Maui Bargains

I can't believe it's been almost two weeks since we got back from our Maui trip. Oh, how time flies!

We have so many fond memories of the trip. Last Thursday I visited my daughter's preschool and shared some of the pictures from Maui. I showed the kids a couple of videos from the hula show we went to, and the preschoolers even tried a little hula themselves! It was super cute, and the kids seemed to love it.


The hula show we saw in Maui was really pretty special. For one thing, it was free. That's right ~ FREE! It was put on by a local hula school at the Lahaina Cannery Mall, and all of the dancers were children. The smallest child looked like she was not more than four. These girls are talented!


They did several dances using a variety of traditional instruments. Here's a video of them getting started with their first dance:




If you're ever in Maui you should definitely check out this show.

Meatless Mondays: It's Time

You'll have to excuse my sparse posting recently. Instead of talking about food (and life!) I've been enjoying it. So now it's time to start catching up. In fact, I'm blogging with today's Meatless Mondays post just in the nick of time. In most parts of the U.S. it's not even Monday anymore. But who's counting anyway!

In recent weeks I have finally realized that summer is almost over. School has started for all the children here in Davis, and we've even seen a few cooler nights. Clearly it's time to prepare for Fall, but I'm not quite ready. I have yet to really enjoy the best of summer produce ~ the garden-fresh tomatoes, the locally grown sweet corn, the eggplants and bell peppers. I'm hoping to make time for all of these summer treats...and fast.

For today's Meatless Mondays post I'd like to share this luscious tomato salad. It's perfect for this time of year because it features tomatoes straight from the farmstand.


It requires zero cooking.


And, it is light enough for even the hottest of days.


I hope you enjoy it as much as we did ~ even my daughter dove headfirst into this, herbs and all!

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Marinated Tomato Salad

• 2 Tbsp. balsamic vinegar
• 1 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
• 2 pints of the freshest mini tomatoes you can find (using a mixture of heirloom cherry tomatoes might make for the prettiest result)
• 2 Tbsp. finely chopped fresh mint leaves
• 2 Tbsp. finely chopped fresh basil leaves
• 1/8 tsp. each of sea salt and freshly ground pepper (or more to taste)
  

Whisk together the vinegar and oil in the serving dish. Add the tomatoes to the dish, top with the herbs, salt, and pepper, and then toss well to coat the tomatoes. Adjust the seasonings if necessary, then chill for at least 30 minutes or up to 4 hours before serving.

Surprise, Surprise!

Don't you love surprises? I do. And our trip to Maui was full of wonderful surprises. We enjoyed every place we visited, and we were amazed by the variety of things to do there. A perfect example is the Surfing Goat Dairy Farm. Talk about a place not to be missed! This Local Great offers something for everyone.

We headed to the farm after a full morning of sightseeing. We had sort of skipped lunch, but we wanted to visit the goats before we ventured out for food. Boy were we glad we showed up hungry!

This was not your ordinary farm. In addition to its location on the side of a volcano and its breathtaking panoramic views, this turned out to be a haven for gourmet munching at its best. Before we got to munching, we toured the farm.

We fed hay to the goats, which of course my daughter loved since she adores animals of all kinds.


This little guy's name is Elvis ~ because of his hair-do of course!


We saw the goats lined up for milking, and we saw where the milk is pasteurized and made into cheese within mere hours of leaving the goat. No wonder it tastes so fresh! After the tour we ended up here:


This may look like a surf shop, but it's actually the farm's cheese stand. For us it was the source of the most luxurious meal we had enjoyed up to that point in the trip. To start we had lemonade, iced tea, and smoothies. We sampled fresh goat milk cheese, then realized we needed to hang out for a while. We ordered a goat cheese caprese salad and a flight of the lightest, creamiest, best flavored goat cheeses I've ever tasted. That's right, a FLIGHT of goat cheese! Who knew there was such a thing?

If you are ever, EVER in Maui you should visit this place. They also sell their cheeses online, including a cheese that was served at the Obama Inauguration festivities.

If you're curious what my favorites were, they were the"Rolling Green" made with fresh garlic chives (not so surprising that I would like this, plus it won the 2nd Place National Award in 2005) and the exotic "Mandalay" made with apples, bananas, and curry (a very surprising combination in my opinion, and the winner of the 1st Place National Award in 2004).

Yum, yum, yum. These cheeses just might show up in my life again...maybe for my birthday!

Meatless Mondays: Oh, the Kiddies!

My husband and I are raising our daughter vegetarian. We figure that at some point she'll be old enough to decide for herself whether she wants to continue being vegetarian, but for now it makes sense for her to eat like us.

I realize that raising a vegetarian child could become complicated at times. Nevertheless, I continue to be surprised at the ways in which it's complicated. Now that our daughter is four years old, we've started talking to her about what the word "vegetarian" means. We mostly do this so she won't accidentally trade her cheese ravioli for somebody else's ham sandwich at preschool. These discussions have made an impact, and we're happy that she seems to understand what we're telling her. Still, our talks have led to some. . . well. . . side effects.

Let me explain. On our trip to Maui we stayed in a condo complex with a really nice grill area right next to one of the pools. We frequently swam in the late afternoon, just us many of our neighbors fired up the grills for their evening meal. One night the grill area was particularly crowded because a tour group was eating together. All of a sudden our daughter turned towards the group munching on hot dogs and hamburgers, pointed her adorable little finger at them in the most accusatory manner possible, and then loudly announced, "Look, Mommy. They're eating MEAT....ooooooooooooooh! We don't eat meat, do we?"

I'm sure I blushed. Then my hubby and I chuckled a little, and we quickly lured our daughter back to the other side of the pool. As usual, we're going to have to make some adjustments to how we explain this topic. It's not that eating meat is gross, it's just that we don't do it. So how do you teach this to a four-year-old? How do you explain that it's us that are the weird ones, not the rest of the world? Afterall, most of our friends and family are meat-eaters.

I guess this is a work in progress. If you know any secrets to tackling this little problem, please share!

Dear World

I was just looking over my latest blog posts, and it dawned on me that my recent interest in blogging about eggs, like here and here, is about as untimely as it could possibly be. Plus, I'm helping to host a baby shower this weekend that will include a menu of no fewer than 4 dishes containing eggs.

Dear World, I promise that I'm not trying to poison you! I swear the salmonella outbreak is just really bad luck. You believe me, right? Right?

It started with nail polish . . .

A few nights ago my hubby and I decided to go out for a fancy dinner with our daughter in tow. It was a huge success. The secret was a little nail polish, capturing our daughter's interest by calling it a "princess feast," and ending the dinner with some really, really good ice cream. I can't wait to share more from our Maui adventure! We just got back, so I'm very jetlagged right now. . .

Did you catch it?

Did you remember Meatless Monday this week? One of my recipes was featured ~ I'm so excited! Check it out here.