More Deserts! Russian Braid Tea Cake

Cinnamon Russian Braid Tea Cake

 This morning I made this Russian Braid using the same sweet bread recipe as the round tea cake. Usually I cut the recipe in half for a decent size tea ring, but this time I used the full recipe as in the cookbook.  This thing turned out huge! I took two photos, one with a banana so you can see how big it is.  I think I'll go back to using half the recipe!

Same Tea Cake with Banana for size

Cooking Snacks & Deserts

Even though our kitchen is small and there is not enough counter space like back home, we still manage to cook full meals and occasionally bake. We also make popcorn in our countertop popcorn machine, and of course, make beef jerky.  Over the past weekend, we made a few of our favorite snacks.

I bought this popcorn machine at a yard sale for $5 back in March.  The guy wanted $10 for, but I said no.  He then said "how about $5", so I ended up with a popcorn machine!  We like to eat popcorn while we watch TV, but I wasn't satisfied with the flavor.  I wanted the salty stuff like you get at the movies or a carnival.  So I went to online to find out what they use for oil and flavorings to make it taste like they do.  PopcornSupply.com had everything I needed, so I bought some oil & the magic ingredient "Flavacol."  I don't know what's in it but it tastes great, nice & salty.  Elly says the machine takes up too much room on the counter, but its still there!

My $5 Popcorn Machine

 When we go to Debbie's for dinner, we bring desert.  Last time, Elly made one of her favorite recipes that she got from a friend years ago called "Swedish Tosca Cake".  Its an yellow almond cake with sliced almonds on top. This time we did it in a spring-pan and it came out great! Everyone always loves this cake as it is not too sweet.

Swedish Tosca Cake

 Last year, I bought this artisan bread & pastry book . The Cinnamon Tea Ring recipe is one of Elly and my favorites.  I have made this about 5 times so far since I bought the book.  It it made with a basic sweet dough that can be used for this recipe or pecan sticky buns.  Both have a real nice cinnamon filling.  It tastes just like you bought it at a bakery. It is great to have in the morning with your coffee. Yum!

Cinnamon Tea Ring

And of course, it seems like I am making beef jerky about twice a week now.  Since the FoodSaver & the Dehydrator reduces to actual time to make jerky to about 8 hours, I can start the process late morning and have great tasting jerky by early evening!  I am always using London Broil because it has hardly any fat and it seems that it is always on sale at the local grocery store. Its a real snap to always have jerky on hand as a snack.

Batch of Jerky being cooked in the dehydrator

All this food is making me hungry and it's time eat eat dinner.

Comedy Clubs

During the past two weeks we have visited the two main Comedy Clubs in the area: Pechanga Casino Comedy Club & Aces Comedy Club.  We originally went because our neighbor's nephew is trying to be a stand-up comedian.

The Pechanga Club is in the Casino, tickets were only $10, but we got our Pechanga Club card which was "pre-loaded" with $10, so the show was really free!  They had 15 new amateur commedians trying to make it in the world of stand up.  I would say about 4 were really funny, the rest were OK.  At times the routines became really raunchy, sometime uncomfortably so. But we had a great time there.

This past Wednesday, the Aces Comedy club had a free open mike night, so we decided to go.  Even though it was free, we paid $10 which allow for two people to get into the Sunday Show with the headliner comics which would normally cost $20 per person, a savings of $30. Great!.  The Aces show had about 10 comedians, a little less raunchy than Pechanga, and a little more funny.  After the amateur comedians, there was a special treat: Kevin Johnson, the ventriloquist also performed.  You can see him on David Letterman below, very funny.  He did this same skit.

We had a great time, we are starting to really enjoy see these comedians.  Last night we went to the headliner show at Aces Comedy Club to see Mike Pace and  Anita Milner.  Anita Milner is a 76 years old comedienne, with a different perspective on the world today. You can see her below, very funny stand-up.

After Anita, the headliner Mike Pace performed. You can see his resume here.  He was fantastic! What a show,  His funniest stuff was his ability to do improvisations with the audience, asking questions and just joking around and making fun of the audience members.  His routine changes based on who's in the audience and the audience's response.  He performed for over an hour.  We were laughing so hard that our cheeks hurt! Here is an example of his routine.

Looking forward to going to Aces Comedy Club again.

Air Conditioner Inspection - 1960's Retro Concert

Today our Air conditioner inspection was finally completed. Passed with flying colors!.  This kept us at the house a little longer than we wanted because we were going to a Woodstock-style concert up in Corona.

We arrived at noon at the resort and were shown around.  We brough drinks and food and spent the day listening to great 1960's style music.  Hanging out in the large pool was also great way to cool off from the heat of the day,  We met a few nice people and had a great time.

The grounds were very well kept and had an abundance of So. California landscaping

The Grounds Rock Architecture

The Gazebo for Relaxing

The nice Heated Pool available for use

By the time we arrived & checked in, the band was already playing and the lounge chairs around the pool were already reserved.  Good thing we brought our own chairs. We set up to the right of the band, within a good earshot, pulled out the beers and books and sat back for a relaxing afternoon of music.

A few times during the concert we were able to take a few dips in the pool even though it was crowded, but it was refreshing and we could still hear the band.  Although we could have stayed for the evening festivities, we decided to head home about 5:00.  It was and enjoyable afternnon.

Old Town San Diego

We went to preview another auction at the Mission Hills Auction Gallery in San Diego.  We always like going there because even if the auction is a bust, we usually find something else and new to do in San Diego. Well, today the preview didn't turn up enough stuff to make it worth our while to stay.  So we went out to dinner. We found the restaurant that one our neighbors had raved about called  Rockin' Baja.

Rockin" Baja Restaurant

We started out with some spicy crab legs, they were real messy but real good. For dinner, Elly had the Seafood Skillet Melt & I had the Lobster Lovers Combo.  Both were excellent meals.  Elly couldn't stop raving about her meal. 

Elly waiting for Dinner

After dinner, we decided to walk off the calories by strolling around Old Town San Diego.

   
Old Town is a State Park located in the Old Town section of San Diego. Its a little like a western Sturbridge Village but much more commercial and a lot less quaint.  Each of the old style buildings housed a new style retail store selling all types of tourist items like mexican style decorations, trinkets and such.

Some real nicely decorated Mexican Plates

 In addition to the retail stores, there were actually some historical exhibits (it is a State Park after all) explaining the beginnings of the old west, the missions, the pony express, etc.

Me & Elly at the Wells Fargo Museum

   

Elly giving me one of  those "what's he doing now" looks

The Cosmopolitan Hotel in Old Town.  Live Jazz from 6PM-9PM

Flowering Artichoke Plant

Elly was surprised by Old Town, She had thought it was like Old Town Temecula (which is just the Main Street with some old buildings).  She actually enjoyed walking around and visiting the shops.  We plan to re-visit here in the future and maybe even take the Sightseeing Trolley around  San Diego

Shopping at Costco

Everybody out here just loves Costco!  There are two within 10 miles of us.  The mechandise is great, food is great, they sell beer & wine, and the prices are even better.  The Sam's Club here is pitiful compared to Costco.

Yesterday we went to Costco with Debbie to search for a vanity to redo her bathroom.While we were waiting for Debbie to talk to a sales associate, I decided to try the new Canon DSLR cameras.

Canon T3i DSLR

 
 I put my SD card in and shot some sample pictures.  Elly didn't know I had my own SD card with me! 

Costco Customers & the Camera Aisle

Elly waiting for Debbie while I played with the cameras.

Elly wondering WTF am I doing with the cameras

 The cameras were real nice, I am seriously considering selling all my cameras to get enough money to buy one these.  I just sold my German Stereoscopic camera on eBay. 

This is the camera I just sold on eBay for $305.

So maybe I should sell some more cameras to get enough cash for a new Canon DSLR!  Maybe even this one!

Canon EOS D60 DSLR

But, It's A Dry Heat

Evan left last Thursday night and I hope he's getting over his jet lag after taking the 11PM "red eye" flight to Atlanta and arriving in Boston at 6AM.  We had a good time visiting with him and he just loves the weather. 

We are slowly getting back to our normal routine,  Debbie, Tony and Meghan came over yesterday to spend time at the pool and have cookout at out condo. It was hot and we had a great time.

Yesterday it seemed that summer really began out here.  While the East Cost was sweltering in the hot humid temperatures all last week, we have been enjoying temps in the 80's.  It's really arid, so there it almost no humidity.  It is never "oppressive" like they say for the Boston weather.  It's just HOT.  You can go outside in the hot sun and not even sweat!

Today we are experiencing 100+ temperature, but "it's a dry heat" and it is nice.  Nothing in the house gets "sticky" like it does in New England.  We don't even turn on the air conditioning at this temperature.  A small fan just to circulate the air does the trick during the day.

The evenings cool off down to the 60's for sleeping and the breeze picks up 4:00 to cool everything off,
It is HOT and we use to condo pool (which is heated to 88 degrees) to cool off.  Looks like another pool day.

Vacationing!

Today we decided to take the day off and have some vacation time with Evan.  We took a trip up to La Cresta, the area that overlooks the Bear Creek Community to show Evan the houses and ranches up there.  While we were there we found the road that lead to the houses that "peek over" the Bear Creek Community and took this Panorama photo.

Click on this pic to make it bigger.  Red arrow point to our condo.

After touring around La Cresta and De Luz (see earlier posts) and driving down the road that "drops off" the Santa Rosa Plateau, we decided to play miniature golf at Mulligans.  This is one of our favorite things to do with Evan.  He gets so mad when he loses, but we played two games,  Elly & I tied the first game, Evan won the second. Everyone was happy!

Elly & Evan playing mini golf

After mini golf we cooled off in the condo pool and relaxed for the rest of the evening.  Vacationing is fun.

We Have A Visitor!

We haven't done much since the last entry except hit a few good estate sales (finally) and get the spare room ready for Evan visiting.  Our neighbor, who was moving out of her house in Redlands, let us borrow a few pieces of furniture and rugs.  We can keep them until we no longer need them.  On Thursday, we drove to pick up Evan at the San Diego Airport.  Here is a picture of his flight landing.

Evan's plane landing in San Diego

We had dinner in San Diego to avoid the rush hour traffic before heading home.  The next day we spent just hanging out on the patio, swimming in the Condo Pool.  Elly calls this pool the "Country Pool", it is only for use by our Condo Association and we usually have the pool to ourselves.  Elly calls the large Master Association Pool (olympic size) the "City Pool" because it usually has more people and kids using it. For dinner we tried cooking salmon on cedar planks on the grill.  It came out pretty good, but we all though we liked in better in the oven.

Just hangin' out

The Condo Pool  ("Country Pool")

  On Saturday we went to the Temecula Farmers Market and Spice store because I needed more spices for beef jerky.  Evan ate a whole pound of jerky on the first day so i needed to make more.  He's already put in an order for 2 pounds of jerky to bring back with him!  I had to buy more smoked pepper and chipolte pepper flakes.  I think next time I will order my spices online from our usual suppler as they are much cheaper than the spice store and you can buy in bulk. Here is the site we used to get all our spices from: http://www.mountainroseherbs.com/

The obligatory street musicians again!

Taking a rest at the Farmer's Market

After the Farmers Market we headed up to Riverside to have dinner with Debbie & Tony as they wanted to visit with Evan again. He came out last October with us for a week also.  A snapped this picture of Debbie's cat drinking from the bird bath while we were eating dinner on their patio.

Debbie's cat drinking from the bird bath

Evan just loves the weather, its hot 90-95 during the day and 60-70 at night without a cloud in the sky.  Its like this everyday. No rain in sight, but it is really brown here.  People don't realize just how "green" New England is and just how many trees there are there.