COOKING WITH RICH

Originally plans were that Cathy (pickleball friend from Solivita) would be arriving at The Villages and spending a few day with Linda.  The three of us had planned a "girls" night out.  Unfortunately, Cathy was not able to make it.  So Linda and I decided to still make it a night out. 

Linda and I  were going to eat out, so as I was preparing to leave, Rich headed for the kitchen to prepare his evening meal....

While colleting all the necessary tools and ingredients, he made a special point of telling me what a great meal I was going to miss.  Having suffered through this meal before I was very glad to be heading out!  I don't really know what it's called - but he calls it pizza!  Using Bisquick - follow the directions for making biscuits - roll out the dough and  place it on a pizza tray. (There was no pizza tin at this villa - so he improvised and used to small cake pans).  The topping is a pound of ground beef seasoned with italian spices and a can of tomato soup.  Top it off with cheese and Voila!!!!  

I left before he put it in the oven...... 



I picked up Linda just before 5:00 and we headed to the Spanish Springs town square.

 Music was already playing and the square was filling up fast with cars and golf carts and people finding seats to enjoy the music and dancing.

I didn't expect to find a place to park right on the square and thought we need to park a distance away and walk back, but as we made the circle we were lucky to find a golf cart vacating one of the parking spaces. 

First stop was at Gators Dockside.  We thought we'd head inside, out of the heat, and have a drink before dinner.  Dockside is a very casual sports type restaurant/bar  As you walk in the door there is this absolutely HUGE aligator.  

The lighting inside was not good at all, so the pictures  were really bad.  But I managed  to salvage part of one.  That's Linda  getting friendly with the Gator!

We headed outside and decided to find a seat, listen to the music and enjoy the entertainment/dancing for a while.  Generally, this time of year it's not bad finding a place to sit, but I couldn't believe how many people were out tonight. A couple was getting ready to leave so we snatched two seats just one row back from the dancing area.   

 

There dance floor was rocking tonight with line dancers.  And when played the Electric Slide  the square was packed with dancers, including ME!   They danced the electric slide three times in a row, each time the music was a little faster!!!!

It didn't take us long to figure out why so many people were out.  The guy who was the DJ was so entertaining, so funny.  He would change outfits frequently, depending on the song being played.   I guess when you live here you get to know the best of the entertainers. 

And here he leads the crowd in a dance I've never seen before.  At the RV Parks we do the macarana and the chicken dance.  This was Pizza Hut, Kentucky Fried Chicken and McDonalds!!!  You have to see/hear it to believe it!

We walked down Main Street a ways thinking of having dinner at Ruby Tuesdays, but the wait was more than a half hour, so we decided to go back, get the car and head to Applebees.  It was happy hour, two for one, so we shared, and each had a glass of wine.  They have a very nice under 550 calorie menu and we both opted for the 7oz sirloin with shrimp, potato and brocolli.  It was excellent.  It was after 9:30 when I finally dropped her off at her place and headed for home. 

It's Saturday afternoon now, and as I update this blog, I'm sharing a piece of Rich's left over Pizza for lunch.  It's really quite good.    Really....... I'm not kidding................Rich - you can take over the kitchen and fix dinner any time you want.