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Showing posts with the label hiking

Ground Cherries

I discovered a new fruit last week while shopping at our local farmers market.  We had relatives visiting from the Midwest and they spotted these ground cherries at one of the fruit stands and bought us a container since we'd never seen them before. They are the most interesting little fruit.  They fall from the tree when ripe so are harvested by picking them up off the ground during late summer and early fall.  They have a paper-like husk that you peel off before you pop them into your mouth. They look like a yellow cherry tomato but they have the taste similar to a grape only less sweet and they look like a grape inside, too. They are related more to tomatillos than a grape, however, and are part of the nightshade family.  They are similar in nutrition to tomatoes with lots of vitamins A and C, beta-carotene and potassium. I didn't think they had much taste, a very mellow sweetness but we had fun eating them while Bruce's nephew and his family were here who knew a...

Vegan Meals on the Fair Wind Cruise

We took our first snorkeling cruise on the Fair Wind forty-three years ago on our honeymoon.  It was my first visit to Hawaii, even though Bruce had visited a dozen times already and he couldn't wait to bring me along.  His parents had a condo here on the Kona Coast of the Big Island of Hawaii so he always had a free place to stay when he came.  He already knew about the Fair Wind snorkeling cruise that takes you to one of the best snorkeling locations on Hawaii's Big Island since 1971.  They take you to a Marine Life Conservation District, the only underwater state park on the Big Island.  There are no roads that lead to it so the only way you can go snorkeling there is to go by boat or by hiking.  Last year, we actually took the hike to get to the bay, called Kealakekua Bay.  It is a 1.8 mile one-way hike with a 2,000 ft elevation, so it was a  bit of a work out coming back up but we could handle it.  Needless to say, there are not a lot of...

Sheet Pan Moroccan Style Chicken & Cauliflower

Fall is in full swing around here including our baseball team going to the post season (gotta love October baseball...Brrrr!)  thus the baseball pumpkin in my photo that my friend brought over.  She and I went to the game Friday night and it just so happened that we won with a walk-off home run in the bottom of the 9th inning with 2 outs by a pinch hitter to secure our place in the playoffs - the first time that has ever happened in Major League history!   We could not believe what we were seeing.  The stadium immediately put up the big blue 'W" for all to see. We knew the Mariners could clinch a Wild Card spot this week but we didn't know what game it would actually happen.  They kept announcing the "magic number" everyday which means how many games they needed to win to secure a spot in the Wild Card.  So, we had plans to go to four games this week so we could be there for the celebration.  I couldn't believe it happened Friday night with my friend. ...

Banana Cake

This is sort of a random recipe that I wasn't planning to post but my family all loved it so much that I knew it was a keeper.  I got the recipe from  Sally's Baking Addiction  at the spur of the moment when my 4-year-old grandson decided at the last minute he wanted a banana cake for his birthday. The only difference between my recipe and the original recipe is that I made my cake into a layered cake instead of putting it in a 9” X 13" pan...you know, to get that traditional birthday cake look and to get that birthday cake look that's decorated by a 6-year-old and 4-year-old. I also made  Beatty's Chocolate Cake  for Lauren, the same cake I made to celebrate all five of the July birthdays last year.    This year, we all got individual celebrations and cakes.  How lucky is that?                                      You can safely say that we all got...