I have created this site to help people have fun in the kitchen. I write about enjoying life both in and out of my kitchen. Life is short! Make the most of it and enjoy!
You have heard me say many times how fortunate I am to live in such a beautiful state. We have so many wonderful things and such an abundance of wildlife all around. We also have many different types of beautiful birds flying all around our Rocky Mountain State, many of which often stop by our lakes and in my own backyard too. This is just a small sampling of some of our beautiful, colorful birds. We have big birds and little birds. We have shore birds and mountain birds and everything in between. And they all call Colorado home.
We have quite a few species of swallows. This is a Barn Swallow.
These are Cliff Swallows.
We see Red-Winged Black birds all over the place. They are so pretty and have such an interesting song.
We also have Belted Kingfishers,
Northern Flickers,
Magpies,
Common Grackles.
House Finches,
Cassin’s Finches,
Says’ Phoebes,
American Kestrels,
Blue Jays,
Red-Bellied Woodpeckers,
Clark’s Nutcrackers,
Robins,
and American Goldfinches.
We also have a large variety of Hawks and Owls and oh so much more.
I have always been a bird lover, as well as an animal lover in general. My dad and I used to love watching all the birds together. At first, I just admired them. Then once I started really getting into photography, I started capturing them with my lens. And from there, I was seeing so many beautiful birds, that I had to invest in bird books so I could start identifying them all too. I am having so much fun not only seeing and photographing all my birds, but also learning more about them all the time. I will keep sharing my birds, as well as all my other wild Colorado friends, as long as you like seeing them. I hope you love them as much as I do. 🙂
Our travels through North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia have come to an end. We covered a lot of distance and saw a lot of beautiful and historic things and places. But now we are headed home. We missed all our fur babies and I know they missed us too.
We still had a four hour drive from Jacksonville to Charlotte and back to the airport. So there was still some sight seeing from the passenger seat, but because we had a plane to catch, there was not much time for anything else (a lot of this trip was rushed like this too). We knew we needed to eat so, as we drove through Downtown Charlotte, we had our eyes peeled for something that was fairly quick and unique to the area. Our choice was JackBeagle’s. Of course we had to stop there, it is a place that loves dogs just like we do. It’s in their name. 🙂
You could dine inside or outside, but of course, it was a beautiful day and we chose to dine al fresco on the patio, like most everyone else. The place was hoppin’ too.
“JackBeagle’s is a cozy neighborhood hangout with a little attitude AND a lot of FLAVOR! [Their] goal is to WOW you with [their] service as well as made from scratch menu items and recipes.” There are currently three JackBeagle’s restaurants located in the Charlotte, North Carolina area, with more planned for the future. “JackBeagle’s takes pride in the preparation of our award-winning food. We want to be included in your “Best I Ever Had” conversations by using fresh ingredients, preparing home-made sauces, and using the best ingredients possible!” They specialize in a wide variety of homemade “American pub-like” foods with a definite and delicious twist, such as a wide variety of waffle fries, mac n’ cheese specialties, unique burgers and sandwiches, salads and oh so much more.
Larry ordered a cheesesteak sandwich, and I think he ordered the LOCO LOBO – Fresh Chopped Ribeye grilled with Caramelized Onion, Pepper-Jack topped with Fresh Shredded Lettuce, Pickled Cherry Peppers and Chipotle Aioli. I had one of their specialty burgers and chose the MIYAGI’S TERIYAKI RIBEYE – Fresh Chopped Ribeye grilled with Caramelized Peppers, Onions, Provolone and our House BourbonYaki Sauce on Toasted Brioche. Both sandwiches were delicious and truly unique, which also made them fun. I just love trying new foods, and especially foods with “a little attitude”. 🙂 We were in a hurry, and I guess a bit distracted, so unfortunately, I did not get pictures of the food. You’ll just have to trust me when I say they were very tasty and very filling indeed. If I lived in the area, I would probably be a fairly frequent visitor to JackBeagle’s.
I think we really liked JackBeagle’s not only for their scrumptious and unique foods, but also because they are dog lovers too. They had fun dog pictures all over the walls. If a place loves dogs it has to be good, right?! 🙂
I do not know which location we stopped at, but I am assuming all three locations offer the same fun atmosphere and foods with attitude. You can go to their webpage and learn more. http://jackbeagles.com/ Definitely stop in and say hi next time you are in the Charlotte area. I promise you will be in for quite a tasty treat.
Walking around my beautiful and beloved lakes is always such a pleasure. I just never know what or “who” I am going to see, or even where for that matter. Usually, when I see things, everything is spread out over all the lakes, but this time, most of the action was taking place at the first lake. Everyone was there. There must have been some kind of party going on.
The pelicans were out for a swim.
They were even picking on a lone egret too. As you can see, they got his feathers all ruffled.
He gave them a piece of his mind and then soon calmed down and all was fine once again.
He only stayed a short while though, then decided to fly the coop.
There was a cormorant who kept trying to crash the party, but the pelicans weren’t including him in their pelican games, so he swam off on his own.
A goose family was out enjoying their day too,
as were a couple of wood ducks and mallards.
Even Mr. Turtle was out sunning himself on the logs. We have a few geriatric snapping turtles that are rumored to be over 100 years old. This just may one of them. He still looks really good, especially considering his age.
Even the squirrels had to get in on some of the fun.
As you can see, it was a fun party. I am glad I was on the invite list.
Following directions or recipes is not one of my strong suits, and for good reason too. Usually when I follow the directions of a recipe, the recipe doesn’t turn out. I don’t know why that is, but it happens more so than not. Hence, I usually make up my own rules and do my own thing, and most of the time, things turn out just as I was hoping and expecting. This was most certainly the case when I tried to make Keto friendly chocolate lava cakes. I am not all that well versed in cooking the Keto style, so I was really trying to follow the recipe, and hopefully learn something new. Well, I followed the recipe to a “T” and it did NOT work. My lava cakes did not turn out as lava cakes, but came out as chocolate soup instead.
We went out to dinner with our friends Eric and Shannon and they came over here for dessert after. They are following a Keto diet, which I have to admit I do not know that much about. So I did my research to find a good dessert that was Keto friendly. I found a recipe for a Keto friendly chocolate lava cakes that sounded just perfect. Better yet, I already had all the ingredients necessary. I thought to myself, “Great! This will be great for dessert”. Everything was going according to plan until …….
Here is the recipe I found. Obviously, I still need to tweak it and work with it, but if you can make it work for you, I give you a round of applause.
Keto Friendly Individual Chocolate Lava Cakes
This recipe was made as an individual recipe, so instead of making just 1, I multiplied everything by 4 so the 4 of us could “enjoy” it. That should not have made a difference though. Believe it or not, I am very good at math, and I definitely know how to multiply things by a factor of 4. I will give you the individual recipe for 1, as I found it.
1 TBSP butter
3 TBSP almond flour
1 TBSP cocoa powder
2 TBSP sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 egg beaten
1/2 tsp vanilla
4 squares of baking chocolate
Melt the butter in the ramekin in a microwave for about 10-20 seconds and swirl it all around to coat the ramekin completely.
Combine all the dry ingredients and blend together thoroughly.
Mix the eggs and the vanilla together and beat slightly. Add the egg mixture to the dry ingredients and mix everything together until it is incorporated and you have a thick batter.
Fill the ramekin about 1/2 way and add the baking chocolate, then fill the ramekin with more batter. Fill the ramekin to about 3/4 full.
This recipe can either be microwaved or baked in the oven. If you are using the microwave, cook it at high for about 1 minute. If you are placing it in the oven, bake it at 350* F or 180* C for 10 minutes, or until the outer edges are set. You do not want to over cook it because the “lava” will set and will not flow. Up to this point, everything was perfect. No problems at all. The top of my cake was like a cake should be, and was set. The edges were as they were supposed to be too. They look just like they are supposed to right?
Once I removed the ramekins from the oven, I quickly turned them over on to a plate, like I was supposed to do. But instead of having a beautiful lava cake, the result I got was chocolate soup. It was a big ooey-gooey mess. The cake did NOT set at all. But being the ever creative and inventive one that I am, all was not a complete loss. Since the tops came out the way they were supposed to, I salvaged them and topped them with a dab of ice cream and served the orange slices and strawberries on the side, like I was planning on anyway. It actually worked out pretty well, all things considered, since we were all pretty full from dinner.
I am sharing my mishaps with you to let you know you are NOT alone. I have gremlins in my kitchen too. Even I, Jeanne, from “A Jeanne in the Kitchen” have those days when things just don’t turn out as expected or hoped. The moral of the story …. Don’t follow the recipes. Tweak them however you need to. 🙂
Before our delicious seafood meal at The Dock HouseDining At the Dock House, we went to the Maritime Museum. The Maritime Museum had an interesting display of life on the sea. There was a lot of information about Edward Teach, aka Blackbeard, who was the most famous and most ruthless pirate of the area.
Blackbeard was an English pirate who operated around the West Indies and the eastern coast of Britain’s North American colonies. Little is known about his early life, but he may have been a sailor on privateer ships during Queen Anne’s War before he settled on the Bahamian island of New Providence. Teach captured a French slave ship known as La Concorde, renamed her Queen Anne’s Revenge, equipped her with 40 guns, and crewed her with over 300 men. He became a renowned pirate, his nickname derived from his thick black beard and fearsome appearance; he was reported to have tied lit fuses (slow matches) under his hat to frighten his enemies. He formed an alliance of pirates and blockaded the port of Charles Town, South Carolina, ransoming the port’s inhabitants. He then ran Queen Anne’s Revenge aground on a sandbar near Beaufort, North Carolina. Teach was a shrewd and calculating leader who spurned the use of violence, relying instead on his fearsome image to elicit the response that he desired from those whom he robbed. Easily the most famous buccaneer on the list and possibly the most terrifying pirate of all time, Blackbeard had a reputation of horrific magnitude in his day. He was romanticized after his death and became the inspiration for an archetypal pirate in works of fiction across many genres.
Some of the other things featured in the Maritime Museum were artifacts recovered from the sea, and from Blackbeard’s “Queen Anne’s Revenge” specifically, as well as replicas of the many boats and ships from the area and a skeleton of a sperm whale along with its heart.
This is an actual heart of a sperm whale that has been well preserved. Looking at the heart gives you an idea of just how big these magnificent creatures really are.
There was even a replica of one of the first rescue boats ever used.
Strolling around outside the museum was beautiful too. There were so many beautiful and colorful flowers.
Since it was out last day, we just had to see more of the seashore before heading home, back to our mountains and lakes. I love the sea and I have the waters of the oceans flowing through my veins, as did my dad. I can never get enough of the salty seas.
Two sandpipers combine the beach.
I don’t know the language of flags, though I am sure my dad did, but we think these flags spell out Beaufort.
I have one more post from our trip and then it will be time to start more new adventures. In the meantime, you know I am safe and sound, back home and back in my kitchen, cooking up all kinds of good things to share.
Whenever we visit the seashore, we always try our best to dine on good, fresh seafood. We were not actually at the seashore for all that long, however, we did stumble upon a great seafood restaurant while strolling along the boardwalk. It was called TheDock House. It was casual, fun and full of personality, and offered great, fresh and simple seafood too. It was most definitely a very good find, especially on our last day of vacation.
“If you are looking for a cool place to eat you have found the spot. Dine inside or out on our patio overlooking the wild ponies on Carrot Island and the Rachel Carlson Reserve across Taylor’s Creek.” It was a beautiful, though breezy day, so of course, we opted to dine outside. We didn’t mind a little bit of wind. We had a table that overlooked the water’s edge, with a beautiful yacht docked right beside us. I was able to day dream for a bit and pretend that yacht was ours and we could just sail away, off into the sunset.
The Dock House Restaurant was established in 1978. The Dock House, as the locals call it, has been serving the folks in Beaufort, North Carolina on the beautiful waterfront over looking Taylor’s Creek for over 30 years. The Dock House is a well known spot for listening to live music in Carteret County as well.
The food was simple and fresh and absolutely delicious! Larry ordered a combo plate with scallops and blackened tuna and I ordered the Cajun mahi mahi. We shared a little bit of everything, like we usually do, so we could both sample all of the fish. Everything was so good. The platters came with fries, hush puppies, coleslaw and green beans. It was most definitely A LOT of food and was quite the fisherman’s catch. Larry did a pretty good job of finishing his. I could not, and I had a smaller portion too.
Because we were in shipwreck alley, it was only fitting that I relaxed a bit with a Shipwreck drink too. It was very similar to a hurricane, and was very tasty. Drink them slowly though, and don’t over indulge, or you will be definitely shipwrecked yourself. 🙂
Not only is The Dock House a fun and friendly environment for us, but it is also a fun and friendly environment to man’s best friends too. If your dogs are friendly, The Dock House is friendly to them as well. There were quite a few dogs enjoying their stay while their humans enjoyed the food and fun.
The Dock House is located at 500 Front Street, Beaufort, N.C. 28516. You can call them at (252) 728-4506. The next time you are strolling around through Beaufort, N.C. definitely stop in at The Dock House. Bring your dog too, and you and your dog will both be in for a good time with great food and a fantastic view.
As you all know, we love our deck, and eat out there as much as we possibly can. Yesterday, we had a quick, impromptu dinner with Priscilla and Jonathan to start off our summer season. All of the dishes I made, you’ve seen before, but it was a fun, delicious way to start off the summer season. Steaks were seared to perfection, there was plenty of good wine and great friends. Great friends are the best gift of all.
I seared my steaks in my new favorite way to eat steaks, the way I learned from America’s Test Kitchen.Steak Seared to Perfection For side dishes, I made a roasted pepper and mushroom salad with a rosemary vinaigrette Roasted Pepper and Mushroom Salad with Rosemary Vinaigrette and roasted potato wedges. I topped the steaks with pesto and served it all with a Grenache-Syrah red blend, that we actually made and bottled a couple of years ago. It was a perfect start of summer meal.
Priscilla made a light Argentine cake roll, but of course, silly me, I forgot to take pictures of that.
We started of our summer season in style. There will many more such meals ahead. Stay tune. Don’t touch that dial. ‘Til next time.
We had one full day at the Outer Banks, exploring the area a bit more. It is truly beautiful and different. The Outer Banks of North Carolina Though everything we saw and all the places we ventured to were beautiful. And everywhere we went there was so much history just waiting to to be discovered and learned.
On the last day of our trip, we toured around more of the Outer Banks and the Crystal Coast area. Our first stop for the day was Fort Macon. Fort Macon is surrounded by water on three sides and it is located outside of Beaufort, North Carolina. The Carolina waters and inlets provided a safe haven for sailors, seafarers and pirates alike, which meant there was often danger lurking about in the surrounding waters. The inlets were in constant danger of being raided by pirates or hostile nations. The need for protection for the area first became evident in 1747, when Spanish raiders attacked the British Colonists and captured the town of Beaufort for several days. Beaufort was captured once again, this time by the British, in 1782. Plans for construction of a fort were first started in 1756, but were not completed until 1808, meaning the coast was left unprotected and vulnerable for all those years in between. The first fort was Fort Dobbs. Unfortunately, however, Fort Hobbs was destroyed by a hurricane in 1825. Fort Macon was constructed a year later, and still stands today.
Fort Macon was constructed after the Revolutionary War, but was used as a fort during the American Civil War. Depending on which side you were fighting for, it was either good news or bad news, when at the start of the Civil War, Fort Macon, which is located in the South or the Confederate States, was seized by the Union or Northern soldiers. The Confederates regained control of the fort, only to have it be seized once again by the Union soldiers in 1862. The fort served as a coaling station for the Union Navy for the duration of the war.
After the Civil War, Fort Macon was used as a Federal Prison from 1867-1876. Like Alcatraz, off the coast of San Francisco, the warden and some of the prison guards and their families lived on the premises. They lived in what was called “collapsible houses”, which just meant they were easy to construct and take down, and they were not fancy or elaborate at all.
The local “grocery store” for the residents was located in one of the cells.
Because of the isolation everything was made on site as much as possible. Certainly all the food was made and/or grown on site as much as possible. Here is the bakery oven used to bake all the bread. Rumor has it, the bread was like bricks and if not eaten right away, could be used as a brick or like a weapon.
Out tour guide was “convinced” this was the actual bread from the day, rather than just replicas, because the bread was notoriously so bad and so hard.
Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and informative which made the tour very interesting.
Fort Macon was officially recruited for service one more time, during WWII. Unofficially though, it is still used for “battles” today. On the day we were there, there was a Star Wars photo shoot taking place, so we got to see some Star Wars and intergalactic action too, which made our visit even more fun and unique.
Fort Macon is located in Carteret County on the eastern end of Bogue Banks, between US 70 from Morehead City and South of N.C. 58, crossing the bridge to Atlantic Beach, at 2303 E. Fort Macon Road, Atlantic Beach, N.C. 28512. You can contact them either by phone at (252) 726-3775 or online at fort.macon@ncparks.gov or http://www.ncparks.gov. You just never know what you are going to see or who you are going to meet and that always makes life much more interesting.
We are now on the last legs of our trip, and will soon be heading home (per this recitation. We have already been home for about 2 weeks in reality). We flew in and out of Charlotte North Carolina. At the beginning of our trip, we took the Blue Ridge Parkway through the Blue Ridge Mountains heading into Virginia First Stop – Charlotte, North Carolina. Going back to Charlotte, we took the coastal route, known as the Outer Banks. They were very beautiful, and they too are filled with a rich and colorful history, from Indians, to European settlers to the first flight made by the Wright Brothers to pirates, Blackbeard in particular.
I called this island “Bird” or “Frigate” Island, but I have no idea if this is really the name or not. There were 1000’s of frigate birds out on the island. Before getting onto the ferry, I tried and tried to get some good shots of the frigates, not knowing that in a very short time, I would see 1000’s of them.
Before bridges were built in the 1930s, the only form of transport between or off the islands was by boat, which allowed for the islands to stay isolated from much of the rest of the mainland.
Getting onto the ferry at Hatteras Island. This ferry ride took a little over an an hour. We were headed to Okracoke Island. Once on Okracoke Island, we took another ferry to get us back over to the mainland. That ferry took about 2 1/2 hours. We even saw some dolphins on that part of the journey, but they were too fast and I could not get any pictures of them.
This day was a VERY long day of nothing but travel. We were completely frazzled by the end of the day. We left Richmond, VA about 8:30 AM and did not arrive at our hotel in Jacksonville, NC until about 10:30 PM. We barely had time to stop and enjoy things because we had the two ferries to catch that we had reservations for. The pictures I got were all from just along the way.
The outer banks have unusual weather patterns because of their unique geographical location. As the islands are jutted out from the eastern seaboard into the Atlantic Gulf Stream, the Outer Banks has a predisposition to be affected by hurricanes, Nor’easters (usually in the form of rain, and rarely snow or mixed precipitation), and other ocean-driven storms. Because of the propensity for heavy rains, storms and hurricanes, all of the homes are built up high on stilts.
Here are some shots I got while island hopping. I would have loved to have spent a lot more time here, and gone diving too. This is a diving location known for all its wrecks. Maybe next time. I did get to see a lot of pelicans though.
These are brown pelicans, unlike the American white pelicans we have here at home.
Some residents of the Outer Banks, known as wreckers, made part of their living by scavenging wrecked ships—or by luring ships to their destruction. Horses with lanterns tied to their necks would be walked along the beach; the lanterns’ up and down motion would appear to ships to represent clear water and a ship ahead; the unsuspecting captain would then drive his ship ashore following this false light.[21]Ocracoke was the last refuge of pirate Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard. It is also where the infamous pirate was killed November 22, 1718, in a fierce battle with troops from Virginia.
The Outer Banks were sites of early settlement in the United States and remain important economic and cultural sites. Most notably the English Roanoke Colony vanished from Roanoke Island in 1587 and was the first location where an English person was born in the Americas, Virginia Dare was born.[2] The hundreds of shipwrecks along the Outer Banks have given the surrounding seas the nickname Graveyard of the Atlantic. The Outer Banks were also home to the Wright brothers‘ first flight in a controlled, powered, heavier-than-air vehicle on December 17, 1903, at Kill Devil Hills.
Once we got off the ferries, we drove along the marshes for quite some time.
We hit some heavy rain, but it didn’t last too long, and it gave a us a beautiful rainbow too. At the end of the day, we were presented with a gorgeous sunset. It was a great ending to a very long day of travel.
From the American Revolutionary MuseumLearning Our History – Part 2 – Yorktown we ventured out to the actual battlegrounds of Yorktown. Here at Yorktown, in the fall of 1781, General George Washington, with allied American and French forces, besieged General Charles Lord Cornwallis’s British army. On October 19, Cornwallis surrendered, effectively ending the war and ensuring independence. We downloaded the app that gave us the history of each location as we toured around the sites. It was very interesting and informative.
I had taken a whole bunch of pictures from the area, but somehow, they got lost in the shadows of cyberspace. I have no idea where they went, but I will give your some generic shots and re-enactment shots to help with visuals. I really felt like I was reliving those Revolutionary days.
The battles were fought both on land and sea.
The grounds of Yorktown, as well as so many other places around the Colonial parts, are hallowed grounds indeed. But here at Yorktown, battles were fought for freedom during both the Revolutionary War as well as in the Civil War. Much thanks and gratitude to all the brave men who fought and sacrificed in the name of freedom. Long live freedom. Long live the land of the free and the home of the brave.
A Jeanne in the Kitchen 