Beautiful beach necessities and want nots...

     Happy day, happy day!  After an amazing and hilarious quick weekend up in Chi-Town looking at potential perfect college situations for my sweet little baby girl, I'm back and perusing plans for our little slice of heaven...our beach house!  We have been going back and forth with our builder for the past few weeks, and it's getting very real...very quick!  We've gone over a few plans, which of course I have the bizarre affliction of decorating each version with the perfect color, furniture, light scheme, and vintage whatever in my head at 2 in the morning.  What is that about?  I am the queen of focusing on the minutia before one scoop of dirt has been dug!  The house will be light and bright (because in my world nothing else will do) with horizontal white board on board on the walls.

Something like this...
Source: google.com via Melissa on Pinterest

Ideally the house will be old Maine Cottage meets 30-A freshness.
This...

Meets this..
This...


Meets this...


A little bit of of vintage here and there...


And of course blue, but which blue?
The most perfect pale...

Gorgeous turquoise...


Or something more exotic...


What's cookin? Beer bread and blueberry cobbler!

-     I thought it was high time I made a proper taste worthy Sunday dinner, even if it is 102 outside.  In the summer on most Sundays we usually do the grill, making your typical summer fare of burgers, hotdogs, steak, chicken on the rotisserie (which is amazing), fajitas, and the like.  Today I wanted to do a delish dish of goat cheese and basil roasted bone in chicken breasts, by Barefoot Contessa, skillet fried potatoes with sautéed onions, haricot vert with garlic and butter (the skinny french greens bean that you don't have to snap are the best!), honey beer bread, and blueberry cobbler.  It was a feast people let me tell you.  I have never made beer bread before, but I got the recipe off Pinterest from Gimmie Some Oven and thought it looked pretty amazing so I thought I would give it a try.  

Yes, there is a whole bottle of beer in here people!
 
 Ingredients
3 cups flour
3 T sugar (original recipe called for 2, but I think I might even do 4 or 5 T next time)
1 T baking powder
1 tsp salt
2 T honey
1 bottle of beer (I used an Amber Lager that Big D had lingering in the fridge)
4 T butter melted

-Grease a 9x5x3 loaf pan

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees

-Mix the flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt together.  

-With a wooden spoon, (OK I don't know if it's imperative to actually use a wooden spoon or life altering to perhaps use plastic, but that is what the recipe said, so that is what I did!), with a wooden spoon, mix in the beer and the honey into the dry ingredients until just mixed.

-Pour half the melted butter into the bottom of the loaf pan.  Spoon the batter into the pan.  Brush on the rest of the melted butter with a pastry brush to the top of the loaf.

-bake 50-60 minutes until top is golden brown, and a tooth pick inserted in the middle comes out clean. (Mine took about 55 min in a gas oven which is usually a faster cooking oven)

The bread comes out of the loaf pan beautifully!  You could also add some cheese to the batter to add some savoriness to the bread.
And my blueberry cobbler...Blueberry cobbler has been made in my family for generations.  I come from a long line of pie bakers, and I can say with complete sincerity, that I make a fairly kick ass pie...  And don't tell me that making crust from scratch is hard.  Calculus and climbing Mt. Everest is hard, giving birth is hard, thinking 'asshole' instead of screaming asshole to your significant other is hard, pie crust is not.  Pie crust is easy.

For the crust...
2 c all-purpose flour
1 tsp salt
2/3 cup vegetable shortening
5-7 T ice water

-Combine the flour, salt, and 1/3 of the shortening with a pastry blender until the mixture is broken up

-add the other 1/3 cup of shortening with the pastry blender until the mixture looks like peas.

-add the ice water 1 T at a time until you the dough holds together just enough without being to wet or too dry

-roll out on floured parchment paper

For the filling
-8 cups of blueberries rinsed and picked over for stems
-1 cup sugar
-1/2 c plus 1 T flour
-2 T butter
-Crystal Sugar for dusting 

-Pour the sugar and flour over the blueberries and pour into a deep pie dish

-Chip the cold butter on top

-Place crust on top of berry mixture

-Cut a few steam holes on top of crust

-Sprinkle crust with crystal sugar

-Bake at 425 for 35-45 minutes or until crust is golden brown and berry mixture is bubbling.  You may need to cover the crust with foil to avoid excessive browning

And then it looks like this...








Holy cow it's hot out there people!

     It's hot.  The truth is I'm not complaining, because so far this year our Dallas hot hasn't been the current midwest and northeast hot.  I mean Dallas at 100 degrees is kind of par for the course, but Detroit at 100 degrees is an entirely different situation altogether.  Here at café Cheeky, we be cookin out on the barbie people...
Something easy and always yummy...fajitas!






And watching some boob tube al fresco style...In the summer the roaring fire is replaced by the tele...
The pups are here...

And they're hot...


Here's my way of cooling off...
The squirrel isn't looking so good either...

Spending time in Seaside...

     Seaside, Florida is the little village in the middle of 30-A made famous for being the location for the movie The Truman Show...
Source: google.com via Michelle on Pinterest
  
But it is so much better in person!  It is the cutest nugget of a town where people ride their beach cruisers everywhere...

It is like something from another time and place, but with great restaurants, shopping, and art...

There is Sundog Books, a great little independent book store...
Upstairs is Central Square Records where you can find the most hilarious kitchy items...
These are little banks to save up for well...all sorts of seriously important stuff!



I couldn't leave without What Would Jesus Wear, A Mix n' Match Magnetic Wardrobe...Because I think it's important to consider all the possibilities...um YES PEOPLE THIS IS GENIOUS!
For the beach...
Maybe some golf...
Or a little hip hop situation...
I also felt the need for these post it notes...
Down from the record store is Fusion Art Glass where they make spectacular hand blown pieces...what a chandelier!
A view of the lawn where they hold concerts and movies...

It is such a great place!

Antiquing at the beach take 2...

     One of my favorite things to do during a week at the beach is to drive into Destin, about a 25 minute drive, and check out the great items from some of the local antique shops in the area.  This time I took my giant 6'4'' niño in tow for some company.  He was looking for some vintage cameras and photography equipment, I was looking for something I couldn't live without...

First stop Antiques on Holiday and they had some crazy fabulous stuff...
Love this old nautical oil.  In person the colors were a little to dark for me, my camera lightened them up a bit...
Some cute little ones that would look great in a grouping...

Can you tell I'm obsessed with old nautical paintings?  Really thought about this one, but it was a little more than I wanted to shell out...ba dum dum...really bad pun intended for beach antique shopping pleasure...you're welcome, or I'm sorry...
Great old doors...
This is a gorgeous frame and would look spectacular with a powder room...
Old wine jug pendant lamps...
Love a good industrial clock...

Yikes!  Who is in the market for creepy alligator skin?!  Poor little guy...
Great old ship models...

Found this driftwood one next door at Smith's Antique Mall...
Love these old globes...
Sadly, I ended up leaving with nothing!