Camping at the Sheraton

In keeping with my efforts to keep life real -- I share one of the realities of food allergies.

Plans Change

Our plan for Sunday had been to stay home for a lazy day.  We thought we might venture out to the library, but that was about it.  Early morning we got a call from our son.  Our daughter in law has been sick and they were looking at a crazy upcoming week — including appointments with two medical specialists.  After some back and forth in conversation, it was agreed we would meet halfway and bring our grandson home with us.  We were, of course, excited to do so.    

We hadn’t been on the road more than 30 minutes when they called.  They were on their way to the ER.  We continued heading that way and told them we would just meet them there.  (They’re almost 6 hours away without Thanksgiving traffic.). We were within two hours — including mega holiday delays and accidents on I-95.  We actually got off and went back out to the coast to go up that way — when they called and said they were home.  We told them to stay put and we would just meet them at their house.  (Please send up prayers and positive thoughts for her this week.)

 Long story short, we opted to spend the night and head out early Monday morning.

 I’m hoping that knowing he is covered will allow her to rest, give her peace of mind that he is covered, and take a little stress off of them this week.    I always enjoy his visits and this visit will give me a chance to do so Christmas spoiling — so we started with putting up the tree and baking sugar cookies.

A Day Trip

Today we packed a picnic and took a drive to see this grand old lady.

Benvenue was built in 1844 and remodeled in 1889.

She's a Victorian beauty!

The plantation (house grounds) include a kitchen, a one room school room, smokehouses, a former post office, and several other outbuildings including a green house.

She's privately owned -- luck family.

I should have baked a cake to take and been brave enough to knock on the door.

Renaissance Fair

Tryon Palace, located in New Bern, North Carolina, hosted a Renaissance Fair this past weekend.  We attended and had a great time. There were tons of time appropriate displays and we took far too many photos to share here.  These are a sampling of my favorites.

We attended several musical performances.

There were pirates, who demonstrated sword fighting.

 

There were farm animal displays and a pony ride.

(The turkey was my favorite, but there were lambs, ducks, chickens, and rabbits to name a few things.)

The drum and fife players also did a full performance.

I convinced this kind gentleman to pose for a photo with me.

It was a warm southern kind of day and I have great respect for anyone who could hang in all that wool.

I loved seeing so many men and women in period dress.

In addition to these:

A Shakespeare comedy group

A Celtic Bard

African Slave dances, drum ceremonies, and tent displays

Several military displays with supplies as they would have been.

A family cooking traditional (open fire) Swiss and German dishes

A spinning and weaving display

Various vendors selling local books, food, jewelry, wood working, and things of the sort

Open tours of the stables, the gardens, the Governor's Mansion, the kitchen, etc.

After the fair we headed down to the waterfront and settled under a tree for a picnic.

We had a wonderful time and I would encourage anyone who is traveling through our area to take a tour of Tryon Palace.

How Much Does it Take?

I knew we would be away from home for four nights.  As I worked in the kitchen last week, I began the prep for some of our meals.

I packed:

1 chicken casserole (using crockpot chicken from another meal, a can of mixed veggies, and a half box of stuffing)

1 meal of food storage hamburger helper (I pull this together from my various dried food cans)

1 meal of BBQ sandwiches (leftovers from last week's roast)

1 loaf of zucchini bread from the freezer

Chips, cookies, apples, sausage balls for snacking on

Soy milk, stevia, tea bags, and coffee

1 box of cereal just in case

3 cans of Southwestern veggie soup from food storage and crackers

I planned for one meal out.

When we arrived, I found a "better" kitchen than I had expected.  

With the two burners, a microwave, and the Instant Pot I brought from home, we ate well all week.

With a little planning, it doesn't take much to keep food costs down.

There was one thing I didn't plan well.

  I think it was an oversight on my part because at home I keep beverages made up and in the refrigerator.

The water here had a horrible chemical smell.

We ended up picking up some sodas and bottle waters.

Rather than spread out around the area and try to find a lower price store, we bought them near us.

We ended up spending $20 while on the road for our meal out and the drinks we needed for the week.

Not too bad!

So I learned a few things:

With a little advanced prep, it didn't take much time to pack our meals.

With a few appliances, we could have hot meals everyday.

I need to pack drink mixes for next time or allot in my mental plan for purchases.

This place has full sized refrigerators, and next time I may not have to bring dried meals.

Baking and freezing quick breads before travel works great to help keep the cooler cold.

Cranberry Season

While I look forward to autumn all year because I love the barrage of pumpkin products, my husband waits all year for the appearance of cranberries in the stores.  He loves cranberry sauce.  I am not as crazy about it, but absolutely refuse to eat the "jelly" stuff from the stores.  I want chunks of fruit and not very sweet.  Much to his delight I spent yesterday canning his year's supply of cranberry sauce yesterday.

 

 

 

 

 

I ended up with 17 pints and a bit to go with his supper last night.

 

He ate the leftover bit with a yummy root veggie stew last night. 

Vacation

We were gone a total of nine days....traveled across NC, across Tennessee, Arkansas, Missouri, and Kentucky.  Came home to hurricane flooding, but no damage.

Our travels took us to the Country Music Hall of Fame, Graceland, The Opry Hotel, a show at the Grand Ole Opry, 5 shows in Branson, numerous natural site visits, etc.

While we had a great time, I am glad to be home.  

What I've Been Eating

I spent the past week with my son and his family.  I'm very fortunate because my daughter in law is a person I would be friends with even if she were not my daughter in law.

Meals this week were varied and included among other things:

Tofu and bean burrito

corn pasta with black beans and Mexican seasonings

(sorry I nibbled first)  collards, seasoned beans, and roasted potatoes)

Pumpkin Cake

This is hands down my favorite vegan cookbook.  The recipes are so approachable and her recipes are in line with how a home cook thinks....or at least how I think. 

It's beginning to feel like fall.  I was down to 3 cans of pumpkin left from last fall's stock-up....and now there are two... 

This vegan cake is super easy to make and really delicious.  Of course, I changed a few things.  I used whole wheat pastry flour and refined coconut oil as opposed to all purpose flour and vegan margarine.

Half of one cake became dessert.  I sliced the rest and put in a tin for our road trip.

Placemats

For our last road trip I needed a mindless project.  I underestimated the amount of yarn I would need and only ended up with four placemats instead of the six I wanted.  Of course, I cannot find more of the yarn in my area and I purchased this out of state.  Fortunately for a lot of meals these days there are only four of us here anyway.  They're coordinating without being matchy-matchy and add a little color to the table.  (Zen, our tom cat, thinks they make great kitty beds.)

Traveling Light

Two of us are traveling for a couple of days. With food allergies eating out is next to impossible so we found a place with a small kitchenette. I packed a dozen muffins, 3 bananas, 2 oranges, a box of cereal, a can of peaches, a can of succotash and a can of mixed greens.  I added some fiber bars and pretzels for junk food.

Then I put together two jars of casserole filling for the two suppers we will need. The jar on the right had ground beef, rice, taco seasoning, cheese powder, green peas, onion powder, mushrooms, sweet corn, salt, and pepper. A little water, about 13 minutes cook time and five minute natural pressure drop and we ended up with this 

That small jar yielded more than enough for two people. Plus it actually tasted good.  The beauty was that the main dish was light for packing purposes, but filling for satisfaction purposes.