Awards, Friends and Food

I was given a bunch of awards this week, so I'll post one a day, or every other, in the order I received them.

The first was from Simply Life - a Happy 101 award! 

I'm now supposed to tell you 10 things that make me happy, I choose 10 that make me happy about my garden.

10 Things that make me happy about my garden:

1. Getting hands dirty - love connecting with the earth
2. The satisfaction of seeing the first spout - new life, new beginnings
3. Being out in fresh air, doing something I love and getting exercise at the same time
4. A hobby and passion I can share with The Shepherd
5. Eating what I grow. I know how it was grown, and where it comes from, you can't get closer to the source than that
6. Serving the food I grow to other people
7. Being at the Farmers Market - last summer I was told, "I feel good buying your food". Enough said.
8. Meeting other market gardeners and having a world of people to chat and learn with
9. The colours, the scents, every veggie is different, yet they share one thing - uniqueness
10. Gardens grow in warm weather, I am a sun baby, so the warmth and the sweat dripping off my nose while I dig potatoes really does make me happy.


I also need to give this award to some other bloggers, but time is precious this weekend, so I'll hand it out later this week.

Saturday:
Breakfast was vanilla yogurt, omega granola and strawberries.

Question: Do you shy away from flavoured yogurt because of the high sugar content, or just go for it because it's so good? I guess this question is for us gals that can't get naturally sweetened yogurt without making it ourselves.

Friend arrived at lunch time, and we had a munchie spread.  I like picking at food - but always end up eating more than I know.  We had smoked salmon, lemon pepper salmon, a really creamy, spreadable cheese, gouda, Breton Mini crackers and Kashi Honey Sesame crackers.  Also a great plate of carrots, red peppers, strawberries and dip.

Then a bunch of mini eggs throughout the afternoon. 

We went out to the barns to visit all of the animals.  The puppies were even greater today than they have been.  They are so alive and cute.  Barking and playing.  They now run all over the barn, just hangin' with the sheep and lambs like they're part of the flock.  I guess since they turn into guard dogs, that's the point.

This is The Shepherd and I.  We don't have a lot of photos taken, and when we do, we're usually in oversized work clothes, this is a happy medium. Bundled up - it was NOT warm here today, but not dirty either.

Dinner was smashing good.  I love dinner parties that I get to host.  And, I ate it without taking pictures, then realized, so The Shepherd helped me put a mock plate together for the blog.  He's realizing how cool it is and how much I like it so he's been helping out with photos and being very patient. 

We had ribs.  Yum.  I learned from a friend recently, that if you don't have time to slow cook ribs, the best thing to do is the boil them for 30 min, then quickly grill on the bbq with sauce.  They were super moist, really gooey and saucy, the way ribs should be.  We had sweet potato fries and salad with them, the fries were gone before the picture was taken.

The sauce is super not good for you and was a dipper to the fries.  I bought it at Whole Foods when I saw it, for this very dinner.

Dessert was an amazing Caramel Cake.  Pouring the sauce - very slowly - on top, it settles and hardens just a little, and softens the top 1.5 inches of the cake.  More gooey deliciousness.  The only thing I'd do differently to the cake is bake in a 9x13 pan, and make a little more sauce.  The bottom was a little dry, as the cake was really thick, so a little thinner with more sauce to make up for the extra space would work perfectly, though I'm not complaining, and the boys ate most of it. 

I cut it once before remembering to photo.

We had a nice day with our friends, some left in the evening, some stayed the night.

Looking forward to Sunday.

Jess