fireworks, recipes and more

What an eventful week! The past weekend the family took a little trip to Monterey for a wedding. Everything was just beautiful. The wedding, the weather and the beach. I loved the beach and am already wishing I was back. The water was cold, the wind was blowing and the oldest boy and I had a fantastic time wave running. We were soaked to our waists and didn't care one bit. We were both sad and dragging our feet when we had to get going. We are already talking about going next year for a family vacation and I can't wait!

Mom and Dad hosted a BBQ on July 3rd. They grilled chicken and everyone else brought a dish to share. Lots of yummy goodness to go around. We had every kind of salad imaginable, beans, corn, pulled pork, pie, cupcakes, ice cream, dips and more! Then there were the fireworks from the park. There is a local church that does and aerial firework display and we watched from the front yard. I had a most excellent time and have a few recipes to share with everyone. I made Homemade Strawberry Ice Cream, Gramma's Pineapple Coconut Picnic Cake, BBQ Baked Beans, Spiced and Orange Nuts and Corn with Mustard Seeds. Tonight I'm going to get the Corn recipe up as it seemed to be the biggest hit and everyone is asking for the recipe. I found this recipe in Sunset magazine. I thought is was wonderful and guess everyone else agreed!


Corn with Mustard Seeds
Sliced kernels from 6-8 ears of corn or 4 cups frozen corn thawed
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1/2 teaspoon brown mustard seeds
1-2 sliced serrano chiles
1/4 teaspoon tumeric
salt to taste
1 tablespoon minced cilantro

Heat oil in wok or saute pan over medium-high heat, add brown mustard seeds and cover. When seeds stop popping , lower heat to medium and add sliced chiles; stir for 30 seconds. Stir in tumeric. Add corn and salt to taste. Toss, turn heat to low, cover, and cook corn until tender, about 5 minutes (cook frozen corn about 1 minute). Stir in minced cilantro. Serve warm.
My notes: I doubled this recipe as I anticipated a larger crowd. I also used regular mustard seeds instead of brown since that was all my grocery store carried and I wasn't running all over town to find some. I ended up using 3 chiles to try to make is palatable for most everyone but will use 4-5 if I make it again. I love cilantro so instead of 2 tablespoons for a double batch I rough chopped and entire bunch and threw it in. Salt I just eyeballed to what looked right. Experiment with the ingredients and see what works best for you!


I will work on getting up the other recipes here within the next week. Hopefully by this weekend if I can manage it. For now I hope everyone had a great 4th!