Friday, August 14, 2009

Vacation Food

What's a vacation without food?! Fortunately, we had some lovely things to eat while away.

First off, some mango with blueberries mixed with lime juice and topped with Greek yogurt:

Here's the nice little kitchen I had to work in -- definately a one-person kitchen, but perfect if the kids stayed out!

We had to drool over the cakes in the bakery section of the supermarket:

When I was a child and we returned home to Vermont for vacation, our family friend always brought us a loaf of cinnamon bread spread over the top with maple icing (from the local bakery). It was so good!
My mom just happened to bring us back some maple cream from her recent trip to VT so I thought it was essential to bake some cinnamon bread to enjoy it on. It was as good as I hoped!

Dairy Queen was a favorite stop one evening:

I waited all week to go to the Farmer's Market on Saturday morning. It was so fun and I bought a ton of stuff.

Fruit and veg were more expensive in the supermarkets in FL than up here. However, the Farmer's Market prices were closer in price to what I'm used to, so that was nice.

I came home with beets, green onions, tomatoes, red peppers, finger bananas, Georgia peaches, Florida oranges, star fruit, a native Floridian fruit that resembles the lychee (I really enjoyed them), the ripest mangoes, limes, lemons, bread, bakery items, zucchini, eggplant, handmade soaps, spices and herbs.

The items from the German Bakery made a good Saturday morning snack:

We had to have oranges while in Florida!

Sunday I cooked up a feast. We had bruschetta to begin with:

And then tilapia which was cooked in packets with olive oil, basil, garlic, tomato and green onions:

Beets were baked and then chopped and added to garlic, onions, and the beet tops. Feta was sprinkled over at the end:

Eggplant, zucchini, and tomatoes were roasted with a whole head of garlic in the middle:

Sunday dinner:

Dessert was peach shortcake (the cream was a mixture of whipped cream and Greek yogurt):

Leftovers were turned into omelets the next day. The beets were dressed with Italian salad dressing and eaten cold -- very, very good.

A highlight of the vacation was buying a few Foodie magazines -- Jamie Oliver's new magazine (very good!) and my old favorite BBC Good Food. What a treat! The beets, roasted veg, and fish were all recipes from the magazines.
And now our garden is starting to produce beans and tomatoes! Very exciting. Oh, and have I mentioned the fried squash blossoms? MY NEW FAVORITE FOOD!!!! I'll have to do a separate post. Happy Cooking!

4 comments:

Ruth MacC said...

This never happened before, buy my mouth started watering looking at the photos:0)

Everyting looks so tasty.

willow said...

All that fresh fruit looks lovely, you ate very well on holiday. I had to smile at the picture of the kitchen though, it looks as if its the same size as mine. It can feel very crowded in a space that size when the whole family stands in the kitchen especially when they are all well over six foot tall and I'm only 5ft 6ins - sometimes I wonder if they even see me!

I like your shawl too, very clever to knit something like that in the car. I start to feel ill if I knit anything with a pattern while I'm in the car, it has to be something very plain that I don't need to look at! I did a little knitting on the train up to Aberdeen but mainly I was just lazy and looked out the window.

Heather Anne said...

Oh Heather - you are such an adventurous cook - your family is so very blessed! I am so plain jane simple - lots of fresh fruits and veggies, but never in my wildest dreams would I think to combine them as creatively as you do! It looks wonderful, but I'm afraid I'd have a hard time selling it to our simple taste accostomed children! I should start small and try some new flavors since my husband loves different foods and it wouldn't hurt us at all to expand our horizens a bit - food wise! Thanks for the inspiration!

jennie said...

looks like you all had so much fun! I love your pictures below of the beach. Someday we will return.