Free Range Friday ~ Culebra

After a morning getting some work done, in pretty stunning heat - and I mean that literally - along with getting my eyes stunned with some of the beauty in a deep blue sky, swirling greens and blues of the sea, cooking anything didn't seem like such a great idea.

I've always like ornamental grasses, but for some reason, I seemed to
see them everywhere on my trip, some wild and some cultivated.
Maybe more people are landscaping with them to conserve on water,
or maybe just because they are beautiful. 

Despite our drought, many plants still continue to bloom. Lucky lucky us.

I don't know the real name for this, but an old BVI gardener told me they are
 called strawberry cactus. The little fruits really do taste like strawberries too!

Instead, the invisible arrow pointed myself and a friend to the gazebo, where one of the baby horses from next door watched us with curiosity from a few feet away, along with giving us a performance,  snorting and running around us in a manner that only the word gamboling does justice. gam·bol (g m b l). intr.v. gam·boled or gam·bolled, gam·bol·ing or gam·bol·ling, gam·bols. To leap about playfully; frolic. n. A playful skipping or frolicking about.

Is there ever anything wrong with chilled white wine and pistachios for lunch?

As often happens though, Closet Cooking came through for me again with this recipe for bacon and fried green tomato and pimento cheese grilled sandwiches. Pimento cheese, you might moan, envisioning that pretty strange but weirdly compelling concoction in a jar? No no, mon cher! This is about home made pimento cheese, using cheddar, diced pimentos, cream cheese and a few other ingredients.

*Note: While I was in the states, it was not difficult to find grass-fed organic pork. But then there is the rest of us, so I did a little sleuthing. There are quite a few places to order pork and other meats that you can feel great about eating, and Slankers Grass Fed Meats  is one of them. Along with selling good food, they also give a lot of information about exactly all those catch phrases mean and don't mean. Check 'em out!

Some of Slanker's grass fed hogs

If you can source out good ingredients for this meal, you can indulge in a fall type of lunch that warms your cockles, and is good for you and the critters as well! We're warm enough, so maybe I'll make this in a couple of months. In the meantime...wine and pistachios it is!

Have a fly into fall Friday! Do something flutteringly fantastic.