Tuesday, March 29, 2011

The Return of a Taste of Tuesday

A while ago, I went through a vegetarian phase. My buddy Joy sent me a bunch of recipes, including one for Spinach Casserole. I have adapted it a little to suit my tastes. It's really good as a side dish, but it has enough nutrients to be a main dish as well.

Spinach Casserole

Ingredients:

  • (2) 9 oz bags fresh spinach, chopped
  • 8 oz your favorite cheese. I like cabot 50% pepperjack
  • Spices in dish: I use nutmeg, cayanne and black pepper to taste
  • 1/2 cup egg whites
  • Pumpkin seeds
  • 1 onion, diced
  • Brown rice, cooked (I use a bag of boil-in-bag brown rice, it's easy to cook and hard to screw up)
  • Paprika (enough to look pretty)
  • Garlic (to taste, I use LOTS)
Procedure:
  1. Cook the rice according to package directions and set aside.
  2. In a large frying pan, cook the garlic and onions till the onions are translucent.  I use regular cooking oil, but I guess you could use Pam if you wanted to reduce the calorie count.  Add the chopped spinach by handfulls. letting it cook down (it will eventually all fit in there.) 
  3. When the spinach mixture is all cooked, take pan off the heat. Either in the frying pan or in a big bowl, add the cooked rice, cheese, egg whites, nutmeg, cayanne an black pepper to the spinach.
  4. Spray a cooking dish with Pam and dump the mixture into it. 
  5. Sprinkle pumpkin seeds on top to taste (I like the texture, so I add quite a few), then add enough paprika to make it look pretty. 
  6. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 35-40 minutes or until browned on top.
  7. Nom-nom-nom-nom-nom.



Sunday, March 27, 2011

A few questions on the state of the blog...

 I am trying to decide the direction in which I want to take this blog. If you are reading here, it would be great if you could either reply here anonymously or send me email answering a few questions:

  • I have mostly been doing trips here in Indian River County. If you live somewhere else, would you attend events if I held them in your area? (A general description of where you live would be helpful, either the town or county.)
  • I've been most doing walking/birding tours, just because that is my interest.  I have always been open to other events, but haven't received any outside input. Would you attend other types of outings such as, for example, shopping, concerts, festivals, playing softball or other games? Let me know what else you might be interested in.
  • Other than giving a few people my card, I really haven't promoted this blog at all. In your opinion, should I try promoting it? Is the advice/information I post here interesting and worthwhile? 
  • What other topics would you like to read about here? 
Basically, I would like to reach a wider audience, but also do not want to waste people's time.  Please let me know your thoughts! Thanks so much.

Event Update

Today we got up at 4:30 am to drive up to Brevard County for a boat trip on the river with Wildside Tours. It was totally worth the insanely early hour. If you chose not to GOYB, here is what you missed (click to enlarge pictures):

 This could be one of my favorite pictures that I've ever taken. The pelicans just look so happy! They know the joy of getting off their butts!
 This was an interesting little scene. You can compare and contrast the laughing gull with the bonaparte's gull (check out the leg color and black eye patch on the bonaparte's) and you can also compare the royal to the caspian tern (the caspian has that honking big heavy beak.)
Two pelicans, looking majestic.
A pelican flying. I just liked the composition of this picture.
Two pelicans watching two great blues with a younger great blue between them. There is a story here.
 My HFC, and tour guide for the day, David.
 An anhinga, seriously in the mood for loving. I don't know...  if I was a girl anhinga, I'm not sure if blue mascara is really the thing that would get my motor revving.
 I love ospreys. They just have such a head full of attitude.
 A green heron.
A laughing gull, in the mood, and a pelican.
Just an anhinga, but I really liked this picture.








This was a great day out with Wildside Tours. I just tagged along today, but I would love to set up an official DeeMotivation tour with them.  It would be a paid trip (as you know, most DeeMotivation events are free) but I really thought it was a blast and well worth paying for. If you think you might be interested in doing this as an official DeeMotivation event, drop me an email.