Sunday Snapshot - A Day in Riverside

We spent the day in Riverside to play a concert for our director's service sorority which was having one of their annual meetings at Riverside's famous Mission Inn.

We had the opportunity to take a tour of the facility prior to our concert. The Mission Inn has a lot of history and is a beautiful resort hotel.

We saw four weddings over the course of a day - a gorgeous place for a wedding (though if you are interested in having yours there, you'll need to get on their 2 year waiting list!) and a number of other types of gatherings as well.

Among the many interesting (and valuable) pieces that are displayed, the Mission Inn has over 800 bells on the site (with 62 more temporarily as we brought ours for our concert).

Pat and Richard Nixon were married at one of the two wedding chapels, Nancy and Ronald Reagan honeymooned there, and eight other US Presidents have visited the Inn: Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, Herbert Hoover, John Fitzgerald Kennedy, Gerald Ford, and George W. Bush.

We had lunch at the Trattoria Bella, one of several restaurants at the hotel.  We had a tasty barbecued chicken pizza.

And a nice glass of California red...

Then it was show time!  One of my favorite parts of the evening was when The Mr and I took the eight chapter presidents aside and taught them to play "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on the handbells.  We then had then perform in front of all of their sorority sisters - and the group voted on which of two teams played the best.  Lots of fun - and The Mr is great in front of a crowd!

Also on the hotel site?  Casey's Cupcakes!  They were recently contestants on Food Network's "Cupcake Wars" - and they won!!  I'll share some of their cupcakes (virtually anyway) later this week.

We had a great time and a pretty good concert.  I'd love to stay at the Mission Inn one day, but even if we don't, I am sure we'll be back to visit Riverside sometime soon.


How was your Sunday?  Check out Sunday Snapshot for more fun!

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Corny

We're really close to being able to harvest some corn and I've been researching things like how to tell when corn is ripe and exactly how to harvest.

In the process, I've found a few interesting corn facts.

For example, did you know that each of the silks on a corn cob belongs to a single kernel?

And a pound of corn is about 1,300 kernels?

Iowa, Illinois, Nebraska and Minnesota account for over 50 percent of the corn grown in the U.S. And this year, California has increased its production a little. ;-)

Each tassel on a corn plant releases as many as 5 million grains of pollen.

The corn cob is actually part of the corn's flower.

We're sure hoping to partake is some of this fun crop this weekend - and you can be certain that I'll share!

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What's For Dinner: Grilled Lasagna

Yes, you read that correctly.  Grilled lasagna.

I saw this recipe in an email from The Food Network and have been thinking about it since.   I'll be making it for dinner Sunday night and will let you know what we think of it.

A few of the ingredients/steps are not quite what (I think) I would like - I'd like a cooked tomato sauce for the the final step for example.  My question to you - what would you do with this recipe?


Grilled Lasagna

Ingredients

• 1 1-pound ball fresh mozzarella, halved and thinly sliced
• 1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
• Pinch of red pepper flakes
• Kosher salt
• 2 cloves garlic, grated
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for drizzling
• 3 large tomatoes (2 thinly sliced, 1 grated)
• 12 no-boil lasagna noodles
• 8 cups baby spinach (about 5 ounces)
• 1/3 cup low-fat ricotta cheese
• 1/3 cup chopped fresh herbs (basil, mint and/or parsley)

Directions

1. Preheat a grill to medium. Combine the mozzarella, Parmesan, red pepper flakes, 1/2 teaspoon salt, and all but 1/4 teaspoon garlic in a bowl; drizzle with olive oil and toss. Season the sliced tomatoes with salt.
2. Lay out 4 double-layer sheets of nonstick foil. Drizzle each with olive oil, top with 1 noodle and sprinkle each noodle with 1 tablespoon water. Divide half each of the spinach, sliced tomatoes and mozzarella mixture among the noodles. Repeat to make another layer of noodles, water, spinach, tomatoes and mozzarella mixture. Finish each stack with a noodle, 1 tablespoon water and a drizzle of olive oil. Bring the foil together and crimp tightly closed to make 4 flat packets.
3. Grill the packets, covered, until tender, about 10 minutes per side. Let rest 5 minutes. Meanwhile, mix the grated tomatoes, a pinch of salt, the reserved 1/4 teaspoon garlic and 1 tablespoon olive oil in a bowl. Open the packets and cut the lasagna in half, if desired. Top with the tomato mixture, ricotta and herbs.

Look for our results and some pictures next week!

(Recipe courtesy of Food Network)

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Menu Planning

The Girl and The Boy are both gone camping this week, so The Mr and I have a week of romantic dinners! This is my plan for the week - let's see how we do.



Wednesday:  Lemon and Herb Rubbed Pork Chops
Thursday:  Skillet Chicken Souvlaki
Friday:  Grilled Steak with Spicy pepper Pasta
Saturday:  Dinner on the Road
Sunday:  Grilled Lasagna
Monday:  Fajitas
Tuesday:  Someone Else Cooks!


Linked here:  Organizing Junkie

What's on your table this week?



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Tuesday Garden Party - Midsummer Update

I have to tell you, The Mr is super smart. And he can do just about anything.

Last week, when the (stupid) mouse was eating our plants, he built the plants some screened-in-porches. Very cool!

And - they work wonderfully!

The strawberries are flourishing....

The struggling volunteer peas are making a comeback...

And the peppers have all kinds of new growth!

With no signs of any (stupid) mice!

The Mr is quite impressive!

Also growing this week - tomatoes!  I wasn't sure (still haven't actually seen a ripe one) that we'd get any ant all, but we've got tons of little ones, so it keeps getting more and more likely that we'll have some beautiful red tomatoes from the garden one of these days.

The corn keeps growing and looking closer and closer to being ready.  We absolutely cannot wait!

And our first pumpkin is getting some color!

I think I'd try to make fried green tomatoes if I thought our tomato crop would be large.  Maybe after the first ones start to ripen.

The sun certainly seems to be shining on our garden this week! I'll be picking a bunch of hot peppers later (you'll have to check back later this week to see what I'll be doing with them) and come on back next week to see what another week brings - in the meantime, check out An Oregon Cottage for her weekly Garden Party.



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Harvest Monday: July 18, 2011

I've been so happy to continue to have peas this year. I'm hoping that we can make this a year-round harvest!

We keep getting strawberries too - I am definitely not complaining about that either!

And peppers!  Tomorrow I'll show you our progress with the bell peppers.  Looks like we will have some of those to harvest this year after all.


More peas...

... and more strawberries.

Total Harvest for the Week:  1 pound, 4.3 ounces
Total Harvest for the Year:  13 pounds, 9.1 ounces

Maybe some green onions this week, and I think we'll pull more herbs.  I expect a bunch of hot peppers, and, of course peas and strawberries.  We're still anxiously waiting for the corn and tomatoes, and I think we've started to grow a watermelon or two (finally)!

Linked up with Daphne's Dandelion's Harvest Monday... hop on over and see what else is being picked this week.



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Sunday Snapshot - Take Me Out to the Ballgame!

Today we took The Mr's parents to see the Padres play the San Francisco Giants.

The Padres aren't having a banner year (we are currently in last place, even behind the ever-troubled Dodgers) and the Giants, well, are.

But we beat them last night and we had high hopes for today.  And a beautiful day it was!

My father-in-law is a big Padres fan.  And my mother-in-law is even bigger!

The Mr?  Not so much.  He hates baseball.  Thinks it is the most boring sport ever invented.

But, he's a good son, and we got tickets for his parents as a Mother's Day present.  And he did his best to pay attention.

The Padres celebrated the military today, and the national anthem was beautifully sung by by a Navy Lieutenant Commander.

Friar Tuck watched the final (of 11) innings anxiously.

We enjoyed ourselves, even though we lost.

One thing we found, though, is that sitting in Petco Park on a beautiful July afternoon can really turn one's skin red.  Ouch!  I think we may be in for an uncomfortable night's sleep...

How was your Sunday?  Check out Sunday Snapshot for more fun!






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Goat Cheese Pesto

My basil is growing like crazy this year - and I am not complaining!

I love the flavor of basil, and one of my favorite basil-packed dishes is pesto.

But.  I don't like the calories that the oil and pine nuts add.  So I decided to try an experiment.

I wanted to get the texture of pesto without the calories, so I decided to try goat cheese instead of oil.  And this is what happened:

Goat Cheese Pesto

Ingredients

• 4 ounces soft fat-free goat cheese, crumbled
• 1 1/2 cups packed basil
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice
• 1 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Preparation

1. Place all ingredients in a food processor 
2. Pulse a few times 
3. Process until fairly smooth, or to the desired consistency, scraping down the sides occasionally

I thought it was really good!  I like goat cheese, and it added a really nice and tangy flavor.  I served it on top of grilled pork - fantastic!

I think this recipe would also work with other herbs - oregano or cilantro maybe?  Would you try something like this?


For more great recipes, check out The Grocery Cart Challenge Recipe Swap! If you have a recipe to share, please join in the fun!

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Happy Bastille Day!

I thought in honor of Bastille Day, you might want to see what is left of the Bastille.


So those curvy bricks in the street?

And what looks like maybe the outline of a wall?

That's what is left of the Bastille.  In what appeared to me to be French tradition, the Bastille was destroyed.

Bastille Day commemorates the 1790 Fête de la Fédération (The National Celebration), held on the first anniversary of the storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789; the anniversary of the storming of the Bastille fortress-prison was seen as a symbol of the uprising of the modern nation, and of the reconciliation of all the French inside the constitutional monarchy which preceded the First Republic, during the French Revolution.

Today they had a parade here (we visited there in March, quite a long time before the parade would actually be held...)

I hope you enjoyed your Bastille Day as much as any Frenchman!


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