We’re back home from the lake. We had a great time last night visiting with our raftup buddies. Tonight we’re enjoying fresh squeezed ruby red grapefruit juice with a little vodka over ice. I guess Fall is officially here!
Between October and May the Texas Rio Grande valley produces luscious, red, sweet, juicy grapefruit for all the world to enjoy. Go get some!
Check out this link for recipe ideas for Texas Ruby Red grapefruit.
Monte whipped up a batch of his pizza doughs this afternoon. Instead of our usual thin, thin crust in the oven on the pizza stone, he wanted to give it a try on the grill this time. We’ve tried grilled pizza before… once we put a pizza stone on top of the grate in a Weber charcoal grill and tried, unsuccessfully, to cook a loaded pizza dough on top. After that experiment, we ended up with 3 or 4 inedible pizzas that were black on the bottom and raw on top. And, the pizza stone eventually broke in 2 from the heat.
This time, he had something else in mind. We have a charcoal hibachi grill out back as well. This time he put one of our cast iron grill plates on the hibachi, and put the pizza dough on top of that. After turning it the dough once, he put sauce and cheese on top while the other side was grilling. It only took a few minutes per side – and it turned out great.
Viva la pizza!
I’ve mastered the gas oven on the boat. This morning I fired it up and baked blueberry scones for breakfast. We are definitely not roughing it with fresh baked scones and jam. 🙂
(Disclaimer, I’m not a complete Betty-Crocker, though, I use Sticky Fingers scone mix. Just add water. Delicious!)
We’ve had company here this week – my sister visiting, a colleague of mine for dinner last friday, and Julie joining us when she can find time. So, Monte has been cooking up a storm… grilled chickens, Cincinnati chili, cedar plank salmon, risotto, catfish, creme caramel, cooked apples, grilled pork ribs, and today for lunch: homemade ravioli with goat cheese stuffing. Hoooo-wheeeeee!
Delicious!
My sister leaves tomorrow, so I took the afternoon off to play hooky with her. We started off buying beads at a bead shop to get supplies for making jewelry thingies. No pics of that – a project for another day. Then we headed to Zilker Park for a hike on the Barton Creek Greenbelt Trail. It was really lovely out. High 70’s and sunny. Perfect for a hike. The creek is mostly dry. We did see lots of flowers, butterflies and dragonflies.
The orange butterfly in the shot below stopped to let me take several shots.
Later on down the trail this swallowtail stopped to let me do the same thing.
I found a pretty good butterfly guide website to try to identify them. You might want to bookmark for future reference.
After the hike we stopped by Barton Springs Pool. Such a pretty place. The pool was beautifully clear.
Then we ran over to Sno-Beach for a must-have best-snocone-ever experience. You’d better hurry, they close at the end of October for the winter. Go out and get one!
Then. Back to Zilker to rent a kayak and tootle around Town Lake (ok, sorry “Lady Bird Lake.” old habits die hard). We paddled all the way to the South 1st Street bridge. On our paddle back we passed 3 UT Women’s Crew boats training.
The Austin City Limits Music Festival takes place this weekend. It’s a 3 day music extravaganza hosted in Zilker Park. Everything is setup and just about ready for the throngs of festival-goers. I took the opportunity to take a quick shot of the festival entrance, so I wouldn’t have to come down here with 75,000 of my closest friends to get the shot this weekend.
What a great Austin afternoon!
There are a hundred or so green pecans strewn about our backyard that the squirrels have raided, leaving the chaff. They sure are persistent little buggers.
Today is Talk-like-a-pirate Day! So in honor of the occasion, we went to dinner tonight at… Chuy’s! 🙂
We actually went at (ahem) 4PM, because we were both kind of hungry, my previous call had just ended and I had a break before my evening conference calls with colleagues in AP started at 6PM tonight. So, this was the only time we could dash out. Back in the day, when we lived in Florida, we used to make jokes about all the old folks grabbing an early dinner (you know…getting the “blue-hair special”). Well. Now we are them.
Anyway, I did order a mango mAARRRg to celebrate in pirate fashion. And a yummy #8 plate to go with it.
I also snapped a photo of their new lighting. I like the colored glass.
One last post for tonight. We made 3 pizza doughs. A margerita, a proscuitto-mozzarella-blackolive and this delicious one with red pepper and goat cheese. Yum-mee. 2+ pizzas are in the fridge for leftovers this week.
Great weekend!
Yesterday we set out for the lake to raft up with Lori & Dave on Camelot. We put our repaired jib back on. And Julie met us at the slip. We were the only two boats on the lake, i think, given the continued forecast of rain.
We anchored up in Arky south last night, expecting some good downpours after midnight. Lori and Dave hosted us to a delicious spaghetti feast on their boat. Thanks guys!
We played iPod wars for a bit and turned in relatively early. The rain really didn’t start until about 8 AM. And it still hasn’t quit. No complaints here though. The lake is up a total of about 11 inches since Wednesday. Keep it comin!
We played rummy in the cabin for several hours and then headed back to the slip.
Now we’re back home and pizza dough is being whipped up as I type this.
Enjoy what’s left of the weekend!
The acorns are back.
Weighing down each red oak branch.
The squirrels rejoice.
Last year was a lean one for the furry critters that live off the acorns in our neighborhood. The red oak was just too stressed. This year the tree is absolutely loaded with them. I just wish the pecan tree out back would cooperate.
After the day’s wrap-up meeting session, we headed to a restaurant closest to the hotel. It’s Polynesian fare tonight, folks. This is the first course. 🙂
I drove into San Francisco with several colleagues for dinner tonight. I had fresh Dungeness crab, and after dinner we ordered a round of legendary Irish Coffees at The Buena Vista.
Deeee-licious!
The restaurant’s website has instructions on how to make one, if you want to try to make one yourself:
| Buena Vista Irish Coffee | ||
 Fill glass with very hot water to pre-heat, then empty. |
 Pour hot coffee into hot glass until it is about three-quarters full. Drop in two cocktail sugar cubes. |
 Stir until the sugar is thoroughly dissolved. |
 Add full jigger of Irish Whiskey for proper taste and body. |
 Top with a collar of lightly whipped whipping cream by pouring gently over a spoon. |
 Enjoy it while piping hot. |
Whew, what a long week. Monte has also had a long and HOT week, working in the shop all day, every day this week in 100 degree temps.
I was happy to hear the blender fire up at about 5:30.
TGIF, and have a great weekend everyone!
When we came back from the lake Sunday night, I was still wearing my prescription sunglasses. It wasn’t until after we got home that I realized that I left my eyeglasses on the boat — both my distance and my reading glasses. *sigh* I managed to use an old pair w/ prescription lenses from a couple years ago + a pair of drug store readers (at the same time!) to be able to see my computer screen for the last 2 days.
Tonight we planned a quick dash out to the boat to pick them up and do a couple other things. On the way back we stopped at one of the Pho restaurants in our rotation. Monte always gets the noodles. I always get #53, pictured above.
For those of you that are keeping track, we’re 2/5ths of the way through the week. Hang in there!
Sheila365 