Greens and Fried Okra

In the last two days I have cooked both of these VERY southern dishes. This week our CSA included swiss chard, kale, and Okra.

Verdict, this northern girl will never like greens. I don't care if you cook 'em with bacon, nuts, dried fruit, garlic or olive oil. I believe you have to be raised on them to enjoy them.

Fried okra I would eat again, I think the key is that it's fried. If/when I get a garden of my own and if we still live down here in the south I'd grow it.

Killer

We haven't seen any posts lately about the namesake of this blog. I figured I'd share a little story about Ms. Lucy which I believe should be entitled Killer.
A few months after we got Bentley, Jake and I went out. A while after we got back home we realized that Lucy wasn't wearing her collar. We searched around the yard trying to find the collar only to find it in bits and pieces around the yard. Unsure of exactly what happened we went out and bought a new collar and put it on Lucy and she was good as new..... A few days later, we went out, came home.... no collar, as we watched the dogs play over the next few days we started to piece things together... Bentley who is almost exactly half the size of Lucy, in both weight and size, was using Lucy's collar as leverage when they would rough house. So we went to the store and bought yet another collar for Ms. Lucy, but this time we bought a pretty expensive heavy duty sucker that we thought for sure would last...... WRONG Ya'll this collar didn't even last 48 hours before Bentley had chewed it off.Back to Petsmart we went, and by this point we were at our wits end. We looked at every collar we could think of. Metal chain? Nope, all we could find were choke collars, and at the rate we were going we'd end up with a choked out Lucy in no time. Leather? Maybe, but Bent had made nothing of the heavy duty one before.
Finally, like a sparkly pink message from heaven, we saw this pink collar with spikes and pink rhinestone studs on it. Jake and I looked at each other....burst out laughing and said, I think we have a winner.We brought this hideous thing home put it on Lucy where it stayed securely in place for months!

Lucy grew just a big more over the year, so we have had to upgrade to a slightly less hideous red spiked collar, but none the less, when people see this 60lb dog coming at them with a red spiked collar they instantly think oh god, here comes killer.


And just for fun, a picture of the doggies, because who doesn't like pictures of cute dogs.

Travel advice requested

Hey friends,

I need some opinions for our upcoming trip. We are going to Costa Rica on July 1st. I'm debating purchasing another Eagle Creek undercover pouch for keeping passports and money. Like this one. I sometimes question the necessity of something like this. Are we really in that much danger when we go abroad that we need to keep our passport and money hidden under our clothes? We already have one, is that enough, or are we putting ourselves at even bigger risk by keeping both passports, and money in one?

What are your thoughts?

Look I'm a food writer!

Ok so maybe not a food writer, but I did help with a blog this week. Eat this Fort Worth does a regular feature in which she lists a few things to do over the weekend in our funkytown. This week I helped put together the list. Hopefully I did such a good job she'll let me do it again some time.

Mr. Good and I will most likely be partaking in the picnic from Los Vaqueros next weekend when we hit up the Concert in the Garden series. They will be featuring music from Star Wars!

New Camera Love

We got a new camera.

Oh I've been waiting for this day. We bought a new camera this week.
We had been going back and forth between a point and shoot, and a big upgrade to a DSLR. Neither of us take a ton of pictures, but we both have an interest so we considered a DSLR. We decided to opt for a nicer, but yet still portable point and shoot, and see how we did with it. We looked at lot of reviews and pictures that had been taking by each camera. We went and looked at tested, and felt them in our hands, and got an idea of the size.

We finally decided on a Cannon Powershot S90.

I am really looking forward to getting out and playing around with this sucker this weekend. I've already learned a few new things. Hopefully I'll have some good photo's next week.

Parents Visit- Renaissance Faire

Way back at the end of May when my parents came to visit, we went to the renaissance faire in Waxahachie. It's the second year we've attended with my parents. They seem to enjoy the people watching, and some of the silly shows.

I would say if you're in the area it's worth checking out. It's fun to see people dressed up in costume, and of course eat a turkey leg.
I would recommend going earlier in the season. They day we went it was hot.
Here are a few pictures.
Mom and dad trying to stay cool in the shade. Did I mention it was hot that day.
One of the more interesting characters we saw that day. There was this huge group of men, most of whom I think were sober and straight, who where decked out in woman's costumes.

And finally the old man and me. I think next year we will consider dressing up for the occasion. When in Rome right, or England circa 1860??

Delectable Delights- Shrimp and Avocado Tacos

I found an ad for this recipe in the back of Cooking Light Magazine. You actually had to go to the cooking light website to get it.

Ours didn't look at pretty as the website or the magazine photos, so I didn't bother, but man was it tasty. Here is the picture from the website

Recipe


Yield: 6 servings (serving size: 2 tacos) 261 calories per severing*

What you'll need

• 3 limes
• 1 cup chopped seeded tomato
• 1 cup diced peeled avocado (about 1 small avocado or 1/2 of a large one)
  
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro
• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
• 3 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 pound cooked peeled medium shrimp
• 12 (6-inch) corn tortillas

Preparation

Finely grate rind from limes to measure 1 tablespoon; juice limes to measure 1/4 cup. Place rind and juice in a large bowl. Add tomato and remaining ingredients except tortillas; toss well to combine. Cover and chill for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Heat tortillas according to package directions. Spoon about 1/2 cup shrimp mixture down center of each tortilla; fold in half. Serve immediately.

* I ate two servings

We bought uncooked shrimp as they were less expensive, and just cooked them up and chilled them before mixing with the other ingredients.

The recipe calls for corn tortilla's which I know can be a little hard to find, and then when you do find them, just seem to fall apart, but I would recommend it, I think the flavor they add to the ceviche mixture is worth it. However if you decide to use flour tortilla's I'd love to know how it tastes.

We served it with some Spanish rice we bought at Central Market. Finally for those of you cilantro haters (I'm looking at you Mary) you really couldn't taste it with the other flavors mixed it.

Enjoy

Whoa and then a whole week went by

I'm sure everyone says this, but where is this summer going already?? I actually kind of hate those types of phrases, but today I feel it's appropriate.

Let's see last I had promised a few snippets from when my parents came to visit.

One of days my parents were visiting, my dad went off to the Colonial Golf Tourny, and Jake had to work, so my mom and I went off to see what kind of trouble we could get in in the shops. My mom is the definition of petite, so her main criteria for shopping is the place has to have at least two stores that sell petite items. We decided to go to the shops at University Park because they have a nice selection.

Some highlights from the trip.. I'm not sure if my mom thinks young, or if I'm an old sole but there were several times when I'd go ask my mom for an opinion on something in the dressing room, and I'd walk in and we had the exact same top on. Now I'm pretty comfortable with myself, and I'm not exactly a spring chicken anymore, but I'm still not sure I'm comfortable dressing like my mom.

Second, I bought this skirt at the Gap . I'm in love, and the best part is, I did not pay that price!! I've probably worn this skirt three times since I picked it up. It been just perfect. It's a little more fun and flirty than shorts, I just hate shorts, but it's still super casual and comfortable. And, AND it has pockets! I'm actually wearing it again today. I'd post pictures but I'm not my beautiful self yet, so maybe later.

Up and Coming Band with a small personal connection

I'm not normally what you would call in the know about new and upcoming bands, but I caught wind a while back that a couple of guys I went to high school with are starting to "make it big". They played on David Letterman a few months back.

Paul Sprangers, and Scott Wells have started a band called Free Energy that I've been listening to a lot. You can listen to a good portion of their music on their website which I think is totally cool.

For anyone who lives in the Twin City Area they will be playing at Grand Ole Day this weekend, you should check them out.

Now for my small personal connection... I was in choir with Scott Wells, although I don't think he liked me much AND I was in the school musical with Paul Sprangers, and I let him drive my car in the high school parking lot before he had his drivers license. I was so bad ass.

Hatties Dallas

Friday night while my parents were visiting, we went to the musical Wicked in Dallas. Jake and I had seen Wicked when we were visiting NYC about a year and a half ago. We had really enjoyed it and thought my parents would too. I hear Wicked is coming to the MSP area this summer. If you have a chance or desire and live in MN you should totally check it out. If you live the DFW area, I think it's here through the end of the month.
We don't make it over to Dallas very often, so we wanted to take advantage of the opportunity and find a cool restaurant to eat at. Not being very familiar with the area we asked our friend to help us out.

We ended choosing a place suggested by my classmate called Hatties. The place took reservations which was huge for us as we had someplace to be and needed to ensure we could keep on schedule. We were one of the first groups to arrive at 5:45, but the place quickly filled up and was pretty much full by the time we left.
The atmosphere at Hatties will ensure I get back there again sometime. The website really does a nice job of displaying the restaurant. Clean, open, airy. The wait staff was knowledgeable and friendly and took the time to bring my parents and I black napkins as we were wearing dark colors. They were quick to refill our glasses, but busy enough not to hover.

The food: The meal overall was quite nice. A couple of highlights included the seafood stacker app, the shrimp and grits, and the key lime tart.
The shrimp and grits was my main entree and was fantastic. At first glance I thought it was a little light on the shrimp, but mine eyes were bigger than mine stomach, it was more than enough.

One final pleasant surprise was the meal prices, the meals were very much within the $18-$25 range. We were able to order apps, drinks, and dessert in addition to our meals without breaking the bank.

Thanks to my hubs for snagging this picture