What's Cooking?

Since our trip has dominated the blog for the last month, I thought maybe it was time to show you a little bit of what has been coming out of our kitchen lately...

Up first, a tomato salad topped with field peas, bacon, and feta....while my parents were in town last weekend we stopped by Pepper Place and picked up the tomatoes and field peas along with some corn and peaches. Summer definitely offers the best produce in my opinion!!

I've also gone back to my Peace Meals cookbook to try a few new things. One of our favorites was chicken tenders with cilantro pesto. The chicken tenders were rubbed with cumin, chili powder, and salt which really gave them an amazing amount of flavor. 

The leftover pesto was great in quesadillas too!

We are headed to the mountains with Andy's family this week so I decided to make some granola to take along. I found the granola recipe on Orangette's blog a few years ago, but it is adapted from a Nigella Lawson recipe. Pretty simple overall and you can certainly personalize it with different nuts, dried fruit, etc.

Finally, I made this Watermelon Salad to go with dinner tonight. Mom sent me the recipe a few years ago, and at first I thought that watermelon, onions, and feta cheese sounded like a bazar combination (ok, I still think it sounds a little weird). It is so tasty though...especially on hot summer days like today. 

(I subbed basil for the mint because I had some in the garden...)

Have a great week!

Venice

Finally ready for the final post about our trip! Warning though, it is overloaded with pictures. It seemed like there was something photo worthy every where we turned!

We arrived in Venice early Monday morning and were off the ship by 9am (thankfully a very smooth and efficient process!).

After much research, we decided the best way to get to the hotel was via public transportation - just so happens that was on a boat which made Andy very happy! Here we are waiting for the water bus...

We stayed at the Hilton Molino Stucky, which ended up being a really neat spot as it was not located on the main island. Instead, we were across a big canal with a great view of the city!

Luckily our rooms were ready when we checked in so we dropped our bags off before heading into town. The hotel advised that St. Marks and Doge Palace were busiest in the morning (an opinion we might later question), so we decided to wander around a bit before heading to the main square. The hotel had a complimentary shuttle that took us over to the main island, and we just started wandering down the small streets, off the beaten path.

We came across a small art supply store that we absolutely loved. The pigments (which are used to make oil paints) caught our eye from the street.

The owner was so nice trying to show us around in his very broken English (but kuddos to him because it is obviously better than our total lack of Italian!)

As you can see from the background, it was hardware store and art store all in one!

We slowly made our way to the Grand Canal - Mom and I poking our heads in stores while the guys snapped lots of pictures.

We stopped for a quick snack of pizza along the Grand Canal before heading over the bridge in search of a farmers market the concierge had told us about.

The market was shutting down for the day by the time we got there, but we did manage to see a little bit of it (and drool over their gorgeous produce).

This, on the other hand was not so appetizing...

Horse meat??

We stopped for a quick glass of prosecco at a tiny walk up bar in the market as well. I think the setting made it taste even better than it probably was, but at 3 euros how could you complain?

By this point it was early afternoon, so we decided to head over to St. Mark's Square. If this was the time for a "light" crowd, then I would not want to see the heavy crowd! This gives you a little bit of an idea...

There were people everywhere, and it was a little overwhelming. We did end up going through Doge Palace, and it was really difficult to imagine people living there and building it in the 1400s! It was very impressive. 

The tour through the palace was a maze with no shortcut out, so unfortunately St. Mark's was closed by the time we made it out. Dad was feeling a little worn out by this point, but some new Pumas gave him a second wind!

Since St. Marks was closed we decided to head over to Harry's Bar to try out there famous bellini (supposedly invented there). Obviously a very touristy thing to do, but I still enjoyed it! 

After a little bit more exploring, we finally decided it was time for a gondola ride. Cheesy? Yes. Overpriced? Yes! Worth it? YES!!!! The ride really was so fun. Our gondolier was full of it, but he made the ride very entertaining. It was such a fun way to get off of the beaten path, and the waterways instead of roads are really something to experience. 

Dad thought the ride was a perfect excuse for a photo shoot of me and Andy, but I culled through the 50 shots to find my two favorites at least!

After the gondola ride we caught the shuttle back to the hotel to change for dinner. Given it was a Monday night, a lot of places were closed. We were worn out after our whirlwind tour of Venice anyway so we decided to find something we could walk to on the same island as the hotel.

 Turns out there was only one place open outside of the hotel, but it was right on the water and was very much a local spot....so much so that we had to wait for over an hour while they served all the regulars first! We were in no hurry though and had a WONDERFUL last dinner together. 

After dinner it was back to the hotel to pack up before our early morning flight home. The trip flew by, and we had such an amazing time that it was hard to put into words. I've had so much fun reliving it through the blog though. 

When can we go back??

Triluke Bay, Croatia

Our last full day onboard the ship we were docked in Triluke Bay, Croatia. Given it was a town of under 1,000 people, there really wasn't anything to do in town. It was meant to be more of a water day and the boat offered water skiing and banana boat rides in the area around the boat. We passed on the water activities, and instead did a lot of this...

Some eating...

Relaxing by the pool....

And some more eating...

 Dad decided to venture into town, and from looking through his pictures this is about all he found:

We were docked next to another Seabourn ship, which was neat to see. It was an older ship and about half the size of ours as it only held around 200 passengers.

After a relaxing day, we joined our new friends from Dallas, John and Julie Young (no relation to my family believe it or not), for dinner.

 We had been go, go, go for most of the trip so it was so nice to have a really quiet day at the end (and to rest up for our whirlwind tour of Venice!).

Only one more day to go - thanks for hanging with me!

Dubrovnik, Croatia

I had heard a few people mention that Dubrovnik was a beautiful city before our trip, but I could hardly have imagined how much I would really love it. Yes Santorini was beautiful, and it was just as I had pictured it in my mind. I didn't know what to picture though for Dubrovnik, and what I saw definitely surpassed anything I could have imagined. Even more impressive is to think that Croatia was at war less than 20 years ago!! You would never guess it today.

Andy and I had signed up for an early morning biking trip, so we enjoyed breakfast in our room on the deck.

We probably should have taken advantage of this option more often! You could not beat the view! Our biking trip was in the Konavle Valley, which was a 45 minute bus ride outside of Dubrovnik. It did not take long to get out of the hustle and bustle of downtown and into the countryside which was full of lush vegetation. Our group of 20-25 was fitted with bikes and then led through the country roads for a pretty easy and relaxing ride with a stop at a monastery and a water mill. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures until we got to the wine tasting at the end! Would you have ever guessed this building to be a wine shop/tasting room?

It actually even looks nicer in the picture than it did in person. It looked very industrial from the outside, but inside we found this:

The wine was much better than the homemade stuff we had tasted in Corfu, but I don't think it will be beating out Napa anytime soon. After riding the bus back into town, we met back up with my parents on the tender back to the ship. We decided to eat lunch, relax, and workout before heading back into town around 5. By that time it had cooled off some and the crowds had died down.

Similar to Kotor, Dubrovnik is an old walled city, but it was much cleaner and prettier overall (marble streets!). You can actually walk the walls of the city, and they are not nearly as steep as Kotor! As we walked all the way around the walls, we had a variety of breathtaking views which of course called for lots of pictures.

Andy snapped this one of the "pirate ship" just for Will! (Apparently it was actually filled with insurance executives from Auto Owners...)

Wish we could have figured out how to get to this little cafe!

Our boat didn't leave Dubrovnik until 11pm so we considered eating in town, but nothing was looking just outstanding so we decided to head back to the boat for dinner around 8:30. We ate around the pool since we weren't exactly dressed up. While the service that night was not so great, the one bright spot was that Dad's new buddy David was working!

So all in all Dubrovnik was definitely one of my favorite stops, and I would highly encourage anyone to visit if given the opportunity!! Just one more day at sea to report about and then to our final day in Venice...