Lake, Family, Food

Tomato Corn Avocado Salad

Finally a new (to me) recipe. It tastes like summer.

  I often have all the ingredients on hand.

It only takes minutes to put together.

We paired the salad I made with Boars Head snack packs 

of meat and cheese and wedges of pita for 

the easiest porch dinner for two before we headed to the lake.

TOMATO, CORN, AVOCADO SALAD

1 large ear of corn--cook and cut off kernels

1 medium avocado, diced

1-1/2 cups diced cucumber

1 cup halved grape tomatoes

2 tablespoons diced onion, red or white

2 teaspoon olive oil

2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice (I used lime)

salt and pepper to taste

Let corn cool. Then toss with remaining ingredients. 

Serve immediately. 

Want a peek at our lake time? Keep reading...

Notice anything new? Lots and lots of green grass. 

We had to replace the lake wall and pier over the winter. 

When that was finisbed, we had to redo the yard!

There was more food on the way for our annual July 4th gathering.

There were cousins everywhere. 

This was only one side of the porch.

It's good to see each other at least once a year.

Our family stayed longer.

Little Lady got to touch her first fish!

And she saw her very first rainbow. 

She had a very special week.

There was lots of lake time.

Thank goodness for the lake. The temps were scorching all week.

Little Brother had the most fun walking by himself between the cabins. 

We can see from porch to porch.

"Goin' to Daddy-O's house. Be right back!"

Storms and rain cooled us off a couple of nights. 

Another family lake stay is in the books.

 

Summer Things

Just a quick hello this morning. No new recipes. But I am making a grocery list right now while I sip my morning coffee. That's progress. We spent the weekend at our lake house trying to take care of some chores. And while we were there we got to watch a beautiful full moon rise over the lake. The reflection in the water gets me every time.

Last week I took a piano workshop. Five days, three hours each day. It was designed for piano teachers who wanted to be more creative in their teaching, who wanted to add jazz and blues to the traditional repertoire. I got to sit in and listen. What did I learn?

• I learned that in a 3-hour zoom meeting, my iPad Pro goes from 100% battery to 6%. I could do the class without being plugged in. Barely. As much as I complain about technology, it was amazing that each day I could attend a live class with participants in assorted time zones.

• I learned that when I relax my shoulders, my face looks thinner. Seriously. After sitting for hours each day looking at myself on zoom (I used the gallery setting a lot) I saw that I most often sat with my shoulders tensed up. And when I relaxed them, yes, my face looked thinner. When I taught guitar lessons I cautioned all students to relax their shoulders when they played. I could see that as they struggled to learn something new, the shoulders moved up toward their ears. And I would remind them to relax. I need to remind myself that shoulders reaching for the ears is never a good thing.

• I learned that even though I do not have a music degree like the piano teachers, I have learned a lot over the years. There are many ways to learn. Maybe I had less to "unlearn" than the classical pianists. <smile> Don't underestimate the body of knowledge you've acquired over your life, even when it didn't come with a grade or a degree. Experience counts.

This week I need to get back to regular life. Family will be here soon to spend some time with us at the lake. 

When Daddy-O had a new lake wall built over the winter, he added some steps to make it a little easier for kids to climb out of the lake. I am 100% sure this was not what he had in mind!

 New wall. New pier. New grass. Old owners. Now to make time to get down there. It's hay season here but the lake isn't far away. Whatever you are doing this summer, wherever you are spending your summer, enjoy it. Stay cool. Stay safe. Make memories. 

Where Has Summer Gone?

Apple Pineapple Dump Cake

Goodness, what a summer! (Is it still summer?Is it all over? I've lost track.) After many, many months of barely seeing family—at least close enough to touch them—we had an uninterrupted six weeks of family in residence. And for one of those weeks, we had the entire family together. That hasn't happened in nearly two years. It was fabulous. But it's taken me a couple more weeks to recover from all the fun. 

We did some house swapping during this family time. Besides the farm, we have a lake cabin and its little sister cottage that sits a few feet away from the cabin. So after much moving around between "houses" it's been a bit of a treasure hunt to find things at home. Partly because we just forgot where things were. That was a long time to be away.

For most of the six weeks, we lived at the lake and let Mommy, J-Daddy and the little girls enjoy the wide open space at the farm. But they also had time at the lake to enjoy the water activities. Thankfully, the farm and the lake aren't too far apart, so we got to see them wherever they were.

The pandemic lockdown started just weeks after Little Lady was born, so Little Sister and Baby Girl had only see her once right after she was born. They were all excited to be together at long last. And Little Lady tried her best to do everything the big girls did. It was fun to watch it all.

We miss having them here, but it's also been good to settle down and do some of our regular things. One of the activities we've enjoyed during our year of stay-at-home is the virtual Chautauqua series from our local Chautuaqua society. Earlier this week we enjoyed a lecture on "Food Fads from the 1940s through the 1960s." I watched "with" a friend in Manhattan and we had so much fun texting as we listened, sharing our memories about many of these foods. 

If you are interested, the lecture is available on YouTube until Thursday, August 5th, 2021. Here is the link and the description from the Spartanburg County Library:

Food Fads from the 1940s through the 1960s

"Remember Jell-O salads and cheese sprayed out of a can? When every pantry held Velveeta and all the kids wanted to drink Tang? Join historian and author Leslie Goddard for a nostalgic look at the food innovations and marketing approaches that transformed how we ate at midcentury."

And you might think I made this dessert the night of the lecture to be on theme. I did not. To be honest, I REALLY wanted dessert that night and this was the only thing I could come up with that used ingredients I had in the house. In my mind, it's a desperation dessert. But it certainly checked all the boxes of the food fad lecture!

APPLE PINEAPPLE DUMP CAKE

1 (28-oz) can apple pie filling (the kind with extra fruit)

1 (20-oz) can crushed pineapple packed in juice

1 box yellow cake mix (the two layer size)

2 sticks (1 cup) of butter, melted

Spray or grease a 9x13-inch pan. (I lined mine with foil for easy clean-up. It was that kind of night.)

Dump ingredients into pan in this order: spread pie filling over the bottom of pan, pour crushed pineapple with the juice over the pie filling; sprinkle dry cake mix over the pineapple; pour melted butter over the dry cake mix. Don't stir.

Bake at 350º for 50 to 60 minutes, until golden brown.

You could swap the apple pie filling for another fruit filling. I've done this before with cherry pie filling. And you could sprinkle chopped nuts over the top before baking, too. We don't do nuts here any more, but the crunch of the toasted nuts would be a nice addition.

This is really rich, but it hit the spot. And hopefully satisfied my dessert craving for weeks to come. I would have added a scoop of ice cream to my dish if there had been any in the freezer. Of course, if there had been ice cream here, I wouldn't have made dessert!

REMINDER:  If you subscribed to this blog by using the email box that was on the right hand sidebar, remember that there are major changes happening to that service. I have read all of the alerts and to be honest, I didn't understand most of what they said. BUT if you used that sign up option, and find that in the coming weeks you are no longer getting any blog notices, that may be why. I think there are other feed services out there that you can use. 

And you can always find the blog by searching for it. thegrandmothergig.blogspot.com  Check in from time to time to see what's new.

 

My Favorite Household Tip

We were at the lake again this weekend. And this time I needed to do a little housekeeping. My least favorite household chore is changing the sheets on the bed. I know, I know. I am so thankful to HAVE a bed and sheets, but I still am not a fan of fooling with them

Which brings me to a tip I've shared here before. But I know there are always new readers here and it's doubtful that anyone goes back and reads old posts. And you need to know this.

So here is one of my all-time favorite tips. Forever I tried to buy white or off-white sheets with a woven stripe so that I could tell which way to put the sheets on the bed. Which is the top/bottom. Which are the sides. But I do have a couple of sets that are perfectly plain. So when I use those, it was always trial and error which to lay out the bottom sheet. Mostly it was error. First attempt would be turned the wrong way.

Then I learned a couple of years ago that:

        The tag on a fitted sheet ALWAYS goes on the bottom right corner of the mattress.

In the photo above, I am standing at the foot of the bed, looking toward the top. The tag goes on my right side. How easy is that? Glory be!!!  (I do have one set with the tag in the center but it is clearly labeled "top.")

No more spreading the fitted sheet out and then tugging and turning it around the other way. Glory be!!!

We enjoyed a special treat on Saturday afternoon. If you are a Josh Groban fan, you might enjoy the remaining concerts. Go to JoshGroban.com, then go to "tour" to find the info about purchasing a ticket for his live streaming concerts. There are two left—one on Thanksgiving night and one, a holiday program, in mid-December. Next best thing to being in a concert hall. Thanks, Angie, for tell me about this.

We had a cool weekend. I actually got to wear a sweater. Oh, it will be back in the 80s by mid-week but it's nice to have a few days that feel like fall. I love watching early morning fishermen glide by while I'm having my coffee. These three were really bundled up. And I took my coffee back inside where it was warmer. 

Have a good week, y'all!

Long Lake Days

Ten days at the lake. The first time we've ever stayed that long. 

The tractor is in the shop. It's rained a lot. So farm work is on hold. 

He fished.

I knitted.

We celebrated our anniversary.

Had a little socially distanced family time.

Not close enough for hugs, but it was good to see them.

Mailed a new pumpkin hat to this little pumpkin.

Savored the last of these warm evenings.

Spotted an eagle in the yard at the lake.

And we said goodbye to September.

 

Paddling Toward Fall

It is absolutely amazing to have a weekend with moderate temperatures and low humidity. That is not the norm where we live. So we took full advantage of it for extra outdoor time over the long Labor Day weekend.

It was just the two of us. This one of us (that would be me) is getting tired to not seeing family. But that is our current state. We are beyond thankful for this spot that is not far from the farm so that we get a change of scenery. 

If you know me in real life, you know that I am not usually a seeker of outdoor activity. I love knitting and reading and playing piano. I can sit still like a champion. But years ago we invested in kayaks for our lake house. At that point we didn't know anyone else on our lake with kayaks. When friends from out of state came to visit, they brought a pair and we discovered how much fun they were.

When paddling kayaks we can get into spots that are not accessible any other way. We see things that we would miss otherwise. The water in this habitat is way too shallow for a boat. It only takes inches for the kayak to glide over the water.

Times change and now there are so many people who have embraced flat water recreation. So we can watch kayaks, the occasional canoe, and paddle boards moving up and down our cove. Yes, there are still plenty of boats and pontoons, but the vessels with paddles are gaining on them. For once, we were ahead of a trend.

 

Peaceful Easy Feeling

We certainly haven't starved lately

but my cooking has been mostly "no recipe recipes."

So there is nothing in particular from the kitchen to share. 

Just trying to use up the last of the garden vegetables.

And we didn't make it to the lake this weekend.

So I'm posting a few photos from last weekend 

because it makes me happy to look at them again. 

We mostly stay in the little cottage now. It's just the right size for the two of us.

I love the constantly changing light and colors on the water.  

A full moon was a bonus.

Have you felt peaceful—or easy—lately?

Peace is not a place although it's nice to have a spot that lets you relax.

This is the spot that does it for me.

Lake Magic - Week 2

Welcome to the lake, Little Lady! It's your first time here. 

You handled it like a champ. 

You got to spend lots of time with Mimi.

And your best buddy (and cousin) was here with you.

In another year, you'll get to eat with us on the porch

and not just watch while we enjoy lunch.

Daddy-O can tell you all about this lake cabin.

And the new cottage.

And how it's all part of your family history.

You liked our shady picnic pavilion

where the little blue pool was ready for you.

Besides being a champion boater and (mostly) a superstar napper,

you won the prize for most splashing. 

  

And all too soon, it was very quiet here.

But there's one thing about this lake place—

it's always here, always...

waiting to say, "Welcome back!"

~~~~~~

And because Barb asked about this...

I think I have made this four times this summer. And it's only mid-July. It's cool and juicy and sweet and salty. A perfect salad for a hot evening on the porch. 

WATERMELON FETA SALAD

1/2 small chilled watermelon, cut into cubes or scooped into balls

juice of 1 lime (more if the lime isn't very juicy)

1 tablespoon olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

crumbled feta cheese

fresh mint, optional

Make this shortly before serving. You could have the melon prepped and stir in dressing and cheese later.

Squeeze lime juice into a small cup. Whisk in oil, salt & pepper with a fork. Pour over watermelon and toss gently. Sprinkle crumbled feta over watermelon. Garnish with fresh mint if available. 

I honestly don't do any measuring for this. Bigger watermelon? Use more juice and oil. (The actual recipe called for 12 cups of melon cubes, juice of 3 limes and 1/4 cup olive oil.) The proportion should be about the same.