Here are a couple of beautiful, voracious birds I saw hunting for dinner yesterday evening. First up, an osprey perched in a tree looking for fish:
The same osprey giving the wings a stretch:
I had hoped to capture video of it diving for fish. It perches nearby and dive-bombs fish just about every day. But after training my camera on it for several minutes, I got distracted by other things. Immediately afterward, I heard the splash (which sounds like a small child doing a cannonball into a pool) and knew I’d missed the shot.
Also, this gorgeous woodpecker was in a nearby tree pecking for bugs:
Speaking of dinner, I tried something new for our’s yesterday evening. Our local grocery chain (Publix) sells packets of “skillet gnocchi” in the dairy aisle near the fresh pastas. I’d never noticed it before but thought it would make a relatively cheap and quick weeknight dinner — instructions said to sautée it in a couple of tablespoons of butter for five minutes and serve it with sauce.
Instead, I sautéed it with butter and a drizzle of olive oil and added a handful of mushrooms and a couple of julienned sage leaves, then threw in some minced garlic for the last couple of minutes (so many recipes instruct people to burn garlic!). Then I squeezed a tiny bit of fresh lemon juice on it and topped it with grated Parmesan.
My husband put red sauce and yet another sprinkling of Parm on his because that’s how he rolls, but I had it as described above, unadorned. We both agreed it was fantastic. Probably not the healthiest thing in the world, but so easy and tasty!
Got any cheap, fast dinner hacks to share? Feel free to discuss whatever — open thread!