More Christmas pictures.

I forgot this awesome picture of the magic pirate cake before it was wrapped in cheese cloth and covered in rum. You can see some rum glaze that was added to it before it was even removed from the pan and then the rest was drizzled over the top. It smelled as amazing as it looks. Yum can't wait to eat it around February maybe. We opened it up and added more rum on Christmas day and it looks like it is doing great and being preserved perfectly.

Magic Cake!

 Chris made the most delicious stuffed potatoes to go with the ham they were so yummy.

Chris's twiced baked potatoes before they were covered in cheese.

 We were having such a good time just visiting with Mom that we almost forgot the ham this year. Even though it was a little extra done it was still sooooo.... tastety.

Christmas Ham

 Pulled out the Christmas crystal for wine spritzers and then decided I would try to get a picture of the wreaths that are scrolled on them cause it's so pretty. At Christmas most people pull out nicer crystal and the fancy china it's good to have the best of the best once in a while but it's also good to just relax and enjoy each others company.

Close up of scroll on crystal

Christmas crystal

Yep it was just us and Mom, a quite intimate dinner. So we used paper plates and pots right on the table, with our expensive Christmas crystal and the yummy beautiful  foods. We're not too fancy. We had a combination of the best of the best and relaxed and laid back. Oh and notice Chris's beer bottle...no glass. Ha ha ha!

A simple table starts with paper plates!

I know presents are not what the holiday is all about and we really don't put much emphasis on who got who what. In our house if you want to buy some one something you can but really we only buy presents for children under 18, cause it's the most fun to watch them rip into them Christmas morning.  The best present of all is just knowing everyone I love is safe and having a good time and yet we still always seem to have something under the tree for ourselves and Mom.

The tree packed with presrents.

I hope everyone has a safe and happy New Year. Can't wait to post about it. See you next year.

Cheers!

New Year's traditions

Every year we eat black eyed peas and rice on New Years Day. My Grandfather told me when I was little it was because the peas were for prosperity, the rice was for the riches and greens because that's the color of money. Plus it taste good and is healthy also. If you've been partying the night before it's the best thing ever. New Years Eve you just throw some black eye peas, onions, green peppers, and spices into a crock pot set it on low and the next day while trying to recover from all the champagne all you have to do is cook some rice.

I recently found out eating pork is also very lucky. Because a pig roots forward in the ground. Which represents forward movement into the new year. And we always have to have ham or hog jowl in the beans and now I know why.

Also I know eating chicken on New Years Day is very unlucky because it scratches backward and that is bad luck. Also anything with wings is considered bad luck because it represents your luck flying away.

Fish is considered good luck in some places because they can only swim forward and they look like silver. Which represents wealth. I bet fish would go good with some black eyed peas, rice, greens and corn bread. I don't know what the corn bread represents. Probably fullness.

A wonderful weekend.

Got the tree decorated last weekend.

Shop shop shop. Wrap wrap wrap. Super Saturday was spent getting Christmas together. Now there are some presents under the tree.
 I even got that package to Erica mailed. Yay me. She should get it right before Christmas.  We will have to make the next package for New Years. Even though she's not all the way in Korea anymore it feels as if she is. We miss her so much.And every time I see something that reminds me of her in the store I can't help but want to buy it. She wont be able to come home for Christmas again this year but at least she will be able to drive up to my sisters and be with some family. That's the life of a soldier I guess.

The Magic Pirate Cake just before it was loaded into the oven.

I finally got that cake baked. It has to be aged and then with one bite I'll be on my way to that pirate treasure. If it taste anywhere near as good as it smelled it will be a treasure. I'm not sure how long to age it. Some other cake recipes have the cake being aged up to 5 years. I thought a month would be a long time. I don't know if it will last a month. Next time I'm definitely making two.

The fruited rum. Yum.

And of course we had to taste the rum that was drained off the fruit. Most of it will be saved for a glaze but yum was it good. I think this is why pirates were always drunk and drinking rum.

Check out the recipe page!  I plan on posting a composite of the recipe and what I did. If anyone would like to try a rum cake made by me.... just let me know. I may go into business if this cake turns out as good as I think it will.

Fountain of youth.

A woman with a thick British accent asked "Sorry sir I must ask What has happened to you? Where did you come from?"

I found myself washed up on a beach in Florida. Or at least I think it was Florida. I was sailing just off the coast. I was beaten and bruised. My mined reeling. I had seen my whole crew and my ship ripped apart by wind. It was as if hands had come from the storm and literally tore everything. I stayed with the ship until the last timber went in the water. Then I dove away. I leaped into the air and it was if that great hand caught me and I flew forever before I hit the ocean and blacked out.

My head ached, it was as if I couldn't put thought together. I was sure I had a concussion and knew I needed to find people fast. I wondered up and down the beach for a while before interring the jungle. I had traversed jungle before and knew it would be hard going with out a blade but I continued on avoiding all peril. Eventually I came upon a small cave opening. There were jewels, coins and bits of old food, stale bread, scattered about the entrance. It was a  sure sign that people were about. I was starved so I ate the stale bread. It must have been some sort of grave offering I thought. It was getting dark and it seemed as good refuge as any so I entered the cave. It was unimpressive, limestone grey walls. I had to bend down for about a good six feet before I could finally stand upright. When I did there was a strong breeze. It didn't just blow at me but all around me as if beckoning me to come farther into the cave.

When my eyes adjusted I could see the back of the cave had a squared off area. Some one must have tried to carved a room I thought. I stood in that area for a bit. And then it was as if I knew what to do. I don't remember what I did for sure. Something with the rock. Pushed it, turned it. It was smooth. And then the water came... trickling at first... from a shelf area above. It didn't run down the wall like I expected but away from it. The water itself wasn't normal, there was light in it, sparkles were mixed in but it didn't feel like sand. It felt wonderful and the sight of it. It wasn't as the glow of the sun as it set but more like the moon when it dances upon the water. There was no light to be reflected but there it was. The cool soft water eased my cuts and bruises. I stood there in it as if I were soaking it right into my skin. I drank gallons of it. I felt the water as it passed down my throat and into my body. I felt it as my body absorbed it and I felt it in my mind. As things that had troubled me were suddenly washed away. Dirt was washed from me. My cuts were washed off and the bruises. I felt clean, a clean I had never felt before. I stood there with this strange water feeling its comfort until......until.............  I was here in this bed with no idea how I got here or where I was.

Mybe it's in a cave like this.

Or maybe the cave is now under water like this.

Thanks giving holiday.

Before the food hit the table.

Hope everyone had a great Thanks Giving. Around here we had a great time. Lots of food. Mom brought a yummy pineapple upside down cake and Aunt Patty brought a eggplant Parmesan that was also yummy. We enjoyed receiving a phone call from family up in Kansas where Erica spent the holiday and just relaxing around the homestead talking about old times.

Yummy pineapple upside down cake that Mom made.

The food on the table. Plate in front is Aunt Patty's yummy eggplant Parmesan.

Hope everyone enjoyed their feast as much as we did.

Been pretty busy lately

picture of hawk I took in the back yard.

I've decided to go with windows live photo galleries for editing. I think it was already in the computer. It's not as fabbo as the two I used to use for editing but... It's a lot easier to use than those sites you have to wait to up load your photo's and then your not sure who is looking at them. You have to worry about all the settings and this is just as good and I'm liking it.

We got excited and picked the watermelon a little too soon. It was sweet still but.... only the very center was truly ripe. So.....

Watermelon water!

We decided to make watermelon water. Which was really good and refreshing. We just added the fresh water melon to some water with a bunch of crushed ice and yum.... What a great pick me up.

Baby watermelon!

We've got one more chance at a watermelon though. We think it will be ready right around Thanks giving. Yum!

Diaper Cake

Grandpa helping make the diaper cake.

We all pitched in a built Erica a diaper cake for her baby shower. It was actually pretty simple. We rolled up two packages of size 2 diapers. Then secured with rubberbands. I used some cloth diapers in the cake too. We decorated with various baby things like pacifiers and ribbons and added some sample shampoo and baby oils.

washcloth flower

Veronica wiped up these cute roses made from little baby wash cloths. And they made the cake look even more awesome!

Diaper cake as centerpiece.

It turned out to be a great centerpiece. Best of all it will be disassembled and used later.

baby shower food!

 All the food on the table came out great too. Thanks to everyone who helped.

Girls having fun at the shower.

I hope everyone had a great time and Erica wanted me to let everyone know she is going to be late sending out those thank you notes as she is on the road traveling to her next duty station. When she gets there and gets settled she will be sending those out. However they may be on face book as she is doing a lot of her communicating that way.

Florida cuisine.

So people have been asking me my version of what is Florida cuisine. The answer is simple, anything you want it to be. There is such a great variety of cultures, and people here in Florida that any style of cooking is acceptable and there is such an abundance and availability to get just about any type of food fresh, that you might say any food can be considered a Florida special as long as it can be made quick and easy.

The peninsula here is surrounded by both ocean and gulf water providing a variety of sea food, fish, shell fish, crustaceans such as shrimp, lobster and crab, and everyone has heard about conch mostly in the keys, but you could also easily find craw fish or other creatures from the gulf. You could by exotic things that aren't served any where else such as gator tail. Also we have some of the best known fresh water fishing in the states even though people don't usually come to Florida for a great large mouth bass dinner. It would be easily provided. A variety of vegetables will grow here in the fertile farmlands of central Florida, you just need to go to a farmers market to find that out, not to mention all the different kind of fruit. We are best known for the key lime, but all sorts of tropical fruit as well as some more northern fruits can be grown.

Cracker cow as it makes it's way through the dense brush with ease

Another cracker cow notice the horns are turned backward.

We are also known for our beef. The early settlers here in Florida had a special cow that could make its way through the saw palms and lush vegetation and swampish land that is found here.  The cow boys sometimes could not get to the cows because of the dense forest and trained them to listen to the crack of a whip. Therefor the cowboys became known as cracker and the cows as cracker cows. My grandfather told me that when he was young he used to have to drive the cattle across the St. Johns river, but that was before it was dredged out for shipping. I'm not sure there is a store or a place to buy cracker cow meat but there should be I'm sure the unique Florida cattle range would add to the taste of it and I for one would like to see the difference.

Deer at the beach in the keys you can get a good size comparison with the picnic table in the back ground.                          

 But this tougher terrain doesn't just affect the cattle it also has an affect on the animals found in the wild  such as the deer. Our deer here in Florida is significantly smaller than deer in other parts of the states. And although I haven't tried it, the taste is reported to be sweeter. And lends itself well to sausage.

Florida wild turkey

 Also our wild turkeys are also smaller. But every year right before Thanks Giving there are tons of people up in Ocala national forest and surrounding areas hunting for turkey so it must taste better.

Feral pig in the woods.

 Also I here the wild hog population is smaller too but with longer legs. We have what are known as feral hogs. They were actually brought here by Ponce de Leon and may be the birth place of all hog populations in north America since hogs are not native to Florida or the United States. Someday I would like to taste one of these too.

True Florida grapes. Mmm...

I did mention the caribbean and rum and it is well known that Florida was the main port for rum runners and there are plenty of rum dishes in families here in Florida, but what you may not know is that Florida is the origin of wine making in the US.
We have more wild grape vines growing, everywhere you look, to prove it than anywhere in California. The muscadine was widely grown and used for wine. French Protestants fleeing religious persecution began growing and making Muscadine wine near present day Jacksonville. The wines of Florida are generally sweeter which is probably why most of my family prefers sweet wine to dry. I've heard the university is working on creating a drier grape for the wine snobs of the rest of the world. A treat for anyone is to visit any of the laid back wineries found scattered about Florida. Most are small mom and pop operations and with out all the snobbery of other wine areas, so you can approach them with that same Florida laid back fun as anything else.

These guys are saining it's a practice that is illegal now. As are many fishing practaces of the past.

When my mom was young she remembers bananas stalks hanging from the back porch and sucking sugar from fresh stalks of  sugar cane, going to the beach and having a clam bake right on the sand with clams they would dig right on the beach. Course they would eat more than just clams. What ever they could find or catch, scallops, shrimps, crab, lobster and all manor of fried fish. They would simply take a net walk out into the ocean and come back what ever was good that was in the net made a great dinner and the rest went free.

Not my family house but you can see a good example of the dog trot right through the center of the house.

 Simple, fresh and easy are the recipes used most in Florida. Because why would anyone want to be stuck in the hot kitchen cooking when you could be out on the beach. Even the houses that were built way back when attested to this fact. Usually the kitchen was in a separate building so the main house wouldn't heat up. Sometimes the buildings were connected by a porch called a dog trot. That's where the dogs would usually stay at night and it provided them with shade as well. We lived in a house, for a short time, like that and it was nice not having the smells of food in the main living area all the time also it cut down on bugs because the food, that they like to eat, was kept in an the other building along with the trash.

Notice the different cowboy hat that is worn in Florida. It's is a little floppier.This is a dipiction of a Florida cracker cowboy notice the whip in his right hand. They were also good to kill snakes with out having to get off the horse. Notice also how Florida pioneers/cowboys were so much cooler than the ones out west that they had to were sunglasses.

I  think food is a great way to explore the heritage that is so rich and nearly forgotten that is uniquely Florida. I hope you will enjoy this new section on recipes. Most will be my own creations but you will see how easy takes center stage in all the cooking here in Florida.

Check out I've added a new tab at the top for recipes. It takes you to were all these great foods will be featured. Just click and check it out.

I'm going to make a magic cake!

As I was going through some stuff at my moms, I came across a box of old books and took them home. I finally got a chance to go through and check them out. As it turns out one of the books was a journal written by my great great grandmother. It was very old and the pages were falling apart. Most of it was written in Spanish and was difficult to read. I used google translate to help me with some of the words.

It was the most interesting thing I have found out about my family yet. Apparently when my great great grandmother was little she was captured by pirates and spent a little more than a year working as slave labor in the galley of a commandeered Spanish gallon before the pirates dumped her off at a convent. She mainly worked with an older lady who was a real life voodoo priestess. The priestess could have escaped at any time, her magic was so powerful but she was in love with the pirate captain. There was a lot of stuff about day to day life and a lot of the recipes that the old voodoo lady taught her. All different recipes, ones for growing hair, make you fall in love,cause a storm to brew, a lot of magical stuff, some of which looked like they'd be pretty good to eat.

  

One, I'm planning on making. It's a cake. My great great grandmother said that one bite of the cake was so good it would transport you to where the pirates treasure lay. So I copied the cake recipe down and into English and said the incantation that was with it and just as I finished saying the words the book burst into flames. Course Chris says I held the book too close to the candle he was burning and the fact that it was so old and dried up caused it to burn up like that. But it was quite a coincidence and it might have been voodoo that caused it to burn up. Either way I have the exact recipe for the one cake and the rest is all in my head.

The cake takes up to three months to make so... I will add the recipe after I make and taste it.

Changes!

 

I suppose this time of year is all about changes. The weather is changing. I've got a new computer and that is a big change. Erica is coming home and that's huge, but she wont be here long before she is off to her next destination and that's a big change for her. I'm going to be a grandma and that's the biggest change of all! Change, change, change!

Here is a big change!

My crazy water melon is still growing like crazy changing the look of my flower/herb garden. We've got a huge vine taking over the entire front garden and part of the walk and one little soccer ball sized melon. I don't think it knows it is supposed to grow in the spring so it can be eaten in the summer. I'm looking forward to having water melon with my Thanksgiving dinner. Or maybe Christmas. I'm not sure how much longer it needs to grow.

One thing that changes every night is the great Florida sunsets.

We've been enjoying sitting on the back porch watching the sun set but lately with all the rain we have blind mosquitoes every where. They are also called aquatic midges or chizzy winks but around here they are known as a pain in the butt. There are usually swarms of them. If you go out after dark, when they are most active and you encounter a swarm, you have to cover your mouth and nose so you can breath. That's how many there are at once. They seem to like the color white and will land all over white colored houses in such numbers the house will appear greyed out from them. They don't live long and the next day you will have piles of dead blind mosquitoes to sweep up. On the good side they also get all over the spider webs and if you have spider webs on your house you will be able to see them better to clean them up.

Hawk

One thing I have to change is the fact that I can't really edit my photo's with my computer. On the old one I had two different editing programs and didn't even realize it. On this one I don't even have the capacity to crop the photos. My daughter suggested I use one of those on-line photo sites. So I plan to do some experimenting and I'll let you know.

New Computer!

Until next time I hope you will enjoy this cool picture of a jelly fish that came with my computer.

We finally got a new computer. It's a laptop and boy am I having to get used to it. Soon as I figure out how to add pictures.
I will put up a picture of the awesome water melon that is growing in our front garden. The vine is huge it has taken the whole space and is growing on the walk. And it has flowers like crazy with one little watermelon cant wait to eat it. Check back soon for a more lengthy post.

My commuter is dead I will return as soon as I get a new one

Kitchen Garden Day.

 So I had planned to clean up what was left of the garden and get it ready for fall which is all winter long hear in Florida, but I got a little side tracked. I did pick the last of the vegetables that were growing. Two really pathetic looking egg plants.



Home grown eggplants.

I had stopped at a road side stand and purchased an eggplant earlier in the week. Mine didn't quite measure up. They must have been using some sort of chemicals to make their egg plants look so good. Or maybe they were using GMO seeds. Ha! Just look at my prized egg plants compared to the real thing. OK mine barely resemble an egg plant but they tasted just as good. Well, not the little one it was a little rotten. One of them was smaller than the other! I know they are both little. Any way fall garden plans are shaping up. Squash, maybe some carrots. I'm definitely going to try some more broccoli and the thing that grows best in my sand is....tomatoes so I'll plant some of those too. 



My eggplants just don't measure up.

I made a great spaghetti and eggplant with these click the recipe tab above to view the recipe.

Reese's view.

 Yes! I'm out side. Look at all mom's  oregano! They still haven't straightened up that bird bath. People.

 I smell something. What is it?

Oh.... It's a....

Rainbow!

And the day before the hurricane is suppose to hit too. Hope that's a good sign.

I hope these peanuts that mom planted survive. I love boiled peanuts. Especially the spicy ones.

I think I'll pee on those chives next time I come out. Ohp time to go in.