Excuses, excuses, excuses!

Nick and Sarah get married in Clovis, NM

 This will be a quick post!  Here are some of my excuses for not posting as often as I want to:

1.  I have a ton of embroidering to do.  150 caps for Harry and I have 3 new designs I'm using that take about an hour each!  (stubborn me, I must use them because they are so cool!), several dozen caps for Matt (over the summer and fall) with 3 hoopings each (stubborn me again), 50 bags for Carla some with custom designs on the back for her staff, a wedding present for Nick,

I love the embossing on this.  I hope they do too!

a lot of Christmas decorations and hopefully a few Halloween ones too before it is too late!  I'm not complaining, just trying to justify.....

2.  Winterizing and cleaning up for our being gone by helping Bob with the vents around the base of the house to keep out the cold air, washing and putting away the hummingbird feeders, winterizing the porch, and doing fall cleaning of the house along with some clutter management!
 

The last load of 2011 chickens heading to the processing facility! (in the crates--that's Country Chicken Girl and Dan the Man on the 4 wheeler). 

3.Helping with the final chicken processing,

The final 20 ready to be packaged!  Whew!  what a summer!

 helping with one of the last summer farmer's markets, preparing for our trip to Clovis for Nick's wedding and then actually going to the wedding which was a lot of fun and needs to be addressed in a future blog.

4.  Getting the car fixed for winter by taking it up to Casper to get the AC/ heater fixed to the tune of $2000, and putting on snow tires (just under the wire--6 inches of snow the next day).

Here it is--Winter!

5.  Going to Dr. appointments in Denver, and Steamboat ( a 2 1/2 hour drive on terrible roads).

6.  Taking advantage of the wonderful long warm fall this year.  It was great while it lasted but now it is cold and the snow is not going away as fast as I would like it to!

7.  Helping Bob with paperwork that has backed up for the whole summer.

8  Cooking some new and yummy things.  I need to put up some new recipes, I think too, but not today!

9.  Catching up on facebook and email......

10.  Getting in some reading on the Kindle and Ipad.....

11.  making use of the hot tub now that it is cold.

OK, I think that is enough.  I have lots of pictures to share, too, but not today.  It's back to the caps for me!

Poblano Pesto and Albondigas Sopa

A gray, snowy Saturday inspired me to make a nice hot spicy meal.

 Today is a perfect day for staying in, turning up the heat and making some really good soup and a spicy spread.  So that is what I did.

Kathi and I went to the Farmer's Market in Morrill, NE last Tuesday to celebrate the completion of another season of chicken processing.  We bought some Poblano Chilies and picked up a recipe for Pesto.  Kathi had made a huge batch the week before and we had eaten over a pint of it in the few days I was there!  So this morning I got up and whipped up a batch before Bob even got up for breakfast!  I even roasted the peppers on the grill outside as it was snowing!

I mentioned the Albondigas Soup in a previous post and had some requests for it so I am including it in this post to carry out the Mexican theme..  I have a lot of good memories of this soup from my teaching days in West Wendover.  My students liked to make this in class and Griselda, the lunch room cook, would make it sometimes and put it on the salad bar in fall..  It is very delicious.  I never did get a recipe for it because the students would use their mother's or grandmother's recipe and I just never asked Griselda for hers. So I went to allrecipes.com and discovered every family has a different version of this soup!   I kind of knew this because of the rice.  Some families use it in the meatballs and some serve it with the soup and others don't use it at all.  I even saw one recipe on food network for meatballs which used masa in them for filler!  Here's the recipe which I found that seems the closest to what I like.  By the way, Albondigas Sopa means meatball soup.

I just spread my poblano pesto on crackers for a little snack!  Mmmmmm!

POBLANO PESTO

Ingredients:

 2 poblano peppers

1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1/4 cup fresh cilantro leaves, rough chop

2 cloves of garlic, coarsely chopped

1 Tbsp. chili powder*

1/2 Cup vegetable oil

Kosher Salt

* I used 1/2 Tbsp ground New Mexico red chili and 1/2 Tbsp cumin because I love these seasonings! 

Directions:  

     Char the peppers on top of a gas burner, on a grill, or under the broiler until all sides are blackened.  Place in a plastic bag for about 15 minutes allowing the steam to help loosen the skins. With your fingers (use plastic gloves) or a spoon scrape and discard the blackened skin  then remove the seeds and core.  Retain some seeds if you desire a spicier pesto.  Coarsely chop the poblanos and place in a mini food processor.  Add Parmesan, cilantro, garlic, chili powder, cumin if used and oil.  Process until well combined, but not totally smooth.  

Makes about 2 cups

The Food Network        Melissa D'Arabian

Notes:

Kathi used 8 poblanos and a couple Anaheims and maybe even a jalapeno and 4 times the recipe.  She also used cumin in her pesto.  She had 1 qt. plus a pint jar of delicious pesto!  Neither one of us used a mini food processor since I doubled my recipe and it fit into my regular size food processor.  This could be used in a lot of different ways including spreading on sandwiches, spreading  on tortillas, rolling them up and slicing the rolls into pinwheels.  I'm sure you can think of a lot of other ways to use this tasty treat!

 

The soup simmers on the stove.  It is so colorful and tasty!

ALBONDIGAS SOPA

Ingredients:

Meatballs

Open A Bar 2 ground beef is the star in this soup.  Notice the Ritz crackers instead of bread crumbs.  I love them in my meatballs.

 2 lbs. ground beef

1 egg

1/4 Cup bread crumbs.  I used cracker crumbs.

1/2 Cup uncooked white rice

2 tsp. ground cumin

1/2 tsp. garlic powder

1/4 tsp salt**

**I didn't use since I used the salty bullion in the soup

Soup

Farmer's market produce and homemade tomato sauce make the soup taste so fresh.

 10 Cups chicken broth.  I used beef bullion cubes(10) and 10 C.  water.

4 carrots sliced

1/2 onion chopped

*4 stalks celery sliced  I didn't have any but used about 2 cups of zucchini cut in big chunks instead

1 ( 10 oz.) can diced tomatoes with green chili peppers ( such as Rotel)

1 (8 oz.) can tomato sauce

1 (7 oz.) can green chilies, drained (oops, I didn't drain but it didn't hurt the soup)

1 bunch cilantro leaves, chopped
1/2 tsp. garlic pwder
1 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp ground cumin
*3 potatoes peeled and cut in large chunks

*  These were not in this particular recipe but potatoes were in almost all the recipes I saw and at least in Wendover I always had zucchini in big chunks in the ones there.

 Directions: 
1. combine ground beef, egg, bread crumbs, rice, cumin, garlic powder, and salt ( which I didn't use due to the saltiness of the beef boullion) in a large bowl.  Mix well.
2.  Bring broth to a boil over medium heat.
3.  Form beef mixture into 1 inch meatballs, using about 1 1/2 Tbsp. meat for each.

I only used 1 lb. of ground beef and adjusted the rest of the ingredients for the meatballs.  I got 15 meatballs.  I did make a full recipe of the rest of the soup.

  I think you can get about 30 meatballs.  This should equal 3 for each of the 10 people eating the soup.  Turn the heat down under the broth to a simmer and drop the meatballs into the broth.  Simmer the meatballs in the broth for about 20 minutes, until meatballs are cooked through.

At this altitude I think It could have been 30 minutes but then it cooks for another hour so maybe not!

While the meatballs are cooking you can chop up the vegetables.

And the cilantro.

 4.  Stir in the carrots, onion, celery (zucchini, potatoes),  Rotel, tomato sauce, canned chilies, cilantro, and seasonings. Simmer the soup for 1 hour to cook the vegetables and blend the flavors.

Notes:  If you don't like  cilantro leave it out but I love it with the cilantro in  it!  The reason I used beef broth instead of chicken is because it just makes sense to me that you would use beef broth with beef meat.  Today I had some left over polenta in the refrigerator so I heated  up a few slices, cut them in big chunks and put them in my soup for dinner.  It was yummy!
Makes 10 servings so use a big pot! 

Here's my nice hot, spicy lunch of Albondigas Sopa with crackers and Poblano Pesto.

 

Fall is Here!

The gate to our property.......

All that's left of the old red truck.

Here's a companion picture for the one in your guest bedroom, Kathi.

Indian summer is a favorite time for me!  Although summer is still the best season, I savor Indian Summer because it is the last hurrah before winter sets in for a looong time here in North Park.

The Haskins meadow with Delaney Butte in the distance.

The hay is up and the cattle are headed for home.

Funny how on the first day of fall I started craving "fall foods".  I guess I started seeing the leaves changing (very late for North Park this year) and digging out my sweaters and warmer clothes and that spurred on my fall appetite!  I also got on the ball and started some fall cleaning projects!  How weird is that!  Here are some pictures and a few of my "fall foods".

The pond looks like a mirror.

Bright red rose hips.

My Favorite Fall Foods

Chili, of course, is an all time favorite at this time of year!  Cream of squash, cream of cauliflower, tomato basil soups, potato soup, Grampa's stew, a new Mexican style stew I made up with Rotel tomatoes, Albondigos soup, posole, Beans and Rice Haitian, making chili sauce, tomato sauce, Italian sauce (anything to use up tomatoes before first freeze), fried mush (or polenta, a new favorite), cornbread, hoe cakes, potato pancakes, chicken pot pie, fall breads and muffins like apple, pumpkin, cranberry, banana, etc., corned beef hash, and chuck wagon beans.  Also anything zucchini to get them used up ( I found a great new recipe called Italian Zucchini Casserole with pepperoni, cottage and mozzarella cheeses, onions and fresh tomatoes that is really tasty!).  Pickled beets and eggs are a must using fresh beets from the farmers market! Hot apple cider or wassail, hot buttered rum, all kinds of hot chocolate, and, of course, all kinds of bar cookies but especially that all season favorite, Brownies!

  OK that's enough food fantasies for the day!  Now I'm going outside to take some fall pictures.

Our cabin in fall.

Oh the beautiful blue fall sky!

Today was absolutely a perfect day for picture taking and hiking so I was gone for several hours and took tons of pictures!  The peak of the fall colors here will be sometime next week, I think, so I may have to go out again but for today I took a lot of "artsy fartsy" pictures.  Some of them will have more meaning for the family but are still pretty.  I think I will have to do another post of just the fall pictures but here are a few to get started.

Lovely!

Fall is coming to the cabin!

Summer's last hurrah.  Indian Paintbrush is still blooming.

hi

Six Years Ago Today

Yep, that is me back in 2004 less than a year before I had surgery!

Today is my Bandiversary!  Six years ago I was in the Almater Hospital in Mexicali, Mexico with a brand new Lapband in place!  What a life changing decision I had made.  I didn't know then whether it would work or not, whether I would never be able to enjoy broccoli again (as one of my daughters pointed out), or even if this was just another of the many attempts I had made to lose weight and never gain it back again only to be disappointed once again.  Well, I am here to tell everyone that it did work and I am at my goal weight and still holding six years later.  I feel so much better with more energy and not so many aches and pains as I did back then.  I sleep better and do not fantasize about food all the time (well maybe I do sometimes but a few bites of it and I am good to go instead of eating way too much and then craving more!).  I can still wear clothes I got 5 years ago and they still fit although they are pretty worn out by now!  My back and feet don't hurt all the time and I just feel healthier. 

Bob, Dr. Aceves and I six years ago in Mexicali 2 days after my surgery.

I highly recommend weight loss surgery to those who are excessively overweight.  There are several new procedures around plus the old standbys so do your research and find out as much as you can if you are thinking about it.  I probably would have done the vertical sleeve if it had been around back then but I am happy with what I have and it continues to work for me.  I am glad I went to Dr. Aceves in Mexico.  Insurance did not cover lapband surgery back then and I am glad it didn't!  He is the best as is the hospital and it's staff.  I am so grateful to them all for such a special experience and for the successful outcome.  Here's to many more years of a normal lifestyle thanks to my lapband!

Me in June of 2011 drinking my morning coffee.  Yes, I still can eat broccoli and drink coffee!

Milk Dud Popcorn

Milk Dud Popcorn

As promised, here is the great, addictive popcorn recipe that Kim's family loves so much.  I had been hearing about it for several years but always pictured it as popcorn with chunks of Milk Duds in it.  Kim finally had all the ingredients in one place and made some for movie watching one evening while we were in Elko.  WOW!  It was great! So here it is compliments of  Kim Jones.

Milk Dud Popcorn

Ingredients:

All you need except for a splash of milk which I didn't have so I used some cream.

2 bags microwave popcorn

1 regular size box of Milk Duds

1-2 Tbsp. milk

Directions:

 

Pop the popcorn in your microwave following package directions.  When done pour into a large bowl.  Put Milk Duds in a small bowl and add a little milk.  Melt in the microwave until all melted about 1 minute.  Add a little more milk if needed to make the melted candy pourable.  Pour over the popcorn and toss to coat.  Enjoy this tasty snack on movie night or anytime!  Someone said you could do it with Sugar Babies, too, but I haven't tried it.  

I highly recommend you stock up on Milk Duds and popcorn before trying this.  It is so good you will want to make more especially if you have to share it with others!!!

Bob's healthy lunch for today.

My sticky, chocolatey, caramelly Milk Dud Popcorn "35% less fat" lunch! That's what the Milk Dud box said....