It’s my day, y’all! Not sure I can drink the whole batch myself though! (I didn’t.)
Category Archives: Food & Cooking
Tom picked up our box o’ deer today.
We were somewhat disappointed that we didn’t get any steaks—we must have read the form wrong. But we have lots of ground and the other things we asked for like jerky and sausages.
Pre-Thanksgiving 2023
Everyone was coming for Thanksgiving again this year! So Day 1 dinner prep—smoked ribs—started early!
Goodbye, Maine
My last homemade lobster meal from my mom before heading to the airport—a lobster omelette with a side of lobster!
Our last full day in Maine!
Our last fresh lobster dinner—2+ pounders! We couldn’t even finish them so we have leftovers for lobster quiche in the morning before heading to the airport and back to real life!
It rained all damn day
I sat across the couch from Owen and read a book.
Everyone else played many hands of Buck Euchre (Katie learned it and loved it), Tonk, Kings Corners and others I’m surely forgetting. Katie was a card-playin fiend.
Friday Fave: fresh lobster
I’m in Maine so that means FRESH LOBSTER!
There’s a dock just a few miles from where we’re staying that we visit every other day. If you saw my reel yesterday, that’s the place.
Honestly if I had my choice I’d probably choose a lobster roll, but there’s something about cracking open your own personal lobster!
Lesson learned and Pemaquid Point
Last night we had asked Owen to take out the lobster waste and set the bucket inside the garbage bins (because it was too dark to go too the beach and dump in the water—but it couldn’t stay in the house or be left out where animals could get it.
Never underestimate the non-listening power of a teen brain. This is what we found in the morning. He somehow missed that we said to put the lobster shells IN the garbage bin and just left it on the porch. So then he got the glorious job of cleaning it all up! We all had a good laugh.
Then it was off on another adventure—to my mom’s favorite spot: Pemaquid Point!
You’ve seen the lobster dinner, now see our dessert! Everyone loves strawberry shortcake!
Lobster, lobster, lobster!
When in Rome…
When vacationing in Maine, fresh lobsters straight from the dock are mandatory. You’re looking at nine lobsters coming in at 18-ish pounds!
Friday Fave: Rum punch
I always thought I didn’t like rum…but as it turns out I don’t like SPICED rum or coconut rum. So when we were on our family cruise in 2019 and our snorkeling with the turtles excursion came with unlimited rum punch, I learned that I actually quite liked rum punch. But it wasn’t really a drink we made ourselves.
Fast forward a bit to our friend David saying he made the best Trinidadian rum punch…and by golly he did. Wow. So every now and again he’d make a batch for us and we actually drank it so much we kinda tired of it. (It was even a favorite drink at the 2022 Hudson Summer Bash.)
But every once in awhile now we’ll have it again…but there’s no way the four of us can finish it these days, so that means we get leftovers! So I know what I’m drinking tonight!!
Are you a rum punch fan?
That’s a lotta butt!
Prepping 35# of pork butts
Our annual Hudson House Party is this weekend so they’ll be going on the smoker about 4am and we’ll be eating about 5pm.
The frozen rum punch was delish!
We made it the night before just to make sure it turned out okay. And boy did it! Tom kept sneaking back to take little tastes of it all night.
Exploding watermelon!
Well this is a new one. I had the watermelon sitting on the dining room table for a few days in preparation for the party. I went to get it today to cut it and saw the entire table was soaked. And then I heard bubbling and gurgling…and I went to roll it over and it exploded and gushed all over. Dripping through the table, puddles on the floor!
Turns out it’s a real thing. Lots of people have been posting videos of this craziness.
The rind was paper thin and was just so bizarre.
Friday Fave: Crab Rangoon + Year 22 of Chinese
Our annual tradition of Chinese on our anniversary (we’re at 22 years!). Sometimes it’s dinner, sometimes it’s lunch. It’s usually Crab Rangoon and General Tsos chicken but today we went outside the box with coconut shrimp and it was super delish!
BTW, if Crab Rangoon is on a menu I’m getting it. And especially if it’s our wedding anniversary—we randomly had Chinese after our wedding and then randomly had it on our anniversary for the first few years so now it’s obviously a tradition!
Get your own taco!
The Len Christmas in July is over!
It’s now just a gathering with food (lots of food!) and catching up…and euchre!
Plus we get the chance to get the kids together for comparison pics!! (They were all really good sports about it, too!)
Another batch to smoke!
Friday Fave: Sam’s shrimp ceviche
If y’all know anything about me, you know I love Costco and Sam’s Club. I have so many favorites at each place it would be hard to narrow it down to just a few things.
But today, I’m going to tell you about my new favorite thing from Sam’s Club—🦐 Shrimp ceviche! You may scoff at getting something like this from a warehouse club, but it was really good! Plentiful shrimp, fresh veggies, decent cost—I will admit that it needed salt, and then I ended up putting a little too much in … but I still had to stop myself from eating the whole thing in one sitting. 🤤
A great start to this mother’s day.
Sleeping in, hubby cuddles, crispy waffles (cheesy eggs and sausage not shown!), a handmade card, and hot chocolate…
I can’t believe it’s taken a year!
OMG. I can’t believe it’s taken me a year to come to Ducks Donuts (they just celebrated their one-year anniversary yesterday)!
My faves (of the ones in this box—the Signature Assortment) are Bacon in the Sun and Coconut Island Bliss. Though Sunrise and Blueberry Pancake were nice surprises!
Friday Fave: Chocolate & PB granola
Chocolate and peanut butter is one of my all time favorite combos so whenever Costco has this granola, I’m buying about five bags! I did find it on Amazon when Costco ran out, but obviously the bags are smaller and it costs more.
I could seriously eat this every day, but I limit myself to a bag every few weeks.
Every time we’re in the kitchen. Every. Time.
She’s a food hound.
And if we didn’t watch her she’d be up on the table immediately.
I’ve graduated to the good tequila.
And boy does it make all the difference!
I blame David. He started it.
Exotic snack store attack!
I looooove chips. So I might have gone a little crazy at the local exotic snack store!
The last time I did something like this was probably over a year ago when Tom and I wandered into a Japanese grocery store and we bought a bunch of chips (and I think we only have one bag left—we just open a bag every now and again and do a taste test with Anna and David). So I dragged her along with me…
I know the flavors are probably hard to read, so I’ll share a few:
- Roasted Cumin Lamb Skewer
- Salted Egg
- Fried Crab
- Seaweed
- Sweet Basil
- Spicy Garlic
- Sichuan Pepper
- Wild Mushrooms and Sour Cream
- Creamy Forest Mushroom
- Green Onion
- Scallop Butter Garlic
- Salmon Chili Lime
Yes, smoked Chex mix!
I recently saved this recipe so decided it was happening today since the smoker is already on for brisket!
And it was delicious! This is the recipe that gave me the idea but I didn’t follow it much. I used 2 sticks butter, Worcestershire, onion powder, minced garlic, and some random spices Tom uses when grilling or smoking!
Dr. Pepper Strawberry taste test
Anna: I really like the Zero version. 4/5 stars
Jen: I am not a huge flavored pop fan but I give the regular version a 3/5.
Tom tried both and liked the Zero version better. 4/5
We have consensus that it needs vodka. 😂
Magic Spoon cereal? Meh.
We wanted to try it after seeing tons of ads for it—we were intrigued. So we finally forked over $10 for a box and…meh.
As you can see — the bag is only half full. And it was a smaller box to start. The taste was okay — it definitely didn’t taste like the sugar cereals of our youth like they claim. That said, it wasn’t bad…but I wouldn’t waste your money on this unless you really REALLY specifically needed this type of product and just couldn’t live without cereal.
Like father like daughter?
Tom made the most delicious smoked T-bone steaks tonight…so gave the pups a treat. Ivy tore the hell out of it.