2014 Florida Trip - Lightsey's

After being behind the wheel of the motor home for two days and 725 miles, I didn’t want to go anywhere our first day in FL and we spent it getting set up, looking around the resort, and taking the shots on the previous post.  One of our discoveries was the Tiki-Hut and fishermen Mike from New Mexico, Bill from WV (my home state), and Dave from Sevier County, TN (about an hour’s drive from us) - it’s an amazingly small world.

I just love the friendliness and helpfulness of fellow RVers and at Bill’s suggestion, within a day we had something on order to hopefully solve our continuing issue with weak campground wf-fi systems.  It’s an Alfa AWUS036NHR - High-Gain 2000mw 2W 802.11 B/G/N Wireless USB Network Adaptor, whatever that is.

The second day we drove about 5 miles up and down US-441 to check out the immediate area (found nothing) then headed up to Okeechobee to visit with our friends from home, Ron and Nancy, who spend the winters there.  After visiting with them, they took us on a tour of Okeechobee (which didn’t take very long) then to Lightsey’s Restaurant (Trip Advisor - 4 stars) where they will cook the fish you provide them.

Can you believe I failed to take a food shot so let me say that for $7.50 they cooked our fish and provided three sides which were enough for a meal by themselves.  I had fries, fried green tomatoes, collard greens and my fish (with Bev's) was deep fried Cajun style - you should have seen that platter full.  The sides were all good but the fish was outstanding with a light crispy batter and nice Cajun flavor – it also helped that the fish were caught just the night before.

The visit, the tour, and the meal were a great way to begin our FL visit – thanks Ron and Nancy.

While I didn't get any food photos at the restaurant, I got some of the leftover fish sandwich while included Irish cheddar and leftover Lemon Caper Sauce from an earlier meal.

It wasn't as crisp as right out of the fryer, but it was still really good and the sauce worked well with it, as did the slaw Bev whipped up.

Photos best if enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

1/6/14 & 1/8/14 event dates

Snorkeling in Minnesota - Too Funny

If you don't do anything else this weekend, you should pop over to Live Laugh RV, look at the last photo, and see if you can refrain from laughing.

http://livelaughrv.wordpress.com/2014/01/10/no-room-at-the-inn/

Ingrid - if you see this, I'm unable to comment on your blog.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

2014 - RVing For A Month In Florida - The Trip & Campground

The motor home came home from its two months visit to the dealership to take care of a long list of warranty issues and can you believe I discovered another one on the way home – does it never end.  It will have to wait, as we now have the house sitter in place, the motorhome is cleaned and packed (including fishing poles), the reservations are made, and we’re heading for Okeechobee, FL for January – our first time to go away for part of the winter, ever.

And after some nice mild weather, winter storm Hercules came through the day before we left, it rained all day on final packing day and the temps headed for the teens so we closed everything up in hopes that nothing would be frozen on travel day. 

It was a balmy 16* when I went out to check on things and had shot up to 17* while I was hooking up the car to leave.  We drove to Tifton, GA to spend the night at the I-75 RV Park which is obviously in existence for one night stopovers for folks traveling on I-75.  It was fine for a one night stopover and I would stay there again.

The next morning, we departed in 26* weather and drove another 365 miles to arrive at our destination just south of Okeechobee, FL at Waters Edge Motor Coach Resort.  The resort is on the Rim Canal that encircles parts of Lake Okeechobee - the lake covers 730 sq mi, approximately half the size of the state of Rhode Island, and is exceptionally shallow for a lake of its size, with an average depth of only nine feet.  At its capacity, the lake holds 1 trillion gallons of water and is the headwaters of the Everglades.

Waters Edge is a gated resort with paved roads and 30 sites that are surfaced with brick pavers and nicely landscaped.  It also has a pool, and a clubhouse but not much else - doesn't have some of the amenities offered by most campgrounds such as laundry and showers as they expect campers to use there coaches.

Here are some shots of the campground beginning with a view from Google Earth then the entrance.

This is a typical site and ours from the front and rear.

This the club house and the pool and a shot down the road - our car is the last one on the right.

The boat launch and tiki-hut for fishing or just hanging out.

A nice grassy area along the canal with bocce ball and shuffleboard.

We definitely hit it right weather wise as I got up to a nice 65* Monday while it was 18* and light snow at home.  Here's a Monday shot of our house sent to me from the neighbor on the hill - brrr.  If home, I'd sure be piled up in front of a big fire as the house sitter is likely to be.

Please tune in and we’ll keep you posted about the trip.

Photos best if enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

01/3 – 1/4/14 event date

Chili Verde For Breakfast

I hadn't had many opportunities lately to turn leftovers into breakfast, but this one finally came along.

While in Durango, CO during our RV trip, we ate breakfast at Oscar’s café and the guys next to us raved about the Verde Breakfast they were eating:  "Verde Breakfast - golden hash browns with our famous green chili ladled over, topped with two eggs, and melted cheese served with toast or tortilla."

After making our first batch of Chili Verde, Bev made a similar dish for me by reheating some leftover scalloped potatoes, adding warmed chili, and topping with a fried egg.  Since ut was in a bowl, it wouldn’t have made a very pretty shot but it was delicious.

I had the same ingredients the next morning, but tried to make it more photogenic.

It was delicious and you know I put a fried egg on top, but the photo was a flop.

Photos best if enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry  

12/30 - 12/31/13 meal dates

Black Eyed Peas For The New Year

In the southern US, black eyed peas are eaten on New Year’s Day for good luck and are often accompanied by cooked greens and cornbread.  Since it’s the peas that bring the good luck and not the greens, which we don’t care for, we had only peas and cornbread.  By the way, since I was born on Friday the 13^th, I don’t put much stock in luck traditions.

Bev usually just doctors some canned peas, but since Sam from My Carolina Kitchen just posted her recipe for the dish, we decided to begin with it and add our own twists.

Black-Eyed Pea Soup – Adapted From My Carolina Kitchen

1 lb. package black-eyed peas                       

2 T. bacon grease

1 large onion, finely chopped

1 cup celery, finely chopped

1 peeled carrot, finely chopped

3 cloves garlic, chopped

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

1¼ teaspoon herbs de Provence

10 oz Rotel

2 bay leaves       

½”  thick slice center cut ham – cubed & sauteed a little to brown

7 cups water
Worcestershire sauce (optional)

Optional other garnishes include sour cream, grated cheese, chopped green scallions, chopped cilantro, seeded & chopped jalapeno peppers

1. Soak peas overnight in a large stock pot with plenty of water to cover. Drain, rinse, and put back into the stock pot with the water, ham, Rotel, and bay leaves and bring to a boil.

2. While the peas are coming to a boil, sauté the vegetables in 1-2 tablespoon of bacon grease (or oil) in a non-stick skillet until softened and beginning to caramelize. Stir frequently.

3. When browned, sprinkle with a little salt and freshly ground black pepper and add the dried herbs and stir then add the sautéed vegetables to the peas.

4. When peas come to a boil, simmer, partially covered, until peas are tender, adding more liquid if necessary. 

5. Before serving, taste for salt, add if necessary, and discard bay leaves. If you want a touch more flavor, add a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce (I forgot to).

6. Garnish as desired.

Note - the original recipe calls for more carrots and some tomato paste which I excluded due to the sweetness they would add to the dish.

We sided the peas with some cornmeal muffins and called it a meal.

Everything was a big hit and we are now expecting good luck for 2014.

Then we settled in for a little football watching by the fire.  As you can see, the dogs were really into the games.

Photos best if enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

1/1/14 meal date

Chili Verde - Our First Ever

During our western trip this fall, we ate a lot of chili verde and brought home some roasted Hatch chiles to make the delicious concoction in our kitchen.  I’d saved Lea Ann’s recipe  from Highlands Ranch Foodie and even froze the roasted chiles in packages of 15 to use with it.  Since we’ve eaten Lea Ann’s cooking, we knew we didn’t want to mess with her recipe much, but since I was BBQing, we decided to use my smoked pork (Bev’s idea) for the meat and Bev found some smoked pork broth in the freezer so I’ve changed from Lea Ann's Hatch Green Chili - Colorado Style to BBQ Style.  Please check her site for the original recipe and great photos.

Hatch Green Chili, BBQ Style – slightly adapted from Highlands Ranch Foodie

Ingredients:

1 T. bacon drippings

1 T. olive oil

2½ lbs smoked pork butt (cooked weight)

1 onion chopped

5 garlic cloves peeled and minced

1 quart smoked pork broth (homemade)

1 T. salt

1½ T. coriander

1 t. mild Chamayo Chili Powder (we brought some from Colorado)
½ t. cayenne 

2 t. of your favorite chili powder (my homemade)

1½ T. Mexican Oregano
½ t. cumin 
1 t. dried cilantro 

14.5 ounces can chopped tomato, undrained

15 roasted chile peppers chopped (or 3 seven oz cans chopped peppers)

½ cup water 

¼ cup cornstarch

Instructions:

1. Heat the oil and the bacon drippings in a Dutch oven, add the onion and cook until soft, about 10 minutes . Add the garlic and cook until fragrant.

2. Add the shredded meat, tomatoes, broth, salt, coriander, oregano, tomatoes, chile powders and chiles. Bring to a boil and then simmer on low for 2 hours.

3. In a bowl combine water and cornstarch and stir until combined and towards the end of cooking, add this to thicken the soup.
4. When it was nearly done, we decided a little cilantro and cumin would suit our taste buds.

I ate a bowl of it with warm flour tortillas and Bev ate hers over scalloped potatoes and I thought mine was off the hook good as did she - Thanks Lea Ann.

But we were really making it to serve over things, such as burritos which I’m confident will be blogged about later.

Photos best if enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

12/27/13 meal date

Crappie Provencale

While visiting with Meakin and Sam (My Carolina Kitchen) at their home in Florida, Meakin mentioned that Sam had won a cooking contest with a fish dish and after we got home, she sent us the recipe.  Want to see a shot of Sam in her younger days, check out the bottom photo in her 8/25/09 post.

The title of her dish is Fish Provencale with Tumeric Rice and I believe she may have used catfish, but we used the crappie that is nearly always in the freezer and served it over turmeric couscous as that’s what we had – I wanted to use orzo.  I don’t believe Sam has ever blogged about this dish, so I won’t publish the recipe but it contains the sautéed fish and a sauce of tomatoes, garlic, white wine, olives, corn starch, and herbs.

I added all of the sauce ingredients to a bowl an hour ahead of time so the dried herbs could re-hydrate a little and begin flavoring the tomatoes then cooked it in a saucepan.

The fish just got a dusting of flour and S&P and a quick fry in vegetable oil.  We cooked the couscous per package directions but added extra butter and the turmeric.  This was my plate – Bev decided a little grated parmesan was in order.

Bev and I both thought it was delicious and understand why it was a prize winner – thanks for sharing the recipe Sam.  A couple of cooks notes – if you use couscous, the sauce needs more liquid to help out it’s dry nature or if you’re married to a sauce-a-holic, as I am, you may need more sauce period.  And if using the larger Kalamata olives, we would halve them to spread the flavor around more.

If you think you'd like to try it, you might be able to get the recipe from Sam with a little sweet talking.

Photos best if enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

12/27/13 meal date