Hurricanes or not, Trip.

Tropical Storm Hanna appears to be not more than a big storm and is currently harassing the Eastern Seaboard of the States. Hanna did cause some deaths in the islands but pictures shown of the Carolina coast 5 hours after it hit show people in the water and hardly a ripple. Hannah is busy racing up the coast and will drop some rain in places where they are not used to such storms. Ike is on its way and that is already a Category 3. They are predicting it will strengthen, after it has passed Cuba. Josephine is still a Tropical Storm. If you are interested, there are all kinds of videos on the weather channel if you click here you can see them. The picture was taken from the weather channel a day or two ago. Someone made the crack the other day "I don't like Ike". In case you don't remember that's a reference to the buttons people wore when Eisenhower became president "I like Ike". Well, only just over a week and we head on out for our trip. It will be nice to get away. The car is all ready, we didn't end up spending and arm and a leg, just an arm. Matt does the packing, I am useless at it and that won't get done til Sunday. We bought new suitcases for our trip to England and one of them is ginormous. I think we could pack for a couple of months if we took it. Picture from dawsonresort.com Manitoulin is actually quite a big island we are told and there is lots to see. Me being me, I wonder what the restaurants are like. We had a magazine in our mail box last week called Home Basics. I am not sure where it came from, but it is full of delicious sounding recipes. One I am particularly interested in was a cold soup which I will give you the recipe for. In fact they listed three cold soups all of which look pretty good. This one looks so good it caught my eye instantly. Chilled Cucumber, Avocado and Shrimp Soup Serves 4 Source Home Basics 1 medium Avocado 1 medium cucumber, peeled and diced 1/2 Cups chicken or vegetable broth 1 Cup plain Yoghurt 2 Tbs lime juice 1 tsp salt 1 cup diced, cooked shrimp 2 green (spring) onions, finely chopped 4 small, cooked, peeled shrimp. Cut the avocado in half and remove the stone. Wrap half the avocado in plastic wrap and set aside. Peel the other half and cut into chunks. Place the avocado, cucumber, broth, yoghurt, lime juice and salt in a blender. Process until smooth and creamy. Transfer the mixture to a bowl and refrigerate for at least 1 hour or until very cold. To serve, peel and slice the remaining avocado half. Stir the avocado into the soup along with the diced shrimp. Ladle the soup into 4 bowl, sprinkle with green onions and float a single shrimp on top of each bowl. The picture shows the tail still on the shrimp. I personally hate tails left on and always remove them otherwise the person eating them has to then find somewhere to put it. Have a great weekend.