Hornucopia 2011 - the draft schedule.

Thanks to Mom for pulling together a draft schedule now that we have a few things that need to happen on specific days. I'm pasting it here for easy reference. I've also updated the lists to the right, and separated out the food. Let me know if there's any food I'm missing.

sat - pennas arrive at bedtime /vallentines here/smiths at the colony day events - anyone welcome.....

sun - odd and end items as everyone settle ins - jenny church coming over later - local japanese steak house kid friendly

mon - fireworks - bbq - group pictures in shirts and maybe with g dad

tues - spa time in afternoon for julie jessica and mom while chris takes nap - dinner for group - mexican

wed. - brazilan steakhouse - 6 pm + ????????? during the day

thurs - rock climbing 3-6pm

fri - downtown dallas - butterfly gardens (indoors AC) plus other possibilities and lunch (via van or train)

sat - gdad's party at noon - at his place - dickey's brought in - ice cream and cake and balloons etc. group picture with g dad

sun - pennas leave - church and rest

mon - free for last minute vallentine stuff

tues - vallentines leave

misc activities as needed: water balloons, CARS 2, wii competition and awards, penny ceremony, bowling

Hornucopia 2011 - the planning continues.

I've added all the latest activities Julie has come up with - not sure if I'm missing anything?

Do we need to separate out the eating activies from the activity activities?

Hornucopia 2011 - look to the right.

Hooray - the countdown to Hornucopia 2011 begins! We're now just over a month away so I think we're all agreed that it's a good time to starting thinking about what we want to do. I've created a list over on the righthand side of the blog based on the various suggestions people have made. What else do I need to add?

Also - do we want to revive the Hornucopia Yahoo group?

Portugal: the sights - Sintra.

I'm finally getting round to posting some Portugal pictures. And we have a lot. So I thought I might as well group them into themes/days.

So here's Sintra - a UNESCO protected site, for its architecture (Lord Byron apparently liked it). There are a lot of palaces, including this one (Palácio Nacional de Sintra), which we drove by, but didn't visit:


There is a really great castle, originally built by the moors (it's called Castelo dos Mouros), and then adapted and expanded by others. It has some nice intact features and has a real castle-y feel:





We also visited a palace - the Palácio Nacional da Pena (in my head I always added an extra 'n'), which you can walk to from the castle. Here it is from the castle:



And here's the entrace. It's all pretty colorful throughout.




If you look closely, that middle building with the archway, is kind of blue-ish. It's actually covered in tiles that look like this:

The level of intricate detail on a lot of the palace was crazy. And we found out that Portugal has a lot of tiles. We walked around inside, where you weren't allowed to take pictures, and they made you wear your bags on your front, I guess so you don't accidentally knock into anything. But sometimes you ended up on the outside, where we could take pictures.



We also stayed in a nice hotel in Sintra. An old converted villa, in lovely grounds, with a pool, and views of the castle in the distance. Very nice!

First BBQ of the season.

The weather has turned warm here, at least for the past couple of days, so we got out the two grills and cleaned them up.

Yesterday we had cheeseburgers. Today we had pulled pork, smoked with pecan wood chips.

Hooray for warm weather!

A Saturday walk.

We went on a local walk on Saturday. It wasn't overly sunny, but it was mild and pleasant.

Also, in the woods the wild garlic has come up, so it all smelled very fragrant - and made me hungry!

(Again, I'm posting from my phone, do I'm not sure what order the photos will be in...)

Food processor!

The day has come. After many months of coveting and pining and then considering and researching, I am now the proud owner of a food processor.

The first recipe I made with it was "Yeasted Coffee Cake" from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. It was kind of a bread/cake hybrid, which required cutting butter into flour - something that I hate doing by hand.

I forgot to take a picture of the finished article. It turned out looking nice, with a streusel topping, but I actually didn't like the end result that much. I think I wanted it to be more cakey than bready, especially with that kind of topping - but I think that's just how the recipe is.

I do have a picture of the quiche - which you've all already seen. I made the crust for that using the food processor. And that turned out really nicely. I've also made pesto, an apple pie, pizza dough and bagels all using the processor.

Next up will be some kind of recipe that requires a lot of slicing - I haven't used the discs yet. But I do love it - it's great!