Carla and I Have a Saucy Day!

I couldn't resist this rainbow.  Taken from our mailboxes.

Carla has been spending the weekend with us and on Saturday we decided to walk over to the side hill above the pond and see if we could see any ripe raspberries.  We took along a couple little buckets "just in case".  It looked like we needed to wait about a week or have looked sooner before the birds found the first ripe ones.  We got maybe a dozen or so raspberries is all.

Carla picking berries down the hill.

More berry picking.

Carla observed that there sure were a lot of rose hips and wondered what she could do with them if she picked a bunch.  We decided we could check out the internet or else make rose hip tea so we picked and picked!  Along the way we discovered there were also choke cherries to be picked so we picked some of those too, before the birds got them.  Carla then decided they had a whole bunch up in their yard in Casper so she could add those to what we picked to make some jelly or syrup!

Meanwhile I had picked a huge batch of crab apples down at the VQ hotel in Denver and brought them up to make another batch of jelly (I made some jelly last weekend along with some crab apple butter--I will do some recipes and pics on that event next blog).  I also had bought a new strainer to strain seeds and skins from the leftover crab apple pulp easier and in less time.

I got my crab apple juice going and Carla found all kinds of interesting recipes for rose hips on the internet.  She decided on making some rose hip sauce.  She added some surprise ingredients to it and it turned out very delicious!  She was so excited that she went out and picked a bunch more rose hips.  When she came in she decided to make some rhubarb sauce with some of my frozen rhubarb.  I had made a big batch of  crab apple butter while Carla was outside.  Here are some pictures of Carla and her rose hip sauce.

Pretty rose hips.

Some are harder to pick than others.

Carla's bucket of rose hips.

Snipping off the blossom end.

Cooking and mashing the rose hips.

Pushing the pulp through the strainer.

Carla discovers the seeds feel like they are exfoliating her hands!

Rose hip pulp waiting to be seasoned and cooked down in the crockpot.

Carla adds her secret ingredient!

Honey sweetens the pot!

Carla is going home with a jar of rose hip sauce, a couple jars of rhubarb sauce, a jar of crab apple butter, a jar of crab apple jelly, a big bag of crab apples, a bucket full of rose hips, and a small bucket of choke cherries!  I have 2 ice cream buckets full of crab apple juice in the freezer ready to  make jelly or syrup, 6 pints of crab apple butter, 6 pints of crab apple jelly and a jelly bag of crab apple pulp ready to make crab apple sauce.  Not bad for a day's work!

Miscellaneous Cleaning, Cooking, Meal Planning and Baking Week

 The creek is low, but there are still some fish in it!

This past week has been kind of busy but really interesting too.  It all started with our return from Denver after Bob had his preliminary check up and preparation for his upcoming radiation treatments. (A whole other subject for a future blog) We will be staying in a hotel for 7 weeks and decided we could not afford to eat out every meal.  We are planning on eating most meals in the room using a microwave and refrigerator.  It will kind of be like living in a dorm during summer school all over again!!!  Anyway, with that in mind I have been preparing meals I think I can freeze in small amounts and and then reheat in our tiny hotel microwave.  So far I have some homemade enchiladas, spaghetti and meat sauce, chicken salad (leftover from the hot chicken salad in my last blog--not sure how that freezes up)  individually wrapped brownies, big cinnamon streusel muffins and caramel bars, sliced ham and I'm thinking probably sliced prime rib which I will be discussing.

 These enchiladas will be great!  I freeze them often and they still are really good.

 All ready frozen and ready to take to Denver.

 Muffins should work well for breakfast!  Brownies are ready to be a snack!

 An assortment of foods to use while in Denver!

Meanwhile, we are trying to save money by not going into town for anything except maybe once a week or less.  So, we ran out of bread and I decided to make bread one day.  I made my favorite English muffin bread (3 loaves) and then finally made a bread machine loaf of Ginger Lemon bread that I have been wanting to try but never had the right ingredients.  It needs crystallized ginger and candied lemon peel.  Since I had decided to devote my day to this bread baking event, I made my own candied lemon peel (Ozzie had bought a few lemons when they were here plus someone had left an orange here and I needed to get them all used up).  I found a recipe for candied orange and lemon peels on my old faithful allrecipes.com.  They turned out really good and I even have a bunch left that I saw where someone had dipped them in melted chocolate for a great Christmas treat!  Might just have to try it for a nice summer treat.

My candied orange and lemon peel.  I think I'll dip it in chocolate for a nice treat!

 The crystallized ginger I got on our trip to San Antonio last winter.  I saw this big bag--maybe even a lb. of it for $2.29!  Way cheaper than those little bottles you get on the spice shelf!  I couldn't resist so I have this huge bagful in my cupboard now.  It worked great for the 1/2 cup I needed for the bread!

 Crystallized Ginger.  This is after 1/2 cup has been used, too!

  The loaf was huge and almost pushed the lid open on my bread machine!  It tastes great and there will be no leftovers to freeze by the time we leave for Denver in 1 1/2 weeks!

 Ginger lemon bread.  Very yummy for breakfast.

  There are 2 loaves of the other bread still in the freezer so we might have some of that bread left.  I have been having trouble lately with that recipe because the loaves don't seem to be raising as high as they used to.

The kind of small, but still tasty, bread loaves.

I thought it might be the yeast was getting old even though I keep it in the freezer but then my lemon loaf did a lot of raising and it was the same yeast!  I'll have to work on this problem some more I guess.

Ok, while I was doing all this cooking and baking my cousins who I hadn't seen since Marianne and Pat's wedding were coming to Steamboat for a family reunion and wanted to come see us.  First, Jonathon and a friend who are in the Marines and are stationed in San Diego came a day early and spent it up here fishing and hiking around.  They caught some fish and seemed to have a great time.  Jonathon was here when he was about 5 or so but doesn't remember anything.  That was the only time I ever saw him until this week!  We had a real enjoyable visit.  they went over Buffalo Pass to Steamboat for the reunion.  A few days later, Jonathon, his mom, Patti  and his brother Cory all came over to visit.   Patti, Bob and I had a nice visit while the boys fished and 4 wheeled.  I was hoping they would stay for dinner and had taken out a prime rib roast to thaw, but they were scheduled in for dinner in Steamboat so Bob and I ended up with 5 lbs. of perfectly delicious Prime Rib to eat!  I'm thinking some of it will make it down to Denver with us!  The brownies and spaghetti that are in the freezer came from the dinner I had for Jonathon and his friend.

The cleaning came when I thought maybe Patti and her family might be able to stay overnight.  I finally tackled the Red Room and got it kind of cleaned , vacuumed and beds made ready for guests.  Now I need someone to come stay and use all my cleaned up rooms! I also found a product that removes all the rust scum from my bathroom fixtures.  It's "The Works" shower cleaner and also "The Works" toilet cleaner.  Barkeeper's Friend also works but you need to use more elbow grease with it!

The Red Room after I straightened out the collected storage stuff,

Now I need to get someone to help me find a spot for all this stuff that needs storing!

The Honeymoon Suite (a story for another blog!).

Skyler's favorite bed in the Blue Room.

 The favorite bed (except for Skyler) in the Blue Room.  Old Nintendo game is still there, too.

During all this activity Bob and I went over to Steamboat for a CSU Alumni get together at the Town Pub (Marianne and Pat's favorite eatery over there).  They had Cam the Ram outside on the sidewalk and all kinds of people were stopping and getting their pictures taken with the ram but I had left my camera in the car so no pictures for us.  I still don't think to use the camera phone I now have!  They had THE BEST deep fried mushrooms.  Bob had a whole plateful of them and I had to go back and get one last one just as we were leaving!  It inspired me to try to make some for dinner one night with the sliced mushrooms we had from Sam's.  They were good, but not as crunchy as the coating on the ones at the Town Pump.  Maybe I'll try Panko crumbs next time but I don't think that is quite the answer.

One last thing before I end this.  Matt Shuler came out with a friend and his 4 year old daughter to do a little fishing last weekend.  They fished in the creek which is extremely shallow right now and caught 4 fish about 7 or 8 inches long!  I now need to go down and see what I can do!  I was going to put on a recipe for my old standby Pizza Burgers but this is too long already so maybe tomorrow......

Taken in the same area where it was flooding not so long ago!  You can walk across without getting your feet wet now!

We actually saw some fish jumping where the old dammed up pool was.

What's left of the beaver pond.  I think this is where the little girl caught her fishes

Pug's Candy Crust Pudding

Last night I was watching the cooking channel on TV.  They were talking about cookbooks (old and new) and it was quite interesting.  They started out with The Joy of Cooking and showed all the older ones along with the ones I was familiar with.  Even the 1964 one had recipes and directions for a variety of wild game we don't even consider anymore.  They had like 3 pages with illustrations of how to skin a squirrel and cook it and on another page, how to cook a beaver tail!
Another lady showed how to make a fabulous (and easy) chocolate-strawberry trifle.  She gave a really good tip that I will use.  When you are making layers out of a cake, after you slice it horizontally and before you separate the layers, put a toothpick in the side of each layer one right above the other.  After you frost the lower layer you can put the layers together exactly how they were by matching up the toothpicks!  Pretty neat, huh? 

The show went on to talk about the 3 very first cookbooks in the US.  I was disappointed to learn Mrs. Rorer was not one of them, but she had to be one of the early ones for sure.  My dad had his grandmother's Mrs. Rorer's cookbook and used it often.  The real name of the book was The Philadelphia Cookbook.  My brother, Tip, has that book.  He made copies for Lynn and I and I love to refer to it.  According to the TV show, these old cookbooks were really manuals for being a good housekeeper as well as how to cook.  Mrs. Rorer even explains how to boil water!  I tried to find a date in my copy of the book but I think some pages were missing.  Mrs. Rorer was the principal of the Philadelphia Cooking School.

Another book my mom used a lot was The Settlement Cookbook.  I think it is another one like Joy of Cooking and has many editions.  Tip and Lynn , I think, both have copies of it.  I didn't get any cookbooks from Mom but I did get her whole box of standardized recipes!  I always have to check with Tip if I can't find one of Mom's favorite recipes.  Shortly before she died I did call her and ask for a lot of the recipes I really liked so I do have some of her spoken recipes.

I was going through a huge pile of hand written recipes I have from all the years I've been married and even some from when I was in college ( more than 50 years ago).  I found this recipe of Mom's for Candy Crust Pudding--a favorite when we were kids.  I even submitted it to a radio show where ladies called in and gave hints, tips and recipes.  The moderator always read one recipe each day and we all would copy them down.  That's how I got so many hand written recipes!  Anyway, at the end of the year the radio station printed a cookbook with all those recipes in it and Candy Crust Pudding made the cut!  It was read on the radio and then  printed in the book, too.

Here's Mom's (Pug's) recipe:

Pug's Candy Crust Pudding

Ingredients:

1 Cup fine bread crumbs (I put dry bread in blender or food processor and grate it up)

1 1/2 cups milk

2 eggs, separated

2 Tbsp. white sugar

pinch of salt

1 Tbsp. lemon juice

1 tsp. grated lemon rind (when did they change this to lemon zest, by the way?)

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

4 Tbsp. butter or margarine (1/2 stick)

Directions:

Soak crumbs in milk, set aside.  Combine egg yolks, sugar,salt, lemon juice and lemon rind in another bowl.  Beat the egg whites until stiff but not dry.  Combine egg yolk mixture and milk mixture together and then gently fold in the egg whites.  Pour into a baking dish.  Sprinkle the brown sugar over the top and then dot with the butter or margarine (Mom loved to dot all kinds of things with butter!).  Place baking dish in a pan of water and bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until set.  To test put a knife in the center and if it comes out clean it is set.

 My fine bread crumbs

 Squeezing the lemon and combining ingredients

Beat egg whites until stiff

Sprinkled with brown sugar and dotted with butter

Set empty pan on oven shelf.  Set the baking dish in the pan and pour in water for best results.

Ready to bake

Set timer for 1 hour

Dip knife in center of the pudding to see if it is done

The knife came out clean so it is done

All baked and ready to serve warm or cold.  Store leftovers in the refrigerator




Afternoon coffee with another set of my dishes.  Enjoy this sweet, crusty, custardy, with a hint of lemon bread pudding!

Not fine china but I still like them a lot!

Memorial Weekend Continues

Today I decided to try the 6.5 lb. butterflied chicken on the grill!  Armed with advice from Kathi on how to butterfly the whole chicken and more advice from Pat on how to grill it I went to work.  I vaguely remembered Pat telling me how to soak wood chips and put them in the grill so I soaked a bunch of apple wood chips he had brought up here years ago to use and didn't use them all.  Then I got out my (Bob's really) new woodpecker kitchen shears that Kathi and Danny gave him for Christmas,  and tried to follow the video posted on Kathi's blog (countrychickengirl.blogspot.com) on how to butterfly a chicken.  It was good and easy except I think it looked easier to cut through a 3 lb. chicken than my big 6.5 lb. one!

Bob's Cool Woodpecker Kitchen Shears

These shears are heavy duty and sharp!

Then, I had read about someone who had mixed a bunch of herbs with some yogurt and put them under the skin of the chicken.  I opted to leave the yogurt out and rub the herbs in under the skin.  Next I whipped up some marinade to soak my butterflied chicken in.  Pat had marinated a bunch of chicken thighs last year and grilled them for Brendin's grad party and they were delicious.  I used wine, olive oil, and some garlic and herb marinade that was in a bottle in the fridge.  I put the chicken in a big plastic bag with the marinade and soaked it in the fridge for about 7 hours--I think I'd do it overnight next time.

I heated the grill up on low,  put a small pan of wine and water, mixed, into one side of the grill, put the chicken all spread out on a cookie sheet on the grill, sprinkled soaked wood chips around on the grill (well, below on the burner part), put some more in the wine/water solution closed up the grill and the smoke has been pouring out ever since.  I'm going to check it at 1 hour with the instant thermometer.  It should read 180 degrees when done.

LATER

It took about 1 hour and ten minutes to cook it to perfection.  It was juicy and the flavor was delicious!  I made some of Pug's baked beans, German potato salad and brownies to go with it.  How's that for "cabin food"?  The only thing missing for this holiday picnic was home made ice cream,  family and friends to share it! But Bob and I managed to do it justice on our own. The chicken was a winner and I will do it again, soon.

MMMMMM! you can almost smell the sweet apple woodsmoke!

Looks yummy and it was!

Ready to "chow down"