Travelling,

I talked a bit about our journey yesterday, I checked my notes and discovered I had written a description of the hills and mountains of the parts of Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania that we travel through on our trip. I was looking at all the trees and thinking about my mother who, on this same trip, said “you can get tired of trees”. In fact I don’t know that I can. I love to see all the slopes covered in different greens, and now beginning to show fall colours; then, every so often, they give you a treat and open up to show you a meadow glinting like an emerald in the sun between the foliage. Very lovely to look at. I wish I was as lyrical as sinlaw Mike who could really make that scene come alive for you.

Another thing I always like to see, returning to Ontario, we drive along an edge of Lake Ontario where they placed a wreck many years ago, and which somebody subsequently set fire to. I still love to catch a glimpse of it as we go past. I guess it is a tourist attraction although I am not sure how you get near enough to see it. Here it is in the water, but in fact it is beached on the shore of the lake.

We pass by Fredericksburg, VA on our trip too. I have noticed several times that there is a Mary Washington University and I wondered “who is Mary Washington”, turns out she is George’s mother. There are several spots I wonder about and forget to write them down although one I did note was a brand new stable called Nickers and Neighs which I thought was a great name.

We still saw a lot of police on the roads again even though 9/11 has passed. Quite a number of speeders had been pulled over.

I am not noted for the brilliance of my memory, but I had forgotten we both had election training today for the upcoming provincial elections next month. In fact there has been so much going on since I got home, I don’t know if its Saturday or Christmas. Tomorrow we have our travelling bowling league and Friday regular bowling. Yesterday I had my Avon to do and we had a power cut for several hours and as the elevators were not working, I couldn’t get to see the doc so have to go see her today. Waaah! I need a holiday!!!!!

Here’s an interesting looking recipe, if you can find flank steak, I haven’t yet been able to round here.

Mojo Marinated & Grilled Flank Steak

Source: FC - Issue 28

Toss a few red onions on the grill to serve with this dish; a salad of tomatoes and cucumbers rounds out the meal nicely. My family loves this versatile mojo on chicken as well as on flank steak.
INGREDIENTS

For the Mojo:

12 cloves garlic (or 4 tablespoons minced garlic)

2 habaneros or other spicy chiles, cored, seeded, and minced (wear rubber gloves)

1 teaspoon kosher salt

4 teaspoons whole cumin seeds, toasted

1 cup olive oil

2/3 cup sour orange juice (or 1/3 cup fresh lime juice plus 1/3 cup fresh orange juice)

1 1/2 tablespoons sherry vinegar

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

For the Steak:

1 1/2 pounds flank steak

1 or 2 large Bermuda onions, thickly sliced and brushed with olive oil (optional)

Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS

TO MAKE THE MOJO: Mash the raw garlic, chiles, salt, and cumin together in a mortar and pestle until fairly smooth. (Alternatively, use a food processor, pulsing until the ingredients are finely chopped but not puréed.) Scrape the mixture into a bowl and set aside.

Heat the olive oil until fairly hot but not smoking, and pour it over the garlic-chile mixture (the oil should sizzle when it hits the cool ingredients), stir, and let stand 10 minutes. This will cook the garlic slightly. Whisk in the sour orange juice and vinegar. Season with salt and pepper and set aside to cool completely.

FOR THE STEAK: Put the steak in a zip-top bag or a shallow bowl and pour in 1 cup of the cooled mojo. Seal and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or overnight, turning occasionally. Refrigerate the remaining 1 cup of mojo.

TO COOK AND SERVE: Light a charcoal or gas grill. When the grill is very hot, remove the steak from the marinade (discard the marinade), pat dry, and season with salt and pepper; cook 5 to 7 minutes on one side and 3 to 4 minutes on the other for medium rare. Remove from the grill and let rest for 5 minutes. (If you like, grill the Bermuda onions as well - you can put them on at the same time as the flank steak; grill 6 to 7 minutes per side.)

Meanwhile, warm the reserved mojo over low heat. Slice the flank steak very thinly on the bias and serve with the reserved mojo and the grilled onions.

Have a great day

Trip

On Friday night, elections reps called on us, we have a Provincial election coming up on October 6, and I have now signed up for Matt and I to work at one of the polling stations. I quite enjoy doing that and the pay isn’t bad.

A friend who lives out in the country dropped in to pick up her Avon and brought me two fresh cobs of corn which I cooked and ate for supper on Friday evening. Pigging out as Matt isn’t interested. Deeeelicious.

Got away extra early for us on Saturday and surprise, surprise, didn’t get held up at the border at all. Not particularly crowded although we probably had the surliest customs officer ever, very unfriendly type . We didn’t stop for lunch at our usual spot as it was only 10 am – ended up at a Wendy’s in Pennsylvania later on.

Not sure where, but a couple of things; we saw a motorbike and the rider’s jacket had a skeletal hand on it, flipping the bird, I thought that was funny. For my UK readers that means the same as two fingers up, and I don’t mean the victory sign. The other thing I spotted was a few most attractive birds at the side of the road, I am not sure if they were wild turkeys or not, their feathers sparkled, only saw them for a few seconds of course and I am not that familiar with such birds, Glenda Larke could tell me, but she ain’t here.  They looked a bit like this picture, but I don’t know that wild turkeys have such pretty feathers as I saw, so don’t know how to id them. Of course, Googling wild turkeys brings up pictures of Wild Turkey Bourbon.

Part of our journey runs through the Allegheny river area and then into the mountains. The views are absolutely spectacular with rolling hills, which are actually mountains, shrouded in trees as far as the eye can see. Then you see the mists in the mountains too which can look very beautiful. Virginia countryside is also very beautiful, until you start driving anywhere one doesn’t realise how much vacant land there really is in the North Americas. A lot of the Virginia area is horse country too and you can see miles and miles of rail fencing indicating horse farms. To get down south we traverse New York State, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Virginia before entering NC. We stayed in Winchester, Virginia, which seems a nice town but we have never stopped there long enough to find out. We stayed at the Best Western where we have stopped before, but I have been complaining about their beds which are like boards. I had an email with me from one of their executives assuring me that they did have softer beds and giving me 25% off. However, the young man who checked me in couldn’t really have cared less and assured me he personally had slept on wooden pallets. Bet he didn’t pay for it though. I became pretty annoyed about this, but not til later, in the end I booked another hotel for our return trip. Neither of us slept well that night. The beds really are like sleeping on the floor.

One thing we did notice driving the interstates in particular, the very intense police presence, there were cops everywhere, not just hauling over bad drivers, but just cruising or watching all along the roads. Luckily so far there has been no terrorist occurrence although it was momentarily expected by most Americans, however 9/11 passed its 10th year anniversary without incident, big sighs of relief all round.

Eventually we got to North Carolina; we have to drive Hiway 70 to get to the coast and actually found some roadside stands selling corn, tomatoes, peaches, etc. so we stopped and I spent a few bucks. We had brought something down for a friend so we pulled in to see them on our way to the cottage and were invited back for supper later, great. Got our keys and unloaded the car, about 3 weeks worth, and unpacked. We went back to our friend’s and had a fun evening, our other Canadian friends were there too. Had some delicious sausage balls which are made with Bisquick but I don’t have the recipe yet, I will.

I thought this would be a great thing to make.

Creamy Artichoke Dip

By Dana Treat
WebMD Recipe from Foodily.com
The original recipe says to serve this with pita chips (it is excellent that way), but I have also served it with fresh baguette slices along with carrots and celery.

Ingredients

2 8-ounce packages cream cheese, room temperature
1/3 cup sour cream
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 tbsp. fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp. Dijon mustard
1 garlic clove, minced
1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1/2 tsp. hot pepper sauce
3 6-ounce jars marinated artichoke hearts, drained, coarsely chopped
1 cup grated mozzarella cheese
3 green onions, finely chopped
2 tsp. minced seeded jalapeño pepper

Instructions

Using electric mixer, beat first 8 ingredients in large bowl to blend. Fold in artichokes, mozzarella cheese, green onions, and jalapeño. Transfer to a 11 x 7 x 2-inch baking dish. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and refrigerate.)
Preheat oven to 400°F. Bake dip until bubbling and brown on top, about 20 minutes. Dip is best served warm.
Adapted from Bon Appetit.
Total Servings: 12
Have a great day

Saturday and on the way home

What a day – it started out reasonably well, we exchanged anniversary cards and had breakfast. Then did a few packing type things and washed a few items. Finally our friends came to collect us at 11:30 and they gave us a card and a couple of nice bottles of wine – then we headed off to The Country Squire which is at least 1 1/2 hrs drive, didn’t actually time it. I was not too comfortable in the back of their SUV sitting with my legs tucked up for all that time. We finally arrived at the restaurant only to discover, first no cars in the parking lot and secondly the one day of the week they do not serve lunch is Saturday. We asked where else there was, I think our friends were thinking of staying for an early dinner at 4:30 but we had to get back and start packing plus, having diabetes, I cannot wait all that time to eat. As it was I had had a couple of cookies before we set off. The owner, a Scotswoman, who has been in North America 2 years more than we have, directed us to a couple of places including one she talked of as a fish restaurant. This is where we ended up – what a dump! They did have some fried fish and fried shrimp, not bad not good, fried chicken, pretty awful, vegetables which had been cooked for at least a week and a reasonable salad bar. It was all buffet style. However, by this time I was starving so I ate. Not exactly the food of which Anniversaries are made. We then drove 1 1/2 hrs back home, our friends dropped us off and for some reason I was so exhausted I dropped asleep. My feet felt as though I had walked there and back. The evening was basically leftovers and packing with a few games of cribbage thrown in. Happy Anniversary!!!

One thing which puzzled us, there were thousands of motorbikes on the road being led in style by escorts of cops – never did find out what that was about. We also saw lots of new roads and bypasses they have built since we left NC, most impressive.

Yesterday we ended up being a bit late leaving as I decided to do a bit more wash so we have very little to do when we get home. We then did the trip from NC to Winchester, VA, in pretty quick time and ended up at the hotel around 4:30. Not very prepossessing supper at Perkins and had a hand or two of cards then went to lie on our rock hard beds!!!

Today we head home to Canada and our own nice little bed. More tomorrow I hope. Nothing much more at this point to say.

Have a great day