Family Visit and Dinner in East Tennessee

We love visitors… Friends and family are always welcome!  Recently, Laurie’s cousins from Wisconsin were relaxing at a time share in Gatlinburg Tennessee and they coupled it with a side-trip to our home.

Fred and Ginny love to travel and they’ve been all over the globe. They have a winter home in Arizona that they dearly love and they keep busy with their immediate families, staying  involved in local activities.  They also stay in shape… I wish that I looked as young as Fred does…

As they were first time visitors, we gave them a tour of our home then sat around on the screened porch, enjoyed some libations, and caught up on each other’s lives.  Then it was time for dinner!

Laurie had made up this nice fruit bowl to accompany our meal… It included fresh peaches, strawberries and blueberries…very refreshing!

Another side dish was one of my favorites… Sweet and sour cucumbers!  Laurie mixes sugar with half and half milk until the sugar is dissolved.  Then she adds apple cider vinegar and mixes it in. (Equal parts of each ingredient…with enough to cover the cucumbers)

Prepare and refrigerate 24 hours ahead so the cucumber slices are infused with the mixture, flipping and shaking it to insure the mixture is equally distributed a couple of times.

Another side dish was triple succotash…a somewhat soup-like mixture of slightly spicy corn, lima beans and tomatoes. Yummy!

The sides accompanied this pile of BBQ spare ribs…2 racks in total.  We bought them from a local purveyor who was set up outside a local grocery store.  They were a little overcooked by our standard…as we like to have to chew the meat off the bone rather than have it fall off.  Still, the pork was very good…with lots of smoky BBQ flavor.  Fred and Ginny really seemed to enjoy everything!

 

Laurie took this photo of me, Ginny and Fred at the dinner table.  Note the loaf of English muffin bread from VG’s Bakery in Farragut Tennessee.  The Amish butter got rave notices…much better than the ‘usual’ products!

As it turned out, Fred’s birthday was coming up in a couple of days, so we decided to have a little cake and ice cream with dinner.  The single candle was sufficient for a wish to be made…

Yes, I had a piece of cake with a candle in in too… My birthday was the following day so we celebrated still being around at the same time.  It was a blueberry Bundt cake and it was very good!

 

We don’t usually have desserts, bread or baked goods around the house…but when company comes a callin', we make an exception!  We had a great evening and we’re looking forward to future visits…

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave