Almost Heaven South & Mobile Photos

Kathy and her three daughters are here from Texas for their annual visit and she decided to take some photos to show her friends back home where she goes every year, so I decided to put them on here as well.

This first shot is while she is laying in bed in the downstairs sun room which is the bottom left of the second shot.

Than she walked around the yard and got some of the house and plant life.

She went up on the neighbors hill and shot this one of the whole place then the second one through the trees at the road.

One of the things she wanted the Texans to see was what real trees look like - of course the folks from California Redwood Country might say the same thing about ours.

This shot is of the Mobile Almost Heaven South - it's being prepped for our upcoming trip.  So far it has gotten a power surge protector, an upgraded fan in the bathroom and several little odds and ends items fixed on the coach and the front end was aligned.  What remains is having the chassis and generator serviced this week then start packing up.

As you can see by the tracks in the rocks, the driveway is not quite wide enough.

And finally, she got this shot of our cove and wished she had a ski boat to tackle the glassy water.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

6/28/15 event date

Chile/Salsa Verde

While consolidating from two to one freezer - yep, no need for two without the BBQ business - I discovered a piece of Hawaiian pork roast from our blogger party in 2013.  We had been wanting to make green chile so I went in search of a Chile Verde recipe and found one that sounded good at food.com and matched the ingredients we had on hand, or at least thought we did.  You can click on the link to check out the original recipe but below is what we made.

We decided we wanted to have some salsa verde on hand so we made an entire recipe of the sauce then added some to the diced pork to make the chile verde.  In the freezer, I had discovered what I believed was a bag of roasted chiles but they turned out to be roasted red sweet peppers.  So we ended up using them for in place of the yellow bell pepper and we used canned chiles for that part - I also grilled the tomatillos to char and soften them a little.  We started with only three quarts of chicken broth knowing we could add more as needed.

Salsa Verde - adapted from food.com

Ingredients

• 3 quarts chicken broth - homemade
• 3 lbs fresh tomatillos, husks removed and grilled to char and soften, remove to a bowl
• 2 large yellow onions
• 6 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 tablespoon sea salt
• fresh ground pepper, to taste
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin
• 1 can with 5 whole chiles and one small canned diced green chiles, with liquid
• 2 fresh jalapeno peppers, chopped with seeds
• 2 roasted red peppers from the freezer
• 1 cup cilantro leaf, coarsely chopped

• Directions

  1. In a large stock pot over high heat bring the chicken broth to a simmer and add the onion, garlic, peppers, cumin, S&P.  Cook until veggies are soft - about 30 minutes.
  2. While this is cooking, grill the tomatillos until charred a little and softened, remove to a bowl
  3. Add the tomatillos with bowl liquid, canned chilles with liquid, and cilantro to the blender and puree.
  4. Empty blender and puree the vegetables and broth from the pan.
  5. Add everything back to the pot, adjust seasonings and thickness (add more broth or cook down to get desired).  We liked it as it was and pronounced it ready to eat.

The sauce turned out to be very good but some of the meat in the chile verde tasted a little old - so no post about it.  While we used canned chiles, I believe roasting the tomatillos and using the roasted red peppers got plenty of that flavor into the mix.  And while the chile verde was just okay, what was very good were the burritos Bev made for breakfast from the salsa verde.  The first one was stuffed with sausage, eggs, and refried beans and the one below with smoked chicken, eggs, and hash browns.  I hadn't decided if I was going to post about the salsa until this burrito got delivered to me.

It was delicious and of course the star was the salsa verde - the red peppers took away from the brighter green color.  Since this batch turned out so good, I can imagine how good it will be when we have some good roasted Hatch chiles - hopefully picked up when we visit CO this year.  The rest of this salsa batch will go into the freezer for the next time we need a verde fix.

Thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Larry

6/12/15 meal date

2015 Western Trip Planning

One of the places in the country I've been to but never spent much tourist time is the Pacific Northwest and so it is on the docket for this years RV journey - this may be my dream trip.  The plan I've put together involves angling from home up into the area with a few stops along the way then coming home as we see fit at the time - if we do my full plan as laid out, it will be 10 weeks.

One of the hard parts of living in the East and going west is just getting out of this area and into where we want to go and that will take us several days with the only multi-day stop in North Platte, NE so this rail fan can visit the giant Union Pacific rail yard.

From there we will continue toward the northwest with 4-7 day stops in the following places:

1. Cody, WY - to see the town, the scenic mountain drives and the east side of Yellowstone,
2. Coeur D'Alene, ID - to see the town, the surrounding area, Spokane, WA
3. Ellensberg, WA - to see wine country, Bonneville dam, Lake Chelan, Leavenworth
4. Anacortes, WA - to see Seattle and the area north of it.
5. Shelton, WA - to see the Olympic Peninsula area and Mt Ranier
6. McMinnville. OR - to see wine country, the OR coast, the Columbia River gorge, and Portland
7. Bend OR - to the the local towns, the mountains, Crater Lake

We will leave Bend on day 53 and from there we will start back home and make it quick or slower depending on our desires but including a few days in Denver at a minimum.

Several of my NW blogger buddies have already given me many suggestions and I read several blogs of folks who spend time there, but I would still appreciate any advice that anyone has to offer.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.

Larry