Roasted butternut chowder with apples and bacon

(as seen on the Today Show. We wanted to save it to be sure and do it!)

Recipe: Roasted butternut chowder with apples and bacon
Mark Bittman, New York Times columnist and author of "The Food Matters Cookbook"
Ingredients
1 butternut squash, about 1 1/2 pounds, peeled, seeded and cut into cubes
1 large onion, chopped
2 large apples, peeled, cored and chopped
4 bacon slices, or one 1/2-inch-thick strip slab bacon, chopped
2 tablespoons minced garlic
Salt and black pepper
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon chopped fresh sage or 1 teaspoon dried
1/2 cup dry white wine or water
6 cups vegetable or chicken stock or water
Preparation
Heat the oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.

Spread the squash, onion, apples, bacon and garlic in a deep roasting pan or on a baking sheet.

Sprinkle with salt and pepper and drizzle with the oil.

Roast, stirring every now and then, until the squash, onion and apples are tender and browned and the bacon is crisp, which takes about 45 minutes.

Remove the roasting pan from the oven.

Stir in the sage and white wine and scrape up all the browned bits from the bottom.

If you're using a roasting pan that can be used on the stovetop, position the pan over 2 burners and put both on medium heat. Otherwise, transfer the contents of the pan to a large pot or Dutch oven and set it over medium heat.

Add the stock and cook until the squash, onion and apples break apart and thicken and flavor the broth, which takes about 25 minutes. You can help the process along by breaking the mixture up a bit with a spoon.

Serving Size
Makes four servings

Rod's Ribs

Easy Fall off the bone ribs!


Baby Back Pork Ribs
2 Beers (Blue Moon or other tasty brew)
1 Onion

1. Pre-heat oven to 350F
2. Slice onion and lay evenly on bottom of roasting pan
3. Put on some tunes and drink 1 Blue Moon
4. Cut the slab of ribs in half so there are 6-8 ribs per slab

5. Place ribs, bone down on the onion
6. Pour 1 bottle of beer over ribs.  This is nearly 2 cups.  You can add a little water if you like.

7. Wrap pan tightly with tin foil
8. Place ribs in oven and bake for 3 hours
9. At 2 hour mark prepare sauce.
10. Remove from oven and baste in your favorite barbecue sauce and grill for 10 - 15 minutes to get some charring action happening.  Serve with additional sauce.

Sauce:
32 oz ketchup
1/3 cup finely chopped onion
1/4 cup brown sugar
3 tbs lemon juice
3 tbs rum
3 tbs worcestershire
2 tbs liquid hickory flavoring
2 tsp pepper sauce

Mix all ingredients and simmer for 1 hour

Recipe to try: Peach and Apple Crisp

Filling:
2 Granny Smith apples, diced
2 Fuji apples, diced
3 large peaches, diced
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/3cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
Zest of 1 lemon

Mix all ingredients and spread in a buttered 10-inch baking pan.

Crisp
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup rolled oats
1 pinch salt
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
6 ounces sweet butter, cold and cubed

Mix all ingredients in a mixer with a paddle or cut in a bowl until crumbly, but not wet.

Spread evenly over fruit and bake at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for approximately one hour, until the pie is brown and crisp. Let cool for 15 minutes on a rack after removing from the oven.

OPTIONAL: serve with vanilla ice cream

Tasting the Home Brew

Put a couple of bottles of American Blone Home Brew in the fridge this morning in preperation for tonights consumption. Was very uncertian to how this brew was going to turn out as I had some temperature issues early in the brew process. After that the beer remained very cloudy and did not look good to bottle. Well, several weeks later, much to my suprise, they cleared up.

The bottle 'popped' as I opened it, and and a good amount of fizz. The color was excellent. Darker than what I would consider a blonde, but con't complain. The ABV was meant to be around 5%, but after only having one bottle, I suspect it might be a little higher. The second bottle was not as clear, with a little bit more sediment at the bottom and more bitter to the taste.

Ah, Home Brew, got to love it. Bottoms Up!

Building Some Steps and working at the Creek.

Getting to the creek from the Cabin is a steep slope. It has been a challenge building steps into the soft earth as heavy rains eventually wash away the effort. Today, utilizing the great spring weather, I decided to build steps onto the slope by building up the steps using the abundant local fallen logs and compacting the earth to create steps. Following are some pictures of the effort. I hope to build a step or two over the summer to hopefully complete the effort.

Maggie is learning the new steps:

We also decided to widen the creek a little bit. With a little bit of elbow grease, we managed to double the width of the creek next to the fire pit. Using amazing engineering skills, the mini dam built with rocks and creek sand also raised the water level a few inches:

Ducktown Elementary School

Went up a side street today thinking we would find a school with some fields that would provide us with some exercise options. What we found instead was an abandoned school with awesome architecture. How could this impressive building go to waste? Reminds you of the hard times this region has been through.

2010 Vegetable Container Garden

We have always wanted to try our own vegetable garden and this year we are going to give it a shot. We dont have space for a garden so we are doing it in containers. We found a book that explains self watering containers, and knew this would be perfect for us. Once we realized how much water vegetables need, we realized thats why we have never been successful in the past. Hopefully with the help of these self watering containers we will have better luck.

First of all I will quickly explain what a self watering container is. Basically, it is a pot with a fake bottom that has a water reservoir below it. There is an opening in the bottom, or a tube that sticks up, which allows you to fill the reservoir and this encourages the roots to grow deep to get the water.

We planned on trying to grow basic stuff like tomatoes, Herbs, and peppers, but that quickly changed once we saw all the vegetables at the garden center, and it changed even more when we visited my parents and they sent us home with more. We now have broccoli, peppers, lettuce, cabbage, squash, cucumbers, zucchini, arugula, tomatoes, eggplant and onions. Here are some pictures as of this weekend.

This is our herb pot, it contains parsley, chives and cilantro.

These are white onions, once we put them in the pot they really began to grow tall. I cant wait to see how they turn out.


The pot on the left is our broccoli and on the right is arugula and a pepper plant.

On the left is 2 more peppers and on the right is more broccoli and some basil.

There were so many onions in the pack we did plant a few in the ground. Who knows if these will survivie.



This isn't a vegetable, but its a rose bush my granny gave me when Rod and I got married. This thing grows like you wouldnt believe. If I didnt trim it, it would be taller than the house. Last year I cut it back and it didnt do so well, and I was afraid I might have killed it, but this year it is growing strong as ever. I can't wait to see how many blooms it makes this year.

This also is not a vegetable, but I had to post this one too. This is a mum that Mike gave us a while back. I thought we had lost it but this year we fertilized it and it is taking off like crazy. I look forward to this one blooming in the fall.

Best Burgers Ever!

Lamb is expensive, but it is worth it. Easy Recipe:

Ingredients:

1 Pound of ground Lamb

Teaspoon of Oregano

Breadcrumbs

1 egg

Salt and Pepper to taste

Crumbled Feta Cheese

Half cup of diced Cucumber

Plain Yogurt

Half a teaspoon of fresh or dried Mint

Burger Buns

1. 1 Pound of ground Lamb

2. Mix Lamb with half a beaten egg, breadcrumbs, Oregano, Salt, Pepper and crumbled fetta cheese.

3. Make in patties

4. Grill!

5. For sauce, combine Yogurt, Mint and cucumber and drizzle on Burger

Date Nut Crunch Balls - Mama's Christmas Recipe

8 oz pitted dates (buy chopped and dusted in sugar)
1 cup brown sugar
1 stick margarine
2 cups rice crispies
1/2 cup nuts (use favorite type like pecans)
1/2 cup coconut

Mix dates, brown sugar and margarine in pan over low heat for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and add rice crispies, nuts and coconut. Stir until well mixed. When cool enough to handle, roll into balls and drop in pan with powdered sugar and set aside.

(Rods favorite, Not Cliftons Favorite)

Glamour Cookies (or Cranberry and White Chocolate Christmas Cookies)

1c all-purpose flour
½ cup super fine sugar
½ tsp baking powder
1 egg
1 cup rolled oats
½ tsp vanilla extract
1 stick plus 1 tbsp soft butter
½ cup dried cranberries
½ cup dark brown sugar
½ cup roughly chopped pecans
¾ cup white-chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Combine flour, baking powder and oats in a bowl.
In another bowl, beat together butter and sugars with an electric mixer until creamy.
Add egg and vanilla.
Beat in dry ingredients.
Fold in cranberries, pecans and chips.
Roll tablespoonfuls of dough into balls and place on a baking sheet lined with tinfoil.
Flatten each ball with a fork.
Bake for 15 minutes or until pale gold.
Let cool on a rack.
Drizzle cookies with melted white-chocolate.
Makes 3 dozen.

Nat's tips:
Cookies tend to take less than 15 minutes--usually between 11-13
minutes. They seem to keep baking on the foil but you can't move them
off the foil for a few minutes so better to pull them out a tad undone.
I used cherry crasions.
I buy extra white chocolate chips for the melting and drizzling.
I usually double the recipe.

(I have not made this recipe yet but just saved it here so I could try it one day. Thanks Natalie for sharing on facebook!)