More farm fresh vegetables

Here we are at the end of August! I am sad to see summer on the way out.

My friend S dropped off some more vegetables for me from her sister's farm. It was rainbow chard, kale and a bunch of cilantro.

I set about making kale chips and did a rainbow chard dish using both the stems and the leaves. I found a recipe for this that I had luckily saved on my blog here.

Paint Party Friday - a pretty outfit

It is our last long weekend of the summer, boo hoo.  Have a great one!

Welcome to Paint Party Friday! In a coffee shop, I saw this older lady in a pretty outfit, I was drawn to the back of the shirt as pictured below. In fact, I complimented her on her top and she thanked me, saying it was so comfortable. I said 'the statement is at the back!' She thanked me again.

This is a greeting card (4 1/4" x 5 1/2") in permanent markers, sharpie oil paint marker, outlined with a PITT fine point marker.

Rain's Thursday Art Date - One

Bringing back an older piece I had done to meet Rain's Thursday Art Date today. It is a snowflake done in my sketchbook in permanent marker! There are no two alike.

Stuffed zucchini

My friend S had given me this huge zucchini from her sister's farm. I found a recipe for stuffed zucchini and it did not disappoint!  It is a great low carb dish too.

Bees and Coneflowers

I captured these bees buzzing around the coneflowers and black eyed susans in my summer garden, hope you can see them in the photos.

Ikea veggie balls

We went to Ikea the other day and saw that for once their veggie balls were not sold out in their restaurant. We passed on the mashed potatoes and got double servings of vegetables. It was delicious. They sell packets of frozen veggie balls but it is also hard to find those in stock, they seem to sell out quickly. I think the trend now is veggie balls and veggie burgers.

Roasted Kohlrabi

Recently I made some roasted kohlrabi, given to me by my friend S. They had a taste of turnips, or even parsnips and are low carb. It required peeling the skins and cutting them into slices, looking much like potato. I roasted them for 30 minutes at 350F with some olive oil and salt.

Chewy Peanut Butter Cookies

I made these chewy peanut butter cookies recently based on a recipe from Marie at The English Kitchen, which I had saved. They were delicious! Then I made them again using stevia powder instead of sugar. They had a different, more of a shortbread texture, but were still pretty good.

Paint Party Friday - bridal wear

Welcome to Paint Party Friday! This is a bridal piece, a greeting card (4 1/4"x 5 1/2") in permanent marker, sharpie oil marker, outlined with a PITT fine point marker.

Thursday Art Date with Rain - Comics/Cartoons

Welcome to Rain's Thursday Art Date, 'Comics/Cartoons' theme. This 'Snow White' piece was done 3 years ago, I decided to revisit it today. It is done in my sketchbook in watercolour pencil. It features a young girl in a Snow White costume.

I am sad that August is almost done, sigh.

Farm fresh vegetables

My friend S brought me these wonderful vegetables from her sister's farm. Look at the size of that huge zucchini in relation to the pen in the photo! There is also kohlrabi and kale.

I do kale chips with the kale, just roast the kale leaves in the oven for ten minutes with a little salt and olive oil until browned.

Naturally Arranged

It wouldn't be summer if I didn't show these pretty weeds naturally arranged along a construction site I was walking by on a hot sunny day.

Scallops

I have never made scallops before, or if I did it was unsuccessful. Costco had some large ones on sale so I decided to give it a try again. My sister advised making sure they are dried off before sauteing. If they are frozen you can thaw them in cold water for 20 minutes. It is quite easy, you saute 2 minutes per side in butter.

2 cloves garlic minced
package of frozen scallops, thawed
pinch of salt
1/2 tsp pepper
squeeze of lemon juice
2 tbs butter (can add some olive oil too)
dried parsley or your favourite herb

Melt butter and optional olive oil in a pan, when the pan is nice and hot, add garlic and scallops. Ensure the scallops are spread out and not touching. Saute for 2 minutes, flip on the other side for another 2 minutes. Remove from the pan and mix in the lemon juice and parsley. It is great with rice or pasta.

Down Time Needed

We had a couple more days left in Miami. We did some shopping at the mall, electronics are a lot less expensive in the U.S. compared to Canada. Son K got some Nintendo switch accessories. We also bought some clothing and shoes, all within our customs allowance. We spent more time with my great niece.

One our last day we got to spend more quality time with my great niece. She is one year old right now.  Then we were off to the airport for a late flight.  We got this delicious pizza past the security gate.

It was a wonderful vacation, albeit fast-paced and hectic. Some people were ready for their next cruise, not me. I needed some down-time!

Meeting My Great Niece

The extended family had all been invited to a celebratory wedding lunch of a young couple at beautiful Pinecrest Gardens in Miami.  Apparently this was the location of the former Parrot Jungle attraction. My nephew's baby made her appearance at this event. It was beyond exciting taking photos with her, all the doting relatives descending on the sweet baby.

After the lunch, some of us took a walk through the gardens. Here is a video of some turtles.  Of course there were mosquitoes given the heat and humidity.

The baby's grandparents had planned a 200 person dinner party that evening in honour of their grandchild. My cousins from both sides of the family were in attendance. Everyone seemed to be in the mood for a fun reunion. It was so much fun catching up with everyone, we hadn't seen some relatives in years.

Paint Party Friday - Postcard Request

Welcome to Paint Party Friday!

Regine requested that we send postcards to the local teachers in El Paso who want to demonstrate to their students that there is kindness in the world in the wake of recent shootings. I was happy to participate in this initiative and set about painting a Toronto postcard as pictured above. This is what I mailed out to one of the teachers yesterday, my printer did not copy the postcard perfectly so I went over the copy with a marker:

Rain's Thursday Art Date - Moon Sun and Stars

Welcome to Rain's Thursday Art Date where the theme is 'moon sun and stars'. This piece is done on lilac coloured cardstock in permanent markers and white Faber-Castell Pitt artist pen. It was inspired by the waxing gibbous moon I saw while driving at dusk on Friday August 9th. I found out that planet off to the side was Jupiter.

Rain has a lot of fun challenges in store for us, hope you will join in.  Photographs, poetry, even baking is accepted!

Back to Miami

Back in Miami we headed to a shopping mall as we waited to check in to our airbnb.  We found a Chick-Fil-A restaurant at the eatery that daughter L really wanted to try.  They don't yet have these in Toronto.  We enjoyed the food.  They are very generous with their sauce packets and soft drink refills in the U.S.

We left the mall and went to a Publix supermarket near the airbnb to get milk and essentials for the next few days.  Daughter L found these chewable soft mints and she remembered we loved.

We were delighted to find that they had given us the same apartment in the condominium complex that we were assigned prior to the cruise.  In hindsight it was a good idea to reserve the same airbnb for before and after the cruise.  We were already familiar with the location and all the rules concerning parking and so on.

My sister from California stopped by that evening with this 'Verve' coffee from California.  It is smooth and delicious.  They enjoyed the tour of the airbnb facilities.

Our great niece was due to arrive that night, everyone was so excited to meet her. There were a couple of extended family parties planned for the next day where she would be introduced.

Nassau port of call and disembarkation

The final port of call was Nassau Bahamas.  We decided to take taxis to the Atlantis water park with many of our extended family members.  It was a fun day in the water and going on some of the water rides and slides.  It was our third time at this park over the years, coincidentally.  More wonderful family memories were made.

Atlantis water park

Atlantis - Cove Beach

Finally the cruise was at an end.  We disembarked at the Port of Miami. 

Port of Miami

Cozumel port of call

Continuing my MSC Seaside Western Caribbean cruise, the next port of call was Cozumel, Mexico.
It is a very flat island.  Husband M and I had been here some 20 years ago, but couldn't remember much.  We chose to do an excursion here, just with my husband, daughter L and son K.  We boarded a boat with other tourists on the excursion.  It took us along the coast of the island and we had a good look at the large town of San Miguel from the water.  We then went on a bus which took us inland. 

We toured the Discover Mexico Park Cozumel. It is a cultural theme park which gave a good overview of Mexican history.  The doll's dress in the exhibit below is made from corn.

Next we moved on to another park called Pueblo Del Maiz.  Here we learned a lot about the Mayan heritage.

We tasted corn tortillas which were being made in this demo below. 

This video shows a woman making chocolate from cocoa beans by grinding it the old fashioned way.  We got to taste some.

This video shows a fire dance.

At the end of the tour there was a tequila tasting.  That stuff is very strong.  Bottles were available for purchase.

The crew members on the ship told me a lot of them like to shop at this port of call during their break time, as the prices in Mexico are very good.  We got a bottle of duty free rum here for $16 US which is an amazing price.  Indeed, I felt our tour was good value for the money.

Grand Cayman Port of Call

I had never been to Grand Cayman. We needed to get to the island via tender boats as the cruise ships are unable to dock at this island. It is a very flat island, no mountains. They have many fast food chains here, such as Kentucky Fried Chicken, Burger King, no McDonald's that I noticed. There are a lot of major Canadian banks here such as the Royal Bank and the Bank of Nova Scotia.

My sister has a friend who lives on the island so she arranged for the bunch of us to be driven around in a minivan.  We went on a quick driving tour of the whole island.  It included a stop at another friend's house to eat fresh picked coconuts.  The guy just picked them off a tree on the property and opened them up for us!

Georgetown via tender boat

Georgetown port of call

Conch Shell House - made of conch shells

We visited an area of black limestone formations known as 'Hell'.

Hell

My sister arranged for the bunch of us to eat at this Jamaican style restaurant in Grand Cayman.

We ate this delicious escoveitched fish, it has pickled onions and carrots.

Bodden Town

Jamaica - Port of Call

Our first port of call on our MSC Seaside cruise was Jamaica. It is worth noting that I am Jamaican of Chinese descent, born and lived here until I was 16 years old. It a beautiful, green and mountainous island although they are in a bit of a drought.

Ocho Rios

This band played beautiful music at the port.

The taxis were charging $20 US per person, the 'tourist' fare. 

My sister was able to get us a local rate for the taxi as her husband's sister lives on the island.  They took a bunch of us to Scotchies in Ocho Rios, a famous jerk cuisine restaurant.  We also feasted on local fruit such as mangoes, star apples, guinep, otaheite apples, sugar cane, pineapples that the sister in law had brought for us.  It really was a trip back to the past, revisiting one's roots.  All too soon, it was time to return to the ship.  It was really hot out, so maybe it was a good thing.

hibiscus near the outdoor eating area

cooking jerk meat

Paint Party Friday - Mr and Mr

Welcome to Paint Party Friday!

My friend S asked me to make her a card for a wedding she is attending. It is a 'Mr. and Mr.' wedding for a gay couple. Here is the greeting card I came up with (4 1/4" x 5 1/2") on cardstock in pitt pen, gold sharpie oil paint marker and permanent markers.

Rain's art date - Patterns

Welcome to Rain's Art Date! The theme is 'patterns'. I designed a little dress for you today, it is done on cardstock (4 1/4" x 5 1/2") in permanent markers, outlined with a PITT fine point marker.  It is a paisley inspired pattern.

Those less fortunate

A priest from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Jhansi in India visited our church recently.  He spoke of the poverty in their area and showed a video of the people they help, the poor, the disabled, the diseased.  It was heartbreaking, many people donated to this special collection after being made aware of the work of this Diocese.  When you compare this to your own problems in life, they become miniscule, as the priest truly said.

MSC Seaside Part 2

Continuing my stay on the MSC Seaside cruise ship, we enjoyed breakfast at one of the buffets some mornings with these fabulous views.

There were many usb outlets in the cabins for charging our devices, which was very handy

Here are some of my buffet meals, we ate a lot.

One night we went up to the buffet and they had these late night snacks. Well these plain donuts dusted with sugar were to die for, I had 2 of them!

There were fun nightly parties, one of them was the white party.  You were encouraged to wear white that night and attend the dance party.  There were also a variety of live entertainment shows  in the Theatre every night.  I, my siblings and our families would try to meet there for the shows.

The cruise had a couple of seadays and would stop at ports in between. The first stop was Jamaica, then Grand Cayman, then Cozumel, then Nassau in the Bahamas. Stay tuned for more!