punkerdoo

We are spending some much time prepping to do things worth writing about that I haven’t had time to write about it. So a short summary would be:

Monday

• Ate lunch at The Grit
• Picked up our Total Pork Program Meat CSA from MoonShine at Farm255
• Dinner was a noodle stir-fry using the purple broccoli I bought through Athens Locally Grown

Tuesday

• Lunch at Just Pho and More. Darren had a Green Tea Bobo
• Picked up our Veggie CSA from Roots Farm
• Bought a Scooter

Wednesday

• Made biscuit with berries (yummy ones from out CSA)
• Watched the USA beat Algeria to advance in the World Cup! Scored in stoppage time. Booyah!
• Received our Amazon order containing Darren’s special gloves for dumping the tanks in the RV
• Got the oil changed and the car washed at University Car Wash
• Wrapped the Twin’s 1st Birthday Gifts

What’s that? The third item on Tuesday? You noticed that….. Uh Yeah, we bought an Adly La Vita Scooter from Recycle here in Athens.  It is arriving on Monday and we with any luck we will be taking it with us on our trip.  I am so excited.  I have been wanting a scooter for a very long time.  Now seemed a good time for us to do it.  Not only is it going to be useful for getting from campgrounds to track, but around the track as well.  Also I am very much interested in lowering our fuel consumption.  I am going to smile every time I drive past a BP station knowing that is one less dollar that I will be giving them or their kind.

Immediately after I completed yesterday’s post, I did exactly as I said I would.  I made myself an omelette using the remaining chanterelles. I also threw in the rest of the pancetta and fontina. Served with a side of fried potatoes, it was the best breakfast I have had in a long time.   Darren was working in Atlanta and would not be getting home until 7PM.  Sshooting a cap/gown and a graduation ceremony of 1500 students in Philips Arena takes up most of your day.

I spent the rest of my day nailing down our route and lodgings for the outgoing part of our trip.  Texas does not use Reserve America for their state parks, so it took me quite a long time to find good places to stop.  I found a place near Dallas and then went looking for somewhere to stay near Amarillo.  That is when I fcame across the Palo Duro Canyon State Park, the Grand Canyon of Texas.  It looks really beautiful  and I can’t wait to see it.  Originally, I had only planned one night in Amarillo, but I made reservations for two nights so that we will get the chance to see the park.

Yesterday was a day of preparing for our upcoming trip to Utah.  Since we do not shop at Wal-Mart, we headed of to Target.  My sister always finds great things there.  We needed things like paper plates and citronella candles.  I am not really happy about using disposal  plates, but I have been seeing commercials for a recycled plate from Solo.  I thought that would be something Target would have in stock.  Nope.  The other day while reading Cook’s Illustrated I realized that I have not replaced our Tupperware since the world learned of BPA.  I saw another commercial for storage tubs, which have lids that attached to the bottom for organizing and stacking.  Perfect item for Target, right?  Nope.  They did have citronella candles and a camping chair (but I even hate the color). So in the end, I came home and ordered everything on Amazon.

Before heading home though, we wanted to get some lunch.  We have never eaten at The Globe (drank, but not eaten) and the afternoon World Cup match of Camaroon vs. Denmark was about to start.  So we stopped in for a sandwiches and a couple of pints.  It was fun to watch the match out and we ended up staying for the whole thing.

At home I put up what we did get and ordered what we didn’t.  The I started making dinner.  I decided to make a pizza with the chanterelles and found a recipe for a Chanterelle, Radicchio and Pancetta Pizza.  I was slightly afraid that I might be smothering the mushrooms or at least not showcasing them very well.  They really stood up to the cheese and bread and were the centerpiece of the final product.  I saved a few mushrooms for my eggs this morning, so I think I will end this post here and go make them.

Not too much to report.  I did take some of those wonderful squash and roasted them and put them on some pasta.  Darren had to shot in Augusta last night, so I made a big lunch.  I started with this Roasted Vegetable Pasta recipe and just adjusted it to fit whatever I had.  The rest of the afternoon was spent planning our menu for our trip to Utah.  I was having some difficulty in doing this mainly because I had the new Cooking channel on.  Everytimg I would decide on something a show would come on and make me change my mind.

I am trying to keep our menu simple.  I often have these well meaning plans that just take too long to make.  I need some flexibility and to be able to throw something together rather quickly.  My plan to accomplish this is to keep the number of ingredients down and buy somethings pre-made, such as rubs and bbq sauces.  I still have some more planning to do.  Hopefully, I will get it nailed down by tonight.

Also, Switzerland beat Spain in World Cup

Yesterday was Tuesday. And what do we do on Tuesdays? Yes that’s right! Pick up our veggie CSA from Roots Farm.  When we arrived the veggies were on display in their usual tantalizing manner and we quickly scan the list of what was included in this week’s half-share.  First on the list, berries!  Oh they looked so good.  My mind started racing with all of the things I could do with those berries.  I suggest to Darren that we put the berries in the bag last so that they would not get squashed by the squash and we proceed to load up our bag with potatoes, all sorts of squash and cukes, beets, etc.  We get back in the car and head back home.  As we turn into our neighborhood Darren says, “Did we forget the berries?” Ughhhhhh!

For lunch, I took the leftover squash stuffing from yesterday and tried to create something that resembled the Cuban Sandwich from Cali-n-Tito’s  It was not exactly that same (for starters Kroger did not have and Cuban bread, so I had to use Italian), but it was good.  I took the bread and grated some Chihuahua cheese on it, piled on the stuffing and then a couple of fried eggs.  I could eat one of those right now.

In the afternoon, Darren started on some lingering household projects.  The bus has not been started in sometime and we have been without our Home Theater PC, since we got our living room shelves from Ikea.  While, talking to him out by the bus, I shot a photo of our cherries on our little cherry tree.  It is such a young tree.  I am surprised to see fruit on it.

I knew, for dinner, I wanted to use those long stringless beans we picked up at the Farmers’ Market on Saturday.  We had some unused tofu in the fridge and with a quick googling I found this recipe.  It was very simple to make and very tasty.  It is one of those recipes that I want to commit to memory, so when I am at the market and see really great beans, I can pick up everything I need.

Here is where I think my blogging failed last time, I am started to get back into a routine.  I don’t think anyone wants to hear how I swept and mopped the floors.  I did do some light cooking with some of the things we purchased at the Athens Farmers’ Market on Saturday.  For lunch I wanted to use the last of the country french bread from Miche.  By this time it had started to go a little stale, so I thought I would use it in a Panzanella.  Alton Brown’s LBT Panzanella calls for frying up some bacon and then tossing the bread around in the rendered fat. I thought, uhm, OK.  So I got out the bacon that we picked up from BPH.  This is the first time we have bought bacon from them and it is very good.  During lunch we watched the Italy v. Paraguay World Cup Match (1-1)

For dinner, I defrosted some ground pork from our MoonShine Meat CSA.  I brown the pork and sauteed some veggies and deglazed the pan with a little vermouth. I then sweated some New Zealand Spinach that we got from Athens Locally Grown and tossed in some toasted pine nuts.  What I ended up with was a delicious stuffing for the enormous Patty Pan squash that we picked up at the market. Quite Tasty.  After dinner, Darren worked on the home theater computer and I did some more trip planning.

I purchased this book for our upcoming trip to Utah.  I am hoping that it will make all the driving that we have to do a little more interesting. I also purchased this campy US Sticker Map.  I can’t wait to begin filling in all the states that we will be visiting.

As I drink my morning coffee, we still have 6 1/2 hours of the 24 Heures du Mans left to watch.  We need to get  this race watched because this afternoon there is a F1 race airing from Montreal.  Yesterday, we had to get up and go.  We wanted to go to the Athens Farmers’ Market and not get too far behind on the Le Mans race, which had an 8:30am start.

I wanted to make some French food in honor of the race.  When I saw that The Veggie Patch had heirloom tomatoes, I decided to make a tomato tart .  I was inspired by a recent David Lebovitz post about a French picnic.  There is a new bread vendor at the market.  Miche always has a table full of gorgeous bread.  So, I thought I would make Croque Madame.  This would also showcase the wonderful farm fresh eggs from Greendale farms

UPDATE: Descriptions of our market bounty

Don’t have too much time for writing this morning because I need to get packing.  We return to my parents’ house today, so I’ve got to break camp.  We had a really good time here at Little Talbot Island State Park.  Yesterday we went to Amelia Island Beach, which is about 10 minutes away.  It was the dogs first time seeing the ocean and it was a blast watching their reactions.  Rikka liked to splash in the shallow water, but Rainah got sea water in her eyes early on and was leery of the ocean from that point on.  We brought our lunch of Roast Beef and Blue Cheese wraps and had a beach picnic.

Upon returning to our site, we cleaned up and had a nice afternoon hanging out and discussing plans for the future while the dogs rested.  For dinner we grilled chicken and corn on the cob.  It was a wonderful week and we cannot wait to come back.  We have already made reservations for next year’s Amelia Island Concours d’Elegence.

Today is my 13th Wedding Anniversary and it brings a new view.  We had to move spots as I was unable to book the spot we had been in for the entire length of our stay. We were in Site 38 and I must say that I think it might be the best spot in this campground.  It affords a lot of privacy and has a great view.  It was a bit of a fluke that I could reserve it at all.  When I was originally planning this trip it was not available, so I booked the site we are now in.  When I checked back with Reserve America to find a location that would cover our missing days, it returned that Site 38 was available, so I snatched it up.  I am glad I did, but it did mean that we would have to move spots half way through our stay.

Yesterday, I made my new favorite breakfast, Migas.  It is scrambled eggs, with vegetables, and corn tortillas mixed in and topped with salsa.  I had the dish once at Mama’s Boy Restaurant and was instantly hooked.  This is my first attempt at making it over an open flame and it turned out great.  It has been added to our camping food rotation.

Later in the day we took the dogs on a walk and they seemed to love the tall plants around the water’s edge. Our walk was cut short by rain which as we returned to our campsite escalated to a blustery storm.  Darren and I found ourselves outside watching the storm approach us across the marsh and hanging onto our canopy so that it would not pull up out of the ground.  After the storm passed and as the sun was setting we ramped up the campfire, which had been slow burning all day. For dinner we made Smoky Pork Burgers with Fennel and Red Cabbage Slaw. I am a big fan of Last Night’s Dinner and this recipe certainly did not disappoint.

This morning was pleasant as I took the dogs for their morning “outing”.  Today was the day we had to move spots and we also needed to preform the maintenance duties that come with staying in an RV.  If you don’t know what I referring to, let me just say that the RV is not currently hooked to a sewer system.  We decided to get our chores out the way early so that we could get about to celebrating our anniversary.  Darren had a nice surprise for me today, a new pair of sunglasses, a new pair of Prada sunglasses.  Nice, huh?

The fire is getting going once again for those Chorizo-stuffed peppers I told you about earlier.  So I will stop for now.

See all the photos from this trip.

Not to much to report on yesterday.  I was pretty excited when the UPS man brought my “I’m Tired off Animal Cruelty” bracelet.  This is my second bracelet, my first wore out and snapped.  Five dollars of the purchase price goes to Best Friends, a great animal rescue organization. I later learned that it should not get soapy, so I being ore careful with this one.  I have also just found out that they are making “I’m Tired of Puppy Mills” bracelet, with the money from those going to Last Chance for Animals.  Definitely getting that one next pay period.

I am still waging the war to get to my fresh locally grown produce before the bacteria do. I had one enormous sweet potato left and found a recipe for a stew on Epicurious.  The recipe was Black Bean and Sweet Potato Stew with Chilies and Polenta Triangles from Bon Apetit magazine.  I had never tasted and Sweet Potato stew and the chilies part of the title made me a little nervous, but I followed the recipe (mostly) and it came out great.  The only liquid in the recipe was orange juice and I thought it would be too sweet or syrupy, but it wasn’t.  Maybe thinned by the liquid from the veggies?

Getting really limited on choices from my fridge, a fact of which I am extremely proud.  I thought I might use some of my Rancho Gordo beans for tonight’s dinner.  I am so pleased that I heard about Ranch Gordo, they sell and promote the use of heirloom beans.  They carry so many wonderful kinds of beans that are new to me. I have a blast seeing what I can find out about how to prepare them. Last night I started soaking my Yellow Indian Woman beans with no idea of what I was going to do with them.  Guess that we have to wait from tomorrow’s post.