An Early Summer Drive

I'm slow at developing blog posts as I'm still struggling with my photos... Now that almost everything has downloaded from Carbonite, I find myself with 3 different photo files, lots of duplication, 3 different apps to clean up or enhance the photos and a download file that duplicates much of what is in the photo files.  I'll eventually figure it out...

So, recently Laurie and I went for a drive in the country.  We did have a goal in mind...but we did stray from that objective as the afternoon went on. 

We love donkeys so we had to stop and chat with these two herd guardians... Coyotes wouldn't stand a chance with these critters on guard!  They are smart, curious and fierce.

Our objective was the High Order Mennonite Farm Market near Tellico Plains Tennessee.  There are 2 other markets operated by High Order Mennonites in our area.  One is near Delano and the other is close to Englewood and both can be easily accessed from US Hwy 411.

Our primary objective was to buy a couple of big bags of the granola that this community produces.  Laurie loves it with her yogurt.  We also conceded that we'd like a couple of fresh tomatoes.

As you can see from the photo above, we 'slightly' exceeded our goals...and our needs.  We did get a couple of nice tomatoes, 1 slicing and 1 heirloom, as well as 2 different bags of granola.  Then we strayed just a bit, adding radishes, cauliflower, a couple of yellow squash, a jar of pickled beets, a jar of strawberry jam and a jar of hot salsa.  

But we didn't stop there!  The Mennonite Market also sells plants and Laurie maintains a deck garden so she couldn't resist picking up some additions for her varied plantings.  In addition to the citronella plant, she picked up a couple of baby hyssop plantings.  

I'd never heard of hyssop so I looked it up.  It is a shrub of the mint family that is native to southern Europe, the Middle East and the area around the Caspian Sea.  It purportedly has medicinal properties that can be used as an antiseptic, cough reliever and expectorant.

So was that all there was?  Since we were all ready 'overachievers', we did think of one more stop where we intended to pick up just a couple of sweets for dessert.

So much for good intentions... Once again we strayed, this time with a stop a the Tellico Grains Bakery in Tellico Plains Tennessee.  There was a bit of chocolate involved plus the anticipated sweets for dessert.  It was like a buying frenzy!  The worst part is that Laurie's appetite has shrunk considerably...but her mind hasn't caught up yet.  That led to a couple of actions.  Chocolate vs. regular food and what she couldn't eat, became my personal commitment.  Waste Not, Want Not!

Not everything we purchased at Tellico Grains was sweet.  We also picked up a couple of very nice croissants stuffed with ham and cheese.  They served as our breakfast the following morning.

Next...the other day we tried something that that we'd purchased in our local Food Lion.

We both love BBQ spare ribs but since my idea of BBQ ribs is to slather them with sauce and grill them hot and fast...they really don't qualify as BBQ...which should be smoked low and slow.  So we decided to buy a rack of Swift's KC Style Ribs that we spotted in the meat department.

All I had to do was to do my thing, grilling these ribs and putting that 'char' on them.  Conclusion - The ribs were really 'meaty' and I had leftovers that I shredded and used in a couple of sandwiches.  They weren't falling off the bone...requiring a little 'chew', which is the way we like them.  The problem is that they were far too salty for our taste.  

If you don't try things, you'll never know if you missed a real winner!  Maybe our next meat related impulse will truly hit the spot...

I thought that I'd end this post with something 'healthy'...while utilizing some of the items we purchased at the Mennonite Farmers Market.  I can't eat greens so every now and then I cobble together a salad of sorts without the green stuff.  This 'salad' utilized the fresh slicing tomato, the cauliflower, slices of the yellow squash and bites of those fresh radishes.  I will admit that I managed to 'overcome' the healthy aspect of this salad by slathering it with Marie's Chunky Blue Cheese Dressing... At least I ate my veggies!

Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them...

Thanks for stopping by for a visit!

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave