Dinner Party, World Cup, Wild Eyes,

As I mentioned on Saturday, we had a dinner party that evening which turned out to be very enjoyable. With our pre-dinner drink I served Barrie Bros. asparagus flavoured tortilla chips and asparagus salsa which seemed to go down well. For a starter we had Paula Deen’s recipe for Asparagus Phyllo Bundles which I posted here recently. We then followed it with Chicken and Snow Peas with Peanut Sauce. I thought Matt did an excellent job with the snow peas all around the dish which makes it look so attractive.

We accompanied with the Farm Fresh Potato Salad together with Pear, Cucumber and Pecan Salad as shown below. The recipe actually calls for walnuts but I chose pecans as I find walnuts over on this side of the pond to be somewhat bitter. I have posted both these recipes within the last week or so. As our guests went back for more of all these items they apparently found the salads as good as I did. I followed this with Strawberry Cloud which I forgot to take a picture of. But which is a light dessert made with Jello, Berries and Cool Whip. I have actually wondered about making it with real cream but that doesn’t ‘hold’ too well and I didn’t think it would work. With English cream it might be safer.

Most people know what I think about cream over here and Matt and I were holding forth about it last night. We were trying to describe the ice cream which can (or could) be found in Devon and Cornwall made of the local cream which is almost as yellow as custard.

The US fans are thrilled to bits with their draw on Saturday. They were playing England. Once upon a time England was one of the top soccer teams, but I don’t think they are these days. I gather the goalie let through one ball which he should have stopped with ease. Don’t watch myself but this is what has been said on the news. Vuvuzelas seem to have caught the imagination over here though, there have been lots of articles about them in the papers and on TV, so yes, to my friend in South Africa, I am afraid they probably will breed over here, just as my South African friend warned. Having just written that, I heard vuvuzelas blasting away on the radio, a whole bunch of them. We are doomed!!!

I am, to put it mildly, somewhat puzzled. Abby Sutherland, the 16 yr old who was trying to sail round the world, has apparently abandoned her boat Wild Eyes in the middle of the ocean. I can’t understand why the French fishing boat didn’t try and tow her in for the salvage at least. I see there is now a movement on her blog page to help restore Wild Eyes to Abby. I certainly don’t understand why they would leave the boat out in the ocean to become a hazard to shipping apart from anything else. Nor do I understand why Abby having lived on board for so long allowed it to be abandoned in that way. Don’t think the insurance company will be very happy about it. OK, the mast was broken, but masts can be repaired. Been a bad weekend especially for the poor souls out camping who got caught in a flash flood where the river rose some 8 ft. I don't think they yet have the full total of deaths. What a terrible thing to be asleep at your camp site and suddenly you are woken by rushing water all around you, if you are woken at all.

Silly me, I thought it was Father's Day last weekend, but it appears I was wrong and so I have at least a week's more asparagus to avail myself of. Here is another recipe from AsparagusRecipes. Here again, I personally will probably change the walnuts to pecans.

Asparagus with Walnut Dressing

AsparagusRecipes.net

½ cup of walnuts. ¼ cup of soy sauce. 1 tablespoon of sugar. 1 tablespoon of sake. 1 lb of asparagus. Crush the walnuts in a food processor, leaving small chunks. Add the soy sauce, sugar and sake and blend for 10 seconds, just until well combined. Trim and discard the woody bottom portions of the asparagus stalks, then cut them into 1 ½ inch pieces. Steam the asparagus for no longer than 2 minutes. Rinse the asparagus with cold water and drain. For each serving, arrange stems and tips in a mound, with tips aiming upward. Drizzle with the dressing. Serve. Have a great day

Birthday Dinner, TIAs, Abby's Sailing.

Boa Nova Rodizio turned out to be a very good venue for Matt's birthday dinner. We stuffed ourselves on delicious grilled meats followed by grilled pineapple. Then when Matt was way too full, they brought him a piece of cheesecake with a candle in it. Didn't stop him eating it though. Matt and I drank a red wine from the Douro region of Portugal, sorry I have forgotten the name of it, but it was good. Last time I went to Boa Nova the buffet part of the meal was not very good, this time it was much better, I think it may be something to do with the day of the week. I had some mussels which were delicious as well as several other items off the cold table. Matt, being unsure what to expect, said he wished he had had more salad items as he didn't realise the rest of the meal was all meats. It was funny, he didn't even know where he was going when we parked across the road from the restaurant. It wasn't that lit up from the outside, so I think he was a tad puzzled.

Matt is now being put on a new pill, Warfarin (rat poison, LOL) to try and stop these TIAs he keeps having. We are being told he has a slight bulge in his left atrium (one of the top chambers of the heart) and this area is probably producing blood clots which when passing into the rest of the blood system cause these TIAs. The hope is that the Warfarin will help counteract this by thinning his blood even further. He has to take these pills for three days then have a blood test and see the family doctor in order to regulate the dosage. I gather this goes on for a while until they are satisfied. Bit of a pain as our doctor is in the next town. Matt actually went to see a neurologist in the Secondary Stroke Prevention Clinic and we were absolutely staggered when we met him. He looked pretty young for a start, he had long hair and was dressed in jeans and sneakers. He appeared to be more like a student than a specialist. He was, however, very nice and very efficient. I just wondered what he would wear for casual Fridays!!

The young sailer, Abby, the American girl, is now in Cabo San Lucas working with her team on the needed repairs. What a pity for her that she has to start her voyage all over again once the repairs have been made. Not heard anything from Jessica for a day or two, last time we did so she was sailing along in pretty fair weather although having to head slightly north in order to avoid a storm system. This is a picture from Abby's blog showing her coming into Cabo San Lucas where people have been very helpful to everyone involved in the project. Its amazing to me, when I was 16 I seem to think all I was interested in was boys, not sailing around the world. I never did take to sailing much although I had every opportunity to do so living on a boat.

I am now getting an email from Kraft with recipes using their products. After my success with two recipes I have become more interested. This looked like something we would enjoy so I thought I would share it. Luckily I have metal barbecue skewers so don't need to mess with soaking wooden ones.

Easy Chicken Skewers with Peanut Sauce

Kraft Kitchens

Makes: 4 servings, 2 skewers (144 g) each

1/4 cup KRAFT CATALINA Dressing

3 Tbsp. KRAFT Smooth Peanut Butter

1 Tbsp. soy sauce

1 lb. (450 g) boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut lengthwise into strips

2 Tbsp. peanuts, chopped

1 green onion, chopped

Make It! MIX first 3 ingredients in large bowl until well blended. Add chicken; toss to coat. Refrigerate 10 min. HEAT broiler. Remove chicken from marinade; discard marinade. Thread chicken onto 8 skewers; place on rack of broiler pan. BROIL, 6 inches from heat, 4 min. on each side or until done. Top with nuts and onions.

Serving Suggestion Serve with hot cooked rice or ramen noodles and a tossed green salad.

How to Soak Wooden Skewers If using wooden skewers, soak them in water for at least 10 min. before using. This will help to prevent them from burning when grilling the skewered food.

Creative Leftovers Turn leftovers into a delicious Asian-inspired salad. Just remove the chicken from skewers, chop and add to mixed greens and shredded carrots tossed with Kraft Signature Asian Sesame Dressing.

Have a great day

Trillions, Sailing Teens and Computers.

Governments toss around billions and trillions when talking money, it has become kind of commonplace and most of us don't really know how much that is. However, in Recipe du Jour yesterday there was a link to a visualisation which shows you comaprisons of what these figures really mean. The one that struck me was the visualisation of the US National Debt in March 2009 - it is shown in $1 bills and is absolutely mind boggling. And that is a year ago, a lot has happened since then to send the figures soaring. If you would like to see the rest of the visualisations, go to http://www.cnbc.com/id/30108264/?slide=1 and look at the slide show. Funnily enough, last night I watched Brewster's Millions starring Richard Pryor and John Candy. He had to dispose of $30 million in one month in order to inherit another $300 million. Seemed coincidental talking about the trillions governments spend without batting an eye.

Yesterday I wrote about Australian Jessica Watson planning to sail around the world and be the youngest to do so, a friend in Oz pointed out to me that there are actually two 16 yr. olds trying to gain that title, the other being a young American girl Abby Sunderland. I wish them luck, but I think their parents are nuts. I had had no idea there were two youngsters trying to do the same thing. Both young women have blog pages although Abby doesn't seem to have written anything since she set sail www.jessicawatson.com.au/ where you will find a link to Jessica's blog and http://soloround.blogspot.com/ for Abby's. Seems I got it all wrong, Jessica set sail in October whereas Abby has only recently left the States. There are some interesting pages on Jessica's blog with pictures of Cape Horn which can and did produce very violent storms and has sunk lots of ships - it can also produce total calms which can be a big problem for a sailing ship. Jessica apparently went through a pretty violent storm and makes for interesting reading. She must have been pretty shaken I would think.

Tickled me today, shades of modern life, our granddaughter was complaining she couldn't finish her homework because the printer wasn't working. In the days when I was doing homework, computers weren't available at all. I was going to say they hadn't been invented, but in fact the binary system was invented hundreds of years ago. The computer as we know it today was not invented though. I remember my first encounter with a computer was at work where everything was programmed with punch cards and such (don't ask me the details, I don't know them) and one of the staff assured me that I would never be able to use a computer because my math was no good. I am glad they changed them because he was probably right then. Now I spend a great deal of time on a computer.

I got my newsletter from Mushrooms Canada yesterday and I am surprised to discover that mushrooms are full of Vitamin D. They contain about 9% of an adult's required intake per day. I know Vitamin D is provided by sunshine, but a lot of people are too scared to spend time exposing their skin to sunlight so alternate sources are required. Mushrooms are apparently one of them.

Mushroom Stuffed Pizza Pockets Mushrooms Canada

A larger version of this Italian recipe is often called a calzone. Vary the fillings to your families liking and you will win raves at the table.

Ingredients 5-6 medium fresh white Mushrooms (about 3 oz/90g pre-sliced) 1/2 cup diced green pepper 125 mL 1/4 cup pre-cooked bacon pieces or pepperoni 50 mL 1/2 cup pizza or spaghetti sauce 125 mL 3/4 cup pre-shredded mozzarella or Italian cheese blend 175 mL 1 pkg (10 oz/283 g) refrigerated pizza dough 1 tbsp milk 15 mL 1 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese 15 mL Method 1. Clean mushrooms with a damp paper towel or mushroom brush. On the cutting board with the sharp knife trim bottom of stems; coarsely chop the mushrooms to fill 1¼ cups (300 mL). 2. Place the mushrooms, diced green pepper, bacon, pizza sauce and cheese in the bowl; stir to mix well. Preheat oven to 425ºF (220ºC). 3. On a lightly floured counter or cutting board unroll the pizza dough according to package directions. Roll or press out to 12”(30 cm) x10” (25 cm) rectangle. With sharp knife cut into 4 equal pieces. 4. Using a pastry brush moisten edges of each piece of dough with water. Mound ¼ of mixture onto half of each piece of dough leaving a ½”(1 cm) border. Pull and stretch the other half of dough over the filling and press edges firmly together. 5. Lightly spray a large baking sheet with cooking spray and place pizza pockets about 2”(5 cm) apart on it. With the tines of a fork press edges firmly again to seal and prick a few holes in the top to allow steam to escape. 6. Brush top of pockets with milk and sprinkle with Parmesan cheese. 7. Place baking sheet in middle of oven and bake for 13 –15 min until lightly browned and crisp on top. 8. Using oven mitts remove baking sheet from oven and place on cooling rack for 5 minutes. 9. With sharp knife cut in half diagonally to serve if desired. Makes 4 pizza pockets Tip: If rolling dough on a cutting board, place a damp dishcloth under the board to prevent it from moving around. Variations: Substitute broccoli for green pepper and ham for bacon.

Have a great day