The Daily - September 10, 2023 - Sunday Hike Day

Left the house at 7 with My and Yahsin for our “Charlie hike” at Allerton. Brenda signed up for yoga in the Meadow there so she drove separately. Charlie knows when my friends show up, she’s going out into the forest for a long hike - she loves it!

 

 

 

 
We hiked for 2 hours - we saw some deer, late summer yellow woodland flowers and some little mushrooms.

 

 

 

 

 

 
As expected, our post hike spread did not disappoint. I didn’t make anything but brought charcuterie meats and cheeses along with a wooden board - voila, another elegant spread! My baked plum cake, Yahsin brought hard boiled eggs, fruit and nuts. The weather was absolutely perfect for our Al fresco meal. We are certainly spoiled!

 

 

 

 
I spent the rest of the day relaxing outside with Charlie - we played ball and took another long walk with Nancy and Janice. Finally, Erica arrived back from her travels and Charlie was quite happy to have her mom at her side.

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Wedding Season Again - Backyard Bridal Shower

After a long hiatus, weddings and other similar celebrations are back again! Two good friends’ children kick off the next phase in our mid-life journey - by being the first offspring to get married! We kicked things off with Katie’s bridal shower a couple weekends ago.

 

 
The Bride, Katie and her family moved away several years ago, but this friendship endures the miles apart. Originally dubbed “The Book Club Group”, we morphed into the “Fine Lake Ladies” after years of gathering at friend Heather’s lake house on (you guessed it) Fine Lake in Michigan. Heather and her family still retain ties to our area so the shower was held locally and allowed the family to re-visit familiar haunts over the weekend. Hostesses Nancy and Jill pulled together a lovely Bridal Brunch and even ordered perfect weather!

 

 
Table settings:

 

 
Brunch goodies:

 

 
The Bride to Be:

 

 

 
With sister Isabel:

 

 

 
And sister Charlotte (plus friend Kelly):

 

 
The weather was perfect - not too hot and no rain, which allowed us to enjoy time outside in Nancy’s backyard.

 

 
Heather, Mary and Isabel

 

 
Seated at the table with the Bride at the head:

 

 
The young at heart side of the table!

 

 
Next up will be the wedding ceremony and reception - in Michigan. We are looking forward to a grand party and celebration!

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Florida Exposure - Miami's South Beach

It's Day 2 of our quick trip to South Florida - We decided today’s destination would be Miami's famous South Beach - we walked along the beach and along Ocean Drive through the Art Deco district. Normally bustling with traffic, Ocean Drive has been converted to a pedestrian-only corridor. This configuration allows the restaurants to expand outdoor dining into the street and I have to say, it was nice not having the interference- physical and audio wise - while exploring. There is a naturalized barrier between Ocean Drive and the beach which buffers the beach area from the city. We found South Beach very pretty and enjoyable.

 

 
Cloudy day means we didn't get too hot and bake under the sun!

 

 

 

 
We enjoyed brunch at the Havana 1957 Restaurant with their yummy Cubano Sandwich.

 

 
Did you know - a Cubano Sandwich contains citrusy Cuban pulled pork, slices of ham, swiss cheese, mustard, thin slices of pickle, heated panini style between a sweet crusty (Cuban) bread.

 

 
Later in the day, we caught the South Beach strip as dusk settled in the sky and enjoyed the twinkly lights wound around the palm trees. A lovely way to end our day.

 

 

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Florida Exposure - Miami's Little Havana

The Hubs and I did something spontaneous last week - we took an impromptu trip to Southern Florida.

 

 
I will qualify the use of "Impromptu" though - back in November, Scott outlined four winter trip options which included the Florida itinerary. We had decided this would be the trip, but did not set a specific date for travel. On Monday January 4, we decided to go the following week - pretty spontaneous for us! We booked the flights and hotels quickly and flew out early on January 11.

 

 
First stop - Miami and Little Havana:

 
After arriving and checking into our hotel, we decided to explore Little Havana by driving to the main strip - 8th street - aka Calle Ocho. The neighborhood, with its Latin roots serves as a cultural center for the arts - visual, music, culinary. While live music remains on hold, the colorful murals adorning side streets remind visitors the pause is just that - a short pause.

 

 

 

The quintessential Calle Ocho Roosters dot the streetscape in Little Havana - I learned they were installed as an artists' installation starting in 2002. Appropriate since chickens and roosters often run around the neighborhood.  

 

 

 

 

I found this cool vintage vehicle behind one of the shops and it reminded me of what you might see in actual Havana.

 

 

We walked around and took in the little cafes and cigar shops before deciding upon an early dinner at Restaurant El Cristo. I had crispy pork chunks with roasted garlic - with so many colorful veggies. The official name of the dish is Masitas De Cerdo or Sauteed Cuban Pork - so delicious!

 

 

While no visit to Little Havana is complete without Cuban Coffee, I don't normally drink caffeine in the afternoon. But I snapped this photo of a sad, un-used espresso maker in one of the stores. I suspect it was not operating due to Covid regulations.

 

 

It was a fun afternoon exploring Little Havana. Hopefully the live performance and music scene returns soon.

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20 Recipes in 2020 - Garlic Lemon Shrimp with Pasta

Because of Social distancing, my friends and I now hold our gatherings via Zoom meetings - like many groups, we have Zoom Book Club, Zoom Happy Hour and Zoom Game Night. To change things up, we started a virtual get-together-and-cook Zoom meetings. The genesis of this came from our "20 Goals for 2020" where I agreed to host at least one cooking demonstration. And so the "Shirley Soufflé Fake Cooking Show" came into existence. When I first announced to my family that I would be holding a cooking demonstration live via Zoom (to warn them of the impending noise and hulabaloo in the kitchen), they dubbed it my "Fake Cooking Show". Hey, if that terminology is good for Jennifer Garner on Instagram, it's good for me! Since then I've added in the moniker of "Shirley Soufflé" to add some fun into all of this - a homage to name created in jest from a housemate who dubbed me "Shirley Soufflé" because I cooked so much.

We've now held two sessions of the "Shirley Soufflé Fake Cooking Show". During the first session, we simply roasted chopped garlic in olive oil (I start easy to ensure success). During last week's session, we used that roasted chopped garlic to prepare Garlic Lemon Shrimp with Pasta.

Here's the Recipe for Garlic Lemon Shrimp with Pasta:
Ingredients:
Lemon shrimp and pasta 1lb shrimp, shell removed, deveined
1/4 - 1/2 C frozen peas or other green vegetable. I like to use asparagus in spring.
One whole lemon
The roasted garlic in olive oil
1/2 lb pasta. I use Bow Ties, but Fettuccine / angel hair would be good too
1/4 C white wine
1/2-1C chicken broth Note - I actually use chicken soup base called Better than Bouillon which is a concentrated gel that I mix with hot water for my broth
1/4 C chopped green onion
1-2 T Butter

Preparation:
Cut asparagus into 1” pieces and blanch or steam / micro cook lightly. Set aside.
Take a whole lemon and zest the rind.
Cut lemon in half and marinate the shrimp with zest and juice from half the lemon and a tablespoon of garlic olive oil.
Get a pot of water for pasta ready and heat it up.
Heat up 2-3 T of the oil and garlic from last week. Cook shrimp until just pink, remove from pan.
Deglaze the pan with chicken broth, wine and lemon juice from the other half of the lemon. Reduce. Taste and adjust seasonings - I tend to like it with more chicken broth.
Meanwhile cook the pasta. When it has a minute left to cook, Add shrimp back to the pan.
Add Hot pasta to the pan, coat with sauce.
Add peas / green vegetable and green onion
Add 1-2 tbsp butter - let it melt in and it will add a nice richness to the sauce.
Can serve with grated Parmesan / freshly grated pepper on top.

Photos from preparation:
Asparagus, looking so fresh and green:


I blanched my asparagus:


Zesting the lemon:


Lemon shown with Roasted garlic in olive oil


Shrimp ready to be cooked:


My Zoom meeting set up with two cameras - one off my laptop to show the stove from the side; the second camera off the iPhone for a mobile view and view of the tops of the pans


Screen shot of the Zoom meeting. All of us cooking together, some simply watching the rest of us cook!


The finished dish


This week, we'll continue to utilize that roasted garlic in Bruschetta Chicken Pasta, a copycat rendition of TGIF's offering with the same name. This is so simple, easy and a favorite in my family.

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20 Recipes in 2020 - Stuffed Jalapeños

My Second Recipe post for 2020 - Stuffed jalapeños, aka jalapeño poppers, perfect as an appetizer or snack.
No need to buy the ones in the frozen food section - these are easy and don't have the coated breading on the outside.


Ingredients:
6 oz cream cheese at room temperature
1 green onion minced
1/2 C shredded cheese. I use Mexican blend
8 oz bag of whole jalapeños
8 slices bacon cut in half

Oven at 350 degF

Mix cream cheese, green onion and shredded cheese together

Halve each jalapeños lengthwise and remove the seeds and membranes. Be careful when handling jalapeños. Wear gloves and even consider safety glasses. Don’t touch you face after being in contact with the jalapeños. Wash hands in cold water. Learn from my experiences of burning lips and eyes! The last time I made these, some juice squirted into my eyes (hence the recommendation for safety glasses).

Stuff the halved peppers with the cream cheese mixture then wrap with the bacon.

Line a metal baking sheet with foil and bake for 15 minutes at 350 then increase the oven temperature to 425 degF to crisp bacon. Bake another 8-10 minutes. Filling should be golden brown.

Notes - I buy many of the ingredients for these from Aldi. A bag of jalapeños costs $0.55 and the cream cheese costs $0.79.
Enjoy!

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20 Recipes in 2020 - Zucchini Puffs

My close friends and I recently made a list of goals for 2020. Not resolutions, but items we would like to accomplish in 2020. The list is supposed to be 20 items long, and while not a requirement, an element of "20" is encouraged. For example, one might set a goal to read 20 books in 2020. One of my 2020 goals is to compile 20 Recipes with photos into the start of a Recipe book. I plan to use the Blurb publishing platform and their Cookbook template.

To get organized, I've gone through my Lightroom catalog and keyworded all my food / recipe-centric photos and exported them to a single folder. I've been recording the recipes on my iPhone's Notes app. Now to marry up the photos and recipes in Bookwright.

I've used the blog in the past to record recipes and photos, so I plan to do the same with the 20 Recipes in 2020.
First up, Zucchini Puffs

These are based on a recipe from Tasty - their Zucchini Tots, meant to be a healthier version of potato based Tater Tots. I adjusted the recipe since I don't eat bread and the original recipe calls for breadcrumbs.

Here is my version of Zucchini Puffs:
1 large zucchini, grated
1/2 onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/2 tsp salt
1 T olive oil
1 T coconut flour
1/4 C almond flour
3/4 C shredded cheese. I use a Mexican cheese blend
1 egg

Mix onion, garlic and oil in a large glass bowl. Micro cook for 30-40 seconds to soften the onion and garlic.

Shred zucchini onto a thin towel. I use a "flour sack kitchen towel" that I bought from the grocery store. Wring out the excess water from the shredded zucchini. The towel is very thin and allows the water to pass through easily. Could also use a cheese cloth. It is important to get the zucchini as dry as possible.

Add the zucchini and remaining ingredients to the bowl with onion garlic and mix.

Form bite sized logs, like tater tot size onto a metal baking sheet. I line my sheet with a silicone Silpat Mat which is non stick. Could also use parchment.


Bake at 425 degF for 15 minutes, then flip the puffs over and bake another 5-10 minutes. They should be golden brown.



Notes: I use almond flour / coconut flour as a sub for breadcrumbs in the original Tasty recipe. The coconut flour absorbs moisture and helps the puffs stay firm.

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Shanghai Nights Along the Bund

If you have limited time or a long layover in Shanghai, a visit to the Bund is highly recommended.

As I noted in my previous blog post, I traveled to Inner Mongolia in China for work. I chose to connect through Shanghai (vs Beijing) to take advantage of a visit to that city. I last visited China in 2006 and spent a day and a half in Beijing, so Shanghai would be a new experience for me.

Due to my work schedule and available flights out of Wuhai, I had a very short turnaround in Shanghai - about 17 hours - not ideal, but more usable time than the 12 hours I had on my inbound flight, especially since I was no longer jet lagged.

I arrived back into Hongqiao airport around 5:30pm, got a taxi and was checked into my hotel around 7pm. I decided to head out to the famous Waitan waterfront, commonly referred to as The Bund. As evening had already descended, I knew the night skyline against the water's edge would be a great place for photos and people watching. Full disclosure - I was tired and hungry from my travels, and considered eating in the hotel restaurant and going to bed. I'm glad I pushed those thoughts away.

I grabbed a taxi from the line of cars in front of the hotel. I sensed my driver's disappointment that I only wanted to go 5K down the street to one of the most crowded areas. I think the cabbies feel pinched by the shorter rides and would prefer to take their charges out to Pudong airport. Or maybe more people use the Uber equivalent (DiDi) for these casual rides. Regardless, my driver dropped me off at edge of the crowds on the south, forcing me to walk a bit, but I didn't mind.

I found the stairs up to the river's promenade and knew I had made the right decision to get into the cab - the view of the sparkling modern skyline across the river to the west took my breath away.


The distinctive and modern blue Oriental Pearl tower anchors the view, punctuated by constantly changing designs displayed on the other skyscrapers from the electronic lightshow. As a contrast, the buildings on the east side of the river were uniformly lit to enhance their traditional European architecture and design.


The promenade undulated with the crowds taking in the sites; lots of selfie action along the river made for great people watching.


I had to partake in the selfie taking....


I performed a search for places to eat and google recommended an Asian fusion restaurant close by. However, I didn't realize the restaurant would be located in one of the neoclassical buildings that look so bank-government-ish, so I wandered around the side streets of Huangpu district, along with a gazillion other tourists. I finally found my way back to the riverside, and found the restaurant, Hakkasan, located right in Building 18 on the Bund.

While the restaurant features tables with a view of the Bund skyline, without a reservation, I opted for the kitchen view over a seat at the bar.

Truthfully, I find this sort of table view to be more interesting and unique, as I watched the bevy of activity in and out of the kitchen

I chose the Crispy Duck salad. I love Peking duck and this dish offered up a great combination of greens and the duck I craved.


You can't visit a port city without sampling the seafood. The sea bass did not disappoint


Finally, a view of the building's staircase.


I thoroughly enjoyed my meal in this upscale and contemporary setting, perfect to close out my evening in Shanghai.

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Recipe Exchange Brunch

Friend and neighbor Jill hosted a Recipe Exchange Brunch for all us Book Club members last Sunday. In other words, it was like a Book Club meeting, except we didn't discuss books (oh, wait, maybe it was like a book club meeting...), and we each brought food and recipes instead. The main purpose of the brunch - to widen our collection of family-friendly recipes.

Jill is the consummate entertainer - she decorated with fresh flowers and colorful place settings. We were handed a crystal flute filled with orange juice and bubbly prosecco upon arriving. Her fruit salad was beautifully presented and we all forgot about the long, cold winter outside.







I took photos of most of the food - my plan is to gather the recipes and photos and create a cookbook - one that represents our group's friendship over the years. I'll feature one recipe here on the blog each week until I run out. Hopefully, my friends will continue to submit recipes! The collection will start next week.

Until then, I leave you with a photo of the party favors Jill put together - she really knows how to get all the details right.

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Afternoon Tea at Jordan Pond

A trip to Acadia National Forest wouldn't be complete without a visit to Jordan Pond. The only restaurant in the park, the Jordan Pond House, is famous for its huge popovers that you can enjoy either inside or (weather permitting) on the large lawn that looks over the Pond with views of the twin Bubble Mountains in the distance.

If you can swing a table on the lawn, that's the way to go - the view is so relaxing.


Thank goodness for those umbrellas - they kept us shaded from the afternoon sun.

And to think, just the day before we were bundled up in jeans and fleece jackets!



If you don't want to wait an hour or more, reservations are a must, but they are only taken for the current day, starting at 9:00 am. My sister finally got through around 9:30 and we had a reservation for 2:30pm - a table on the lawn.



They have a full service menu, but we were there specifically for tea and popovers. Because of the heat, I ordered an iced chai and it was a perfect accompaniment for the popover.

The popovers were delicious!

After eating (we're doing a lot of eating on this trip!), we walked down to the pristine clear pond. The water from the pond is used in the drinking water supply, so there is no swimming allowed.



Hey, it's another perfect spot for a family photo - my sister's family, along with my mother.


The day isn't over - we're heading to the top of Cadillac Mountain next.

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