Brief Garden Update

Even though it is still warm, I would perhaps say too warm, I am solidly in the fall mind set. 

First the garden, I'm sure there are more fall garden posts coming, but August really is the best time in our garden and this year because of the unseasonably late warm weather, September is pretty great also.  We have not had a frost yet!  Now many of you may think, ummm, it's only September 28th... so?  But, since I've lived here, we have always had frost, not only by now, but probably weeks ago!  Below is a brief peak at our bounty.  Look at those beautiful carrots!  Oops, that zucchini got a little crazy, but it tasted good! The bounty includes, green and red cabbage and two types of cucumbers!  On this day I also washed a big bag of kale and a bag of swiss chard - mmmmmmmmmm.

We are very untrusting of these temperatures and will probably take the tomatoes out of the garden this weekend to ripen inside.  We've also already pulled all the shallots and garlic ... they are happily drying on newspaper in the garage.

I leave you with the amazing view of Rocky Mountain National Park from the Estes Park YMCA.  I recently attended the Yoga Journal conference here for 4 days and every day looked like this, some with less clouds.  What an amazing 4 days, I hope to return next year.  In addition, there were patches of yellow color throughout the hills to enjoy as we walked between our cabin and the yoga sessions.  All that fresh air and those breathing exercises mean I am very alert this week!

Wyoming Range - Flowers

We hike in September because it's the best month to hike.  I make that statement because it's cooler; there are no bugs; and the streams and rivers we cross are low.  But to get these positives, you usually give up flowers.  Not this year!  This hike was magical with flower, all 83 miles of it.

We walked through field after field of flowers, all the streams were as colorful as you'll ever see with flowers up and down both sides.  I was constantly stopping to look at a new flower or admire a favorite.  There were yellow, purple, red, white, pink, blue and all shades within those colors.  Here are my attempts at capturing this beauty.

Even when I was really tired, I was constantly amazed at the flowers and the yellow flower - well I call these my Happy Flowers.  We would walk through fields of them and they'd come up almost to my waist.

It's hard to get good pictures of all the flowers mixed together.

It's hard to tell, but this field is all flowers.

Lupine.

My favorite, fireweed!

These are my Perky Flowers.

And we'll end this flower filmstrip with a little inspiration.  That's me standing on the top of that hill, taking a video.  Doesn't that just say "Never give up!"?

Wyoming Range - Views

Well you had to survive through three posts on backpacking food, so it's only right you reap the rewards of the trip.  We'll take a brief hiatus from foodie stuff to check out the hike.

A brief review of what I'm talking about.  My hubby and I, and two great friends, backpacked 83 miles in 9 days.  It wasn't the fastest we've ever hiked, but this was a pretty hard trail, lots of straight up and down, and it was a good pace considering my feet were a mess with blisters and I twisted my ankle one mile into the hike.   Plus we had purposely planned it that way so we could enjoy some of the mountains, versus just looking at our feet and walking. 

We hiked the mountains called the Wyoming range, yep located here in Southwest Wyoming, from Snyder Basin to to Bryan Flats near Hoback Junction.  It is a National Recreation Trail that is not well marked.  You'll need a good navigator to hike this trail.

We were very spoiled on this trip as more great friends, met us half way with a food drop and a night of steaks.  Mmmmm good and we only had to carry four days of food at a time! 

No worries, I won't bore you with a play by play, just some highlights. 

This was our campsite on Night One.  Boy, were we tired when we got here, but it's amazing how food and sleep get you ready for the next day.

This climb was much steeper than it looks!  The steepness combined with the fact that the creators of this trail didn't believe in a switch back led us often to be standing at the bottom of a hill looking up thinking, "Really?".

There was a lot of snow up there yet. Yes, it's September.  Yes, the snow is from last winter.  This snow is what leads to the very cold water in all the springs. 

Ok, sing it with me... "Climb every mountain........"

Cold stream water and a good taping.  Even with the walking, I think that is the best my ankle has handled a sprain.  Oh - don't forget the Ibuprofen, otherwise known as Vitamin I!

The perfect lunch stop.

A couple things surprised me about this mountain range.  The number of flowers (to be seen in the next blog post) and the waterfalls.  There were a lot of waterfalls, and this was a pretty double one we camped near on night three.  Otherwise known as the water that wasn't supposed to be, as we didn't think we'd find water that night and had carried quite a bit from our afternoon stop.

We had walked through this valley, and were almost to the pass.  After sitting on his perch Joe thought he would try to stand on it.  All three of us vetoed that idea immediately.  There really isn't anything on the other side of the rock.

We walked above treeline a lot, especially the first half.  We walked this whole ridgeline.  It's hard to walk on a ridge line as there are views on each side of you.  I have to keep stopping and looking around, because if I look around while walking I'm sure to fall all the way down the mountain!

See how far that valley goes.  The views never stopped.

Hard to tell, but those are the Tetons in the distance.  In person, it was an amazing view.

Our last morning was our coldest morning and we got going in the cold, since it's not fun to stand around it.

On the last day, we had 4 river crossings in a couple of miles.  Boots off... cross in sandals... Boots on... repeat three times.

The End. Don't we look like we deserve a beer and a good meal?!!?  I may look silly in my hat, which is on in all pictures, but I walked for 9 days in the sun without getting a burn, so it worked!

Watch for the upcoming Flower blog post based on trail flowers.

Strawberry Ice Cream

I found out Albertson's almost always has organic strawberries, so I picked up a container and then immediately thought - I should have bought two!

Anyway, my head decided it wanted Strawberry Ice Cream - summer's not totally over yet, even as I sit here with slippers on typing this entry.  I use the Strawberry Almond Ice Cream recipe in the only Ice Cream book I have, "The Ultimate Ice Cream Book" by Bruce Weinstein.  I'm pretty sure it's also the only ice cream book I need.  All the recipes have been excellent. 

Strawberry Almond Ice Cream

3 heaping cups strawberries

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/3 cup sugar

2 large eggs

1 1/2 cups half and half

1/2 cup heavy cream

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 teaspoon almond extract

1 cup slivered almonds

Puree the strawberries with the salt in a food processor or food mill.  There should be about 2 cups of puree.  Set aside.

In a medium mixing bowl, beat the sugar into the eggs until thickened and pale yellow.  Set aside.

Bring the half and half to a simmer in a heavy medium saucepan.  Slowly beat the hot half and half into the eggs and sugar.  Pour the entire mixture back into the pan and place over low heat.  Stir constantly until the custard thickens slightly.  Be careful not to let the mixture boil or you will scramble the eggs.  Remove from the heat and pour the hot custard through a strainer into a large, clean bowl.  Allow the custard to cool slightly, then stir in the strawberry puree, cream, vanilla, and almond extract.  Cover and refrigerate until cold.

Follow the directions of your ice cream maker, adding the almonds in toward the end of mixing. Put in the freezer until you can't wait any more and dig in!

Christine's Ice Cream Tips

• I've found you can substitute whatever milk you have in the fridge for the half and half.  I used 1 % in this recipe.  The closer you get to skim, the more you may deal with ice crystals if the ice cream is in the freezer more than a few days.  Really?  Your ice cream is in the freezer more than a few days???  I've also used soy milk interchangeably with good results.
• I also use regular cream, not heavy cream.  Unless I'm really trying to impress others!
• The biggest tip for homemade ice cream is to cover it with some plastic wrap before putting the cover on the dish and freezing.  This really keeps the ice crystals away.

I must say, I think this is the best Strawberry Ice Cream I've made.  I made a light comment that I think I would have liked plain strawberry better without the almonds.  I was immediately told that no, the dear husband likes the almonds.  You choose!

Quick Pickled Salads

I have fully enjoyed having my fridge full of bright, fresh vegetables and have taken to wanting a quick slaw or pickled veggie in the fridge at all times.  Below are three that I have been enjoying. 

These types of salads are a great way to add a veggie to a sandwich at lunch.  I've also been known to take the slaw and top it with slices of leftover flank steak, toasted pecans, and feta for lunch and dinner on the same day!  Does it get any lazier?!!?  But oh so yummy!

First, is this beautiful Quick Pickled Beet side.  Isn't it pretty and bright?  This is actually a mix of yellow and red beets, but of course, the red color took over!  I got this recipe from the lovely blog, The Garden of Eating.

Refrigerator Pickles
This recipe comes from one of those wonderful church cookbooks.  This is from a book I received from my Aunt Arlene,  "Sharing our Best: A Collection of Recipes from our Savior's Lutheran Church Denmark, WI".  You can certainly downsize this recipe  to make a smaller batch and I used about 1/2 the sugar.  They were perfect!

1 gallon jar or an ice cream pail
2 small red peppers
12 c. cut pickles, sliced
2 c. onions
2 c. green peppers
2 trays of ice cubes
2 tablespoons salt
2 c. vinegar
4 c. sugar
1 teaspoon celery salt

Mix first 6 ingredients in a pail.  Let sit for 2 hours.
Cook vinegar, sugar and celery salt.  Bring to a boil.  Drain the pickles, peppers, and onions.  Place in a jar.  Pour vinegar mixture over top.  Put in refrigerator.

The "What Vegetables Do I Have in the Fridge Slaw"
This slaw changes, in this version I sliced up a red cabbage and some carrots.  I minced a handful of parsley and sliced a bunch of kale in thin ribbons.  I made a quick dressing of red wine vinegar, olive oil, hearty mustard, salt and pepper.

What vegetables do you have in your fridge that need a new life as a fun salad?

Backpacking food #3: Dinners

When backpacking, dinners are the most time intensive, but perhaps not the most visually appealing for pictures.  So I am starting this post with a picture of my pretty pears.  I dehydrated 3 trays of pears.  I used the mandolin to make sure they were all the same size and sprinkled some with cinnamon and the others with ginger.  I dehydrated them to a crisp texture.

Ok, Backpacking dinners.  First a few notes. I have always made our meals for backpacking, but I used to do dinners were I assembled the components.  This time thanks to a friends interest, we cooked most of the dinners ahead and dehydrated whole meals.  This has really cut down on our weight.  In addition, we used the handy food saver on all our dinners so they are sealed firmly and take up as little space as possible.  Nine days of food is still a fair amount of food to carry, especially when everything needs to be in our bear proof containers.

Yes, I said it - there will be bears, mostly black, but probably some grizzly around.  But, we have backpacked in many bear areas and do take all the precautions, so I'm sure we'll be fine.  The bear proof canisters are important because I get grumpy without food.  So even if they get their paws on the canister, I feel good that they can't get to the food.

We are hiking with another couple.  We each bring our own breakfast and daytime eats, but we share dinners.  So I made four dinners to feed four people as did our fellow backpackers.  Following are the four meals I came up with.  For all meals, you just put them in a pot just cover with water and heat until rehydrated. 

Potato Chowder with Smoked Salmon & Bacon
Sorry, this is a made up recipe.  I loosely follow this Cooking Light recipe, for Baked Potato Soup, but I only add about 1/2 the liquid, since it is being dehydrated anyway.  In addition, I add smoked salmon chunks, bacon, and lots of cheddar.  The beauty of walking 9-10 miles is you don't have to worry about the calories and usually need the fat.

Hamburger Stroganoff
For this recipe, I based it on a Black Bean Stroganoff recipe out of a book we have been using called Backpack Gourmet by Linda Frederick Yaffe.  If you have a desire to make your own backpacking food, I highly suggest this book.

Quinoa, Black Bean and Vegetables
This is another made up meal, but I'm excited about it.  I sauteed up a bunch of vegetables, such as onion, corn, lots of greens, and zucchini.  I added Black beans and mixed it with quinoa.  It's pretty tasty and the black beans and quinoa will combine to give us great protien.

Tamale Pie

I got this recipe from a pdf I downloaded ages ago and I apologize I can't find the link.  The pdf was full of backpacking recipes and it was titled, "Outdoor Cooking for Troop 591".  It was posted in 2003 by Chris Knapp.  Thanks for the recipes Chris!  this recipe will give you an idea of how many backpacking meals are created.

Bag A:
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon dried sage
1/4 teaspoon thyme
1/4 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1 can whole olives
1 can kidney beans
1 can diced chilies
1/4 cup chopped dried tomatoes
Bag B:
1 cup masa harina (corn flour)
1 Tablespoon chili powder
1/4 teaspoon ground cumin
1 packet Lipton Instant Onion Soup Mix

At home, dehydrate the olives, kidney beans, and chilis.  Add all Bag A ingredients together. (I also added green pepper to my mix).  In second bag, add all Bag B ingredients together and label them.

On the trail, place Bag A in the pot and cover with water torehydrate.  When rehydrated, add Bag B and about 1 cup more water.

This makes three servings, if cooking separately, will need to take that into consideration when it comes to how much water you add.  Heat slowly over low heat stirring until thick.  Remove from heat and let stand for 5 minutes.  Enjoy with the gusto that fresh air provides!

And to close us off on this edition of what do people carry when backpacking, I have a little bag of veggie chips I dehydrated for the fun of it.   In the bag are a mix of carrots, cucumbers, yellow squash, and pickles.

Remember everyone, hike your own hike!