Well Thursday was another warm day with high humidity. The sea fog moved in over night and everything was rather dull until some time mid morning. The Sunshine Skyway Bridge was shut down completely due to zero visibility. I remember back in the day when an 18 vehicle pile up on the bridge killing at least one person occurred that I investigated was caused by this sea fog. This stuff is like a blanket.
I started the morning with my usual 6'ish roll out. After my morning routines of a few quiet moments to honor my Creator and then posting this ramble from the day before I got ready to head to the Rec. on my bike. With the time change and the fog it was barely light enough to see to ride the road. We had a large crowd of players and the A players had one court for most of the two hour workout which suited me fine. I left around 10 with a wet shirt and a tired body and the feeling once again of a good workout. I stopped off at the library for a new read on my way home.
I piddled around in the garden and transplanted some okra seedlings I started in a pot. The earlier ones were doing fine and now I have about a dozen plants that I hope will make. I also transplanted some tomato seedlings that came up volunteer from my compost for Amy and Tyler's garden. I picked a huge colander of green beans as well as a couple more tomato's that were starting to turn. I had also picked a nice mess of collards for one of my pickle ball buddies who exchanged them for fresh caught snapper(grunts) fish from the gulf. They were filleted and frozen in a bag and we thawed them out for our supper. They were delicious albeit small, as grunts don't get much over half a pound and when you fillet them there is about as much meat as you would get from a large blue gill. But they were were so good. I fixed them on the grill like we do Salmon. We covered them lemon pepper, garlic powder and fresh dill and slightly covered them with some olive oil on a tin foil sheet, on the grill for about 10 minutes or so, yikes were they ever tasty.
I will comment on the collards I made on Wednesday as we had some leftover and we finished them for lunch. Nancy and I both were so pleased with this mess of collards we are kicking ourselves for not eating them more often. They were the best ever and even better leftover. My plants are still producing and I've given away 4 messes in the last week and still have enough for another mess. I break off the leaves starting at the bottom of the plant letting the middle of the plant continue to producing leaves. This is the recipe if your interested and the best so far ever; chop the stems along with leaves after rinsing in cold water, chop a whole cooking onion into small pieces and put into a pot with a 1/4 pound of smoked bacon also chopped into small pieces. Sauteed' these two until the onions caramelize or get soft at high heat then add the chopped collards stirring until they to start to reduce in size and then add a can of chicken broth and bring to high heat and reduce the pot to the lowest setting. Check and stir occasionally and if need be add a little water but keep the heat low for the next 4-5 hours with the lid on. Have just enough liquid to keep the greens from sticking or burning. That's it no spices or anything else. They were fantastic. You can add some hot sauce to your bowl but they were so good and flavorful just that way.
Well Amy, GG and Eliza Faye came for a lunch of salad. I ate the collards and a hard boiled egg and a piece of cantaloupe for my lunch. I'm trying to reduce this spare tire once again. I even went without my usual glass of red vino once again before our supper and stayed away from any bread, chips and crackers as well as nuts which is very hard to do. I've maybe dropped a pound since starting on Tuesday after we cleaned up those delicious leftover shower sandwiches. We cancelled our weekly small group for various reasons but Nancy and I did clean the house and had it ready when we found out one couple couldn't make it, plus we got supper out of the way early along with the cleanup. That was about it for the day except our Sammy fell on the slide at school and gashed the top of his head which required 6 staples to close the wound. He was tough as he never cried while being attended to at the walk in clinic. The Lightning hockey team was in Dallas and it was tied when I turned out the lights for the night around 10'ish, LATER
