Cape Days

YJDKIY set out on the Cape Cod Rail Trail for a 6 mile ride up (and 6 back!) to Brewster Coffee House where breakfast included some egg beaters and toast in the form of a sandwich.

Yes, my bike is kid sized. YJDKIY has oddly short appendages, sorry. The town tour continued.

Chatham is probably YJDKIY's favorite Cape town. It's so picturesque, see these photos I borrowed from the nets. Lunch at the Chatham Village Cafe was a vegetarian wrap that included hummus, avocado, green pepper, cucumber, and a bunch of other stuff you can read here.

(Well) Fleet Feet

Making the rounds for Cape towns brought YJDKIY to Wellfleet, declared "Provincetown lite" for its quaint artsiness, but not as nifty for dining, shopping and people watching.

There is this giant guy though. And apparently everyone here is named Mac.

Lunch was a fried codfish burrito at Mac's Seafood on the pier.

Next we headed over to the beach and spend the afternoon at White Crest where there were lots of seals playing in the chilly water. Bonus for this beach: the three story sliding dune.

The day finished in Orleans at a Cape Cod Baseball League playoff game (why can't I find and orleans sign photo to steald!?).

YJDKIY has no idea who played or won.

Breakfast Cape Style

The horseshoe crab plays a vital, if little-known, role in the life of anyone who has received an injectable medication. An extract of the horseshoe crab's blood is used by the pharmaceutical and medical device industries to ensure that their products, e.g., intravenous drugs, vaccines, and medical devices, are free of bacterial contamination. No other test works as easily or reliably for this purpose. Read more detail.

PS: No harming of horseshoe crabs was done in this photo. This little guy had already croaked when I found him. There were many beached along the shore this morning, not sure if that is normal...anyone?

Stock up

There's one thing this means

$2.00 Bob's steel cut oats and Ocean State Job Lot. Okay, that's two.

877 miles

That's how many YJDKIY has been in the last 36 hours! A few highlights:

All pre-7 am road trips are required to start with BE&C even if Snackdonalds robbed me of the B

10:30 am snack...who knew these came in a package!?

No offense West Virginia, but really?

We did partake of some WVian picnic tables for a leftover lunch

Behold! Destination: Allentown

Yes, that pasta box does say Mother in Law's Tongue

 Local Farm/Produce map!

Wegmans checkout. The cheerios aren't ours. The coffee cans are, more on that later.

 Yummy gobag goodies almost gone. 

Odd, but mostly good dinner at Farm2Bistro

6 am across the George Washington Bridge - NYC!

Dinner on the Cape!

And then there's this. The Mosquito Magnet/Defender. Happy Vacay!

Maybe next time

YJDKIY had lofty ideas about the summer lasagna idea. I wanted something lighter than the standard veggie lasagna that some how seems like a winter meal. The plan was the puree some local tomatoes and basil (instead of jar or can sauce), add a little light cottage cheese and ricotta (instead of tons of mozza) and use zucchini ribbons (instead of noodles) as the layer base.

I picked WAY too much basil, but possibly because my baby basils have turned into a small forest!

MMMM this puree mixed with the ricotta could have been the meal itself. It was like creamy gazpacho! (note: pureeing super runny tomatoes is not the recommended time for discovering your food copper gadget has two small holes in the lid!!)

Zucchini ribbons! I think they make a fancy tool for this, which I do not own. Cheese grater worked perfectly! Once I started assembling this, my tummy got the best of me and I decided it need more...stuff.

I decided to put some whole wheat noodles in - 2 layers of 4 each. And some green pepper (cleaning out the fridge!) with about a cup of MSF.

All assembled pretty

And baking for....60 minutes at 375! Zucchini and tomatoes are extremely runny and I had no egg to hold it together.

In the end, it was ok, but you couldn't taste the tomatoes at all. Not sure how to fix that in the future, maybe adding tomato paste (but I was trying to stay away from cans), or not mixing in quite so much cheese.

Purple Pepper People Eater

That little white one was potent! And the purple one was bright green inside!

Ahead of my time v.2

First it was the wall colors and Pantone's hot colors. Now, YJDKIY is even ahead of Martha Stewart. While perusing a very worn copy of the July issue of Martha Stewart Living at the library recently, I discovered an article about state textiles being a hot decorating/collector's item.

Come on, I've had these hanging on the wall for at LEAST six months! :P You can choose your own state in a variety of items here at Uncommon Goods.

Local Roundup

For North Carolina readers, if you haven't heard of the 10% campaign to spend 10% of your existing food dollars on local food, go here immediately and sign up.  At Casa YJDKIY, we spend about 15-20% on local food, I think, between the farmer's market and local produce carried in HT. That number is in serious jeopardy for winter months though, I'm afraid.

For all readers, don't ask me how I stumbled upon this, but I couldn't resist sharing:

Yes, that is my very own local 'who ya gonna call'! It doesn't surprise me this exists, Salisbury is a quirky town with lots of odd history. What amuses me is the list of investigations (be sure to view the audio/video files)! And, just for the record, I totally believe the Wrenn House one! Dinner there gave me the willies and was entirely creepy for many reasons...some readers may recall! ;)

New Favorite

It's August! And there's this:

Do you know what that means? Soon to be replicated! In related news, I've always used vegetable oil for that recipe, but this weekend I acquired some Barlean's EVCO (extra virgin coconut oil) to make these and realized it would be the perfect substitute in granola. It adds a nice subtle coconut flavor and has some nutritional benefits (if costing $16 for this small container that will hopefully last til 2012, one of it's benefits being a long shelf life!).

A 1T serving (but really, who eats that much, I used 2T in like 6 c of granola!) contains 125 calories, 14 g fat, lots and lots of MCTs, Omega-6 and Omega-9 fatty acids!


The health benefits of coconut oil include hair care, skin care, stress relief, maintaining cholesterol levels, weight loss, increased immunity, proper digestion and metabolism, relief from kidney problems, heart diseases, high blood pressure, diabetes, HIV and cancer, dental care, and bone strength. These benefits of coconut oil can be attributed to the presence of lauric acid, capric acid and caprylic acid, and its properties such as antimicrobial, antioxidant, antifungal, antibacterial, soothing, etc. Read more on the health benefits.

E2B

Early to bed that is...because I'll be early to rise (and hopefully healthy, wealthy and wise!) Not quite warm milk doing the trick tonight...

Silk light chocolate soymilk (this 8 oz has 90 calories, 3g protein and lots of B12, D, and calcium). Plus a little light reading!

Sorry for the dark pictures, but it's almost lights out around here.

Savory

Was the flavor on the breakfast menu this morning!

Whole wheat pita browned in pan with melted mozza, scrambled egg topped with avocado slices and a little pepper!

Bonus: I get to wear pants today! First time in 3 months I think. :P