Recipe ......day # 13

Oops! I missed the normal Wednesday Recipe again. Maybe there is something about that #13 thing. Well I'm not normally superstitious about these things, so I will proceed with the Recipe after this brief disclaimer. We were very busy on Wednesday with a trip to the airport. Kari will be participating in the wedding of one of her best friends who lives in Sweden. I'm sure she will take the opportunity for some vacation activities with her friends and family as well. Here we are at the airport just before boarding the flight to Sweden.

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When the rest of us left the airport we went back into Houston for a visit to the Farmer's Market on Airline Drive, to eat lunch at The Spaghetti Warehouse in downtown Houston, and to take a brief shopping trip before our return home. Some of the produce items we bought at the farmer's market included fresh green beans, new potatoes, and onions. I cooked the green beans, thus we get the following recipe:

Farmer's Market Green Beans

2 -3 "handfuls" of fresh green beans, snip ends and peel strings if any

8 - 10 new red potatoes, whole or cut in half

1/2 onion, sliced or coarsely chopped

4 slices bacon, cut into 1/2 to 1 inch pieces

1 clove garlic, thinly sliced or minced

1 teaspoon olive oil

1 teaspoon salt

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Prepare first 3 ingredients as described or as you prefer and set aside. Combine the remaining ingredients with the onions in a large pot and heat on medium high on your cook top. Cook these ingredients until the bacon is done and the onions are translucent (5 - 10 minutes). Add the remaining ingredients to the pot with enough water to completely cover the ingredients in the pot. Raise the heat as needed to bring the water to a boil and continue to boil until the beans are done and the potatoes are soft (20 - 40 minutes).

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This recipe is original and was not copied from any particular cook book. I did refer to several different cook books for suggested recipes and cooking ideas for fresh green beans. These are the books which I have previously cited for some of the recipes I have already shared with you in this blog. Feel free to follow this recipe or change it as you desire according to your own tastes or preferences. You may copy, edit, and share this recipe with you family and friends as you desire. Please enjoy your Farmer's Market Green Beans and reply or comment with any changes or additions you might suggest to the recipe.

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Summer Time Blues

No, I'm not referring to the "Summertime Blues" (1958), a 12-bar blues standard song by Eddie Cochran and Jerry Capehart about the trials and tribulations of teenage life in America. (Song and artist information is from Wikipedia.)


I'm referring to the beautiful blue water in the swimming pool.

Janna has been inviting all of us over to her apartment to swim in the pool.

Kira has been going for 'Water Babbies' lessons at a local swimming pool. Do we have a potential olympic swimmer?

Independence Day!

Waiting for our neighborhood 4th of July Parade.

Start of the Parade.

Houston Mayor, Bill White.

The end of the parade.

Have a Great 4th of July!

Picture Frenzy

My wife, Pam, recently went into a picture taking frenzy. Several years ago I gave her a digital camera for Christmas. Of course there was a liberal dose of Christmas pictures that year. Then as special occasions came up we would have a new set of birthday pictures and an occasional picture for Mother's Day, Father's Day, a set of vacation pictures, or whatever the occasion might be. Then the camera seemed to go dormant for a while. It came out ocassionaly and was shoved into my hands to snap a few pictures. Recently I got my own digital camera as well as a one of those inexpensive HD video cameras. Pam's camera seemed to have disappeared for a while. Then, with the Grandaughter, Kira, growing and changing so fast the camera has recently been resurrected from the closet. Here follows some of Pam's recent photographic endeavors:

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Here is a really good picture of Kira taken recently.

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Next is a picture of Kira with . . . ?

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Kira with . . . ?














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Wait a minute! What happened to the grandbaby? These are pictures of clouds.












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I'm looking through pictures from Pam's camera and all of the sudden I come across a whole set of pictures of clouds. It seems Pam has a particular fascination with clouds. One recent afternoon, just before sunset Pam went out and saw these clouds. She came back in for her camera and went out taking pictures of every cloud in sight. She tells me these are Mammatus Clouds and are usually seen after a severe thunderstorm has passed. Earlier that day we had experienced a set of passing thunderstorms, which is a usual weather occurence for this part of Texas at this time of year. For more information on Mammatus Clouds you may follow the links to the Department of Atmospheric Sciences (DAS) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

More Than a Day, More Than a Dollar!

Well the Father's Day Off ended up being a little more than a day. Hey, it's summer, what can I say? I will soon fill in for the missing Recipe and Family news items. I have been extremely busy with a few of those "Honey Do" projects helping Pam around the house and in the yard. Janna and I have been busy with some "summer training" for school and for some personal interests which we are trying to develop. I've also been online attempting to plan a brief summer vacation and to do research into some of our "developing interests". Sometimes when online I may get sidetracked and spend more time with the interesting and funny things found online. I'm not sure what category the following web site would fall into. You can decide for yourself. The following website is one designed by a young man attempting to use the internet to become a millionaire. I think he may have done it! Take a look for yourself at what is reportedly a Million Dollar Website!

$ $ $ Million Dollar Website $ $ $