Vietnamese Cooking

Colleen and I got together today for some cooking.  Our theme was Vietnamese food, and above are the Vegetable Spring Rolls, 1 of 4 dishes that we made.  The other 3 are Salmon with Tomato, Dill and Garlic Soup, Savory Meat Pastries and Grilled Skirt Steak with Vietnamese 'Chimichuri'.  Good eats!

Colleen was the one who chose the theme of our cooking tonight and she brought and prepped the spring rolls.

Black Walnuts - cracking them

Here are some of the black walnuts that Lia and I collected at Turner Farm this past Fall.  I had to special order this nut cracker b/c the first one I got - completely split in half when I tried to crack ONE walnut.  Are black walnuts harder than other walnuts?  I don't know.  But I do know that it is VERY time consuming to crack these nuts.  AND I learned that I need to be EXTRA CAREFUL to remove all of the tiny bits of the shell.  The flavor however is unique and delcious.  I look forward to seeking out some special recipes that will work with this particular nut!

Happy St. Patty's Day

Check out "Sassy Pants".  But can you see the little shamrock necklace that Lia has on that lights up?

We had friends over for dinner but saved our traditional St. Patty's day fare for tomorrow!

One last dip in the pool!

It's Frank's birthday and we have to leave later today but we had to take one last dip!   Mom and Dad's pool is so nice.  And Lia absolutely loves the water!  I had to post all of these pictures because they all show the fun Lia is having!  ;) 

 

Dinner at the Grimes'!

Lia loved dressing up and playing with the toys at Nana & Poppy's! 

Fun out by the grill! 

Grill master Dad!  :)

We love LIDO Beach!

We built a great castle at Lido and Frank was the master architect on this job! 

Lia loves the sand and helping to build the castle. 

Nana and Lia. 

Me & Lia.  This really is my favorite beach.  It's not the beautiful white sand of Siesta but it's calmer, quieter and the trees are so close up to the beach.  We've seen racoons here too, but not this time.

Siesta Village

Here's Lia with Poppy, we went to Siesta Village for lunch. 

It was chilly but so nice being in Florida! 

Hello Sarasota & Siesta Beach!!!

Our first visit to the beach....Siesta!

Lia let me sculpt her into a mermaid!

Lia loved playing in the sand!

Lia had so much fun playing with Aunt Connie & Uncle Chris too.