Simple Old-Fashioned Fun With Family and Friends

I had a great weekend with David, the kids, and many friends. We drove to our local mountains and enjoyed three days with four families, that’s 12 kids between us. Considering that we are a family of six, you can imagine how close we really are with our friends.

I have to say that my girlfriend is the “host with the most.” She and her husband were amazing to share their home, their toys, boats, and kitchen with all of us. I think we spent most of our time in there as all of us tried to out-cook each other.  I made lots of salads – grilled chopped vegetable, caprese, and my special salad dressing. I whipped lots of things up for the kids, like fried rice with leftover chicken. My hit was my sister-in-law’s recipe that everyone went crazy for – we made it twice. It’s so easy…

Baked Red Peppers
Pre-heat oven to 300
Wash, core and quarter 6-7 red peppers
Halve 10 cherry tomatoes
Chop 3 cloves of garlic
Place the peppers in a baking dish, touching each other with the outside facing down.
Place the cut tomatoes and garlic in each pepper boat.  Drizzle or brush with olive oil, salt and pepper to taste.
Bake for 3 hrs. The longer the better, could be 4 hours depending on your oven.
Serve with any meal. Healthy and delicious!!!

I loved waking up every morning on the lake and having coffee with friends. The kids had a blast wake-boarding.  We had many tournaments of paddle tennis and finished the weekend off with charades, family vs family. No matter how much the kids have to play with, they always enjoy simple old-fashioned family games first. Thank God!!!

Here’s a shot of Shaya and me on the boat.  There was far too much action going on all weekend to keep my camera close by.

Oh, I almost forgot the “Charvelous Marvelous” drink of choice that I have been tweeting about all weekend, compliments of David Charvet:
 

Charvelous Marvelous
A handful of sweet grapes, one orange and your best tequila
Over ice, halve the grapes, squeeze the juice from one orange and top it off with your favorite tequila. Beware–it’s too smooth to slow you down!

I’m off to NY in the morning for a 24 hour trip. Those are always rough, but it will be worth it.  I’m doing a segment on The Today Show (in the fourth hour) on Wednesday. See you there…