Who? What? Where is this place? Let me get you up to speed. Here are a few things to note about Dunedin (pronounced de-ni-din):

• One of the oldest towns on the West coast with almost 4 miles of waterfront yet able to maintain their small-town charm.

• Embraces its Scottish Gaelic heritage with a yearly Scottish Dunedin Highland Games.

• The 39-mile Pinellas Trail bisects the downtown area which holds a number of microbreweries, restaurants, an Art Gallery, a chocolate shop and fun vintage stores.

Interesting little city, hard to pronounce the first time you see it, but definitely a place for a future repeat visit. It’s located north of Tampa/St Pete. We’re branching out of Central Florida for weekend activities.
Things are starting to loosen up around the state and everyone is trying to get back to some type of new normal. We have several goals this day. One, taste some new brews and two, eat at a favorite Cuban restaurant.

At the beginning of the main drag was The Dunedin Woodwright Brewing Co.

At the moment, the only way to visit, was to sit outside. They had some overhead shade which made it more bearable. The photo on the right is their interpretation for social distancing, ordering your brew outside with a glass barrier -formerly a window.

They had a foodtruck Coattails Kitchen and what goes great with beer – a pretzel. Unfortunately, they sold out the previous day and we had to settle for French fries. Ok, if we must. They were good, very good French fries. 🙂

One of their employees recommended our next stop, 7venth Sun Brewery.

The only seating was outside and I got overheated just walking the several blocks to find it. This is not the place to visit in the heat of the day. Hence very few photos. I found some info in a Brew booklet.

Our last brew stop was another unusual name. Their sign says it all.

This particular place we could sit inside (rules are strange here) and they had floor fans to keep the air moving. While no air-conditioning, they knew how to keep the place bearable even in sunny, hot Florida. Not everywhere was selling half-pours, or if so, it wasn’t obvious. At least this place I could get a ‘baby’ beer since I’m the designated driver.

Earlier I mentioned Art was part of this environment. Here’s one example. It’s one way to keep padlocks from appearing everywhere.

At the beginning of this post, I also mentioned Cuban food………………….

Friends of ours had taken us here, several times, and its always a great repeat! First thing that arrived was Cuban bread, slathered with butter – Yum. You really have to pace yourself or you could fill up on this alone.

Although not really needed…………..we ordered an appetizer to share, fried yucca. A fabulous garlicy oil dip enhanced their flavor.

My entre arrived. Roast pork with two sides (French fries and black bean soup were my choices. LOVE the pork! It was way too much food, but leftovers were brought home.

Eric had a dish that featured beef.

We were too full for dessert at the restaurant. But….……..later that evening, I had a craving for some ice cream (you know, it fills in the cracks 🙂 ) . My new personal favorite at Ritters in Clermont is the turtle sundae with hot caramel, hot fudge and a few chopped pecans. I can eat the whole thing!

We have made several trips to Ritters during our furlough. They even gave us a ‘frequent repeat visitor’ card since they recognize us. We’re trying to limit our visits to once weekly to keep the ‘furlough 15’ pounds off.

My previous post talked about the ‘pesky squirrels’ that are hogging our backyard bird feeder. Eric got a surprise one morning. He was keeping the birdseed inside of a 5-gallon bucket with a lid, inside of a Rubbermaid box in our back yard. Yep, you guessed it. The squirrels found it. They gnawed a whole in the Rubbermaid box (upper left), gnawed a hole in the lid AND the squirrel was in the bucket!

Man – if I just had a photo of that.

Ginny

Can’t believe it. We’ve gone through 8 weeks of being home. One of our jokes is ‘What day is it?’. I solved that problem – as long as I updated the signs placed on the fridge. 🙂

We’ve been able to squeeze in two separate fishing trips. The first was at the end of May – totally forgot it was the start of Memorial Day weekend. Aarrgghh.

Eric doesn’t understand the ‘pressure’ of parking the truck and boat trailer. This day I had to drive a block away and park in a grass lot. Unbeknowningst to me…….a representative from Pete’s Pier was following me in a golf cart, flagging me to a specific spot (Pete’s Pier owns this land) and then drove me back to the dock. Sweet!

Out to the Gulf we went! It was kind of slow in the beginning, but we moved to deeper water and caught a variety of things. I got a few shots with Eric catching this black sea bass (L) and mangrove snapper (R) – both of which were kept and eaten.

Coming back we passed these boats. This family was having a bad day. You can barely see the disabled boat on the other side of the TowBoat. They were landing at the same place we parked. Fingers crossed we never have to call one of the tow boats companies.

Although more crowded than what we have been seeing lately, we were still successful with our catch. Fish caught were: top – sand trout, 2 red scaled fish on left – mangrove snapper, 2 black scaled fish on right – black sea bass, a sea perch in the middle and a fish we always get excited about – a mackerel at the bottom!

Why get excited about a Mack? It’s eaten the night its caught in sushi form – very tasty. Our Mack was eaten as a Poke bowl and included cooked shrimp, shredded carrots, avocado, edamame and sliced cucumbers. Top it with spicey mayo. Delicious!

The black seabass was a more involved preparation. Eric found this recipe.

He pulled together a number ingredients to start: garlic, jalapeno pepper, shallots and crushed tomatoes. He slightly modifies recipes to cater to our tastes. The cooked sauce is on the right.

Combined with saffron rice, roasted potatoes & radishes and you have a satisfying meal.

Six days later, fishing was a different story. See that parking lot? Yep, we were the fifth vehicle in the parking lot – loved it! The weather was changing so much day-to-day that we had to wake early each morning to check the forecast. Finally………….had a morning that showed a ‘window’ when we could fish. Quickly packed up the boat and drove to the Gulf coast.

First radar shot is when we put rods in the water………….two hours later, this storm popped up, then we saw lightening on the horizon. Time to go in.

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The short time on the water was fruitful. Here’s our catch for the day. Six fish – seatrout, macks, black sea bass and sea perch.

We finally had enough fish to freeze fillets and create a seafood-broth based soup with (fabulous) locally made French bread. Eric threw in a few shrimp to round out the meal.

All this time at home has really upped the value of a ‘drive’ to get out of the house. There is a well-known German bakery in a tiny town (north) that gave us a break from the norm – Yalaha Bakery. This is one of the few times that we have eaten out. And I do mean that literally. After ordering our food, seating has always been outside under shade trees. In the past, we’ve been here and there were tour buses in the parking lot – yikes! Not today.

Eric’s cooking break lasted one day – sorry hon. Some of his meals have included more street corn and carnitas tacos.

We’ve had steak with stuffed zucchini, accompanied by roasted potatoes and the last of our French radishes. Fabulous sauce for the steak (which was also good when potatoes happened to get dunked in it).

And one of my favorites………………..grilled pizza!

Eric wanted some different ‘inspiration’ and picked up one of his former (highly used) cookbooks which he’s had 20+ years.

He wanted soup. He found a really great recipe that didn’t require a trip to the grocery store. All of the greens for the soup recipe we were growing, substituting radish greens for the sorrel.

Shot on the left were his ingredients with the final result on the right.

Notice the sandwich sitting next to the soup? A French grilled cheese. The title says it all. Yes, the grilled cheese was extraordinary.

I have a shot of his ingredients but am including the basis for his awesome-tasting meals, local eggs and the French locally-made bread.

Several posts made reference to ingredients from our garden.  I like to grow things.  I can confidently say that 12 months out of the year, we have something edible growing in our yard.  Now, I will also say, we don’t always get a large bountiful harvests from said plants.  But hey, we don’t need it.

The previous post mentioned several times that our tomatoes showed up in a meal.  We are at the end of our tomato growing season.  We had three tomato plants in pots and only the yellow-fruited tomato plant has continued to adapt to the Florida heat and keeps producing fruit.

The cherry tomatoes picked for our grilled pizza last week were near the end of the season and only a few were left on the vine.  I was waiting for these last few cherry tomatoes to get ripe before removing the plant.  This is the last harvest.

Tomatoes are one of those things you cannot typically grow in Florida during the summer.

Factoid:  hot summer nights prevent the tomato flowers from setting fruit, hence you can (sometimes) get lots of growth, but no fruit to harvest.  

We pretty much have some type of pepper plants growing year around.  Currently we are harvesting japenlos.  This plant was overloaded with fruit and these needed to be harvested.  Otherwise, we pick them as we need them.

The swiss chard is another plant that is almost done for the season.  It doesn’t love the Florida heat so we only grow it in our winter.  I was able to find some seedlings that were three distinct colors for us to grow these past months:  purple, yellow and pink.

Cabbage is also a winter crop.  We grew ours in pots.  Three heads have been harvested and three more are going to be turned into kraut.

Eric cut the heads one morning in preparation for this upcoming task.

We’ve also been growing ‘greens’: collard greens, mustard greens and kale.  Eric got this photo early one morning when I was harvesting the leaves.

These French radishes have been used several different ways (as mentioned in a previous post) and this is the end of them.

We have a Key lime bush growing in a half barrel.  The fruit are fairly small and ripe when yellow.   Oopsie, the green ones fell off when I was trying to get a photo.

We also harvest herbs.  I have a ‘hedge’ of rosemary that gives definition to one of our planting beds and use the branches in bouquets.

We have a pot of English thyme that is the best ever yet.  Eric uses this herb in a lot of his cooking, primarily soups. To give you some context, this pot is 14″ tall.

Otherwise, we still have basil, Italian parsley and curly parsley growing in the garden and used frequently in Eric’s cooking.

This next herb started as a potted plant purchased 20+ years ago and once we finally put it in the ground, it flourished.  People typically use bay leaves in soups and probably buy dried leaves at the grocery store.  I cut our bush back heavily this spring and the subsequent sprouting looks great.

I’ve also dried some of the branches and they’re hanging in our kitchen.

Unfortunately, this may be one plant that I don’t get anything to harvest.  The squirrels are eating the growing tips off of my beans.

So, the title mentions Wildlife.  Man – with all of the attention we’ve been giving the yard and all the time at home during furlough………………….we’ve had the chance to really see what’s going on, mostly in the backyard.

Moving a birdbath to the backyard and repairing the birdfeeder has attracted bluejays and a pair of cardinals.  The birds love to splash the water!

Probably the most amazing was seeing the pair of nesting red-shoulder hawks.  They also like both of the items seen above.

There’s a garden trellis that had not been put away………………….and it’s turned into their hunting perch, so  now it’s staying!

One afternoon, I got extremely lucky.  Wow!!!

We also have these pesky squirrels which like the bird feeder.  If you look in the bottom left corner, you can see a male (red) cardinal waiting for the squirrel to leave.

Seeing red cardinals always reminds me of my Grandma. They were one of her favorites.

One day I couldn’t believe how gutsy this squirrel was.  I have yet to see ‘the circle of life’.

We also have some rabbits, usually seen in the front yard.

One morning, he/she was in the back yard.  Nope, still haven’t seen the ‘circle of life’. It lived to see another day.

Occasionally we get small flocks of ibis rooting through the yard, looking for insects to munch. We like them because their beaks punch through the grass, essentially aerating it.

Eric’s been reading about crows.  And he’s feeding them.

He says he’s training them.  I think it’s more accurate to say they are training him.  He got a shot with one of his crows gathering a peanut.

Seeing wildlife and having the time (and energy) for focusing on the Darden Garden has been a silver lining in this unprecedented time we’re living.

Ginny

Daily I receive these ‘chirps’ from Natural Life. I really liked this one and wanted to share.

Eric continues to amaze me in a multitude of ways not the least being his food adventures.  Purchases are focused on locally available produce whenever possible – in season.

Let’s start with his onion soup.  He cooked down sliced onions until translucent, letting them simmer in some homemade beef stock.

Meanwhile………….prepping our ramekins with cheese and french artisan bread (baked locally).

Before adding more cheese and broiling them in the oven to finish.  That was our supper one evening.

BTW – one thing that makes his life easier is this chest freezer.  Throughout the year he cooks down stock for any future meals thus only requiring some defrosting for his prep.

Digging in the freezer one day, he came across pulled pork.  With our recent visits to a local ‘fusion’ takeout, he made our own street tacos.  While the pork was thawing he made the topping.  OMG – where does he find this stuff?  I can tell you now, these spices are nothing that I would consider if I was grocery shopping.

The results were amazing, adding in some advocado and crème fraiche.

Eric was sneaky and captured this photo.  We’re really enjoying the ‘tailgate meals’.  When done, dump any leftover food onto the paper tablecloth, roll up and throw away.

This is also the time (mid-May) for Florida sweet corn and our visits to local Farmer’s markets have been fruitful.  Sticking with ‘street’ food, he made some ‘street corn’.

OMG – I may never eat sweet corn any other way!  His method was (1) grill corn with husks on (2) remove the silks (3) slather on butter (4) place back on grill for more char (5) brush with Eric’s special ‘corn butter’ before devouring.

                

Man – look at those flames, they were kissing the corn.  The street corn was so good we had a repeat performance later in the week while grilling hamburgers.

Our goal is only two meals daily – so his inspiration doesn’t run out – while also keeping an eye on calorie in-take.  People are joking about the ‘furlough 15’ so we don’t want those extra pounds if we can help it. One evening we tried his version of a kimchi hot dog.   It was good, but not as good as Tako Cheena (sorry hon).

Or when super hot outside,  Greek salad with pita bread.  Those squares of yellow below……….our yellow tomatoes harvested that morning.

We’re not above having a typical ‘breakfast’ for a meal other than breakfast.  A Cheese omelette and sausage patties satisfies the soul.

While this next dish was not for a meal, it qualified as a snack.  We had something similar in Lyon – but it was MUCH better there.  Maybe it had somethng to do with the country and company.  🙂

I planted some French radish seeds a month ago, on the cusp of our planting season, and we’re starting to harvest them.  Dip them in softened butter, a little bit of sea salt then eat.  You can see how the bottoms are scored in the left photo.

We had another ‘tailgate’ meal that was totally awesome – grilled pizza (the small red tomatoes were from our garden).

Since we have time on our hands, Eric wanted to make his own pizza crust – of course.  After mixing the yeast, flour, sugar, water and olive oil the dough balls sat out in our Florida room to rise.

Added the homemade tomato sauce with fresh buffalo mozzarella balls and fresh basil (also from our garden) and the topped pizza was complete.

He placed a ceramic tile in the oven before the grill to get it super hot prior to adding the pizza.

Totally awesome pizza, but the ceramic tile broke while cooking.  Two days later we tried again and used our pizza stone.  It was also really good pizza – but not as good as with the tile.  The tile put a char on the bottom of the pizza that tasted great.  Eric guessed the tile must have been close to 700 degrees F.

Everything is not always successful.  One night we felt like Mexican and Eric thought ‘Chimichangas!’ would be interesting to make.  Started with a flour tortilla, put a layer of refried beans, meat and a bit of shredded cheese.

A few minutes in the fryer then topped with a green tomatilla sauce.

It looked good, satisfied our need for sustence, but does not bear a repeat.

Once in a while, Eric wants to do some baking.  We came across a farm stand with Florida peaches.  They’re such a rare commodity,  it was a no-brainer for our purchase.

Going in, we knew these peaches were not ‘cling-free’.  I was good at peeling, Eric was good at slicing.

First attempt was fried peach pies.  They were good.

Second attempt was a peach tart.  Dough was made along with a (fantastic) cream filling.

With a beautiful (and tasty) finished product.

Wow!  Again, Eric continues to amaze me with his culinary adventures – a definite plus during the furlough.  🙂

Ginny

It was nice starting another week being on the boat!  And just as nice, plenty of easy boat trailer parking!  Last week it was a total zoo, even through the middle of the week.  Last week I had to drive out of the designated parking, circle the block and enter the parking area going the wrong way – aacckk! – before parking the trailer.  Soooooo much nicer this week.  I just had to include a photo. I did a rather nice job of parking if I do say so myself. Eric doesn’t understand my stress of parking the truck and trailer.   He’s on the boat, impatiently waiting for me to get back.

This was another week with catching a variety of species, some of which was edible.  The first shot is of a sea robin.  Its a tasty fish and we would have kept it if a tad bigger.

Eric caught a remora – which is not a keeper.  If you can see in the photo, a rough spot on its head becomes a means by suction for it to connect with a host fish and feed on the leftovers.  Cool to see, but not edible.

We ended up with a nice haul of keepers:  (top to bottom) 1 bluefish, 3 trout, mangrove snapper (side) and the tiny fish (sea perch) in the top right corner was used for stock.

Today there was just two of us as Adrienne has gone to visit her family.  It’s fun with friends and it’s fun just the two of us.  Man – look at that blue sky and white fluffy clouds.  L.O.V.E. being on the water.

This was another week of organizing more cabinets in the kitchen.  I mean come on -what else can you do.  You’ve seen the other posts and our yard is just about done.

We have lots and lots of glassware and while nothing has fallen out when the doors were open (that would be bad, really bad) it was always dicey putting clean glasses back.  You put a glass on a shelf, gently pushed back and hopefully enough room was available.  Now there’s no problem.  I think Eric would freak if I labeled the shelves – its a thought.

Ah heck, might as well organize the cabinets under the glasses.  This time I remembered a before and after shot.

Yep, all that stuff on the floor and  countertop was inside that one area.  Confession here………we have a bag of this misc. kitchen stuff going to Goodwill when it opens.

Just when you thought I was done, nope, one more set of cabinets.  With only the two of us, we had way too many plates.  Our normal everyday (white) plates totaled 12 – really, we truly don’t need that many any one time.  And yes, we use the remaining four sets of plates, sometimes daily.  Paring down also gave us a chance to keep a few fun (fishy) serving platters on the top shelf.

 

Okay, okay, I’m done for a while with cabinets!

 

Getting out of the house is MUCH more important these days otherwise I feel like a hermit.  Eric plans most of these – trust me its in his best interest. Ha!  One day we went in search of a seeded watermelon heading west on SR 50.  It goes into a rural area with some agriculture happenings and we’ve seen roadside stands in the past.  Kind of a weird goal, but hey we’re furloughed!  We both definitely like watermelons with seeds versus the seedless ones found in most grocery stores.  The seeded ones have flavor!

We drove past this farm and stopped in.

It’s a small family run operation.  They used to take their produce to local farmer’s markets – which are currently closed.  For the first time they opened this small market essentially in their backyard – open 2 days each week, we got lucky hitting one of those days.

Eric was scouting their produce to see what he could make with ‘whats in season’.

They had some good looking green beans and sweet corn.  We also found these green tomatoes.  Fried green tomatoes were a good appetizer one evening.

 

 

 

Ultimately we did find a watermelon AND I forgot to take a photo.  We’ve been eating the watermelon outside for dessert.  Yum!

Now here’s something that I totally would not have expected as an activity during furlough – a drive-in movie!

Turns out our local movie theater got creative and had a schedule of movies.

Yep, after a number of years (maybe decades) I saw the movie Grease again.  Had to include a few key shots of the movie.

What a way to finish a week!  Another post is coming with Eric’s cooking.

 

Ginny

 

 

 

Work continued in the backyard – a space we never utilized or gave much attention in the past.  Let’s start with a fence, a neighbor’s fence.

We never considered installing one, never really thought about one, but are working with one the neighbors installed some time ago.  The only thing we did over the years was to give it a little extra feature – oyster shells along the bottom.

It wasn’t really any plan put in place, just a place to dump shells after consumption.  Eric went through a phase (when he could get them) of locally purchasing Apalachicola oysters, by the bag – 60 lbs each time.  He shared them amongst family & friends, waaaaaaay before I started eating them.  Over time, the fence line got looking kind of rough and oyster shells mysteriously ‘migrating’ into the yard.  man – what a noise when the lawn mower hits one.  Three days work – off and on – gave it some needed attention.

First step in the process was digging them up from being buried and creating an established starting point at the top of the hillside.

Eric washed off the dirt, taking a break from digging.  Yes, this was a team project.  He walked over and starting digging.  🙂

Then the magic ingredient – bleach – used on the fence and the oyster shells.

Wow – it made such a difference……….on a neighbor’s fence. Ha!  At least the side we see now looks good.

You may have noticed a wire circle in the photos above?  This is something we’ve talked but was really near the bottom of any list – a compost pile.  We had one at the far back corner of the yard.  There’s a lovely photo below.

Yeah, it doesn’t look like much and truthfully, it was abandoned by us.  I’ve been bagging up all of our yard waste for yard pick-up.  Another name for compost is ‘black gold’.  Do it right and yard waste becomes a GREAT addition, adding nutritional value to any plant bed – free!  It was time to make a convenient and workable compost area.

There are all kinds of fancy compost bins for purchase and DIY.  Eric bought some hardware cloth – really, what a weird name for wire fencing – and built our own.  Fencing and zip-ties were only the only items needed and were in the garage.  Yeah! Free – kind of.

Throw in yard waste, a little soil now and them, sprinkle with water and occasionally take a shovel to ‘turn over’ the stuff for aeration and you will have some fine-looking compost!  Doesn’t this look so much nicer that a weedy pile of dirt in the corner?

Like a number of furloughed people, we started a small garden.  Actually, it was a re-start since the garden plot already existed.  Found some new and old seeds and said what the heck, let’s see if they sprout.  Carrots did not (old seed), radishes did (new seed) along with the beans.  We’ve got a great start thus far.

Let’s talk trees.  They are blocking the sun for my garden.  We are NOT paying for an arborist to come and trim trees, so we did a little work ourselves.  Eric started out with a pole pruner.

Then we went back to our ‘tried and true’ G&E technique:  I grab a branch, pull down as far as I can, Eric uses loppers and voila!, the trees are trimmed.  Hard to get a photo since we’re both involved but here you can see the results.

The backyard is also where I store my tomato cages – which I use for way more than tomatoes.  Several years ago I ran across some cool-looking painted wire cages.  What!?!  they are charging how much?  For a cage that normally costs $1.15 sans paint?

No way am I paying that much furlough or not.  A few cans of spray paint works wonders.  Again, already had in the garage.

They almost look like abstract art when done and stored along the fenceline.

Speaking of art……………….we’ve had this glasswork flower art for a number of years, plopped down in the back yard.  We positioned it so now it looks like it’s growing out of the bushes and finally found a place for the glass butterfly that was part of the deal.

It was originally a magnet, but a metal hook and some duct tape lends itself for outside beauty.

I’ll close this post with a real butterfly.  While we were working in the back yard, this gulf fritillary butterfly was foraging on some wild passionflower sprouts in the yard.  Love seeing native wildlife.

Ginny

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We found a GREAT way to Furlough……….fishing!  Of course the weather had to cooperate – which it didn’t Furlough Week 1.  Loved the ‘traffic’ on the river.  Nada!

After checking the weather forecast and tide chart we made plans to drive to Crystal River.  Item of note – we never (rarely) fish on the weekends.  Too much traffic and too many inexperienced boaters – Yikes.  This does limit us to 5 days good-weather options.

We seemed to catch a wide variety of species on this trip.  I hooked several sea perch which we ultimately kept the biggest ones.  While small, they are pretty.

Adrienne caught a sheepshead – too small to keep.  But man, if he was bigger, they taste really good.

Eric kept catching bonnet-head sharks.  Now I will admit – this is sprobably the smallest one he caught, but it was the one photographed!

We caught this gaft-top sail catfish.  We’ve eaten them in the past, but their nickname is ‘snot cat’ and their protective mucus coating really was a deterrant to keeping and scaling them.  This guy went back into the water.

Several rays were seen gliding through the water, but this guy unfortunately decided to go for my hook.  After a quick photo, he went back into the gulf.

We were very good at practicing social distancing – even between the three of us on the boat.

While not our usual catch, but we came home with enough for supper that night.

 

So, the deal is Eric cooks, I clean.  With all of this cooking going on, we had a situation.  I opened up the upper cabinet where the spices are kept and things fell out.  Time for an overhaul.  Yep, found numerous (!) practically empty spice bottles, four bottles of garlic powder (really), lots and lots of bottles of chili powder (okay, so there were several different types – but still duplications) and some ingredients neither one could remember purchasing.  Now, look at that cabinet – love it!  Salts and peppers (no, not a typo, we have various types of both condiments) above the microwave, two shelves of dried herbs & stuff on the right.  I have one little top shelf for my baking ingredients.

Adrienne told me about a Stay Home Virtual Race and sent me the link.  I had heard about Virtual races – heck, even Disney has them.  This sounded interesting, especially once I got on their website.

Trust me, I’m not doing the Half Marathon or even the 10K.  The 5K is just fine for me.  They have a really good marketing person who maintains their website.  Check this out:

I spent the extra 5 bucks to get a bib for the race and completed it last week.  With the world’s happenings, the medal is being shipped late so here’s a shot from their website.

Loved last week’s fusion tacos so much, we went back for a repeat to Tako Cheena, Orlando.

Top half of the photo are the Tacos: beef short rib and pork.  Bottom half was the Korean hot dog (yum – my favorite, you can almost see the dog peeking out from the toppings) and Korean empanada (our least favorite and ended up pulling off the bread and eating the fried cheese).  That won’t be a repeat purchase.    Nothing wrong with it but our expectations were a bit different (think local Hispanic empandas) and this didn’t quite hit the mark for us.

To round out our week, we made one last stop in Clermont:  Ritter’s Ice Cream.  Ice cream fills in the cracks.

Stay tuned – there’s more coming.  Amazing what you can write when you’re not working – just saying.  🙂

Ginny

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyone who knows us or reads this blog will not be surprised by this particular post.  One of my husband’s hobbies, is cooking.  No he’s not a chef – that’s real work.  He sees cooking as (1) research, (2) a process and just as important, (3) tasty results.  He has r.e.a.l.l.y stepped up his game!  While at home I’ve been working in the garden and doing crafts, Eric has been reading & watching videos about cooking.  For at least a week, it was pretty intense and these are the results.

……………Spoiler Alert – it only lasted a week…………..

There have been several purchases within the last 15 years in pursuit of this hobby.

Gas Stove:

Two Burner Camp Stove:

I was ambivilent about getting a gas stove – grew up with electric – but after a year of using it, I was sold.  Using the camp stove was nice since it keeps the heat (and mess!) outside.

Let’s start with breakfast.

After a number of days with eggs, bacon, grits…….eggs, bacon & bagel………eggs, sausage, grits………..pancakes…………I needed a change.  Love all of the aforementioned combos but eating them every day versus the weekend turns them into routine.  Florida blueberries were in season and we took a morning to go in search of U-pick bluberries.  I had planned on making a blog post just about that excursion, but, we were too late.  With the season being so warm AND everyone staying at home, U-pick farms had a fabulous spring.  Great for them, not so great if you planned on doing a blog post.  😦  We ended up finding some blueberries at a local farm and they were now incorporated into breakfast.

After a few suggestions (mine),  Eric went to the internet and found inspiration.  He made lemon ricotta blueberry pancakes with lemon curd sauce.

Another morning we had blueberry stuffed French toast with lemon curd.

I really thought we had a jar of lemon curd in the pantry – doesn’t everyone – but neither of us could find the jar.  Eric made his own.  OMG – this may now turn into a necessary staple in the Darden household – just saying.  It was absolutely delicious.  Leftover curd was put into these cute jars and kept in the fridge.

I also found some blueberry inspiration visiting the internet and made blueberry popovers.  Eric says he doesn’t like sweets.  I brought him one – he finished his before I did.  This recipe is a keeper.  Man – how great would it be with a drizzle of lemon curd?!?

Next up lunch & snacks:

Grouper fish sandwich was a hit one day.  We had picked up some certified grouper fillets (FYI – a lot of grouper fillets are not actually grouper), which was so big we had two separate meals.

When we caught a bluefish earlier in the week, he immediately thought of smoked fish dip.

Hour and a half on the charcoal grill ensured a nice smoky flavor throughout.  Add in some cream cheese, celery, shallots, jalapino pepper, crème fraiche, cayenne pepper & lemon juice and you end up with some of the BEST smoked fish dip he’s ever made.  Wow – didn’t realize it had so many ingredients until I asked Eric for a list.  Sometimes simple is better – this time not.  Smokey almonds pair nicely.

Florida sweet corn was in season.  Eric made a chowder base with the leftover cobbs.

Top the finished corn chowder with fried shrimp and you have a complete meal.

Shhhhhh.  Top Secret info coming.  Eric shared that for most every soup he makes this is his ‘secret’ ingredient, adding a depth of flavor enhancing what already exists.  Who knew?

Hummus – another thing most people pick up at the grocery store in a tub.  We never have.  Although we normally use canned chickpeas in the past, Eric found some dried chick peas at Winn Dixie.

After a day of soaking and stove-top cooking, they were ready for processing using all the ingredients seen above.

This is a great snack in the afternoon when the munchies hit.  Eric grilled some lamb, chopped it finely, added a few pine nuts and a mid-afternoon snack took us through dinner that night.

Finally, dinner, or some call it supper:

The remaining part of the fresh grouper we picked up turned into grouper with a seafood Veloute sauce.  Yep – never heard of it either.  This idea was a result of watching all of those videos.  While roasting the shallots, he poached the fish in a homemade court’boullon under parchment, with the plated meal as the last photo.  Roasted potatoes rounded out the meal.  Oh yeah, and a glass of white wine.

Oom, pah pah – one night it was decidedly a German focus.  Jaeger schnitzel (fried pork)  & hunter sauce with braised cabbage (from our own garden!) and German fried potatoes.

This was another meal where the meat was fried on the camp stove, along with the potatoes.  Smell of oil cooking was kept outside, along with the mess. Yeah!!!

One of Eric’s hits was Steak au Poivre with pomme frittes (French fries!).  Let’s start with the pomme frittes.  After cutting the potatoes, he soaked them in water for at least 2 hours, pulling out starch which also keeps them crispy when fried – Secret #1.

Secret #2 – double frying.  Here’s the first fry on the left and the second fry on the right once the meat was done and resting.

Secret #3 – duck fat.  Enough said.

Now the steaks and au Poirve ingredients were readied (clockwise starting top left): butter, stock, steaks, shallots, cream and sea salt.

Steaks are seared in the iron skillet to get the base of the sauce.

 

Add in the butter and shallots to build flavor.

Next up the ‘fun’ part of the process, a douse of brandy then f.i.r.e.

Throw in a littlel cream for smoothness.

What a perfect combo – steak topped with au poirve sauce and pomme frittes.

More food is coming, but not quite this intense.

Ginny

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Darden’s backyard…..its pretty much an afterthought.  We don’t spend any time there.  Heck, Eric rarely mows it.  It takes a bit of ‘nagging’ for it to get done.  When it gets so tall I don’t want to walk through it………..it gets mowed (finally). Well guess what?  We’ve now got the time to work on it.

A number of years ago, Eric created this ‘dry river bed’ as a feature in the back yard AND to help with the heavy runoff when it rained due to the addition of a Florida room – more on that later.

Obviously, it lacked attention………..but not any more.

A little bit of Round-Up (weed killer), a little bit of pulling dead weeds (me), a lot of chopping back the surrounding plants (Eric) and now we have this.  🙂

During its construction, we put barrels to catch rainfall and they looked great.   Not so much any more – but we’re holding out for that re-purchase.  They started out with some water plants and goldfish.  Only one plant had survived and the goldfish are gone.  😦  Two out of the three barrels are making it – kind of.  Yeah, that one in the middle has definitely seen better days.  Not a drop of water is in the bottom.

But we have a nice surprise surviving in one barrel – a blooming water iris.

We also have tadpoles in the bottom few inches of that same barrel!

I used to have a love affair with orchids – spending waaaaay too much money on them.  I purchased all kinds going to orchid nurseries and orchid plant shows.  Some lived, others did not.  My best orchid purchase has been a recent one.  A roadside van sells them 1 – $5 or 3 – $12.  I don’t ask any questions.   The leaves have some blemishes.   They are not a ‘perfect’  plant but always, always has flower spikes just beginning to show some color.  Bloom spikes can last up to 1 month -inside- if you keep the plant watered.

Where else can you get a flower for $5 that lasts a month?  Now, if I could just found out where he’s currently parking his van……….  By the way, these are called Phalenopsis or Moth Orchid.  We bring them in the house, enjoy the blooms and put them back outside until new spikes appear.  Truly, we don’t do anything else – no watering, no fertilizing, nothing.  They’re survivors.

The plants below are amarylis flowers.  Grandma had gotten these – probably for Christmas – and planted the bulbs outside after they finished blooming.  Every year, they keep coming up, slowly multiplying.  Something else we ignore and they just keep blooming and blooming. and blooming.

Bricks, bricks, bricks.  I talked about them a few posts ago when I cleaned up the front beds where they are used for defining edges.  For some reason, we never put them in the back to give this area some definition.  They have arrived.

While I’ve been working on the landscape, Eric has given some attention to the hardscape.  Well, actually the back of the house.  He cleaned the gutters (oopsie – forgot to get an action photo).

Now, if he could just dig up those (unwanted) volunteer sprouts from a nearby bush…………

Afterwards he gave the windows of the Florida room some attention.

Wetting them:

Soaping them:

And removing the suds and excess water:

LOVE the Florida room.  This would typically be where a pool would be built.  When we first moved here the trees didn’t provide enough shade in the summer and with this south-facing room, it got plenty hot.  We (and by that I mean me) could only use this space 8-ish months out of a year.  Yes, it’s not the spot to be in July, middle of the day – but that wasn’t a problem when we were working.  😦

Spending all this time in the back yard has been like a treasure hunt.  We’ve found unexpected blooms, wildlife (rabbits & squirrels), a pair of nesting red-shouldered hawks and then this:

Shingles!  During Hurricane Irma (2018) the roof shingles were flying off all throughout the night once hurricane force winds reached us.  I’ve picked them up again and again and again and still there are more.  Uugghh.

Ginny

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Working at home 4 weeks went by fast………………a week of furlough, not so much.  Obviously the key was to keep busy – no surprise there, ha!

What better way to start your Monday, than with beignets – love these French donuts.  Eric, not quite as big of fan since they were common-place when he was growing up.  Naturally it starts with a recipe – no box mix in the Darden house!  You would think he would have the recipe memorized – not so much.   A number of years ago, my mother-in-law presented us with this blank recipe book.

It has been well used and definitely makes it easier to find recipes, such as beignets. Ha!  This was before the internet and the well-used phrase ‘google it’.  I know, I know – the dinosaur age.  I initially used rubber cement to place the recipe print-outs I typed into the book, but it has all dried up.  I definitely need to make this a project in the coming days.  Regardless, here you go.

Oopsie – apparently I missed an ingredient when I was typing up the info.  Definitely need the egg for the recipe.  For everything I typed, I tried to add a ‘story’ at the end of the page.

Cannot forget one of the most important key ingredients – powdered sugar.

After a general ‘dusting’…………….

…………..those little pillows of goodness end up on my plate.  🙂

We both had our own projects that we planned for the first furlough week.  Eric is doing some painting.

While I finally dusted off my sewing machine.  Luckily I found the correct manual booklet (I was more shocked that anyone!) for the machine I have and had to reread the correct way to thread the machine – its harder that it looks.  Many have a slight difference you have to figure out.  My first project was sewing these linen kitchen towels from linen we purchased in the Paris fabric market – oh, about 3+ years ago.

There are a few other projects in the pipeline that may show up in this blog – if they get done.

As you might imagine, cooking has figured big in the Darden household since Eric is no longer going into work.  I’m soooooooo lucky to have married a man that enjoys cooking as a hobby – just saying.

He’s been talking about the ‘Hotto Potto’ restaurant over in east Orlando, but that’s not really an option at the moment with the ‘shelter at home’ situation we’re in.  But that doesn’t stop Eric.  What’s the next best thing?  Having our own hot pot meal – but of course! Ha!  Eric did his research and we made a trip to Orlando to one of the biggest Asian markets we’ve frequented in the past.

A first step was the liquid to cook your meats.  Doesn’t look like much when you take it out of the packaging.  Those red things in the photo…………….peppers, lots and lots of peppers.

But those blocks turn into this:

Before cooking, there’s a bit of other prep that needs to happen with the ‘things’ you’re going to put into the hot pot.  I was able to get a ‘work in progress’ shot with Eric prepping the meat.

PLEASE be sure to look at the meat platter in the bottom right of the photo above. Apparently I forgot to take a finished photo and yes, I heard about it.  Isn’t it a beaut!  Great job Hon!  The next few photos are the fresh items we get to choose from.  One platter has seafood options (shrimp and mahi-mahi sliced thinly).  Another has two types of noodles and the bowl has various mushrooms.

Second tray had the fresh veggies – baby bok choy, chayote squash and daikon radish.  That bowl off to the side was quail eggs.

So, the quail eggs.  They’re cute, they’re tasty, they are a b.e.a.r. to peel once they are soft-cooked.  I believe we each had one, and the rest were left for a breakfast meal.

Next step – cooking!    Two things you need to know.  First, we did the cooking outside in our garage with a 2-burner camp stove purchased on one of Eric’s hunting trips that (surprisingly) has been one of his better purchases.   Second, I don’t have to do any of the cooking.  🙂

The bok choy you see simmering in the pot above – boy (!) it really soaked up the pepper in the hot pot.  First bite the pepper taste caught everyone off guard.

While waiting for the items to cook, we wanted a snack.  I’ve been having a hankering for these, ever since I heard there was a shortage (after the run on toilet paper?).  I guess everybody cleared out all of the items in the frozen food cases and also bought these.  Really?   Eric prepped them prior to the hot pot cooking and a little sea salt, siracha sauce, sesame seeds and chili pepper flakes and we were set.

We ended our first week with some ‘fusion’ tacos.  Huh?  I’ve got to admit, when Eric pulled into this place, I had doubts – plenty of doubts.

I believe one of its former lives it was a gas station.  I eventually asked him ‘How would you describe this food?”  That’s when I heard ‘fusion tacos’.  After a quick google search:

• Korean tacos that originated in Los Angeles.
• Are a Korean-Mexican dish popular in a number of urban areas, often as street food.
• Consists of Korean-style fillings (bulgogi and Kimchi) placed on top of traditional Mexican corn tortillas.

I don’t care what you call them, they are mighty tasty!  In the top box you have a carnitas taco and Asian pork belly taco.  The bottom item is a Korean hot dog – can’t see the dog since there was so much topping!  I loved the Korean hot dog.

Done – first week of being furloughed.  Now, if I just knew how many weeks it was going to last………………………

Ginny