Exploring the King's Village in Waikiki

Joe, Allison, and I stayed at the Princess Kaiulani Sheraton in Waikiki.  I managed to not think about taking pictures of things like the hotel itself, our room or the pool, so I'll just say they were really nice.  Personally, I didn't spend any time at the pool other than passing a half hour with a beverage in my hand, but it had plenty of lounging room and lots of kids splashing around.  I mean if there's a beach two blocks away there's basically no chance I'll be at the pool.  As for the room, it was your standard hotel room, save the pretty view we had from the fourteenth floor.  It was lovely to wake up and read with a glass of tea in the morning and look out at our little peak of water.

oceans to the left

 and mountains to the right

The only drawback was our proximity to a particularly loud bar, or as we called it "pineapple-land" that played music until right around our bedtime.  Certainly not a deal breaker, but it could be a little bit of a hassle.

Our hotel was also right across the street from a little shopping center called the King's Village.  This cute little center is home to a handful of tourist shops with clothes, quilts, knickknacks, and shoes as well as a few restaurants.

there's not much cuter than baby-sized Hawaiian shirts and dresses. 

I seriously loved these quilts.  As happens with anything remotely crafty, I admired them greatly but refused to buy them with the idea that I could make my own.  But I did eventually buy myself a pattern to make it, so hopefully I'll follow through with this one.

 my favorite quilt

But by far the best part of the village was its farmer's market.  Several days a week vendors fill in the walkways with food stands for grilled meat, more varieties of peanut butter than you knew existed, and of course, tons of fresh fruit.  

More than half of the world's pineapples come from Hawaii, so they're obviously incredible.  But there's also mangoes, bananas, dragon fruit, and many more all grown fresh on the islands with the best weather ever.

One very hungry afternoon Joe and I went over and scrounged up a few snacks- mostly from the above food stand.

 lobster balls

fried rice 

teriyaki chicken, orange chicken, and barbecue chicken kabobs

barbecue chicken wing 

orange chicken

dragon fruit 

 check out that weird texture

the malasada- a Hawaiian donut 

 As should be apparent, we demolished our lunch.

If you're staying in Waikiki, it's well worth the stop.  Plus, we picked up fruit that we munched on over the next few days.  It's delicious and (important for us) reasonably priced for a nice late lunch. 

Stay tuned for a little more Hawaiian nature in my next post!

Peach Muffins

Peaches have taken over the farmer's market.  After bringing home my box of fruit, I realized a few of them were pretty bumped up.  I was a little grumbly about it until I stumbled past this post on The Vanilla Bean Blog that was guest written by a couple cooks.  It's a healthy peach muffin recipe that uses greek yogurt to make it a little healthier.  Because I don't have greek yogurt, and it's too hot to leave the house right now, I quested across the interwebs for a similar recipe.  I found this decidedly less healthy recipe, and with a few changes came up with the recipe you see below.

It seemed ideal to take those squishier peaches and book them to good use in some baking.  And I seem to be really into this fruit muffin thing lately.  I posted these Strawberry Muffins just last month, and the Banana Muffins a few months ago.  Plus I bought zucchinis today with the sole intention of turning them into zucchini bread, so that's probably not too far behind.

Check out how moist that little darling is!  Absolutely amazing.  I threw in some chopped green apples in this one, hence the not-orange-bits.  We had one lone apple that was past it's prime so I thought I'd give it a new life.  The recipe below just uses peaches, but of course you can swap in other fruits too (mangoes would be AWESOME!).  Be adventurous!

Blackberry Bourbon Fizz

My first drink post!  On one hand it's a bit of a shocker, considering the origin of Charm Hour, and my affection for a nice drink.  On the other hand, I'm pretty straight forward when it comes to booze- give me a dark beer or a dry wine and I'm a happy woman.

On this particular afternoon, Joe texted me about doing something fancy for dinner.  I had a bag of tricks up my sleeve for a nice dinner to cook, and it turned out Joe didn't have ideas for food, just for drinks.  Somewhere in the world wide wed he came across this little charmer:

Who could resist?!  Especially when Joe seriously loves bourbon.  We even have a painting of a Maker's Mark bottle in our kitchen (and a Budweiser bottle- gotta keep that class under control).  Painting is another one of those artistic things that I have little training beyond hanging out with my grandmother but love to pick up from time to time.  Which is basically everything here on Charm Hour, now that I think of it.

Before I get any more distracted, the Blackberry Bourbon Fizz!

You'll Need:

Bourbon - pick your favorite

Ginger Ale

Club Soda

Blackberries (duh)

And now for those very simple directions:

Add your blackberries and crush as much or as little as you please.
You can always crush them later with a spoon.

We like this stuff.

  Joe more than me- you can guess which one's mine.

Fill most of the way with ginger ale.

And add a spritz of club soda.

And that's it!  I crushed up my blackberries at this point to get a little more fruity flavor in there.

Drink up!

Fresh Strawberry Muffins

As you can probably tell by this being by third strawberry-related post in a row, buying two pints of strawberries might have been a bit much.  The better part of the first batch went into sauce for our french toast and some strawberry rhubarb crisp.  A few days laters the already ripe strawberries were getting a little harried by our very warm kitchen and our fridge that has a tendency to freeze things.

Before they got squishy and gross I figured I'd be best to bake them up.  I scoured the internet for a recipe that I could bring to work with me so it wouldn't go to waste.  Most recipes seem to be in the cobbler/pie variety- which are delicious but pretty impractical for nurses running in and out of the break room in a jiffy.  And then I came across these muffins!

You should know if you're considering making them that they're a little time intensive.  There's a couple steps, and they take probably 2 hours or so.  It's good for a summer day when you're doing other things and can jump in and out to check on them.  It's not terribly complicated, but maybe not worth the trouble if it's not a labor of love.  For me, I was enjoying a nice summer morning where I didn't work until 3, so I had time to bake and stress-relieve.

They end up being the consistency of a nice gooey banana muffin, with a light, sweet strawberry flavor on the inside and a strong tangy flavor from the roasted strawberries on top.  And, of course, they're best warm and fresh from the oven.  This makes 1 dozen muffins.

Strawberry Rhubarb Crisp

As I said yesterday, I went a little gung-ho on the strawberries and rhubarb at the farmer's market. While I was making up some Strawberry Rhubarb Sauce for our french toast, I started the prep work for this dessert while I was at it.

I know I've said before my family wasn't huge on dessert, but my brother has always loved apple crisp.  It's really the only thing I remember my mom regularly baking from scratch. I've made a lot of cobblers in the past few months (the mango and raspberry varieties haven't hit the blog yet), so I thought I'd try something new!

What I like about this dish is that you can do your prep work in advance before dinner, toss it in the oven when you sit down to eat, and have it warm and toasty by the time you're finished.

You'll Need:

1+ 1/2 cups chopped rhubarb

2 cups chopped strawberries

3/4 cup brown or white sugar

1 cup oats

1/4 cup flour

4 TB cold, unsalted butter cut in pieces

1/2 tsp salt

Start by chopping up your fruit.  I used most of a pint of strawberries, and maybe four sticks of rhubarb?  But feel free to adjust to what you have.  Peeled green apples would also go mighty fine in this.