June's Ramblings - Pirates of Penzance, Irish Cheese, New Treasures

As spring winds down, and we get ready to officially welcome summer this Saturday, I thought I would share some of the fun things we've been up to. One of the most exciting things we got to do as a family was head to downtown Portland and enjoy an evening at the opera. When we had heard about one of our most favorite musical coming to town, we knew it was a must that we attend. The Pirates of Penzance movie from the 1980's was one of my favorites, and I used to play it for Sarah and Joe when they were little and they would watch it all the time. The music is wonderful, and the movie is hilarious, I would highly recommend it. So when we saw the commercial for the opera we where so excited to attend.

The play was wonderful, the music was great, it was funny, and all around very entertaining. The opera is always memorable, and even more so when it is one of our favorites. If Pirates of Penzance comes to your neck of the woods I would highly recommend it!

For a small town, our grocery store has a pretty nice selection of cheeses, a little while back I decided it would be fun for us all to sample some of the Kerrygold Irish Cheese. I picked out three varieties, a Reserve Cheddar aged over 2 years, Skellig a sweet cheddar, and Blarney Castle a smooth and mild gouda style cheese.

I cut up pieces of each variety for all of us to sample. They were all very different and all tasted delicious, the Skellig was my favorite all around, but each cheese was delicious for its own reason. It was fun to try out different flavors, and we will definitely buy this cheese again. Delicious with grapes and apples and would be fun to bring on a summer picnic with an assortment of crackers or breads.

Since we had some left, we shredded the rest of the cheese up, and turned it into a very rich and delicious macaroni and cheese. I made a simple white sauce flavored with a clove of garlic and melted the cheese into it. Folded the sauce into some cooked macaroni, poured it into a pan sprayed casserole dish, and topped it with my new favorite casserole topper, crushed Ritz crackers mixed with a couple tablespoons of butter, and baked until topping was browned, delicious!

A few weekends back we had a fun time shopping at New Seasons, a grocery store with lots of organic and natural food offerings as well as a nice selection of whimsical goodies. We had fun picking out some nice groceries for the week, including milk, cream, and chocolate milk from a local dairy, the chocolate milk was amazing and we all agreed it tasted as good as a milkshake. The selection of foods were really interesting and we are looking forward to making another trip. While we were there I found a few fun trinkets to add to the kitchen.

I found these absolutely darling little dinosaur milk and cream dispensers, I could not pass them up, I knew they would fit right in to my whimsical decor, and they make me smile every time I see them!

They are quite happy hanging out with the little elephant creamers I have had for years. :)

I also found some very well priced new towels for the kitchen. Of course I couldn't pass up this cute fox towel!

They also had a selection of vintage 1950's style towels, I loved this log cabin design!

I also found a towel with a vintage travel map print of Oregon, which I thought was fun. Overall a very fun little grocery shopping outing!

I am looking forward to welcoming summer this weekend, and have a fun summer meal planned for the family that I look forward to posting about. Hope everyone has a great week!