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We vacation in Indian Rocks beach Florida every year. Indian Rocks beach is about a 40 minute drive from Tampa airport. We have a driver pick us up at the airport because we don’t want to have to do anything while we are on vacation. His name is TJ, and we have been calling him for over 10 years to pick us up and drop us back off at the airport at the end of our trip. Indian Rocks Beach is in the middle of the island where you can find Clearwater and St Petersburg. We look forward to the very quiet beach at Indian Rocks. We catch a beach trolley to Johns Pass for shopping at my favorite Spice and Tea Exchange store and our favorite restaurant is the Friendly Fisherman – they have the best caprese salad and calamari. Vino Wines is a must stop for frozen wine drinks, we enjoy playing with a variety of flavors from there. Our favorite places to eat at Indian Rocks Beach are Crabby Bills where we always enjoy calamari and Rum Runner drinks. Jimmy Guanas has a delicious Thai Shrimp rice bowl, which we end up taking back to the hotel to store in refrigerator and heat up later when snacking and watching the ocean. The sunsets are amazing. The water is beautiful and we love falling asleep to the sounds of the ocean with our sliding glass door left open. The ice cream/coffee shop attached to Crabby Bills has the best chocolate/peanut butter shake called: Funky Monkey and we always go next door to the Hershey’s Ice Cream place for a treat to take during our stroll on the beach while watching the sunset. This is a beautiful and relaxing place to vacation.

The black eyed peas were cooked in the Instant Pot with ham, onions and greens. This was easy and the perfect consistency. The recipe for the bread came from the book Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day: This bread is so easy and it was delicious dipping it in to the black eyed peas broth.

Black Eyed Peas: I soaked a bag of black eyed peas (regular size bag) in a bowl of water all night. Strain the black eyed peas. While they are straining; turn saute function on on the IP – add 2 Tbsp of butter or oil (your choice); when butter is melted – add sliced or chopped onions (I had a large onion – I chopped half of it – today I’m going to add the rest as we would have been fine with more onion); turn off saute.

Add 1/2 tsp dried thyme,

1/2 tspn pepper,

1/4 tsp red pepper flakes,

1 tsp kosher salt,

1 Tbsp red wine vinegar,

1 bay leaf.

Add the beans; add whatever meat you have on hand – I had a ham steak – I didn’t chop it up – just tossed in the whole thing – it fell apart during cooking process; I added 4 cups of water – you can mix this with broth as well – I just had a jug of water I wanted to get rid of – usually I use a combo of broth and water.

Pressure cook on high 18 minutes; Now I did a natural release at 15 minutes (you can guess with this part as I was just busy making bread and looked over at this point) I then did a quick release.

I added a bag of collard greens; mixed the greens in; closed the lid and let the greens cook without turning it on – there was enough heat in the pot for the greens to cook

If you can serve bread/rolls with this – it is delicious dipping the bread in to the broth.

As you all know, play with the times and make it work for you. I had a bag of black eyed peas I decided to do something with. 18 minutes worked for me – here in Indiana

𝐂𝐡𝐢𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐧 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐦𝐩𝐚𝐠𝐧𝐞 𝐒𝐚𝐮𝐜𝐞

This is so tender! So Delicious! I made this a couple days ago and we had leftovers from this for 3 days – I am amazed at how tender the chicken breasts were after heating them up. With chicken breasts – it’s a hit or miss for me on flavor, as well as dry or moist. This champagne sauce is a keeper (and yes, I made a mimosa while making this because the bottle was already open and I immediately was like, “why not?” )

This recipe is from my Southern Living Quick & Easy cookbook – if you come across this book – grab it – there are a lot of easy recipes with every day ingredients.

The champagne I bought for company, and put the leftover in ice cube trays for future recipes and/or mimosa’s. The only thing I couldn’t get to work was the thickening of the sauce and I’m guessing it is because there was nothing in the recipe that would help this happen. Plus it was raining here and I know (based on experience) recipes have to be played with depending on where you live. (𝘔𝘦𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘐 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵 𝘮𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘊𝘰𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘥𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘺𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘴 𝘢𝘨𝘰 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘰𝘰𝘬 𝘢𝘵 𝘢 𝘩𝘪𝘨𝘩 𝘢𝘭𝘵𝘪𝘵𝘶𝘥𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘢𝘯 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘯𝘤𝘦.)

This recipe is worth creating and leftovers are fabulous. On the second day, I put this on rice and on the 3rd day – I cut it up and put in fajitas. Yum!

Boiled & Baked New Potatoes

1 1/2 lbs red skin potatoes (I used multi-color bag)

1/4 cup melted butter

garlic salt

cayenne

dried thyme or rosemary

black pepper 1 to 2 Tbsp shredded Parmesan cheese

Wash potatoes.  If small, leave whole, if large, cut into halves or quarters.  Steam or boil until almost done, 10-20 minutes.  Drain and cool slightly.Roll potatoes in melted butter and arrange in a single layer in a shallow baking pan.  Sprinkle with garlic salt, cayenne, thyme and pepper.

Bake in a 425 oven for 20 minutes, turning once or twice.  Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and bake until cheese browns, about 10 minutes.Makes 4 to 6 servings.

Tip: Next time I will add more Parmesan cheese

Sharing a piece of our family history today that Jim’s family (The Shea Family) brought with them from Ireland. These two pieces are on proud display in one of our antique cabinets. I love Jim’s family history – there are some fascinating stories and they kept the pieces to go with them reminding us of these people from our past. The pieces keep them alive with some fun stories to go with them. I really enjoy seeing Jim look at an antique in our home, and smile because of the memory he is having and of course, I’ll say “Share your memory!” Even if it is repeated – because it brings him such happiness, and it is true respect for the family.

Never tire of repeated family stories – they keep the family and their stories with us.

Black Irish Thorn Cane

This antique cane came from Ireland with a relative in the early 1800’s – look at the thorns on that thing – the knob/knot on the handle would hurt if you hit someone with it (yes, it was for protection as well)

Night Stick – this antique from the 1800’s belonged to great grandfather – an Irish Police Officer
The marks on the night stick were from when he would throw it down the alley at the cats because they would wake him up at night

These pieces have fun, interesting stories. Jim and I love touching antiques, and thinking about their history – where they have been – who they belonged to and keeps the people and their stories alive.

Jim and I are Vincent Price fans. We grew up watching him. I found this 1965 cookbook, and was surprised to read he was a gourmet chef who wrote a number of cookbooks—and even had his own cooking show. We looked up his cooking shows on youtube and have been enjoying watching him.
This is the first cookbook he created with the help of his wife.

This dish is the Grilled Gravad Lax (Grilled Marinated Salmon) on page 146. The dish is delicious. I made the sauce and did not care for it – Jim liked it. I made a second sauce and instead of using olive oil with the dry ingredients, I used mayonnaise and cut the sugar due to that already being in mayo. Next time I make this – and I will – I will cut the salt – you can see my note on this, which I leave at the front of my book. I usually write notes next to a recipe but this is such a beautiful book – I won’t do that with this book.

This is how I protect special ornaments that are larger than normal – they are wrapped in bubble wrap inside this

Chicken Pot Pie in a 10″ cast iron, in the oven.

My first time making a pot pie.

I hope it’s a good as it smells