Welcoming Summer

A beautiful Saturday evening on the river. 

A couple of weeks ago I was told I had a bit of leave time saved up at work that if I didn't use by the end of the month, I'd lose it.  Not being one to lose out on vacation time and not having any projects that needed my immediate attention, I gave myself a 4 day weekend....at home...for no reason. And I wondered to myself why the heck I didn't go into teaching the whole time. It was nice, my double weekend.  As we do on most weekends we relaxed, had fun, and ate like we were teenagers.  I believe it was Sunday night when we were eating a plate of cheese fries comprised of leftover Rally's freezer fries and stuffed hamburger ingredients (after we'd already had ice cream from Dairy Queen) that I posed the question of why we felt obligated to eat as much crap food as we could on the weekends. We decided, in between bites of cheesy fries, that it just felt like the thing to do.  So there. All eating aside, it was a wonderful, relaxing weekend full of good food (obvs), awesome people, a little Father's Day action, and a sweet new face.

Clockwise from top left: 1) My golfer perfecting his swing.  He has been bitten by the golfing bug this summer....BAD.  I think he has played every week or weekend since May, and he's getting pretty good.  It must be all that practice hitting into the neighbors' pool. 2) We celebrated Peanut's 8th birthday on Saturday with a Peanut Butter Milkshake from Dairy Queen for the boys to split.  It's safe to say they loved it! 3) I've said before that we watch waaaay to many cooking/restaurant shows which results in us recreating dishes we see on them. Some of them are ok (my attempt at stuffed hamburgers on Friday night for example), and some are out-of-this-world amazing like the French Toast Eric made for us on Saturday night.  We used a loaf of Brioche bread (from Walmart of all places) and breaded them with Cinnamon Toast Crunch!  We topped them off with some homemade whipped cream and were comatose within the hour.  I think we may have found a recipe that will replace our traditional breakfast casserole for holidays.  4) Cruising the river on Saturday afternoon.  It was super hot here all weekend and the river is always cold, so it won for our afternoon activities.

We had a really great Father's Day lunch with Eric's Dad, grandma, and his brother's family! We hosted it and we whipped up some goodies that included veggies from the garden and a southern-style cornbread recipe that I will be sharing.  It was amazing!

Sunday night we picked up a new addition....for my parents.  A sweet little chocolate lab puppy whose Daddy is none other than our Hawk.  Isn't she precious!?! She is staying with us until we can hand her off to my parents. The verdict is still out on whether Hawk "knows" she's his daughter. I 'd like to think that he does.  He'll let her cuddle for a minute, but clearly he isn't too ecstatic about sharing his bone (see below). Sweet girl doesn't have a name yet, but hopefully will soon!

Weekend Craziness

The past few days have been ca-razy around these parts! Here's a snapshot of life around here from Thursday-Saturday: Eric having a 12-hour stomach bug and being completely down for the count on Thursday, [me] playing a softball double header Thursday night, preparing for and throwing a baby shower for a friend at work (I think I missed my calling as a party planner), attempting to completely sanitize the house so I would not catch Eric's stomach bug, Friday night at Chucks's Marina for a pizza dinner and live music, 1220 Saturday morning breakfast because it's a shame not to, hosting PEO Saturday morning, Saturday afternoon at the lake, and Saturday evening with 12 people crammed in a camper to escape the rain at the lake. Whew!  It's no surprise that I sat down for 10 minutes on Saturday after the ladies left and ended up falling asleep for an hour!

Left: This is what happens when you don't have time to pick or cook anything from your garden for 3 days....I made 3 quarts of pickles Sunday morning and still have cucumbers left!

Right: This is why you always go to 1220 Cafe Saturday morning breakfast-French Toast with homemade whipped cream and pecans...and bacon, always bacon.

Thankfully (because I don't think I would have lasted another day) we took it easy on Sunday. Sunday was my kind of day....church, wash the cars in the yard, and lay by the pool with a few friends and the pups all afternoon. Yes those are the days I live for and keep me going.

Dogs on pool floats are my favorites!  Peanut actually took a nap on his float for a little while.

Of course we had to eat on Sunday, and we went all out, frying everything but the kitchen sink. Seriously. Waiting for our tomatoes to turn red is taking a little longer than I had hoped, so fried green tomatoes have been on my mind for a couple of weeks. Eric took my idea and ran with it and we ended up with a feast of fried green tomatoes, onion rings, fried squash, fried  zucchini, fried okra, and even deep fried bacon!!!! My arteries are clogged this morning, but boy was my belly happy last night. We got fancy with the tomatoes, topping them with sauteed shrimp and remoulade sauce, as well as making BLFGTs (bacon, lettuce, and fried green tomato sandwiches).

Clockwise from top left: 1) Fried Green Tomatoes and Bacon; 2) All the fried bacon #supercrispyanddelicious; 3) My BLFGT and fried okra on the side....our meal was several deep fried courses long; 4) Fried okra and fried zucchini.

Needless to say we were all in food comas by the end of the meal which we finished off with Skinny Cow Ice Cream Bars because we have to be somewhat sensible with our eating, right?  Ha.

Here's to another crazy week in the life of HEEP Cagle!  =)

15 Things I Do Now that I Never Did Before I had a Fitbit

After nearly 4 months I am pretty sure it's safe to say that I've be bitten by the FitBit bug. I won't go as far as saying that those little colored bands are running my life, but they certainly give me a little extra motivation to get off my behind on evenings I might have sat on the couch after work. I mean, why sit on the couch when I can walk on the treadmill, watch the same shows and gain steps/improve my health? This behavior change got me thinking about other things I do now, that I did not do 4 months ago, before I had my FitBit. Which brings me to:

...color-coordinate my workout clothes (and my everyday clothes) to include my FitBit band...it's not just about shirts and shorts and shoes anymore!

...time Fitbit chargings to coincide with times I know I will be sitting at my desk or any other situation with no need-to-walk-around interruptions.

...heaven forbid I do have to walk around before it's charged, I pull it out of the charger, put it in my pocket (or carry it, depending on my clothing pocket situation that day) so I don't miss any steps.

...purposely walk to the furthest bathroom on my floor at work.

...walk around the building several times during bathroom trips because I figure I'm already up, I might as well get some steps in....until someone walks into the hallway and then I hope I am near my office door or duck into the nearest bathroom or stairwell so they can't tell I'm walking laps in my heels while they're waiting on an elevator.

...check my phone obsessively throughout the day to see how close I am to the glorious 10,000-step goal.

...check my Fitbit friends list periodically obsessively throughout the day to see if anyone has surpassed me.

...up my activity level if I see someone who is not normally ahead of me is gaining steps on me.
However, I have completely given up hope that I will surpass either of my parents on my Fitbit friends ranking...they stay consistently 30-50K steps ahead of me for their 7 day totals. They are walking machines!

...drag my dogs on the long-walk route despite Peanut laying down in the grass so it looks like I'm dragging him.

...give into the dogs' silent requests to jump in the pond along our walk route more nights that not because I know they will walk further if I let them cool off for a bit.

...no longer mind running errands at large stores because it takes a lot of steps to walk the perimeter of most of them.

...get excited if I forget something and have to walk back to the opposite side of the store to find it.

...park my car at the back of the parking lot so I can get a few extra steps on my way in...there's usually a shady spot near the back anyway so the car will be cooler when I get back.

...avoid using carts in the grocery store because my Fitbit does not pick up steps as easily due to the gliding of my wrist on the handle of the cart. Coincidentally this is also good for my wallet because I can only carry so much, so it's a win-win!

...however, if I must get a cart, I either push it only with my non-Fitbit arm or pull it behind me with the same arm so my Fitbit adorned arm can swing freely.

Crazy habits aside, my Fitbit has made me aware of my activity throughout the day, essential for someone like me who works in an office and can sit for 8 hours before realizing it. If nothing else, it makes me want to get up and move which will certainly help me out in the long run!

All the bands...all the colors!

Summer Tomato Salad

When we got back from the beach, we had an abundance of tomatoes that needed to be used up. I am not a huge fan of fresh tomatoes so I was racking my brain trying to figure out what to do with them.  I had already made a large batch of Pico de Gallo (my usual go-to) but still had a few tomatoes left, so I hit up Pinterest for a recipe idea.

My requirements included using tomatoes but not using cucumbers because Eric's not a huge fan of them and they'd go to waste, and I wanted a fresh summery salad-type recipe. After some searching (because most tomato salad recipes include cucumbers or are cherry tomato-specific) I stumbled across a simple Tomato Salad recipe that didn't look all that complicated or time consuming....so it won.  I threw it together that Friday evening with low expectations because 1) it had very few ingredients and 2) it was so quick to make I didn't think it would have a lot of flavor. Boy was I mistaken.

I put it together and set it on the stove while I was kabobing the rest of our dinner when Eric came in to tell me we were going to grill out with the neighbors. Not being a huge fan of fresh tomatoes, I asked him to taste test the salad because I didn't think I would be a good judge of taste.  He loved it and gave it 2 thumbs up. Naturally I became curious and had to try it, and I was blown away. It was so good! Fresh, full of flavor, and it tasted like summertime!  We took it with us to the neighbors' house and the 4 of us ate nearly the entire bowl, and we all loved it so much that I made a farmers market run Saturday morning to get more tomatoes to make another batch that didn't make it through the evening. That being said...make it. It's delicious!

Adapted from this recipe.

What You Need:

3 large tomatoes

1/2 tsp salt and 1/8 tsp salt, divided

1/2 cup fresh chopped basil (can use purple and green)

1 clove garlic, minced

1 Tbsp red wine vinegar

1 Tbsp olive oil

1/8 tsp pepper

2 cups arugula (I used an arugula/spinach mix)

3/4 feta cheese

How to Make It:

Slice tomatoes into 1/4 inch sections. I quartered mine and then sliced them so the pieces were bite-sized. Lay tomato slices in a single layer on a paper towel and sprinkle with 1/4 tsp salt.  Let them sit for 15 minutes, then flip them over, sprinkle them with another 1/4 salt and let them sit for another 15 minutes.

While the tomatoes are drying out, chop your basil and mince your garlic.  When the tomatoes are ready, place them in a large bowl, along with the basil, garlic, red wine vinegar, olive oil, 1/8 tsp salt, pepper, and arugula.  Mix thoroughly to completely coat tomatoes and arugula. Let the salad sit for at least 15 minutes to marinate. Right before serving, add feta cheese and mix thoroughly.

In addition to being delicious, it is a very pretty dish! Perfect for a summer evening. However, if you're serving more than 6, I highly recommend doubling the recipe.

My mater slicing technique.

...and my mater drying technique. After 15 mins I lay another set of paper towels over the top, flip the entire pan over, and re-salt the the tomatoes to dry them out. 

It pairs well with just about anything!

Mini Garden Update

I was trying to keep the garden updates to a monthly thing, but if I wait another 2 weeks there's no telling how long the update would be. Our garden is a veggie producing machine so far!  I am one proud produce Mama! I've been doing my best to stay ahead of the veggies, but it's been getting increasingly harder. Our cucumbers have exploded over the past couple of weeks. I am just glad I got baby cukes and not the full-sized ones because I have changed the phrase "An apple a day keeps the doctor away" to a cucumber a day and hoping for the best.

Even though I was eating one a day I had 5 left on Saturday morning after my breakfast cucumber, so I decided it was time to make some pickles. I found a 10-Minute Refrigerator Dill Pickle recipe on Pinterest and hit the jackpot. I've had requests from several of our friends who tried them for their own jars, so I am waiting for our next round to be ready!  According to the recipe, they can last up to three weeks but in the author's experience they last about 2.2 days and it's the TRUTH! There might be 10 pickles left in my entire jar.  Everyone agreed they tasted like Claussen Pickes (the ones that you get in the freezer section).  If you have an abundance of pickles, this is one to try for sure!

Another major early producer has been our trio of squash plants. I've made our favorite Squash Casserole, Grilled Squash, and a delicious Easy Squash/Zucchini Bake. I have about 3 left that are already harvested and I am thinking about making Taco-Stuffed Summer Squash for dinner one night this week. We shall see!

Of course the jalapenos have been growing like weeds, so I told Eric we had to make jalapeno poppers this weekend because I am not a huge jalapeno fan, and we had an over abundance that needed to be picked.  I pulled 12 off of our two plants and used 3 more that I picked last week and made Grilled Jalapeno Poppers on Sunday. I am glad they were tasty because if my hands had burned all day Sunday afternoon and they'd tasted gross I would have been mad. Someone please remind me to wear gloves the next time I scrape jalapeno seeds out of jalapenos. I washed my hands a bunch, poured lemon juice on them, and dipped them in the pool as much as I could and it was hours later before they stopped.

I have enjoyed incorporating our veggies into our meals each week so far. It's like a game for me. I think we're about a week away from having another abundance of squash, but I should have several zucchini ready this week.  I made my homemade spaghetti sauce last night and instead of using pasta we're going to put it on zucchini noodles for dinner tonight.  I can't wait!

Clockwise from top left: 1) Our zucchini leaves are massive. I mean a small dog could nap under one of these babies and be completely shaded. 2) It won't be long before we are up to our ears in tomatoes. They all are full of green tomatoes (some of which may get plucked and fried up this week!), especially our cherry tomato plant. It's branches are nearly dragging the ground! 3) Our baby watermelons are getting big (the shoe is a comparison between it and my size 11 foot)!  These are supposed to be smaller watermelons but they aren't quite ready to pick yet. 4) I learned on Saturday morning that okra has an absolutely beautiful flower on it! I had never seen one before (#suburbankidprobs) and I was blown away when I found it. It reminds me of a poppy, but not red - thank you captain obvious.

Okra, Poppy. Poppy, Okra.

I think I am on to something here! 

Summer Weekends are the Best!

It's no secret that we live for the weekends around these parts, but specifically summertime weekends. There is nothing better in my book because there's never a shortage of things to do: pool, lake, river, cookout, dance party on the back porch, etc. There was a moment Saturday night when we were hanging out at the neighbors' house, surrounded by our friends that I thought: This is the good life. How did we get so lucky to be surrounded by such an amazing group of friends? If I could have bottled up that night I would have because it was just perfect. Since bottling up a moment isn't exactly possible, a picture is the next best thing, right?

We started out our weekend with a birthday celebration for our niece in the form of a pool party with Eric's sister, dad, grandmother, and of course the birthday girl!  I am pretty much convinced I want to go back to having birthdays like I did when I was a kid because they are the best!

Saturday was a doozy of a day.  It started with Eric playing golf and me puttering around the house.  When he got back we headed up to the lake for an afternoon with friends at Chimney Rock and ended with the above mentioned cookout with our friends.

This is another view I never get tired of. 

What's a trip to the Rock without jumping, right? Eric (in the maroon trunks) and one of our friends conquered Chicken Rock. Only adrenaline junkies tackle Chimney Rock (directly below the #1 in the first picture). It's about 3 times as high as Chicken Rock. No thank you.

As I said Saturday night was just a really fun night.  The best part of hanging out at the neighbors' house? The pups get to play, too!  These two decided they'd had enough by 10PM (their bedtime) and curled up by their back door. 

Sunday morning the boys played a scramble and we hit up the pool again in the afternoon. We finished up the evening with a cookout and the most amazing dinner cookout spread complete with several Cagle Garden Veggies!  I can't wait to eat the leftovers this week!  I think it's pretty safe to say that we summered the heck out of this weekend! I can't wait to do it all again this weekend!

Loaded Pico de Gallo

With the abundance of fresh fruits and veggies available right now, I've been trying to incorporate as many as I possible can into what I am cooking. We aren't quite at the point where I can get everything I need out of our garden, but the time is coming very soon!  To hold us over until then I pick up things at the grocery store or the local farmer's market stand (my new favorite place to buy fresh produce in town).  One of my favorite fresh dishes to make that ends up being super versatile is fresh Pico de Gallo.  It can be anything from chip dip, taco condiment, chicken topping, and it delicious on a pulled pork sandwich. I have made several variations over the years, but I recently stumbled on this recipe/technique and it's our new favorite for sure.

What You Need:

1 medium onion

juice from 1 lime

1- 8oz can whole kernel sweet corn

1- 8oz can black beans

2 large tomatoes

1 jalapeño pepper

1 cup cilantro

salt and pepper to taste

How to Make It:

In a small bowl, combine onion and lime juice. Stir to saturate onion with juice and set aside to marinate while you prepare the rest of the pico.

Rinse and drain corn and black beans in a colander, leave in colander to dry.

Dice tomatoes, removing the excess juice/seedy part of the tomatoes and place in a large bowl. Seed and dice the jalapeño pepper, place in bowl with the tomatoes. Chop cilantro and add to bowl.  Add corn, black beans, and onions along with lime juice to the bowl. Toss mixture with salt and pepper until combined.

You can serve it immediately with chips or refrigerate until you're ready to serve. We can never resist eating is as soon as it's ready, but the flavor is always so much richer the next day!

This dish was the first thing I have made that included a little something from the garden.  I used a jalapeño pepper that I harvested the day we got home from the beach.  Speaking of our first harvest...here it is! It might be small but I am so proud of it!

 Thankfully it rained while we were gone so the entire garden looked super healthy when we got back!

Everything's Bigger in Texas

I'm back again from yet another adventure.  This time I headed out west to Dallas, TX for a conference. It was this weekend that I realized I had been through Dallas (mainly the airport) several times, but I don't recall ever staying in Dallas at least not in downtown Dallas. Lucky for me, the rain that has been terrorizing the entire state of Texas for a few weeks subsided and we had three days of beautiful and dare I say cool summer weather.

I can honestly say this trip changed my perception of Dallas.  For some reason I did not realize what a large city it is. It's ENORMOUS! And I it was obvious that Dallasites (I'm not sure if that's correct but I am going with it) love a mirrored building.  They were everywhere, and mostly in the skyscraper variety, very impressive and nice to look at. Since our conference didn't start until 8:30 everyday I got to take a few early morning walks and check out the city at my own pace.

I had a nice view of the Fountain Building from my hotel room...it was gorgeous!

We had our meeting in Dallas's tallest building, the Bank of America Plaza...on the 69th floor (there are only 72 in the whole building!). The views from here were spectacular! 

 A gorgeous view of the Trinity River (which was a bit on the full side) and the Margaret Hunt Hill Bridge. 

And another of the Fountain Building (from above it!)

I was amazed by the number of [extremely large] sculptures there were around the city.  There were several in the mile or so radius I was in.  My favorite was a 30 foot eyeball called, you guessed it The Eye! And yes it is a 30 foot eyeball that looks scarily real.

And it just hangs out in its own park area in the middle of downtown. 

Of course you can't go to Dallas and not talk about JFK's assassination. Our hotel was about .5 miles from Dealey Plaza where he was shot and the conference hosts arranged for us to take a tour of the Sixth Floor Museum, formerly known as the Dallas School Book Depository where Lee Harvey Oswald shot President Kennedy from the corner window on the 6th floor (which has been left intact and looks just like it would have on November 22, 1963). It had some background on President Kennedy and his family and then it walked you through the events of the day and the aftermath.  It finished up with a section on the conspiracy theories that surrounded his death.  I found it fascinating.  If you're ever in downtown Dallas, it's worth the stop.  

The infamous window is the one that is second from the top and the seventh from the left.

Across the street from the Museum you can see the grassy knoll and the exact location the President was killed.  It's marked with a white X in the middle of the road. The unceremonious X is because the street he was killed on is still a major artery in downtown Dallas and people drive over it every day.

It was hard to get a picture of it since people were diving over it, but the X is between the black car and the light post in the center lane.

The JFK Memorial was just down the street and was quite impressive as well. 

So thank you, Dallas, for showing me a great time.  I would love to come back again sometime, maybe next time just for fun!?

I will end this post with a PSA for a lesson that I unfortunately learned the hard way on my trip home:

DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT wear a sparkly shirt to an airport that has body scanners. The scanners will assume the "metal" in your shirt is something other than the thread in your shirt, and in return you will receive a full body pat-down from the agent on duty. It was not my most comfortable moment.  However, there was a silver lining.  Yes, believe it or not.  I can now confirm (since she showed me what the scan looked like) that those scanners only show masses of metal and not "other things" like I have always wondered.  You're welcome.  And leave your sparkly shirts at home (or at least in your bag because it didn't cause any problems on the way there when it was packed away).