Mountain Musings

Home from Houston!

Today the Lord answered our prayers and brought Jonathan home safely from his trip last week to Houston, TX. Whew! Now I can relax.

I know, I know...people come and go and fly all the time! But Jonathan's avionics work doesn't often take him away from his home airport. So we were eagerly looking forward to his safe return.

Take a look at what Sarah baked up to welcome him home...quite the appropriate gift for our very own resident Cookie Monster!

Actually, Hannah found a picture on my sister's Pinterest and passed the idea on to Sarah. I'm not sure who to credit for the original clever idea. 

First, Sarah found a copycat recipe for Chips Ahoy cookies at the Food.com site. Then she baked the cookies that she put in Cookie Monster's mouth.

The cupcakes were made with a Duncan Hines Chocolate Fudge cake mix, and then she piped on blue icing for the body and white icing and chocolate chips for the eyes. She made a pretty convincing Cookie Monster, don't you think?

And Jonathan wanted to gobble up all the deliciousness! Welcome home, Cookie Monster!

~Deb

Cherry Coke Pulled Pork

Jonathan came home one day not long ago telling us about a barbeque recipe we should try. It turns out that the wife of a friend of his at work had started a new blog and had posted a Cherry Coke Pulled Pork recipe. 

So...off I go to get the ingredients. Here's my only photo and here's April's recipe below. You can see the finished product over at her blog.

Cherry Coke Pulled Pork

• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 pork bottom or shoulder (about 4 lbs)
• 1 bottle Cherry Coke, enough to cover pork
• 2 jars Sweet Baby Ray's bbq sauce

Set on low for 6 - 8 hours. Remove pork, shred with fork, and add bbq sauce.

To be honest, I wasn't sure that I wanted to waste a Cherry Coke in this recipe. Would we really be able to taste the difference? The only change I made is lowering the brown sugar to a scant 1/2 cup. We thought it would be quite sweet enough!

Jonathan assured me he could tell Cherry Coke was in it for sure! And he loved it!

So we invited Matt and April over for a meal with us so we could meet them one evening recently. What a fun time! Thanks, April, for a new recipe that I'm sure Jonathan will be begging me to fix again soon!

If you give this a try, let us know what you think of the Cherry Coke in it!

~Deb

I Ain't Fancy ~ Take Me to Smoking Roosters

Often on weekends I'll write a post and ask what's happening in your neck of the woods on Saturday. It's always interesting for me to read what others are doing all across the country on one given day.

Well, here's what happened in my woods: Tom asked me out on a date for lunch! Yes, I'll go!

Where to go though? Something simple, not fancy, something quick but good...did someone suggest Smoking Roosters?

There she is in all her glory ~ Smoking Roosters! Come on...follow me inside. I've never been here.

As soon as we entered we could smell the smoke of the bbq fires a'burning. At least that's what we guessed, but we didn't see smoke outside like you would think an authentic bbq place would have.

There were only two tables. No wait, a third that was sort of a mini table for two by the door:

I have to admit that I wasn't sure about that picture staring down at us as we ate. The caption said, "My faith got me here."

Just a few feet across from our table was a counter and some bar stools. Empty. We were there at noon and were the only customers, although I think they're probably busier on weekdays at lunchtime.

There's a Caribbean section on the menu that featured curried goat (no, thank you), tofu (no, thank you), shrimp (not for me), jerk steak (maybe), ox tail (no, thank you), and brown stew (what's this?). But we ordered one of the regular specials for Saturdays: Pulled chicken with fries and sweet tea for $5.

The only mishap occurred when the waiter set down my plate and spilled my pepsi all over the table and in my lap! After quickly cleaning up the mess, we prayed and started eating. Plum good! The minced pulled chicken was absolutely delicious but was messy enough to use a fork to eat the sandwich to prevent spills. Where's my bib when I need it?

Oh, I forgot to mention that the waiter was generous and brought us a mac and cheese sample, on the house, since we were first-timers. And maybe, too, because I was wearing my pepsi. :)

Here's Tom after he paid for our food. All the cookin' went on somewhere behind those back doors.

Okay, time to call it a date and head home. Here's Tom with a take-home box of mac and cheese for Sarah, the mac and cheese lover at our house:

So now you know what I did. What was your Saturday like?

~Deb

Caesar Salad, Chocolate Bowls, Flavored Butters

When my night to cook fell on February 14, I decided to try some new special recipes. But the first step was to don my red vintage apron Granny surprised me with for Christmas. Thank you, Granny! I wore it most of the day, not just in the kitchen.

(Camera strap cover made by and won from Quilty Girl.)

The idea for these chocolate bowls for our ice cream dessert came from Bakerella via Pinterest.

Here is the final product, filled with Honey Vanilla ice cream, strawberries from last summer, and served on Granny's pink depression-glassware that I stole from my hope chest closet shelf.

Then I made a huge Caesar salad with the homemade dressing found at this food blog.

Along with our Tomato Corn Chowder (found in the Stuffed Cougar cookbook and of which we did not get a photo), we had dinner rolls with cinnamon and strawberry whipped butters. The rolls were warmed and served in a vintage enamelware tray.

This is our family dinner table all set.

 We had a delightful evening!

~Hannah

Recipe Organization

A few months ago, I was looking through our recipe box. It was pretty hard to find the different sections because our divider cards had just about had it. The tabs on top were torn off or almost unreadable.

 

Finally, I said to myself, "Self, why have we put up with this for months? How ridiculous....just make new ones already!" Out came the cardstock, paper cutter and contact paper, and this time I made sure to reinforce the tab part that we would be grabbing a lot.

Notice that I tried to match the color of the divider to the category. At least in my mind they kinda do. :) Now we have to figure out what to do with all the recipes that we've printed out from the computer. Those are building up in the back of the box, and we need to put them in a binder or something. But then would that be able to stay on the counter with the rest of the recipes? Dilemmas, dilemmas.

How does everyone else organize their recipes? Do you have a box? Just cookbooks? Discuss. :)

~Sarah

A New Year for New Adventures

Today...we're trying to get back into the routine of normal living after Christmas, birthday, and New Year's Eve activities. Tom returned to work this morning after taking off vacation days since mid-December. Ohhh, I was getting quite used to having him around all the time; I'll love it when he retires!

To wrap up 2011 before the new year's blogging begins...I wanted to share about our annual family Christmas program that the kids always produce for the rest of the family on Christmas Eve. Here's a picture of the girls playing flutes for one of the carols. Tom and Jonathan also played guitar and banjo as part of the musical evening filled with scripture.

We also went out caroling on two different evenings this year...once to a neighborhood we weren't familiar with and once to our neighbors. We left each house with peppermint popcorn the girls made and a gospel tract, and we have been praying that the Lord will use the scriptures presented to change lives.

Last week we packed Granny up to head off with my sister to South Carolina for the winter, and we're missing her already! She took plenty of basket-making supplies with her to keep busy while she's gone.

Here's a picture of my beautiful Mustard Basket Granny made me for Christmas. I love it!

New Year's Eve was very enjoyable...we invited friends over and decorated with snowman plates, snowflake napkin rings, and a new item this year...snowman placemats and table runners (a gift Sarah made me for Christmas). Here's a picture of the table runner. A decorated tree centerpiece goes in the middle there, but it's removed so you can see the snowman heads turning every which way (I love them!):

Here's the dining room table set and waiting for company to arrive. The square snowman plate in the foreground right is a new one this year from my sister:

And here's the nook table set in the kitchen area:

Our menu was as follows: *Chicken in a Biscuit, Stuffed Baked Potatoes, Tossed Salad, homemade Strawberry Yogurt, and frozen Peanut Butter Pie for dessert.

I've probably mentioned Chicken in a Biscuit many times on the blog, but I'm not sure I've ever posted the recipe. I took pictures this time because usually everyone asks me: "How do you get the chicken inside those little biscuits?"

*Recipe on next page

~Deb

Summer's End

October's frost means bringing in the last of the tender harvest from the garden. We are still enjoying summer's tomatoes that Granny brought with her from SC, the green ones ripening daily. I picked a whole grocery bag or two brimming with crisp green bell peppers, so yesterday for lunch I made Elise's recipe for Stuffed Peppers. They turned out delicious.

I didn't do nearly as much canning/freezing this season as I had anticipated, but here's the tally of produce that we did put up:

• 8 quarts of green beans, frenched and frozen (these won't last long!)
• 6 quarts black-eyed peas, frozen
• 13 pints pizza sauce, canned
• 3 pints tomato sauce, frozen
• 2 pints dill cucumber pickles, canned
• 14 pints cinnamon cucumber pickles, canned (Granny loves these)
• 6 1/2 quarts sweet cucumber pickle, jarred
• 7 pints zucchini relish, canned
• 25 quarts strawberries, picked locally and frozen
• 3 gallons blueberries, picked locally and frozen
• 1 gallon cantaloupe, chunked and frozen

It will be nice to have these fruits and vegetables preserved over the next months.

...He did not leave Himself without a witness, in that He did good and gave you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness. ~Acts 14:17

~Hannah

Blueberry Sour Cream Pie

Yesterday I tried out a new recipe from my Recipe Hall of Fame Dessert cookbook, and although I had a few problems, it turned out yummy in the end. The recipe calls for fresh blueberries, and we only had frozen. I tried to thaw them a little, but they must have still just been really cold, because the pie took much longer than 25 minutes to set. I didn't even keep track of how many times I had to set the oven timer back another 10 minutes! :) And then when getting out all the topping ingredients, I discovered that there was absolutely no butter in the kitchen. In a streusel topping, butter isn't really replaceable, but I tried to substitute shortening anyway. It didn't have the same flavor, but it worked in a pinch.

It was served still warm, and it was nice and creamy and delicious. It's still good cold today for lunch, too. :)

Blueberry Sour Cream Pie

1 ready made pie crust (or homemade)

1 cup sour cream

3/4 cup sugar

2 1/2 tablespoons flour

1 egg, beaten

3/4 teaspoon almond extract

1/4 teaspoon salt

2 1/2 cups fresh blueberries

Topping:

6 tablespoons flour

1/4 cup chilled butter, cut into pieces

1/3 cup chopped pecans

2 tablespoons sugar

Place pie crust in 9-inch pie plate. Fold edge under, crimp, freeze 10 minutes. Prick with fork. Bake until sides are set, about 12 minutes. Mix next 6 ingredients in medium bowl. Mix in blueberries. Spoon into crust. Bake at 350 until filling is just set, about 25 minutes. For topping, using fingertips, mix flour and butter in medium bowl until small clumps form. Mix in pecans and sugar. Spoon topping over pie. Bake until topping browns lightly, about 12 minutes. Cool pie at room temperature.

~Sarah

Curds and Whey

"He will eat curds and honey at the time He knows enough to refuse evil and choose good." ~Isaiah 7:15

We recently had the chance to attend a dairy workshop with several other families. There were demonstrations on dairy products such as mozzarella, ricotta, cream cheese, yogurt, and butter; we even sampled homemade ice cream made from farm-fresh milk.

Arielle is the cheese-making expert for her family and has the task of using up all the milk they get from their cow. She shared her knowledge by showing us the process for each type of dairy product.

Here she is draining the mozzarella curd before we all helped stretch the cheese as the final step.

Cookie Fail

Yesterday I attempted to make some chocolate chip cookie bowls, following the directions found here. Aren't they cute? I knew they would be a hit with a certain cookie loving brother!

As you might have guessed, they didn't quite turn out like those pictures - hence the title of this post. My dough seemed so sticky, even with plenty of flour when rolling it out AND chilling it in the freezer for a little bit. Being sticky, it was difficult to wrap around the muffin pan, but I finally got it done. Then when they were baking, the dough spread and became one huge cookie, dripping off the sides. Even when having sprayed the pan with non-stick spray, it was just impossible to get the bowls off in one piece. Out of a dozen, only one was intact.

All the broken pieces still tasted good though! Add ice cream and toppings, it hardly mattered whether the bowls were in one piece or not. :)

~Sarah