!

Preheat oven to 375 degrees spray a muffin pan with non-stick baking spray (I'm not really a fan of paper liners unless I'm using them for decoration - otherwise I just want to get straight at the muffin!)  Whisk butter, eggs and milk in a bowl.  Combine flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a separate bowl. (I like to sift the flour and baking powder together first, it makes me feel like a baker, but you don't have to.)  Stir wet ingredients into dry ingredients and then fold in almost all of the blueberries.  Leave just a hand-full or so out. Make sure not to stir the berries too hard or your batter turns blue!

Spoon into muffin cups - you should get about 12 muffins.  For each muffin, I use a couple of the remaining blueberries and push them into the top of the batter.  This makes them look pretty when they come out of the oven. :)  Then sprinkle just a bit of sugar across the tops of them.  If you use raw sugar you just have to push it into the batter a little.  This gives the muffins just a little bit a sugary crust on top.

Bake approximately 25 to 30 minutes or until muffins are golden brown and the knife comes out clean.  I like them warm with a bit of honey.  Yum!

LMF

Note - I was too busy eating to snap photos so this is just a stand-in :)
*image credit 1
*original printable recipe can be found here

Home

Where do you call home?  I moved out of my parents house when I was 18 years old, which was over a decade ago.  I did move back in a couple of times in-between my few moves back and forth to Europe, so I don't if I can officially say I moved out at 18.

I own my own house now and stay at Dan's about half the time since we live so far apart from each other.  But last Sunday I spent the day at my parents house and I still found myself saying "I'm going home this weekend."

I arrived Sunday morning to my mom pulling blueberry muffins out of the oven.

My aunt came over too and we all caught up (long overdue), sipped coffee and poured over her samples (she's the gift buyer at a local winery - which is awesome!).  My mom whipped up a veggie frittata and oven roasted potatoes.

recipe {here}

We spent the rest of the afternoon just talking, and playing with Pacino.  It was exactly as it should have been.  My aunt had brought over her amazing macaroni and cheese which I had for dinner with some steamed broccoli (gotta at least try to be healthy).

We had been looking through a new recipe book of my Mom's so later that evening we decided to try out a new oatmeal cookie recipe.

{Due to calorie content, frequent home visits are limited - just kidding}

I left with a bag of food for the week and a few other goodies, a full tummy and a feeling of being home.

Recipes to follow!

LMF

Note - Photos aren't linked to the recipes we used but I was too busy eating to snap photos so these will have to stand-in :)

Image Credits 1/2/3/4/5

Mondays

Looks like everyone's back to work on this Monday morning.

LMF

Movie Night

       

 

Last night was a rare night where I had left work at a reasonable hour and had no plans and nothing to do.  After being gone for over a week, it felt so good just walking through the door of my own house.  And sleeping in my own bed - I love my bed.  

A huge stack of magazines greeted me and I plopped myself down in front of the TV and put on a movie - Meet Joe Black. I've seen it before. I own it.  But I rarely watch it.  I forgot how much I love this movie.  Don't you love when you fall in love with something all over again?

Maybe it was Anthony Hopkins accent or Brad Pitt's gorgeousness (or perhaps the screenplay writers), but I just completely ate up every line of the movie.

My favorite:

LMF
image via 

Unplugged in Palm Desert

I had all these lofty goals this past week - to draft a few blog posts I've had on my mind, to clean out my closet, do my laundry, work on some photos, organize my life.  Ya know, just normal everyday things.

Work's been a bit crazy, and we've been out of town for a couple of long weekends.  Last weekend we headed down to Palm Desert for a relaxing 5 days.  I brought my computer with me, (because of course some work had to be done), but I figured with all my down time, I'd have plenty of time to get to my stuff.

Now, I love my Mac.  I absolutely adore my Mac  And I would never dream of saying anything bad about it.  (Thank you to Resto for giving it to me!)  But it's definitely been neglected.  I barely touched it in the Desert.

It's amazing and wonderful how easily days can be filled with 2 adorable puppies roaming about and great people around, especially when it's 80 degrees outside.

My boys!

Thank you so much to Danny's parents for inviting me along.

And Happy 40th Birthday to Skip! :)

 LMF

Maxi Love

The little bit of sun we're getting is making me anxious for warmer days.  Sadly, my legs are still winter white, like very winter white (I was told recently that they glow).

Thank goodness for the maxi dress (and pinterest for a bit of maxi-love inspiration!)

1/2/3/4

We're heading to Hermosa Beach for the weekend so I couldn't resist doing a bit of online research.
A few of my favourite finds:

1/2/3/4

Pssst - I may have already bought #2.  I couldn't help myself! Now if only I could find the perfect tee-shirt and the skirt in the first photo.  I would wear that outfit everyday.  Gorgeous!

LMF