Monthly Archives: June 2012

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Cherry Chocolate Pie (Attempt #1)

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Chocolate pie is one of my favorite desserts, ranking close to strawberry shortcake. I have a great recipe for a French Silk Pie and decided to try a cherry chocolate version. It came out ok but I’m not getting the cherry flavor I wanted. I took some really pretty cherries, pitted them, puréed them and then strained them through a sieve. I had close to a cup of pure cherry goodness which I thought would be enough to really taste the cherry.

I made the pie as I normally would – whip eggs and sugar together (for a LONG time) over heat as I have an aversion to food poisoning then whipped some more to cool; I added my bittersweet chocolate and the cherry goodness and then folded in the whipped cream. The results are good, but even Bob agrees not very cherry. After the mango-palooza at Val and Bill’s, and the very good mango shortcake I did the other day, I had high hopes for the pie. But alas, good but not great. Will have to do a little research and try a second version soon.

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Mango-palooza

Bob and I headed to West Palm this weekend for a few things.  We both had some clothes shopping to do. I had cleaned out my closet (see post with reference to the dead mole) and Bob … well, he said he needed a few new things and Val is the shopping expert, so off to West Palm it was.

Val had mentioned she was going mango foraging before we got there.  While I was prepared for multiple mangos, I was not exactly prepared for the amount of mango she had.  Apparently when mango are in season, they are really in season.  So in addition to a very successful shopping trip, we had a all-mango dinner.

We had fresh mango …

Mango pork sliders with lime pickled red onions and mango bbq sauce

A Mango curry

Dried mango (Oh dear these were soooo good)

Mango BBQ chicken pizza (tied with the mango pork sliders for favorite of the evening)

Mango and cheese on bread (so simple, yet oh so good)

And mango and cheese wrapped in ham.  Also very good.

Not pictured was the mango “deviled” egg, the mango sorbet and the mango drinks.  Despite all the things we made with mango, Val had enough let over for mango for breakfast on Sunday and I brought home a box for Bob and I and a box for mom and dad.  As mango is one of my favorite fruits, I do believe I will be a happy girl for  a few more days.  My goal is to eat  so much mango in the next few days that I will not want more.  Not sure I have enough for that, but I will be giving it a go.

 

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Really Random Adventures

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For those who missed the “random adventures” part of the blog description or didn’t exactly know what that meant, this is it.

I thought today’s adventure would be about my encounter in the closet. I was doing do well with cleaning out the closet, getting rid of things I don’t wear (or shouldn’t wear) when I pulled something from the back and out came a small, furry thing. At first I thought it was a cat toy – then I looked closer. Nope. Dead animal. Mole as it turns out. Gives a whole new meaning to “spring cleaning.”. Thankfully Bob played the hero when he got home and removed it.

Then came dinner. I made a quick fajita (no peppers since Bob doesn’t like them) and Bob decided to try his new hot sauce. He read somewhere that a spray bottle is a great delivery system for hoy sauce. Something about even distribution of molecules. So … He breaks out the new hot sauce and the new spray bottle and … well … I think I wore as much of it ad the fajitas. And yes, hot sauce in the nose hurts.

Enjoy your week.

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Florida living

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Val and I were discussing some of the random adventures of having cats in Florida and she sent me the above picture. While I’ve seen plenty of large lizards, that one has to take the prize. Gracie and Tigger regularly bring “outside” toys in and it is the one part of Florida living I just cannot get use to. Alligators in the ponds? No problem. Air conditioning at Christmas? Sure. Hurricane season? Fine. Lizards in my kitchen? No thanks.

On the upside, as I always remember, is that I no longer own a snow shovel. Really can’t beat that.

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Goals

Summer is here. The kids are out of school making work a little shorter day and a lot less busy equating to less stress. Time to set the yearly summer goals.

In the past I’ve had goals such as “move” “paint the kitchen” ” get a dog” and the like. This year there are two – get the closet cleaned out and successfully hold the Buddhist Supta Pose for at least thirty full seconds.

This one came from yoga last night. I was doing a nice stretching routine and feeling pretty good. Until this pose. Holy cow – I just could not hold it for more than five or seven seconds. What is this crazy pose you might ask? (or not but I’ll tell you anyway) You stand with your legs wide – maybe a little more than shoulder width apart but not trying to do a split. Turn your feet out and bring your hands in front of your chest as in prayer and – with your back straight – bend your knees until you are in a squatting/sitting position. Now hold. It doesn’t sound all that bad. At first it was even a nice stretch. After this, it just hurt. So the goal for the summer is to be able to hold that position for the full thirty seconds. If I can hold it for the full thirty seconds without it hurting – bonus points.

On a side note, I’m adding this entry via the iPad, hence no photos. If I can figure out how to get pictures from a regular camera to the iPad I may be able to post pictures and updates from England when we go.

Enjoy the weekend!

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Summer Thyme

Somehow I managed to make it through the end of the school year.  Kids are out for the summer and work gets much more laid back.  We can count down to seeing Brad and Emmie and enjoy some relaxed time.

The garden is a bit of a surprise.  I had great luck growing things in Jersey, but the growing season and care requirements of Florida still elude me.  Unless it, apparently, thyme.  The thyme was put in with the original garden a few months ago and I’ve pretty much left it alone. However, it has taken over.  Thyme and green onion are growing like mad, while everything else has not made it.  Now that the hot, humid summer months are here, nothing will grow – except the thyme.

We have also started a small exercise routine here. Since I can’t find yoga classes that meet at reasonable times, I’ve been using the aps on the iPad.  It’s been pretty nice and even Bob has gotten into it. I’m not allowed to take pictures, but he comes home from work and does his own yoga. It’s kind of cute.  The only big drawback is trying to move from pose to pose with a furry creature sleeping on the same yoga mat.  I just say it makes the routine a little more challenging.

Beyond that, we are just having a nice, quiet time here.  Pets are good, family is good and boring is good.

Aside by

So the old site had to go.  Mac/Mobile Me is no longer supporting the iweb feature, and all content will be lost at the end of June.  To keep the site/blog going I had to move to a new site and with Bob’s help, came up with Sixteen Paws!  It seems appropriate given our household, so I hope you all enjoy the new site.  Updates will come as I figure out how to use this program.

In actual news, Ms. Erin joined us this weekend to start the summer off right.  We headed to dinner with mom and dad on Friday night at one of our new favorite places, Indigenous.  Everyone had a fabulous meal they enjoyed – and Erin and I did the vegetarian special and may have won the meal of the night.  For dessert, we had a hard time deciding, so we literally ordered one of everything on the menu and split them.  Oh … the joy of dessert.

Saturday was the big event, however.  Bob, Erin and I headed into Tampa for the Kenny Chesney/Tim McGraw concert.  We had a fabulous time, but we did notice a few things with it being the opening concert.  There was a slight issue with some of the sound at one point, he had trouble with his ear pieces a few times, and there were a few noticeable kinks.  We also had issues with “high five Hank” and the frat crowd in front of us, but overall it was a really fun night.  I will try to post a picture or two once I get them off my camera.  We enjoyed it so much, we decided to look into the same concert in August in Jersey.  If we do that, we will attempt to drag Ed, Toby and maybe John with us.

I hope you all enjoy the new site and I hope I post with a little more regularity.  If I can figure this out, there seem to be some really neat features, so I may add video clips, links to articles and the like.  Again, IF I can figure it out.  If not, it’s the regular blog with some pictures!

Welcome to Sixteen Paws