Susan in FL

One word... Yum!

Yeah, along with the onion slice, I had mine with lettuce and tomato, Heinz 57 and French fried potatoes. I also had a big kosher pickle, but not a cold draft beer. Since no draft, we went for red wine. I did discover that a bottle of Old Dominion Spring Brew, a lager, goes very very nicely with Buffalo Wings!

I'm beginning to realize that! The chicken sounds good... what a cool idea for how to sweeten something like that, and a good way to use over ripe bananas. We sauteed the rum marinated bananas yesterday. They tasted good, but a day later was too long. They turned mushy. Two or three hours would have been much better.

Today's rum drinks were experimental. I added a bit of orange-flavored to my Mimosa this morning, and this afternoon I made us a frozen slushy drink of fresh pineapple and watermelon, with pineapple-flavored and basil. A part of this that I'm enjoying as much as anything is how pretty they are.

Slight change in plans... Wings as a first course (Anchor Inn recipe) instead of the grilled clams. I made my Kobe burger into a "Cheeseburger in Paradise."

Nice! Beautiful food, and it looks tasty, as well. Whatever you choose to call it, you definitely can lay claim to being a Foodie or a Gastronaut! Looking forward to more of your posts...

Ling, they are! Those roses have caused me to photograph so much food and scenery on our porch the past few days. Sometimes roses bought in the supermarket fall over the next day... these have survived for almost a week!

Friday night after going out for happy hour, we decided to come home to satisfy our cravings. Russ wanted carpaccio and I wanted lobsters, so we went to the store and found both steak and live Maine lobsters on sale. That was a nice surprise. Last night: Flavored rum drinks The view of our getting-more-tropical-looking yard from the porch Avocado and onion Salad Black beans and rice with mango Steaks rubbed with garlic, pepper, adobo, and oregano, with fried onions Corn fritters Recipes ideas from the Taste of Cuba website Mexican beer Australian red wine Island music For dessert, we intended to eat sauteed bananas that had been marinated in vanilla rum, as Ed Hamilton described in another post, but we were too full. Tonight we're grilling kobe burgers, Usinger's hot dogs, and clams on the grill.

It's Sunday, so breakfast was a Sunday brunch on the back porch. This morning it was left-overs (steak, carmelized onions, and potatoes) made into beef hash, with a yolky egg. And the best part of the meal... Enjoying the view while finishing up the last of the Mimosa and reading the Sunday paper.

Wow! By the time I read your reply, I had gone back to the web site and learned that you live on a sailboat. I sure would like to have boat drinks at your house! We marinated sliced bananas last night, planning to saute them for dessert as you described, but were too full. We had the drinks before a Cuban style dinner, on the porch, enjoying the view of our beloved palmettos, etc. after a day of yard work, with Island music playing. If the mangoes I buy here are picked and shipped weeks before maturity, I can only imagine how good just-picked are... I sure would love to find out. Between that and my growing interest in rum, maybe I'll change my mind about the cheap Caribbean cruises that are offered out of Canaveral.

Pea tendrils ..... how I wish I could get some of those. Up north we grew peas just for the tendrils. Did you grow yours? Here, our garden is virtually over. Even with rain and/or watering every day, it's too hot. The pepper plants and some of the herbs are still surviving, and one tomato plant is still producing, but that's just about it. I'm really looking forward to the fall to plant again.

Thanks for all the suggestions, and any others, feel free to post. We still have lots more to use up. Last night our drinks before a Cuban style dinner were a Caribbean Cosmo and a Jump Up Banana-Nana from this Cruzan link. (Thanks, Beans!) Several of the miniatures are Cruzan, but I didn't pay a lot of attention to what brands we used, thinking I probably won't buy flavored rum on purpose in the future. However, these mixed drinks tasted mighty good! The pleasant surprise to me was that they were not overly sweet. None of our flavored rums are Mt Gay. Most of them are Cruzan, Bacardi, and Captain Morgan Parrot Bay. There are a few others including Kuya and Admiral Nelson, and I'm ignoring the spiced ones so far. I was really turned off by spiced rums after my husband brought home -- my goodness, I just realized, do we have a pattern here? -- a bottle of Dogfish Head Wit Spiced Rhum. That was nasty, and it was a full size bottle. Another problem for me is that I don't like coconut anything. I've tried, but so far I just have not been able to acquire a taste for it. It's the only part of "Floribbean" foods I don't like, so we must change that. There are several we're considering playing with this afternoon... the ideas of pineapple and fresh basil, vanilla and ginger (I made ginger syrup last week), creamsicle type things, and topping with sparkling wine appeal to me. I'll report back after more of this exhaustive research.

As explained in my post in the Ministry of Rum forum, my husband brought home a zillion miniatures of flavored rums, like different brands of coconut, banana, mango, orange, vanilla, spiced, raspberry, lemon, pineapple, etc. (more than I ever knew existed!) and I'm looking for cocktail recipes or ideas. Ed suggested that maybe regulars in this forum could help me. Thanks!

Thank you, Ed! Good ideas. Now I am wondering about perhaps some uses with savory foods, as well. Maybe marinades? It is nice to "meet" you. I think this is the first time I've made your acquaintance. I clicked on your Ministry of Rum link, and will be going back. It looks like there and in your books I could find everything I ever wanted to know about rum and more. I ordered The Complete Guide to Rum. I am curious; where are you that you cannot get ice cream? ...Sadness would be upon my heart.

I agree.And now and forever more, I will think of RP whenever I hear the word inveterate.

I mentioned to my husband that I wanted to expand my tastes and try some different rum. Mount Gay is our "everyday" brand, and what I meant was that I wanted to try some premium rums, such as what some of you connoisseurs enjoy. What he thought I meant was flavored rums, and he brought home a zillion miniatures of flavored rums, like different brands of coconut, banana, mango, orange, vanilla, spiced, raspberry, lemon, pineapple!! Oh my. So it looks like we will be having some happy hours at home tasting and experimenting. Please recommend some recipes for rum drinks, to use these up. If flavored rum is anything like flavored coffee or beer, where I enjoy different kinds but not flavored ones, I am S.O.L. I'm usually a purist about things like this and I'm afraid I shouldn't expect much. I am posting this under The Ministry of Rum, but if it is thought to be a request more appropropriate for the Cocktails forum, I hope a host or somebody will transfer it there. Thanks.

Another good one... Thanks!

This week I worked two nights, meetings over dinner, out. I did get to cook Wednesday night. It was cold cauliflower soup and grilled Fontina, salami, and roasted red pepper sandwiches. Very good, the photos did not do it justice.

EXCELLENT idea to use claw meat for crabcakes! I love that flavor, too. I made crabcakes twice recently, first with jumbo lump and last week's batch with "special." I used much more seasoning, including Old Bay, in the second batch since the meat was of not such high quality. I never add Old Bay to anything I'm making with fresh jumbo lump crab meat, because I don't want to distract from that flavor. Well this fooled me... I liked the seasoned crabcakes better. I bet they would have been even better with claw meat. Now I'm eager to try that.

One of our favorite variations is a BELT: bacon, egg, lettuce and tomato. I like the basil, too, or arugula.

At home on the few occasions that we cook Chinese, we usually drink a Riesling or Gewurztraminer. Out, especially with the limited wine selections in the Chinese restaurants of our area, we almost always go with beer.

Yum, Rum. Thanks for the link.

Awesome! Congratulations! Now we have even more to celebrate on the 13th.

Hello from a former DelaWHERE?-ean. Just wanted to let you know I'm following your blog more than any so far. Besides that it's cool to know where you live, I like how "real" it is. I've enjoyed all I've read of previous eG blogs, too, but yours especially has grabbed my interest. Thanks for sharing a week of your life with us.

Nicely put. I commend you for expressing those sentiments so well.