Confessions of a Grandma

Not to sound obnoxious to my snowbound friends and family, but I took a walk to the Farmer's Market and bought some fresh strawberries.  This is their season here.  I used them for a dessert that consisted of a puff pastry shell filled with vanilla pudding and topped with the sliced berries splashed with a touch of orange liqueur.  I used instant pudding mix but used lite coconut milk instead of dairy.  Yummy. The first time we came to Florida in the winter, I was mildly surprised to see fresh strawberries even though I'd expected to see fresh tomatoes and citrus fruits.  But, I was most surprised to see winter squashes and pumpkins freshly harvested in March.  I guess in my experience acorn squash and pumpkin season was even further away than strawberry season (June, in Vermont). There will be stacks of fresh corn at all the produce markets pretty soon.  That is one thing we never buy in Florida.  It just does not compare to the corn we bu...

We have settled into the new house.  Our neighbors came over with a ladder and picked oranges and lemons from two trees in our back yard for us.  The oranges are not the pretty navel oranges one finds in the supermarket but they are great for juice.  Fresh squeezed orange juice for breakfast...yummy. I think that I will make some lemon curd with the lemons and serve it over a puff pastry for dessert on Saturday.  I went to the grocery store to stock up yesterday, but now I remember that I did not buy any sugar... It is in the 60's today, but we could not ask for a prettier day.  We spent three hours walking the beach this morning.  It was a low tide and the beach was littered with shells.  This little house could use some decorative clear bowls or vases filled with shells so I got right to work on that.  We ran into the "gang" from the beach.  Things are getting back to normal. Yesterday I explored a new park that was in the works last yea...