I have never bothered to find out where the idea of green beer for Saint Patrick’s Day came from. Dying a river green is one thing, but beer? I realize the coloring probably doesn’t affect the taste and I don’t care.

Anyway, since we are corned beef and cabbage people, we tend to rotate between Shepard’s Pie, lamb chops, and Irish Stew. This year it was Shepard’s Pie and we did still have two Guinness left. I don’t drink that, but Hubby does. I wasn’t able to find Harp for him to be able to make an authentic black and tan and for me to drink the Harp. Oh well, I didn’t have time to go to different places to look. He did get a bottle of Jaimeson’s Black the other day instead of Bushmills and since it was a Monday, we went straight to sipping the whiskey rather than making Irish Coffee. Not only was it a Monday, we also had out monthly HCA meeting which is why I didn’t have time to do something like make Irish soda bread or look for other things. It was all good even if minimal.

The kids had their fifteenth anniversary back in Sept and I had intended to send them for a trip to Ireland. With the purchase of the dance studio though and the fact they are going to have to move to a new location (very close by), that meant no big trips for a while. Ah well, Ireland will still be there. Daughter-in-law can pinpoint her heritage and if I can remember on one of my trips to Louisiana, I’ll ask my favorite aunt if she knows ours. That may, however, be on my father’s side as is the Scottish. Lots mixed among those and no, I don’t plan to do a test. I’m happy with the family stories.

Even with February being a short month, this one seemed to zip past faster than usual. That, of course, is also why once again I had a long gap between posts. Lots of competing tasks, deadlines, and so forth. At this point I am sounding a bit like the proverbial broken record, and as often happens there were fun events mixed with tasks.

Saturday was the annual Seafood Festival which is the major fundraiser for the Rotary Club. It was moved to Homestead maybe six years ago – something like that – and has grown into a life of its own. This year, we went around 5:30 on Saturday and despite some clouds, those cleared to make for nice sunset colors. Making a choice between the vendors as always difficult and at times, the decision has been based on the least long line. Not an issues this go-round which was nice, And since we can only eat so much at one sitting, one of us will go to one vendor and the other to another one. The food does tend to be expensive. Aside from the fact seafood is expensive, the vendor fees are high and so they have to recover those costs. Anyway, I picked up lobster rolls and made my way to the tent to find plenty of tables open. Hubby joined me shortly with a shrimp sampler basket. Fried shrimp, coconut shrimp, tempura, cajun-spiced and regular. It all made for a great combination paired with cold beer. The only drawback was the band on stage was the one least to my liking. They are all loud and good; but my preference is rock or C&W.

The coming week is extra jammed, too, and then there is a chance I will have a little bit of a break, although we do have the second major event for Homestead Center for the Arts mid-may.

Continue reading →

I think going out for the romantic Valentine’s Day is important early in a relationship. By a coincidence of timing, Hubby and I met on a Feb 13th (yes, a Friday as some of you recall from previous posts), which meant our “first anniversary” together was basically on Valentine’s Day. We went to a lovely restaurant and he gave me a pretty little butterfly pendant. As time progresses though, staying in to avoid the crowds makes more sense for us and that’s what we did last evening. Yes, I know Valentine’s Day was Friday, but it was easier for us to do special meal last night.

When we do this, we usually start with a first course – often seafood – and champagne. This time it was lobster bisque. We hadn’t been to Sprouts in ages and shopped there to get the bisque from a family company in New Hampshire, lovely Angus strip steaks, and asparagus. Although Sprouts is good for certain things, they don’t have much in the way of bakery. I planned to go by Publix on Saturday for dessert. As it turns out, as much as I wanted that luscious looking small chocolate cake and really thought about the small heart-shaped white chocolate and raspberry cheesecake, I passed on both of them. I am still trying to loose the two pounds gained from the holidays and knew it was better not to have leftovers. I got a package of six chocolate covered strawberries and the small frozen apple pie so the aroma of pie baking would kick off the evening. Oh, we did have a nice Cabernet Sauvignon with the steak.

Everything was excellent and while it might not be romantic sounding, NASCAR season beginning with Daytona did top the day off for Hubby. He made it home from work as the Xfinity race had plenty of exciting laps left.

The kids’ visit was good although we didn’t get around to quite everything we intended. That was a combination of Hubby had to work a few extra hours and the kids had one excursion planned I hadn’t known about. Everyone had a good time and I did fit in one swim afternoon with granddaughter. She is almost up to my shoulder with that last growth spurt. She is taking after the “tall shoot” on her maternal side – her uncle. Not sure if that will continue or she’ll slow down later.

Anyway, as usual after departure we have several leftovers. Some I was able to give away, one we will still need for a regular meal and Saturday I made one of my creative soups to clear out three+ packages. I have to digress for a moment to explain. Hubby comes from the part of Georgia where Brunswick stew is a big thing. Now, their version is entirely different from the Carolinas’ version. The Georgia one takes beef, pork, chicken, tomatoes, corn, and some spices as well as stock. All the meats are cooked separately, then blended in along with the vegetables and simmered for a while. It is an effort and is delicious and of a smooth texture.

I’ve previously mentioned my issue with soup thickeners such as potatoes being high in carbohydrates and I use riced cauliflower or silken tofu instead. I had neither at home and didn’t really want to make a run to the store. I rummaged in the freezer and found a package of Oven Roasters cauliflower that had been in there for quite some time. Close enough since I was going to use the blender anyway. I roasted them, set them aside and cut up the leftover pork chop, lamb chop, and diced the leftover chicken. I diced a few celery strips and carrots, cooking them while I pureed the cauliflower in stock in the blender. Added that to the pot. Did the same then with the leftover pork and lamb. The two blended items provided the thickener and I added in the diced chicken along with enough more stock to simmer for about thirty minutes. Since everything was previously seasoned, all I added was some grinds of black pepper. With the lamb and beef stock, the creamy soup was the same brown color as a gumbo and it was excellent with low carbs and low fat.

Okay, in hosting Thanksgiving, having to get articles into the paper a day early, plus squeezing in an extra article to promote a local group, one of the things that gave way was me posting to the blog. Laundry is also a must today.

Mother Nature was kind with beautiful weather and I do sympathize with those who suffered through otherwise. Having others bring some dishes did help although my decision to do sweet potatoes and the second type of dressing, as well as traditional plus the second turkey certainly resulted in plenty of leftovers for everyone. In fact, I am sure the turkey soup situation will result in one pot and one container filled with stock and turkey pieces to go into the freezer. I am old-fashioned on this one where I strip as much skin off as I can from the carcass (two in this case) and bring it to a boil, then low cook for two hours and let sit in the pot off the burner until it cools. Since that takes around another two hours, there is a lovely aroma in the house before I tackle the messy process of tossing bones, skin, and “yucky stuff” while saving the rich stock and edible bits of turkey. Yes, I saved appropriate slices for turkey sandwiches. Hubby has to work the next few days, so am not sure when the lunchtime turkey sandwiches will be made.

I have two versions of soup I make in order to keep it low carb as I have mentioned before. One uses the frozen riced cauliflower that really does resemble rice. The other version is more heavily vegetable and I use silken tofu as the thickener. This is the only time tofu is in the house. I might experiment with turkey white chili this time. The issue there is most white chili uses beans and all are high is carbs. We’ll see.

Veterans Day always comes with some extra activities – well, not many more than Memorial Day. The thing is, there are events we cover for the paper, events we attend for civic reasons, personal events we have, and lots of people like to dive on the long weekends.

I left out at not quite 10:00 this morning and made it home about 2:30; just as Hubby was arriving from his scuba commitment. Tomorrow we head into Miami for the Rum Festival, but because the City has added a new event for tomorrow evening, we won’t spend as long – or drink as much – as usual. On the other hand, even though we enjoy the festival, we have been several times so staying a shorter time is okay. Since we’re not exactly sure yet when Hubby will be home after photographing the City event, we’ll thaw fish out and instead of grilling, I’ll do a stove top prep because he just has to call or text that he’s on the way home and I’ll wait to do the final step.

Monday is the Veteran’s Ceremony back downtown and parade. I’ll attend the ceremony and I don’t know yet if Hubby will come in to cover the parade. I have my regular Monday luncheon after the ceremony, but I also have something I need to do for HCA because on top of everything else this time of year, a critical report to the County is due next week and among the 11 documents we have to submit, one of them requires notarization. Since I also have a couple of other errands to run close to the place I go for notary, I’ll just put all of that together. This, of course, assumes nothing else pops up that requires action on my part. However, Hubby is happy because Georgia Tech has had a couple of bad games this season and did manage a win this afternoon against a stronger team. So, we’re definitely ahead for the day.