A Wonderful Weekend - Recap!

As most of you know, the month of February was kind of rough for me due to my dad's health, and so hubby and I had little time together and zero time to get out and get away for a few hours. That's our favorite thing to do on weekends - get in the car and ride up in the mountains. But this past weekend was great!

My weekend started on Friday when I went to a few yard sales and a parking lot sale at an antique store. I bought a few things - some I'll tell you more about later, but my favorite buy of the day was this > > >



It's a post box, complete with a crown and a fox hunting horn! It's a little rusty around the edges, but I think that's part of it's charm! I haven't decided exactly where I'll use it yet, but I have several possibilities! I'm leaning toward putting it on the old green footstool just inside the front door and putting some silk or dried flowers in it.

The picture below shows the original manufacturers tag from Sweden. I have a papercrafting friend (Pia) in Sweden, and from now on I'll think of her when I look at this treasure. And by the way, I only paid $10 for it, so I think it was a good buy!

Hubby had to work on Saturday morning, but was home around lunchtime. I worked almost all day getting a picnic ready for Sunday, and prepping our dinner for Saturday night. Remember Christmas Eve and New Years Eve when we had fondue here at home? Well, you also may remember that I didn't feel too well New Years Eve and just didn't enjoy the meal after I'd put all the work into preparing for it. So, I was in the mood for fondue again, so I got everything ready and we had a wonderful meal!

The fondue that we eat is a hot oil fondue, and you cook meat and veggies in the hot oil. The restaurant we like that serves this uses soy oil, but Ive not been able to find it, and it probably wouldn't be in my budget anyway, so I used a good quality of canola oil, and it works just fine. I had chunks of lean pork loin, boneless skinless chicken breasts, breaded shrimp and the veggies - baby bella mushrooms, and chunks of zucchini, broccoli, carrots, asparagus, and cauliflower.

Hubby prefers the sauces out of the bottle - ketchup and a great Teriyaki by KC Masterpiece. MY two sauces were homemade - sour cream and horseradish and a remoulade. The remoulade is by the recipe given to me at Dante's Down The Hatch - the restaurant in Atlanta where we love to go for this meal - when our pocketbook will let us!

We also had a loaf of crusty french bread, butter, a tossed salad and a glass of wine. Such a delicious meal! We thoroughly enjoyed it, and I had strawberries and cream for dessert, but neither of us could eat any of it - we were so full!

The flavors of the sauces, meats and veggies, enhanced by a nice light glass of wine are so incredible! One of my favorite parts of this meal is a piece of meat dipped in the remoulade - a sauce made with mayonnaise, tarragon, capers and other ingredients - chased by a sip of the wine just explodes in your mouth! The other favorite is a chunk of carrot, cooked until golden and just tender inside, dipped into the sour cream and horseradish sauce - WOW! What flavors!

Then we got up early Sunday morning and drove up to Chattanooga, TN to the Tennessee Riverpark. We parked the car, got his bike and my Trikke out of the car and headed up the trail. You don't realize what terrible shape you are in until you try to make a few miles on a Trikke! We did about 5 to 6 miles round trip and decided to load up, and go find a picnic spot somewhere else - other than the park where we had planned. We ended up at Harrison Bay State Park on Lake Chickamauga. We had a great picnic - the sun was out and a nice breeze. Here was our view from the picic table >>>

And here is Hubby >>>

He had a ham and cheddar on croissant sandwich with carrot salad, chips and fresh fruit (strawbereies, grapes and pineapple) for dessert.

I had my favorite homemade chicken salad, half of a huge croissant, butter, cheese, and fresh fruit. To me, that is a feast from heaven - such a great meal! I hope to post the recipe for the chicken salad on here for Tasty Thursday, so keep your eyes peeled!

We drove through the southeastern corner of Tennessee, southwestern corner of North Carolina, and back into Georgia and home. We were so tired, but in a good way. It was a beautiful day, made better by just being able to be together for a while without the tv, etc.

A wonderful weekend!

I hope you had a great weekend, and wish you an even better week. Take care friends, and hurry back to Camellia Cottage! Blessings, Becky