Avocado What?

OK, not my typical post but I want to share this yumminess!



Avocado and Mushroom Flan

I was reading Martha Stewart Living the other day and they had this whole section of Pea recipies. Now, if I served John peas he would be a very unhappy boy...it harkens back to "Tuna Suprise Friday Nights" in a Catholic household... anyway, there was this interesting and pretty dish, "Pea Flan with Wild Mushrooms" and I got to wondering if it worked with peas, why not avocados?? The avocados are ripening so fast right now and it is making me crazy! so, I played with the recipe a little and gave it a go and ended up with this yummy dish, really light in texture and flavor and the mushrooms were great, too with lemon and scallions in them. I will sooo make this again. I'll post it on the recipe page at the link at the bottom of the blog!


Even though it is raining geckos and mongooses (not cats and dogs in the Islands) right now I wanted to share this great picture John got the other night, speaking of geckos, of our sunset and little friend you'll see in the upper left. when we turn on the livingroom light all the little bugs flock to the window and this little guy knew where to find his dinner!

Sunset Gecko

We are getting ready to visit the mainland for my family reunion in Colorado Springs and I cant wait to get my hands on my granddaughters!!!! I have been making food gifts to bring back from our macadamia nuts including the best brittle ever and lots of mango jam so I hope we will be welcomed with open arms (and mouths) everywhere we go! Can't wait to see people, I'm tired of talking to the turkeys (and no, I don't mean John)!

Mac Nut Brittle

Farm Update - Got Goat??

1st Raised Bed

Raised bed #2

OK, I haven't given a garden update in a long time but I have to say I'm left wishing I had inheirited my Dad's Green Thumb!The garden fortress seemed like a fix but not against the hideous slugs that wanted to eat anything that bloomed, the birds were still getting in under the net and the weeds were growing like, well.....weeds!!! So I got this catalog that was selling very expensive raised garden boxes (like we could afford the shipping on those!), and though I don't have my Dad's green thumb I do have my AMAZINGLY handy husband, who promptly said "no problem"...off to Home Depot and Lowes we went and yet another couples shopping trip and came home with all the fixin's.... of course we also had to buy the dirt to fill these bad boys since we don't just have dirt laying around on top of the lava rich soil..... let it suffice to say, I have a very long, long term time frame on our return on investment future here!! The plants are starting to sprout and so are my hopes of success! I've got zuchinni, beets, spinach, green onions, lettuce, green beans, eggplant, cucumbers, tomatoes and pumpkins started and I'm adding mustard and chollard greens! Fingers crossed the slugs don't learn how to climb and the netting keeps the birds out!!

Eggplant!

Goats for sale!

Little Ippy in the middle!

Now, I've been wanting a GOAT really baaaaadly! We've been watching this sign about a goat sale for weeks now as we drive to and from Kona town! Every time we drive past a yard with a goat I remind John I want a naaaaaanny goat! I reminded John the goat sale was TODAY when he got up and off we went... gotta love shopping together..... to check out these goats! Of course having a goat would totaly be in keeping with our philosophy of doing things we know NOTHING about, but farmers have to have animals, right? And those wild feathered rats (known as turkeys) don't count! Well, once we looked them in the eye we couldn't NOT get a goat so we bought "Ippy", how cute is he??? We are not going to bring him home until we come back from the mainland, but in 2 weeks we will have little Ippy down on the farm! Also, we will get Ippy a girlfriend in August or September when they have the females for sale.... we can't let Ippy be lonely!

Finally we have thought of the name for our farm, and I made this cute logo for us! Now to find out how to make it ours! Ohana means "family" in Hawaiian and since Carolina, Shadow and little Layla will be joining us in August on the venture that was important, it is orchads plural for the 3 different prchards, macadamia nuts, avocado and coffee!

Happy Birthday America!!



Waimea rainout

We had an ambitious day planned for our first 4th of July here on the Big Island! I usually avoid things like that because I truly hate dealing with crowds. We wanted to go to the rodeo up in Waimea, en head down to Waikaloa for the Rubber Duckie Races and see Ippy, the Big Island's hope for the new Food Network Star, emcee a cook-off, check out a craft fair and then head not Kona for the evening parade!
Well, we decided to stay at our condo in town the night before to get a 25 mile head start and woke up to beautiful sunshine. After our SPAM, fruit and toast we headed up to Waimea only to run into rain at the rodeo and we both agreed that was not how we wanted to start our day so off we headed to Waikoloa. The good news about the rainout was we got to Waikola and managed to get a great parking space, free goodie bags with duckies in them, adopted our duckies for the race (hope to find out the winners soon), see some entertainment and watch the food cook-off.


John and Ippy

Me waiting for parade

Our prize!

While the judges were deciding Ippy was asking trivia contests for prizes and when he said the next prize was a horseback ride for two John said he was getting it! Well, Ippy started saying, " when you are in a restaurant and have escargot..." up shot John's hand! Ippy looked surprised since he hadn't finished the question and thought John would guess wrong out of the blue since we had no idea where the question was going, BUT, John said "SNAILS" and lucky us, that was the answer to the question he would have asked!! So you can look forward to a future blog about horsebacks riding for sure! After have we took the shuttle to the Hilton for the craft fair and we got a new TIKI, for my newest collection I'm starting.... Back to watch the duck race and now we are in Kona town waiting for the parade at 5:30. They are having fireworks at 8:00, but we aren't sure we'll last that long.... We didn't.... Went home! The parade was almost 2 hours long and so a fun small town parade with everything from the Boy Scouts to the Governor of Hawaii. Happy Birthday America!