August 19, 2012 by Andrea

New

The start of a new school year brings a lot of “new” to the table. New teachers, new clothes, new backpacks and supplies. Teachers get new students, maybe a new classroom and their own version of school supplies. I get a bit of new, a bit of old, as seen in the last post, a lot of paper. However, Bob decided we needed something new at the house (and as I’m not allowed any more furry creatures) he went with a new television, speakers and console. I came home from my second of thee twelve hour days this week to find the following …

This came about because a few mons ago Bob asked how I felt about a new television. The one we had was mine from Jersey and while an HD set, it was an early generation HD and apparently not the “latest” or “best” thing out there. For the little television we watch, I thought it was fine, but he started getting the itch for a particular television. I told him he could do whatever he wanted, so long as I didn’t have to do anything. Not get rid of the old cabinet or television, not move furniture, not talk to any salesmen about televisions, etc. if he wanted a new set up, he could do it. And he did.

I somehow didn’t imagine the size he would pick out, or the plethora of speakers (which apparently you have to put in certain spots and really can’t arrange based on how they look in the room) but he did it on his own, and I just came home to it all working. Now if I can only figure out how.

Leia does like the new console.

She also likes one of the speakers, but so far she has managed to move before I can get the camera. I will need to some rearranging/redecorating but that can be done over time.

Multiple twelve plus hour days in a row does not lead to many home cooked meals. Bob had to fend for himself this week, but I did manage to pick up my veggie basket on Friday – eggplant, dandelion greens, green pepper and Roma tomatoes. I think I can make some great dishes with those provided the first week of school for the kids goes basically according to plan.

August 13, 2012 by Andrea

Roasted Kale and Tomatoes

As I mentioned in the last post, I found a way to make kale that Bob and I not only don’t mind eating, we actually really like. I adapted the recipe (of course) from a roasted tomato recipe I found on line. And by adapted I mean looked at, took the basic idea, then totally changed it. I made this the other day in the oven, but as I was grilling pork loin today, I went with the grill.

So … I took a pint of cherry tomatoes and a bunch of kale, sauteed them in a frying pan with a little olive oil and a little seasoning (I used Italian dressing mix – just a little) until the kale was wilted. I transfered everything to a roasting dish (or grill pan with aluminum foil) and popped it in the oven at 400 degrees (or on the hot grill) for about 30 minutes in the oven and about 20-25 on the grill. The tomatoes “pop,” and the kale gets a deep roasted flavor and a slight crispy texture. The acid from the tomatoes cuts the vegetable taste of the kale and the roasting brings out a little sweetness. Today I paired it with some pork loin

for a very nice little dinner. In all honesty I could do the kale and tomatoes by themselves as a great vegetarian dinner, but alas, I do not cook only for myself.

I should also mention this is a quick dinner – I made the entire thing after work and we still managed to eat before I was starving and biting Bob’s head off. So this can be added to the weeknight meal rotation (as long as I have kale in my veggie basket >-<).

August 12, 2012 by Andrea

Killing Trees

Hello, my name is Andrea, I work in Special Education and I kill trees for a living. Ok, I don’t kill trees for a living, but every year as the school year starts up, I feel like I kill a small forest.

That would be approximately 5,000 photocopies. Yes, 5,000. As get all the IEPs and 504s together for teacher distribution the piles of paper mound. At least the cats enjoy this part of my job.

We get further excitement when I start sorting by teacher …

This is an annual weekend project here and thankfully Bob does not mind the mess for a few days. Of course, this year he decided it was time to get a new television and television cabinet, so the living room was already in disarray when I started. (I’m still not sure why he feels the need for a new television, but I didn’t have to get rid of the old stuff, so I really don’t care.) He claims it has something to do with the current television being outdated and not having the right inputs or something. I’m sure I could argue against this change, but really, I just don’t care that much.

Since work has started up full swing again (as evidenced by the lack of posts this week) my culinary experiments have dwindled a little. I did make an awesome roasted tomato and kale dish to go with pan fried chicken this week and it was so good, both Bob and I loved the kale. Yes, we loved the kale. Well, I loved it, he liked it enough to let me make it again. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of it as I was that tired Friday night. I did do a nice pork chop with beats, carrots and onions which tasted pretty good, but was not photo worthy. Gracie liked this particular dish and she usually just likes the chicken dishes.

Next week is another long week. Three nights of new student orientation makes for three twelve plus hour days. But, it looks like I am in good shape paper-work wise for the start of the year. Now if I can stay on top of the paperwork it might be a good year.

August 6, 2012 by Andrea

Spicy Chicken (not wrapped in lettuce)

I came across a recipe for Asian style spicy pork lettuce wraps the other day and thought they sounded fabulous. But, I had chicken taken out of the freezer, Bob is trying to avoid the rice/grain stuff and I only had red leaf lettuce. What does one do in this case? Find a different recipe with chicken? Pull the pork out of the freezer? Head to the grocery for the proper ingredients? Nope, modify.

Basically, I marinated the chicken in cubed pieces in soy sauce, garlic, ginger and peanut oil (I had no sesame oil the recipe calls for). When I got home from work today, I mixed up some sriracha chili sauce, honey, the peanut oil and a dash of sesame seeds (for some reason, those I had – go figure). I pan fried the chicken, placed the hot chicken on the red leaf lettuce and drizzled some of the chili/honey dressing over it. The results were pretty good – spicy without burning and lots of flavor from both the marinade and the dressing. Bob declared the experiment a success.

Over the weekend, I gave in and fed my ice cream craving. For those who live in a region with a Publix grocery store, I highly recommend their Black Jack Cherry Ice Cream. It is so good, and worth every calorie and slight guilt for going off the ranch. This is a real cherry ice cream with chunks of dark cherry and chocolate chips. I go for the full fat, full sugar variety (’cause really, if you are going for the ice cream anyway, ya might as well go all the way). This stuff is so good I may have replaced Bryers Mint Chocolate Chip as the favorite. I’m not saying it has, just that it might.

On a pet note, we got some lovely rain today; poor Gracie decided to go out at lunch and got stuck outside when Bob went back to work after lunch. Poor thing came home eight hours later soaked. So wet she actually let me dry her with a towel. I thought about taking a picture of her giving new meaning to “drowned cat” but she was so sad looking I didn’t have the heart.

August 4, 2012 by Andrea

Salads

Salad does not have to be boring. It does not have to be “rabbit food” and it does not have to lack flavor. Salad, like any food, can be mediocre or it can be great.

The salad above is a variation of one of my favorite salads. It is a jicama base with cucumbers, red onions and carrots. In my typical version I use mango, but as I had apple, and did not have mango today, I went with the apple. The “dressing” is lime juice (fresh squeezed in this case) and chili powder. Yes, chili powder. It marries extremely well with the jicama. It’s crunchy, a tiny bit sweet and has a little tang from the lime and the mildest hint of heat from the chili powder. I paired this with some BBQ pork I had in the freezer and it ended up being a delightful little lunch.

Salad can also be traditional and still yummy …

I used the lettuce, tomato, and cucumber from the weekly basket, added some of the Farmhouse goat cheese from Scotland (yes, we are still working on those) and leftover hanger steak. I topped it with a mix of grated garlic, black current balsamic vinegar and olive oil. This one came out really good and my only complaint was the tomato – no matter how fresh, tomatoes in Florida are just not Jersey tomatoes and I really, really miss those.

August 3, 2012 by Andrea

Veggie Basket

This week’s veggie basket made me smile when I opened it. It is a little more traditional than some of the baskets, but I love everything in it (well, I don’t like the mushrooms, but I exchanged those for a few apples). The red leaf lettuce is beautiful and if the bananas are half as good as the last bunch I will be a very happy girl. I’m super excited about the golden beets. I have a couple of ideas for them, but haven’t settled on any one yet; it will probably depend on what the butcher has that looks good tomorrow.

/happy dance!

July 31, 2012 by Andrea

Lazy Summer Day

There are days when you want to do everything and anything. Spend the day cooking, doing laundry, cleaning out drawers, being productive at work, getting the grocery shopping done, etc. And then there are days where you want to sit on the couch, read a book and watch mindless television. Yesterday was pretty much the lazy day for me. While John went to check out his grad school options and Bob went to work, the kitties and I did very little around the house. At one point I was watching Olympic tennis and looked up to see Tigger in the perfect picture of a happy, contented, lazy kitty. (The best kind of kitties, in my opinion.) The view got even better when I looked over at the other couch and saw little Miss Leia.

I’m just not sure you can get much cuter than these two. Well … add Gracie and Jessie and it is possible, but I’m pretty sure Gracie was out making treaties with the alligators and vultures, and Jessie just hates having her picture taken, so I will take what I can get. These days are few and far between, but I will enjoy them while I can.

Hope you get at least one lazy summer day before they are all gone!

July 30, 2012 by Andrea

Sometimes you just have to …

Sometimes, despite the desire to eat healthy and be really, really good, you just need to eat something that maybe, just maybe, isn’t that great for you. I am a firm believer in moderation; most food, eaten in moderation, is fine. Too much of anything isn’t good for you (except maybe mangos, carrots and tomatoes – I could eat those every meal, every day and be very, very happy). But this weekend I just wanted something a little less good for me, and with John here, we went for it…

Bradley’s sausage, my version of coleslaw and baked beans. Not the healthiest lunch, I admit, but sometimes you just have to indulge. The sausage was from our last trip to Tallahassee where we always stop at Bradley’s Country Store for the sausage. I am a very picky eater and don’t generally like sausage, but these are exceptional. Spiced beautifully and made so you can taste the care that goes into making them. Yes, I am waxing poetic about sausage (because they are that good). I would make special trips to Tallahassee for these, but luckily, in the cooler months, they ship!

The coleslaw isn’t a real coleslaw. It has no mayo in it because I have an aversion to the stuff. I just do not like the idea of mayo, the smell of mayo or the texture of mayo. So instead I start with shredded cabbage, add carrots, cucumbers and red onions. For the dressing, I use brown sugar, molasses, chili peppers, cilantro, garlic, ginger, lime juice and peanut oil. This is one of those dishes that is best made about an hour or two in advance to let the favors meld. So while this was not a meatless, grainless dish, it was an excellent summer lunch.

And what lunch would not be complete without some homemade cookies. Hey, if you are going to go off the ranch for a day, you might as well go all the way off.

I had to do it. Fresh baked chocolate chip cookies. I could not decide if I wanted regular chocolate chip cookies, or chocolate chocolate chip cookies. So I compromised. Instead of doing a full double chocolate cookie, I added just a quarter cup of coco powder to the butter/sugar mixture before adding the flour and other dry ingredients. The results were amazing – a little extra chocolate flavor, but not so much that all you taste is chocolate. It is just a really good chocolate chip cookie.

On a side note, we had another odd sighting when taking Jessie for her walk yesterday …

I wasn’t exactly sure what this was, but Bob said it was a vulture. It was not afraid of me or my camera in the least – but is was a little uncooperative and would not move into better light for me. 😉

July 28, 2012 by Andrea

Edison and Ford Winter Estates

Today we took advantage of John being here to do something that neither Bob nor I have ever done – we drove down to Fort Myers to tour the Edison and Ford Winter Estates. I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect, but it was beautiful. Two homes, Edison’s build in the late 1800s and Ford’s in the early 1900s with gardens (we all know how much I love gardens), Edison’s lab and some particularly beautiful views. Some of the highlights were …

Banyan trees. These trees were everywhere, and HUGE. Having lived in Florida a few years now I have become familiar with these, but the sheer size if these was amazing.

The pond and coconut grove. Just a serene place and very, very pretty.

The moonlit garden. One of the only parts of the property to be designed by a landscape architect, this garden is designed to bloom and come alive at night. Even in the daylight, it was simply beautiful.

The river. I don’t think I can adequately describe how beautiful the river area is on these estates. The breeze from the river, combined with the sea wall, the waves and the trees just made it amazing. At some point on our walk along the river all three of us made some variation of the comment “this doesn’t suck.” Yes, we were being understated – it was amazing.

Probably my favorite sign on the estates. Really after Mango-palloza how could I not love this sign. Especially when you look up and see mangos just hanging there.

And of course, the houses themselves.

I will add more pictures to a gallery page, so if ya have any interest, just go there. The rest of today is going to be pretty low key – hang out, watch a little Olympics and grill up some Bradley’s sausage. There are so many things I just love about Florida.

July 28, 2012 by Andrea

Darwin’s

We took advantage of John being here to go back to a fabulous restaurant in Sarasota. Darwin’s on 4th is a Peruvian inspired restaurant that does some microbrew beers and really fabulous food. The guys (John, Bob and Dad) had a Beer sampler each – five, five ounce beers from a choice of twelve. So Bob and Dad had their favorites and John had his.

Yes, that was fifteen beers on the table.

But as good as the beer was, for those who like beer, the food really is the star at Darwin’s. We started out with the beef skewers and pork taco with avocado aioli. (Sorry Erin, this was not a vegetarian friendly meal.) I kinda of forgot to take pictures of these, and really they didn’t last long enough to get a picture, but I made up for it with

The Arroz Con Mariscos