.: July 2011

The Charlie Room

This is a cute little virtual nursery I put together for Charlie's bedroom.

OlioBoard is so much fun to play around with!

2 weeks old already!

It's hard to believe that Charlie is celebrating his 2-weeks-old birthday today.

It seems like it took forever for him to get here, and now that he is, the time is just flying by ~

You got the way to move me, Cherry

Cherry Baby!

Tonight's dessert.....yum.

We get some pretty unusual critters in our back yard, but this one takes the prize for grossest!! At first hubby thought it might be a snake crawling up our pine tree, but then realized it was the world's longest slug!

As disgusting as it was, I couldn't help taking a picture of it. Hard to tell from the photos, but it was about 8-10 inches long. Seriously slimy and gross!!!

So long, clunky orange brick -

Tomorrow I'm trading in my old orange stupid phone
for a sleek white smart phone!

Crab & Cucumbers - sounds good to me!

Summer Fest: Cucumbers Stuffed With Crab-Mango Salad

by Michelle Buffardi posted at 12:00 pm | Comments (1)

Week three of our season-long garden party Summer Fest 2011 welcomes food and garden bloggers to feature garden-to-table recipes and tips. We’ll help you to enjoy all that this season has to offer. So far, we’ve delved into eggplant and peaches. This week we’re getting creative with cucumbers.

Summer appetizers should be fresh, light and they should take advantage of the bounty of the season. Ideally, they’d be great-tasting, and wouldn’t take a lot of time to make (you’ll need that time to waste by the pool or in a hammock somewhere) and summer apps should not heat up the kitchen. This is not the time for spinach-artichoke dip, folks.

It is time for bite-sized chunks of cool cucumber, stuffed with mango and jalapeno-studded crab salad. It tastes like the crab walked out of the sea and into your garden.

I was inspired by Daisy Martinez’s Avocado Stuffed With Crab-Mango Salad, but since it’s not avocado week of Summer Fest, I wanted to use cucumbers instead. Plus, cucumbers are lighter, so you can pop a couple of these in your mouth without needing a nap afterward. The end result is a no-cook snack or appetizer that looks pretty fancy but is done in a half-hour, and you won’t have to heat up the kitchen at all.

Cucumbers Stuffed With Crab-Mango Salad

(adapted from Daisy Martinez’s recipe)

1 lime, zest finely grated

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons chopped cilantro leaves
1/2 mango, peeled and cut into 1/4-inch dice (about 1 cup)
1/3 cup diced (1/4-inch) red bell peppers
1/3 cup diced (1/4-inch) red onion
1/2 jalapeno, stemmed and cut into small dice (about 2 tablespoons)
1/2 pound jumbo lump crabmeat
2 English cucumbers
cilantro, for garnishing

Squeeze the juice from the lime into a bowl. Add the olive oil and cilantro and whisk well. Add the mango, red pepper, onion, jalapeno, and lime zest and toss to coat. Gently stir in the crabmeat to keep it from breaking up. Set aside while preparing the cucumbers.

Wash the cucumbers and peel evenly-spaced strips around the cucumber. Cut the cucumbers into 1-inch-thick rounds, discarding the ends. Using a small spoon, scoop the seeds and some of the flesh out of each round to form a small cup. (Don’t scoop all the way through the cucumber round.)

Fill the cucumber cups with crab salad and garnish with a sprig of cilantro. Serve right away.