Wordless Wednesday

Oscar Sherer State Park…

Wordless Wednesday

The sky over our house one day last week!  Nothing short of spectacular…

Wordless Wednesday

Blind Pass Beach on Manasota Key…

Wordless Wednesday

Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary

 Blue Flag Iris or Iris Versicolor

Carolina Wren fledgling

Thistle 

 

P.S.  Loving my new Nikon…

Wordless Wednesday…

 

Wordless Wednesday

 Okeeheelee State Qualifier Race

What I Was Able to Learn Last Weekend…(or what I learnt or learned last weekend) and a recipe!

As most of you know last weekend I participated in a hunger challenge. Trust me when I say that I don't go in for stuff like this lightly. I like food. I like food a whole awful lot. I guess that is one of the reasons I am a food blogger? So when I was approached to do a weekend long fast for NoFood4You, to raise awareness for childhood hunger, I was apprehensive to say the least. But because it was going to be in the company with some incredible people and for a cause that I wholeheartedly, 100% believe in I got on board. I can tell you now that I am honored and feel so privileged to have been able to do this challenge.

Last Friday at lunch time I went to a local school (of 800 children at the school 750 of them are on the free or reduced lunch program) to have lunch. I was in good company. There were several different local news agencies and local business owners and kids. Lots and lots of kids. Anyway we all ate our lunch of fish sticks, potato has browns, carrot sticks, and milk and that was it until Monday morning!!! The idea behind all of this is that there are children who go to school and eat at school on the lunch programs but once they leave school for the weekend they have no access to food until school starts back up Monday morning and they are offered breakfast by the school.

And I did it! I lasted the whole way through. Thanks to a bit of Gatorade, a ton of support from my family and friends, and knowing that the reason behind doing this was to help raise awareness for childhood hunger! Was it easy? No way. Would I ever do this again? I really don’t think so unless ‘you know who you are’ really, really needed me too!!! This is right up there with some of the hardest things I have ever done in my life. I am not even really sure that if I was invited to do this challenge again that I would want to do it again. The ending result has been incredible. We were able to raise awareness and money (I think it was $12K) so in the end it was incredibly awarding.

I learned a lot over the weekend and that’s what this post is about. What I, personally, walked away with from this challenge and I can tell you it certainly wasn’t a full tummy!

1. I have never really, in all of my 40+ years, never been hungry. Oh yah, I have missed a meal here or there or really wanted a snack but have never really been hungry like I was past weekend. This was one of the most amazing things to realize. We all say that we are starving and that we can’t wait to eat but do any of us really know what that means? I now have a greater understanding of this. Was I starving. No way. I guess that takes weeks to happen but I sure was hungrier than I have ever been before.
2. I have more compassion than I give myself credit for. If I didn’t care about childhood hunger there is no way I could have completed this challenge. I always consider myself to be pretty selfish and make sure that I look out for myself and my family first but this showed me that there is a bit more to that.
3. I have an inner strength that I rarely use. I used it this weekend and there were times that it caught me by surprise. I wanted food and at times there seemed like no logical reason for me not to have it. Some of the arguments I had with myself were – no one would know, just a little taste, I’ve gone this far so that is good enough etc. But I resisted each and every time.
4. The final thing that I walk away with from this weekend is the knowledge that NO CHILD SHOULD EVER HAVE TO BE HUNGRY. It makes no difference why the child is hungry. Maybe the food stamps didn’t go as far as they could or should have, maybe the family can’t qualify for food stamps or public assistance, maybe the money just wasn’t there this month, maybe someone in the family is ill, maybe …and it can go on and on but in the end it really doesn’t matter. No child should feel how I felt last weekend. Remember it is not the child's fault and they are lacking the choice. I was hungry but that was the least of it. I was tired, so very, very tired and had no energy. I was cranky and short tempered. I was unable to focus or concentrate on even the simplest of tasks (I had to get my daughter to start figuring for me how long it had been since I had eaten. Simple math was a challenge). A child who is hungry is gong to have disciplinary and academic problems. If someone had told me that Monday morning I was going to get up and have PE that day or have to write a math test I would not have been very happy about it and would not have excelled at all. But I think that biggest thing was that I was my thoughts were all consumed with food. When I was going to get some next, what it was going to be, where I was going to eat it, what food I was missing the most, how happy I was going to be when I had it. I’m telling you not eating food makes you think about food all the time!!!

What can we do to make a difference and change this so that no child ever has to go hungry? Well that was one of the reasons that I did this hunger challenge. CCMI has a solution. They are running a backpack program where children who qualify by being on the free and reduced lunch program are given a backpack with enough food to get them through the weekend. Awesome huh? Sad thing is that out of 100 schools in our district they only have the funding right now to help 3. I bet if you looked there is a similar program in your community. Donate to the program. If your area doesn't have one and you would still like to help a child who is hungry you can donate to CCMI through here.

I will leave you with a recipe for strawberry ice cream! Over the weekend my family got me my belated birthday present…an ice cream maker!!! How lucky are they, oops I meant me, really I did!!! First recipe I made was for chocolate ice cream. I made that Sunday and I couldn’t even taste it until Monday morning!!! But boy was it ever good!!! Youngest daughter though loves strawberry so I made her some yesterday. Delicious.

Strawberry Ice Cream

1 pint ripe strawberries (hulled and sliced)
1/3 cup sugar
2 Tbsp fresh squeezed lemon juice
2/3 cup sugar
1 cup whole milk
2 cups heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla extract

• In a small bowl mix the strawberries with the lemon and the 1/3 cup of sugar. Allow to sit at room temperature and macerate for about 2 hrs.
• In a medium bowl mix whisk the 2/3 cup of sugar with whole milk until the sugar is dissolved (about 1-2 min). Stir in the heavy cream as well as some of the juice from the berries and the vanilla.
• Follow the directions for your ice cream maker.
• Add the strawberries in the remaining 5 minutes and then freeze until ready to use or enjoy!

I am really loving this ice cream maker so look for some more exciting recipes to come…

As Always…

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

NoFood4You Childhood Hunger Awareness Event!

We all eat. We all like to eat or you wouldn’t be here on my food blog. Did you know though that there are children right here in my county (about 10,000 of them to be exact) that go hungry every single weekend? Don’t kid yourself…they are in your counties too!

These are the children in the Lee County school system that are on our county’s Free & Reduced Lunch Program. It’s a great program that provides breakfast and lunch to these children during the week at school, but, what happens to some of these children come the weekend? Unfortunately they are going without food.

CCMI (Community Cooperative Ministries Inc.) is trying to solve this problem. They have implemented a Backpack Program in which a child is given a backpack full of food to feed him or her over the weekend. 700 children take home enough food for the weekend each week!

They want to do more though and this is where you guys come in! CCMI and local businesses and community participants are committing to the NoFood4You weekend on April 24 – 26, 2009. Now this is not just a local event. This can be done anywhere to help build awareness of Childhood Hunger nationwide.

This is what it entails: At lunchtime on Friday, April 24, designated participants will join children at Orange River Elementary and Sunshine Elementary for lunch. The participants including The News-Press reporter Francesca Donlan, ABC-7 anchor Len Jennings, Sarah Owen and others (ME!!!), will eat a typical school lunch that is served in the cafeterias. The participants will then attempt to go without anything else to eat until they gather together again on Monday morning for school breakfast.

You DO NOT have to be here to participate in this event. You can join us virtually,by signing up through Facebook or CCMI website and following us on Twitter. Wouldn’t it be amazing to see how much of an impact we can make if we all do this together?

Some participants are going so far as to donate the money that they would have spent on food over the weekend to CCMI. You too could do this event and donate the money to YOUR LOCAL food bank or soup kitchen!

To participate sign up at either our Facebook Event page or to the CCMI website sign up page. The more people we have involved the more exposure and interest we will be able to get!

This is an organization that is very near and dear to my heart and I hope you will all join me in the NoFood4You weekend. I’m just asking you to try. Put yourself in these children’s shoes for one weekend and experience what they are facing year-round.

Judy

Here is my cop out post on voting...

Go vote.

Brittany at Musings of a Barefoot Foodie says it best!

I am Canadian and therefore am unable to vote. Sorry to all those political callers that called and I said I was so voting for your guy. Nothing personal, I just can't!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

I've got nothing for you...

It's been quite a week. Busy as usual and then some extra family health crisis. I just haven't been feeling to creative this week so have relied a lot on old standbys.

I did make some brownies yesterday but when I was trying to get them out of the pan, I knew there was a reason that Martha wanted me to use parchment but I was too lazy to do it, so they fell on the floor. That happens sometimes.

I did also make some pico de gallo to go with the tacos we had last night. As careful as I am with hot peppers (I always wear a glove. If I get it on my hand my lips will be burning in about 15 minutes. ) I still managed to burn my eye??? I guess I need to leave the glove on until I am done cleaning up the pepper. That happens sometimes.

But here is something a little fun. I am a TV nerd. I watch very little TV. Usually about an hour each evening. On Wednesday nights there is usually nothing on so I have taken to watching Dog the Bounty Hunter...don't fault me. My sister who is even nerdier than I am turned me onto it!

Any way when we were in Orlando a couple of weekends ago for the Foodbuzz dinner we decided to go out after we had eaten. So we were walking along the Disney Boardwalk and who did I see? None other than Bobby Brown of Bobby Brown's Bail Bonds from Denver CO!!! He actually stopped and talked to me for a couple of minutes and let T. take a picture of him and I together. And this is where it got a little fuzzy. I was looking at his text messages on his cell phone. Most of them were from Dog the Bounty Hunter but I have no idea why I was looking at them. I asked what he was doing there and he said that he was working on something. Who knows? Here's the pic. T. is a pretty bad picture taker after about a thousand glasses of wine so this was the best we could do!

I thought it was pretty funny apparently???!!!

Update on T's Dad: He has a drug resistant staph infection and pneumonia. They are unable to do anything other than try and control it at this point. They cannot do surgery because of the infection and it is affecting his kidneys. This is all related to the surgery he had a couple of weeks ago for colorectal cancer. Keep those prayers and well wishes coming. He needs all he can get!!!

As Always...

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Short video of Fay

A really short video. The weather we are getting is really nothing. Seeing this it is hard to imagine a storm with winds above 75 miles an hour!



This is only gust of about 30-40 MPH!

As Always...

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Final Fay Update...

Looks like we dodged the bullet on this one. The storm made landfall about 50 miles south of us on Marco Island. I know that 50 miles doesn't sound like very far but that puts us on the left side of the storm where there is way less weather to contend with.

It will still be a rainy morning with a lot of wind but nothing like it would have been.

Look out Jenn, she's coming your way!!!

To everyone in her path...be safe and my prayers and thoughts are with you!

As Always...

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Go Away Fay!!!

Okay I need for everyone to take a deep breath and blow this one away from us.

All kidding aside. When I went to bed last night I felt pretty secure. During the day day yesterday all of the models had moved the landfall point of Fay up North from us. They were pointing to the Tampa Bay area and I felt a wee bit better (not for you guys up there). This morning I woke up early to get things organized for the first day of school for the girls and to check on this storm.

This is what I saw...

I swear the H is right over top of my house again!!!

It looks like now we would at least have an escape route. The other coast looks like they are in the clear for now so Miami might be a safe bet but seeing as it is a Category 1 we will be staying put. It looks like the worst of the weather will be midday Tues with conditions worsening starting this evening. I will try and keep you updated as we get more information.

Our local internet news station is nbc-2.com. You can follow the progress on this.

The kids need some breakfast to start their first day right so off to the real world I am!

Don't forget...blow real hard and send prayers and wishes for us down here!!!

As Always...

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Here we go again!

See the line crossing into Florida? Just north of our city!

Hold onto your drinks folks were going to be in for a bumpy ride!!!

We are now under a Hurricane Watch for our area. More than likely the girls first day of school is about to be canceled and they won't end up starting until later in the week or depending upon our power situation until the area gets cleared up.

This is one of those really weird storms that you can't really even evacuate from. The forecast cone (the big circles are where the storm is predicted to hit) covers pretty much the whole state. So as of right now we stay put.

Am I prepared? As much as anyone I guess can be. If I learned anything from Hurricane Charley it was that you can never be prepared enough. Batteries? Check. Water? Check. Food? Hahaha (we could survive months on our freezer and pantry alone!) check.

The one really strange thing I am doing to prepare is to make bread. In the aftermath of Charley the State made sure that we had water and ice but you could not for the life of you buy a loaf of bread. My family won't eat store bought bread so I am baking!

As the winds start to pick up tomorrow night we will probably loose power but I should still be able to charge my iPhone on our super handy, dandy tv/radio/severe weather/charger thingy!

Wish us luck, these storms are unpredictable as hard as they try to make the predictions. It may take a nice turn away from us. I'll keep you posted!

As Always...

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

A bit of a reflective mood today...

Youngest daughter blowing out her 6 year candle on the cake she decorated!!!
Happy Birthday Love!

So today is my youngest daughter's 6th birthday and I am just baffled by this. When did all of those years pass and where did they go? Yah, I have a bunch of memories but not my little baby girl! She was one of those little ones that just fit perfect...right up until now. I find that I have to move my head to hold her comfortably where as just a few minutes ago she just snuggled right in.

I always bake the girls a cake for their birthday celebration with us and their big treat is to be able to decorate it however they want to. This year my youngest one wanted a layer cake with strawberries and white icing. I ended up using a box cake (yep...with everything that I have going on it was easiest also she wanted a confetti cake). I did make the icing twice. The first one was the 7 minute frosting. Note to self-do not attempt egg white frosting in Florida in the summer time! Ended up with a powdered sugar icing that worked just fine.

We decided to have her birthday party last night with just us. We have orientation for the girls at school tonight and it would have been to rushed. What does a 6 year old care as long as she has cake and presents!!! For her special dinner she wanted steamed clams. Pretty cool huh? So we had a 100 clams (I swear she ate 50 herself), steak, potatoes, and salad...oh yah and cake too!

Anyway another thing that has made me reflective, and I feel so sick when I really think of this, but I need to put it out there, 4 years ago today we returned to our home after evacuating during Hurricane Charley to find our home destroyed.

We lost our roof which in turn means that you have lost everything inside. I lost photos, keepsakes, furnitures and all sense of security in my home. It was such a sad time for us. We had to move out of our house for 6 months while the whole interior was gutted and rebuilt. I'd like to tell you that it is better and stronger than ever but I will never trust this house again. 4 years later I still have not wavered from that! Oh sure the house looks way better than it did. Who gets the opportunity to totally remodel your house from top to bottom??? I guess what I realized was that a house is just sticks and stones it's what's inside that is important!

We evacuate for every threat. Pack up the car with our emergency bag that is packed from the beginning of hurricane season, load up the dogs and head away from the threatened area. Is this hard? Oh yah, but not as hard as staying. People lost there lives during that storm. 29 deaths can be attributed to Charley. I know what can happen first hand but at least we were safe. It scares me to think how lucky we were.

As Always...

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Happy Father's Day!!!

Happy Father's Day to all the Dad's out there! I wish I could be with mine on Father's day but the distance is just too great. Love you Dad!

My girls got up in the middle of the night last night and cleaned out our office as a Father's Day gift to T. Isn;t that sweet??? Unfortunately seeing as they did this from 3:30 in the morning until about 5 when I heard them, they are a little tired and cranky today!

Onto something totally not food related or Father's day related...the weather!

This video was taken from my front window looking towards the street. I couldn't even open the front door to get a better shot. I was startled when I was taking it by a strike of lightening which seemed like it was right out there!!!

This was right when the storm started. See my pool is already very full. I ended up with water up to my sliders but not any higher thank goodness!

We have been having really horrendous weather. Even worse then we normally get this time of year. Friday afternoon we had s storm develop right over top of us (we are on the coast and when the seabreeze coming off the water is not strong enough to push the developing storms inland they tend to build right above us). And was it wild. The lightening and thunder where just constant. The rain was so loud it sounded like a roar. We had tornadoes from these storm several days last week.

The one Friday though was the worst. Several homes were damaged. The flooding was so bad that when we went for dinner (meeting friends) and as we were driving down the main road I saw three coconuts floating past us on the road!!! LOL. The only way you could maneuver down the streets was by driving between the mailboxes! It was a bit drier yesterday and we didn't have any rain at our house. I guess it's either feast of famine...2 weeks ago we were the driest place in the state now officially we are the wettest!

Have a great day!

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Goodbye to an old friend!

Today is a very sad day in our house. We have finally come to terms with the fact that we need to have our 16 year old black lab put to sleep. I am going to turn this around though and make this post a celebration of his crazy and very long life!!!

April of 2006 doing what he loved best!

This was February of this year (his eye didn't really glow like that)

This was last night as we were all saying our goodbyes...

T. and I got Beau back in 1992. He was a puffy little bundle of fur that seemed to never stop moving!!! And then he grew and ate EVERYTHING!!! Labs are chewers and this puppy was no exception. We had poison control and our emergency vet on speed dial! Here is a list of the things he ate:

a dresser
baseboards
glass candle stick holders
tin cans (chewed them up until they were in tiny little pieces and his gums were bloody)
prescription drugs (toradol (sp?) a migraine drug)
huge box of liquor filled chocolates (foil and all)
double stuffed fudge covered oreos
bags upon bags of Doritos
pizzas with the box and all
shoes (mainly mine but only one of each pair)
underwear

But he turned in a beautiful and wonderful dog. He was the perfect companion and protector. Everything a Lab should be. Once we had children his role changed but he took his new job of protecting the children very seriously.

Beau has gone on every single vacation that we have ever taken. He has hiked the mountains of the Carolina's. Swam the creeks, ponds and lakes of Pennsylvania. Walked the miles and miles of parkland in Canada. He has had a blessed life and now he is telling us he needs to go.

Goodbye my friend you will always be missed!

Been a little busy with Osso Buco

Okay so I've been a little busy this weekend. Had a bunch of things going on. One of those things was to go to the pet store to buy some freaking dog diapers for my 16 year old Black Lab (yes I did say 16) who craps himself just about every time he falls asleep. Let me tell you that a 16 year old Black Lab sleeps a lot therefore...oh well you get the picture. Anyway we also have an 18 month old Golden Retreiver. This could turn into a long post...

We are in the pet store and of course the girls are over at the "adopt a dog station" where they have all of the sad looking dogs that need good homes for one reason or another. I saw this really cute puppy. Now I would never get another dog...we already have 2 huge ones and in case people didn't know this I live in South Florida. We get hurricanes. We evacuate. After Hurricane Charley I will never stay anywhere near where they think landfall is going to be. We take our dogs with us. We also take our dogs with us when we go on vacation. Another dog is just not what we need. I have 2 kids, 2 dogs and a very sweet hubby.

A very tired puppy on his first day home!

So back to the really cute dog. An older couple was looking at him so I got him out of the cage to see them. Then I hear my husband behind me say "I want that dog". I turned my head so quick my neck snapped! I ended up telling the older couple that the dog would be way too crazy for them and that we would take it. WTF...sometimes I have no clue what happens to my life!!! At that point I could think of not one single reason not to. I sure hope that when the girls are a little older that they can be our voice of reason because between T. and I there obviously isn't one!!!

Now we have 3 dogs!!! One very old Black Lab (yep you remember-sleeps and poops) and 18 month old Golden Retriever and now a 4 month old Mutt (part Florida Curr dog and part Husky). Aren't I just the luckiest person ever!!! Actually this dog has turned out to be quite amazing. He sleeps, gets up, eats, goes outside to do his business and comes back in and sleeps. He has really just found himself a great little spot in this family and it feels like he has been here forever! Lucky dog, lucky us.

He looks very happy doesn't he???

By the way his name was Osso Buco...that's kinda funny isn't it. We have just shortened it to Osso but we did think that was kinda ironic!

Wish me luck in this crazy, crazy house!

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Just Busy!

This is the beautiful bottle of wine that was being featured that night.

I have been a very, very busy Mom this past couple of days. Yes, it sure does seem like I have been saying this quite a bit lately but hopefully it will settle down a bit now.


Thursday night my oldest daughter tested and received her purple belt in Karate! As has been tradition in the past we went out for a celebratory dinner afterwards. We went to La Trattoria Café Napoli for dinner and once again it was an incredible meal. The owner/hostess/server Gloria is a truly amazing presence in this restaurant. Everything that she does is centered around seasonal eating. Just right up my alley.

Clams served in the yummiest broth ever!

We all shared the clam appetizer and I swear the main reason that we get this is for the broth that the clams are cooked in! I think T. and I each got 2 clams and the girls ate the rest). Just fresh tasting and delicious. My meal was a special pasta dish that had shrimp, crab, leeks, and fennel with a nice light saffron sauce. The girls both had calamari (which is their favorite).

This was T.'s veal dish!

When we got home that night T. had to pack because he was going out of town for a couple of days. Unfortunately he was going to miss my youngest ones first skating competition which was bright and early Saturday morning.

Saturday the alarm got us all up and off we went to the skating rink. She had an event at 9 with practice time at 8 and then her main program was at noon. I was so nervous but she was a real star! She placed 3rd in her stroking event and then 2nd in her program!

She looks so small out on the huge amount of ice!!!

I know this post has not been about anything food worthy but trust me the food that I have eaten is not worth writing about. It has been a weekend of pizza and junk. I can't wait to sit down to a real dinner tonight!!!

As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com

Dinner out and a bout of food poisoning!

Last night was a great night. The weather was warm but windy and T. being the great guy he is wanted to take us all out for dinner. We went to Hemingway's Island Grill at the Coconut Point Mall. It was very good. Had a nice plate of shrimp marinated in a sweet rum sauce served with black beans and rice and a fruit salsa. They had a nice wine list with lots of wine by the glass which is always nice for us because rarely do we drink the same wine when out. This time though T. ordered a different wine and then had another glass but ordered the same as me! It was shortly after we left though that it hit. Poor T. was sick. He raced back to the restaurant and spent plenty of time in side while me and the girls danced to the music playing outside. T. had gone out for lunch and I guess he got the bad side of a Cuban sandwich wrap. He sure was not feeling well. So it cut the shopping short but I think he'll survive!

I forgot my camera (of course) but I have some pictures of my crazy dog that I took yesterday. He actually climbs up the ladder and slides down the slide. There is nothing quite as sweet as children and their dog!!! These are taken through my pool screen hence the fuzzy, mesh picture!


As Always...

Happy Entertaining!!!

Judy
www.nofearentertaining.com