Weekend in review....

We had a nice but busy weekend! I experimented with 2 veggie recipes since we have been getting so many veggies from the farm and I thought both of them turned out really good. The first dish I made was “Cajun Okra and Tomatoes.” We have been getting okra for about 4 weeks now and every time, I struggle with what to do with it. I know you can fry it, but I don’t like to eat things that are breaded and it always looks slimy when it is just boiled. Now I have never attempted to cook okra before but here is what I made on Friday night and it was really good! I don’t follow recipes too well since I am such a picky eater so I usually find several recipes and pick bits and pieces from each one:

3 Tbsp Unsalted Butter
1 Cup cooked shrimp
3/4 Cup onion, chopped
2 Tbsp Garlic, minced
4 Tbsp jalapeno peppers, minced
2 Cups Fresh Okra, cut into pieces
1 1/2 Cups Insanely Ripe Tomatoes, chopped
2 tsp Fresh Thyme, chopped
2 tsp Fresh Basil, chopped
Kosher salt, black pepper, cayenne, and Texas Pete Hot Sauce to taste

Melt the butter. Add the onions, garlic and peppers, and season with a little Kosher salt. Sweat until the onions are translucent. Add the Okra, season again with a little salt, and cook for about 5 minutes until okra is tender. Add the Tomatoes and Thyme, plus a little more Kosher salt to make the tomatoes break down.When the tomatoes break down and reduce slightly add the basil, shrimp, and salt, pepper and hot sauce to taste. I served over whole grain brown rice.


On Saturday, we painted all day. Finished the master bedroom, bathroom and upstairs hall. Still have the office and laundry room, plus all the touch-up on the baseboards to complete next weekend.

We celebrated my birthday on Saturday night since John was going to be gone for my real birthday which is today, August 3. I was so excited to open my present and find that, I had received the obsessed over camera I have been wanting for the past few months! My parents, sis and John went together on this and I can’t wait to get out and start shooting. I still have to learn how to use it since I have never shot with an SLR before.

For dinner, we went to 2 places… we started off at Nolan Kitchen for appetizers and drinks. I had a drink with fresh blueberries, blueberry stoli, and cranberry juice and it was good. John had an old fashioned and a dark and stormy. Then we ordered a cheese plate for an app.

For dinner, we headed to Ratcliffe on the Green which is a restaurant I have wanted to try for a while. Ever since I took a cooking class with the sous chef there and learned they are a restaurant featuring food from local farms, I was hooked. I had a steak and some vegetables and John had duck and pheasant pot pie with gruyere mac and cheese and an arugula salad. The service was wonderful and the food was good too. And yes, I am that cheesy that I took pictures of John and I with our food. Except I caught John after he had taken a bite...

While on the subject of food, here is the second veggie dish I made for us on Sunday. I got this recipe from Food and Wine and pretty much followed this recipe exact. John really liked it and I served it with Feta Turkey Burgers.

One last thing, I watched the most inspirational movie on Sunday afternoon: Blindsight. It is a documentary and here is the summary from Netflix:

Six blind Tibetan teenagers set off on a gripping adventure as they attempt to climb the 23,000-foot Lhakpa Ri on the north side of Mount Everest. Considered cursed in Tibetan culture, blind children are often hidden away to live as pariahs. Determined to challenge that perception, the kids gear up for a demanding expedition led by climber Erik Weihenmayer -- the first blind man to scale Everest -- and learn some lessons about life along the way.

Each blind child was sponsored by an American or European experienced mountain climber that helped guide them along the way. This made me think back a few years ago when we hiked Ben Nevis in Scotland and I was thinking that was the hardest climb I had done, these kids make me look like a big pansy considering they are blind and in some cases malnourished and still made it up 22,000 ft.