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.

Slipped up already.  I skipped yesterday’s post, but yesterday was a really weird day and I would rather just move on. Besides I told myself I would not let this blog make me feel guilty, I do that enough as it is.  So backing it up to Thursday…..

For lunch I wanted to use up the leftover squash and pasta dish I had made for Wednesday’s dinner.  I thought that the squash would be sort of soggy sitting around in the fridge.  Darren was going to run some errands so I asked him if he would be willing to pick up some jarred pasta sauce for me.  I reheated the pasta with the sauce, grated a little parmesan over the top and it was a quite nice lunch.  It also did not seem like leftovers this way.

Then in the afternoon we needed to pick up our order at Athens Locally Grown.  Later, I put a pic of all of our goodies on Flickr so that I could tag them with the grower’s name.  We were hungry we when left and dinner was going to be some hours off yet (slow-cooked ribs and cabbage) so I thought we might stop off somewhere and get a snack.

After our goodies were procured , we headed over to Farm 255 for their wonderful Butcher’s Plate.  We had the Butcher’s Plate on one other occasion and it had been far too long for us not to have had it again.  The Plate is a wooden slab covered with all sorts of sausages, pates, and pickled items, all locally grown/raised.  Most of the ingredients are produced by the restaurant’s own farm.  If you are ever in Athens, this is a must place to go.

As we are talking to our bartender about the plate, and CSAs.  She asked if we ever go to Athens Locally Grown.  We tell her that we just came from there and she says ” I just sold there for the first time today.”  She goes on to tells us that she forages for chanterelles.  Amazed, we tell her that we bought some of her mushrooms and they were in our car at that very moment.  Apparently we were only one of three people to buy them.  Very slim odds of us meeting.  Anyway, I am very excited to try them.   I wanted to use them yesterday, but as I already said yesterday didn’t work out.

Yesterday was fast food and football-soccer. The United States’ group played in World Cup and we faced Slovenia.  What an exciting match! We were down 0-2 at the half.  We battled back to 2-2 in the second half.  We kicked in a penalty kick  for 3-2 and the ref called it back!  None of the experts could see anything that would cause the ref to blow the whistle.  We were robbed!  In the end we had a draw, which keeps our hopes alive. I am beginning to really enjoy this football-soccer.

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

We are sitting around deciding how and if we can go to the beach.  It is very odd that I would come to a campground that has a beach and not visit the water.  The park here allows dogs, but not on the beach.  There are dog-friendly beaches but are some distance away.  The solution will probably be to get in the car and go for a drive.

There is a nature trail that starts right near our site and yesterday we took the dogs for a walk.  We got a much better view of the salt marsh (yes, I learned it’s proper name) and the surrounding vegetation.  Along the trail there were placards describing the types of tress that we would see.  We can now identify the Sabal Palm, the Saw Palmetto, and the Live Oaks.  We even learned the the Sabal Palm is also known as the Cabbage Palm because it contains Swamp Cabbage at it’s heart.  The dogs seems to really enjoy the walk and we will have to endeavor to do it more often.

For lunch we made an anitpasti plate, with those Chorizo-stuffed Jalepenos that Darren picked up.  We also tried some new cheese from Whole Foods.  Darren chose an aged cheese, called Cypress Grove Lamb Chopper from Holland, which was a sort of soft mild parmesan.  I chose a Spanish cream cheese Capricho de Cabra, very rich.  The plate also included prosciutto, sopressata, and salami.

For our anniversary dinner, we grilled Spanish Spice Rubbed Rib-eye with Sherry Vinegar Steak Sauce, potatoes, and, Grilled Shrimp with Garlic (gambas Al Ajillo).  After dinner we sat by the fire and drank wine.  A really lovely evening.  A great 13th Anniversary celebration in a great setting.

See all the pictures of this trip.

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.

After Darren got back last night, we grilled oysters.  We had only a marginal success.  Out of our four rather large oysters only two opened. At first we thought we had not cooked them long enough, but when we put them back on the fire they just cooked until they started making popping noises.  I wonder if they have to be put on the fire “right side up” or maybe I did nothing wrong and they were just bad.  I am reluctant to think that is the case as we purchased them from Whole Foods, but we dared not take any chances. The two we did eat, we topped with a Mango Pico de Gallo and then Chili Horseradish.  They were delectable, but since we only got one oyster each they turned out to be more of an amuse bouche.  Will definitely be making them again, but might research grilling oyster a bit further.

For diner we made a paella with about  as much success.  I waited too long to put in the shrimp and clams and that caused the bottom of the rice to burn and the clams not to open fully.   I tried putting the clams back on the fire, but to no avail. The rice on top was good and did not have a burnt flavor. The shrimp were cooked thanks to a bit of sautéing before the rice was added.  The best part of the paella was the chorizo.  While it was a tad bit spicy for me, it had a wonderful flavor.  Darren “impulse-bought” Chorizo-stuffed Jalepenos at Whole Foods yesterday and now I can’t wait to try them.

One thing we cannot seem to get right when camping in state parks is what to do with our garbage.  We can’t ever seem to find bins within walking distance of our site.  Last night we were visited by raccoons.  I tried hanging the garbage from the ladder on the back of the RV, but they just sat on the shelf and ripped the bag open.  They didn’t have much luck with the clams either.  Even before I finished writing the Darren informs me that there are two trash cans a few sites down.  I could have used that information last night.

See all the pictures from this trip.

We also have a birthday in the house.  Everyone wish Chris a Happy Birthday with me.

Happy Birthday Chris!