Cara Cara Oranges

These little oranges are in season right now. I would describe them as a cross between a navel and a blood orange. They're sweet and tart all at the same time!

I follow a blog called Not Without Salt. It's a wonderful food blog with fresh ingredients.

This salad has an avocado lime dressing tossed among romaine and endive with cilantro, these wonderful oranges, sliced avocado and feta. It's filling and light at the same time and I lived the lime flavor! It was so good we're having it tomorrow night as well!

Stretching Myself in 2014

I have decided that to stretch myself this year I am going to cook my way through the new cookbook Beau got me for Christmas, Thomas Keller's,  Bouchon. My first attempt was the Beef cooked in Red Wine.

This attempt started at 2:00 and ended around 7:00. Now, I have made Julia Child's recipe and while they are similar, one does out-do the other.

I never thought I would say this but Julia Child's recipe was easier and less time consuming and cheaper. And at the end of the day, it tasted better. JC's recipe had more of a wine flavor, which I love! It also had the vegetables cook in the wine/broth and then you actually eat those vegetables. Instead, Keller’s recipe had me use three different sets of vegetables and throw two sets out, which was a whole lot of waste. In addition, those vegetables cooked in the wine and the broth (the ones that soaked up all the flavor) were not eaten, they were the ones thrown out. So in this comparison JC won!

Not sure what's in store for next month!

Michael freezing.

Duck hunt

So I finally has the opportunity to get out there after many attempts and help. First I want to thank my father in law and brother in law for getting a duck stamp and shells for me respectively. We headed out to Lake Marion for an early Saturday AM hunt. We took Morgan and my boat which made us look ridiculous since it is a white center console while everyone else had camo john boats. We manned it up by tucking the boat in the grass behind me and wading out. My waders were borrowed and waterproof. Michaels were his own and I wish I could relay the shock he had when 33 degree water started seeping in near his knee. I say 33 because water froze around us while we stood there and one of the coolest sound (pun) I've ever heard was a boat going by and the wake cracking the sheet of ice in the cypress trees behind me. Michael somehow kept it together and we hunted until I got one and headed back. Ps the landing was still frozen so it was pretty difficult getting the boat out. First time in the books. Next year will be even better.

Making Fayetteville GA tolerable

Sent from my iPadHeaded to piedmont for a meeting with CMO that went very well. Hopefully we can get enrollment turned up a little. Theron met up with me that night and we had a blast. Dinner at Taco Max stunk but the drinks at Teds were great and so was the conversation. Funny how life brings people together and you never know who will turn out to be one of your best friends.

Stretching Myself

So in this new year I have decided that I am going to try new things...things that stretch me. So last night I tried a new cocktail recipe that called for egg white.  Now, I've had a drink with an egg white. One mind you. But definitely never made one myself. I followed the directions and presto! Isn't it nice looking?! Here's what's in it...

Apple Brandy
Lemon juice
Simple syrup
Egg white
Club soda
Dash of cinnamon

A Version of Indian Tea

This is not what I think of when I think of Indian tea. Typically it’s chai that comes to mind. A rich and creamy tea made of black tea, milk, cardamom pods, sugar and cinnamon stick. It’s a wonderful “sit with a friend and talk” tea.

 

This Indian tea is rather different. It’s green tea infused with sipping broth which consists of carrots, celery, onion, garlic, curry, cumin, turmeric and other herbs and spices.

 

So you can imagine, I’m not adding sugar to this. It’s kind of a savory tea. It’s like sipping on broth, but tea. It’s strange, but good. And the packaging is right, it’s the perfect little afternoon “pick me up”.

 

As I sip on it I am still uncertain whether it is to be used in place of a glass of hot black tea or in place of a cough drop on a cold day…

Watching the nat championship

Although I don't know how this game will finish the sec seems to be holding court. Which brings me to my obnoxious friends from the up state. This cartoon seems to put this situation in a format the upstate folks can grasp.

Bitter Fargo

So we're surrounded by ndsu people heading home after their 3 peat of winning whatever division their in. Anyway they are all heading home to the screen shot below. I have never read bitter on the weather channel before and it's repeated over and over again. Winners on the field perhaps but I feel like a bigger winner heading home to Charlie town.

Back in time

In case people are wondering why the blog is heading back in time I am bored at DFW waiting for flight. Here are some randoms.

Kathryn showing off the new gas stove and check out the tile work David and I did.

On of Ks Christmas gifts was the ballet. Nutcracker and dinner at Tristan's.

Argos sitting at our bar. Enough said.

Christmas Eve downtown

Fun night.

Kathryn and her new best and the people who got us here.

Christmas Day

Karen is very pleased with her ice cream gift.

Mom and I.

A really angry elf packing heat.

Christmas day

Dogs getting their presents first.

More!!!!

Aunts uncles moms and dads.

Trent and Nicole before they head to Germany for a few years.

More

Matt and Tom. Pfizer Pfriends

Michael and Scott. Hunting and high society buddies.

Oyster roast pics

Our German neighbor's family

Steffi and Steve neighbors

Morg Colin and Matt. Friends since middle school on.

Oyster roast friends and fam

Chet and Ken. Both cousins.

Sam and Kelly neighbors with my cousin Casey and her boyfriend Mason

Jessie Sarah and Brian. Ks coworkers and significant others.

Oyster roast 2013

In the books thanks to my wife's encouragement. Lots of fun with a strange German theme. I wanted to cook my wife since she is sooo sweet.

New Years Celebration with our German neighbors

New Year's Day we headed to Steffi and Eddie's house to enjoy dinner and a German New Year tradition. Eddie doused a cone of sugar in 151 and while the sugar was on fire it dripped into a bowl filled with wine and a mixture of spices. Really tasty and the ribs that accompanied this were great also.

Julia's wedding

Here is the bride to be and the friend she has had the longest enjoying each other's company the night before the wedding.

Dallas

While we were here we had to have a double double animal style and improve our western wear. K got new boots.

This is Five Sixty from the outside

The bar at Five Sixty

Very cool restaurant owned by Wolfgang Puck but we only stopped in for a drink. Cool place that rotated once every hour. We stayed for a complete rotation and then headed to La Duni. Fun times.

From the 6th floor

K and I checked out the JFK museum our last day in Dallas. This is the view from the 7th floor just above where the shots were fired from the 6th. Really interesting museum but I went in believing in a single shooter and left with the same opinion. Great time in Dallas.