Dogs in the Hood

 

Bacca
Love this photo because it shows Bacca’s “I’m a big dog!” personality. Hate that sun spot on the middle of his forehead but couldn’t get rid of it, even in Photoshop.
Pam
Pam’s an Australian Shepard and lives on the canal around the corner from us. Some mornings she comes down to MacRae’s with her person. She’s a bit shy and doesn’t like her picture taken–or maybe she doesn’t like being anywhere near Maggie.

 

Diesel
Diesel is the first dog we encounter on our cruise out to the gulf. We think he’s all bark–so far no bite.
Pam 2
Here’s Pam, again. Spotted her in the wrong backyard along the canal. As usual, she’s pretending I don’t exist.
Sparky
Sparky is a neighbor and doesn’t live on the water but he was hanging here with Pam. Not sure why he or Pam were in this back yard–perhaps they were out for a stroll.
Dogs in the hood
Still do not know this little pooch’s name. There are three of these cuties that like to let us know their displeasure with us using their canal.
Ethel
Ethel is another little dog with a “I’m a big dog” personality.  She’s also the same kind of Jack as Maggie — short legs and pointy ears.

 

Dogs in the Hood
“Got a kid to feed me snacks. On the boat. Life is good.”

Baked Penne Fun!

I’ve had this recipe “pinned” for months on Pinterest and never made it.  It’s from marthastewart.com.  I’m not that great of a cook, but how could I screw up Baked Ziti? Let me tell you how!

Click here to see the recipe: Baked Ziti

This probably shouldn’t be on my “Fit for Life” Tuesday but I had originally thought that this would be a healthy vegetarian dish.  But I messed it up.

First, it called for “best-quality” tomato sauce.  What is that?  I bought a can of tomato sauce with a fancy Italian name brand on it.  But when I started making the dish I realized that since it didn’t call for any spices–perhaps Martha meant a “best-quality” pasta sauce.  All I had was Ragu and Prego.  Not the best-quality. And also not fitting into my “Fit for Life” non-processed food living.  Sigh.

Then I realized I had purchased penne, not ziti.  At least it was whole wheat.  And I had intended to get fresh mozzeralla and slice it into the ziti.  Forgot about that.  So all I had was Kraft.  More processed food.

Ingredients
Here’s some of the ingredients. Lots of “processed” food which I’m not supposed to be using anymore! The wine is for the chef, not the penne.

 

Grating Parmesan
Terry always does the grating.  We like to call him the faux chef.  Even though he’s a better cook than me.
Ouch
Oh no, accident in the kitchen! Grate the parmesan–not the knuckles!

 

Dishes
The recipe called for 8 ounces of ziti, but the box was 13.25 ounces. We both decided that we shouldn’t waste those 5.25 ounces of penne! Now that I made the entire box, it didn’t fit in the casserole dish. So we dug out a bigger dish.

 

Terry
Since we made all of the penne, we needed more sauce.  No more Ragu so we mixed in some Prego. That’s the faux chef’s other important job, opening jars and bottles of wine for me.
Spoon rest
Okay, this has nothing to do with the recipe, just wanted to show you the cutest spoon rest ever.

 

Me
Me, trying to pretend that I have a clue about cooking.

 

Oven
Casserole just fits into the upper oven. Hmmm, since I made more than the recipe called for, do I need to cook it longer?

 

Finished Penne
Wow! That looks remarkably yummy!
Yum
And it was yummy! Despite all the changes, even I can’t screw up baked penne!
Maggie
And where’s my dish?

Scalloping

County Boat Ramp in Old Homosassa
Public boat ramp in Old Homosassa on the second Saturday of scalloping season. Fortunately, we don’t have to wait in that craziness since our boat is on a lift in our back yard.
On our way
And we are on our way!
Crystal River Power Plant
Our very own nuclear power plant!
Scalloping expert number 1
Scalloping expert number 1
Scalloping expert number 2
Scalloping expert number 2
The catch
This was the catch on Saturday. While 8 gallons is the legal limit for 4 people, Cap’n Terry stayed with the boat for safety reasons and I’m a swimming wimp. The waves were too big for me and all I got in my scalloping endeavours were several mouthfuls of salty water. Waah! So the scalloping was left to the two experts who were exhausted after four hours of diving and swimming to the boat with their booty.
Cleaning crew
Scallops now have to be cleaned.

Scallop Plate of scallops

The chef
Chief scalloper and chef
Cooked scallops
Cooking scallops with a slice of bacon
gone
Gone!