Family Visit

I have not done so well with my getting back to blogging, I need to do better. I am letting too much time pass by between blogs and there is so much to blog about! This past Saturday, 8/21/10, Mom and Dad along with my brother Jimmy, Kathy, Tyler and Kathy's mom, Kathy came over and delivered a dresser Dad had made for his and Mom's bedroom at our house. I will have to post a photo of the dresser later, but it is really nice! We sat around and talked, Tyler played out side some and Ken and I cook a great early dinner. I made a salad and zucchini corn fritters(recipe for fritters down below) while Ken fried some beautiful jumbo shrimp fresh from the shrimp boat. Everything turned out great and we sucked down the shrimp and fritters as if we were starving!! I always love having the family come and visit and hopefully Mom and Dad will come back soon and stay with us so Mom and I can go back to the tea house we love so much. Of course there will also be some antique shopping done also.
Here is master chef Ken cooking the shrimp.

My beautiful zucchini corn fritters. They tasted as good as they looked. Yummm

Kathy, Kathy's mom on the front porch.

This is Tyler who said he was making small holes for ants. Not sure why, we certainly don't need anymore ants.

Here we have my brother Jimmy and Kathy along with Tyler in our livingroom. I think Jimmy and Tyler were watching Sponge Bob Squarepants or something along those lines. :-)

And last but not least, my parents enjoying the afternoon on our front porch. Looks like Mom was frowning. Probably did not want her picture taken again!

Recipe for those great Zucchini Corn Fritters:

1 chopped small to medium white onion

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup corn meal

1 tablespoon baking power

1/2 teaspoon cumin

1/2 cup of Splenda (you can use sugar, but trust me the splenda is great!)

1/2 teaspoon salt

fresh ground black pepper (to taste)

2 eggs, beaten

1 cup milk

1/4 cup butter, melted (I use Smart Balance)

2 cups grated zucchini

1 1/2 cups fresh corn, kernels cut from cob
1 cup finely shredded cheddar cheese

oil for frying

Directions:

1. In a large bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, cumin, splenda, salt and pepper.

2. In a small bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, and butter. Whisk wet ingredients into dry ingredients. Stir in zuchini, corn and cheese; mix well.

3. Warm oil in a cast iron skillet over medium-high heat. Drop batter by the tablespoonful in hot oil. Fry until crisp and brown, turning once with tongs. Remove to paper towels.

Be sure and try this recipe, these fritters are better than hushpuppies and they go great when just having a salad for supper.

What I did on my Summer Break

Well, as you can tell I did not do any blogging. We just got so busy with things we were trying to get done during my 7 weeks off. Ken was mostly studying for his Real Estate licence, while I took care of our dogs, the house and stuff outside. I was also walking 3 miles every morning, which now moves to the afternoon since today I am back at work. In 7 weeks, I have lost 14.6 pounds even though to me you can't tell. But the scales say I have and I am hoping for at least a pound a week. We also finished clearing out the house in Houston and have people in getting it ready to put on the market. We had a new front and back door put on, they are painting the inside of the house, including the cabinets in the kitchen. We are replacing a window in the back bedroom, the floors have been sanded and will get a new stain, the carpet is being replaced in the den/bedroom and a new floor will be put down in the kitchen. Wish we could do a few more things like put in central air and heat, replace the almost 20 yr old roof and fix the drainage line from the washer to the city line, but we just don't have enough money to do that. As it is what we are doing has cost us 6500 dollars so far and we still want to put a nice screen door on the back and replace one of the ceiling fans. We are going to have the house appraised and then price it fairly. I have some photos of the work being done and I will post those maybe tomorrow.