Mazzaros. How I love you.  Like someone said “I could live here”. Well OK, I won’t go that far but can I have the house across the street please?

I’ll stop dreaming and get to telling ya about what Brett and I got up to last night.  Lots of wine, lots of conversation and lots of food.  Nutella risotto anyone? Oh and the glass making demonstration!

All of this fun and games was to support a local charity. – The Abilities Foundation has helped thousands of Floridians with all types of disabilities obtain jobs and affordable housing, enabling them to contribute to the economic strength of their communities as productive wage-earners and taxpayers.

I like these people! Check them out – help out, contribute. They do good work.

And when they throw a party, they REALLY throw a party!

Part of last nights festivities included a silent auction along with wine tasting.

A picture is worth a thousand (slurred) words…

The left one I won/purchased – silent auction.. the right one I purchased. Everybody is happy! That bottle of wine is really heavy by the way – I’ve never picked up a big bottle of wine like that. Call me a scaredy cat and I would call you right! The proceeds from the silent auction helped Abilities out and I get a wonderful bottle of wine to enjoy…. sometime…Oh and it is signed… I have no idea by who.. That remains a mystery!

The glass art demo was pretty neat too.

Oh, and the food- cheese, meats, egg noodles with white sauce and caviar, nutella risotto and more… the food just kept coming – like this:

Delicious!

Check the links out – Do good. Be good. Get good.

Changes in lives, changes in seasons.. Love to Donna Mom..

Happy fall to everyone! A present arrived in the mail for me yesterday – I was quite excited, and I was even more excited when I opened it. See, being down in the land of warmth and only having two seasons we don’t get the special treats like most in the north do.  I don’t miss many of them… I miss this one. Would I trade my warm(ish) winters for this? Probably not – been there, done that – but it’s really nice to have someone think enough of me to send me this yum yum!

Thank you Susan

I bet I can get you to eat more salmon if I used this, right Bon?

Great and small!

Its not edible!

Busy. Sums up my life right now.. Nothing huge, just a bunch of little projects I am trying to complete so that I can embark on a few new journeys! I am still spending most of my time in the kitchen – I’m not tied there, I love being there now. Many many projects in my kitchen have been made, eaten and reheated and eaten some more!  Brett lent me his little camera lens and I’ve been photographing all my cooking projects – but this shot came out really well and I wanted to share it..

Tonights dinner is chicken and wild rice soup – done totally in the crockpot with simple ingredients and is really very healthy.

This is the prep – I will know in 7 hours if this is a keeper.

I love love love this pic!

If the soup turns out – I will share the recipe.

Happy eating and happy shooting to everyone!

“Older and wiser voices can help you find the right path, if you are only willing to listen.”

Choosing the right path

Such is off season..

I want to go back.

I live in Florida, fish shouldn’t be hard to get right? I love my local grocery store but to be honest it doesn’t have the widest selection of fish known to man. The recipe I had chosen for tonight’s dinner called for cod so cod it was to be. I wasn’t satisfied with the frozen version the fishmonger tried to sell me.. nope, I wanted fresh. That meant ROADTRIP!  We all love that! So, after a bit of searching on the internet I found this place:
http://trinityseafoodmarket.com/Welcome.html
That had LOTS of fresh fish for me and an excellent grouper sandwich as well! That was Monday nights dinner.  Just had to throw in the back story you know.
Tonight for dinner we had experimental food: cod roasted with olives and basil with a side of wild rice and a salad. It turned out pretty good! The recipe is one that I got from a Williams Sonoma cookbook and needed no tweaking at all. The cod fillets I got were a bit on the large side so I had to adjust for that in the cooking time – Brett showed me how to check the fish for doneness – The olives worked really well with the fish. I was pretty happy with the turn out.
The rice was wild rice, I am generally not a fan of anything but white rice, but this worked so well with the fish I might try this with other dishes every once in a while. It is a combination of several different kinds of rice and took a whopping 50 minutes to cook!
The salad – basic, but full of flavour thanks to various organic ingredients. More about the organic side in a different post.
I think this meal is a keeper – at least in the top 25 – Perhaps I will try with a different fish and saffron rice next time. I love my rice!
Here is a picture of the end result!