2016 Western Trip – Days 34-35 – Gunnison

If you followed along during this summers Colorado trip, you may recall my computer crashed so I was missing some posts that I had already writtren up.  My buddy Joe has recoved the info from the old computer hard drive and I wanted to go ahead and post these for documentation sake - I'll leave them up for a couple of days then put them back in the correct order - this is last of three.

Our first full day in Gunnison was devoted to relaxing and going out for a late breakfast at the W Café on Main Street – breakfast served all day.  Bev had the breakfast burrito which was pretty tasty but not warm enough.

Pat had the Chicken Fried Steak Sandwich with tater tots but she thought the meat was not as tender as it should have been and with a large piece of gristle.

I had the chicken fried steak breakfast with hash browns, fried eggs, and a biscuit.

While the girls were just okay with their meals and my steak had a little gristle in it, I thought it was delicious – the steak was crispy and well flavored, the white gravy was tasty, the hash browns and my eggs were cooked just right and the jumbo biscuit was very good.

Even though the girls were disappointed, I would have gone back and ordered the same meal in a heartbeat until I had the leftovers for the next day’s breakfast.  I must have eaten the good meat the first day because my leftovers and Pat’s we almost inedible from the amount of gristle.  I ate what I could – about half it and we cut up the rest into small pieces and gave it to the dogs – they don’t chew it anyway.  While the restaurant has very good reviews, you only get one chance to make a first impression and since it wasn’t favorable, we won’t need to go back.

It was raining the next day so the girls went to Gunnison to check out the shopping and I made supper using two recent recipes from blogger buddies.  I had been craving grilled center cut pork chops and we had some western slope peaches in the fridge, so when Heather at Rocky Mountain Cooking posted her recipe for Southwest Beer Brined Pork and Peach Salsa, I was all over it.  Since the girls don’t like anything beer and Bev’s heat tolerance has gone way down due to a mouth issue, I opted to use a basic brine recipe including some BigB’s Semi Sweet Hard Cider.  The recipe I have used for about 3 years with good results is:

12 oz hard apple cider, cold

2 cups water, divided

3/4 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup coarse kosher salt

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp cumin

Add about 1½ cups of water and the dry ingredients to a bowl and microwave until the salt and sugar dissolve.  Add enough ice to bring to two cups and stir until ice melts.  Pour into a container and stir in the cider.

Mine was plenty cold at this point so I added the chops and put in the fridge for about five hours  - I put a small plate on top to sink the top chop.  I removed them about an hour prior to cooking so they could come to room temperature.

For the peach salsa, I used Heather’s recipe as written except I used white onion – check her blog for the complete recipe.

To go with the meat, I made a half recipe of Tricia’s Cheesy Corn Casserole with Jalapeños from Saving Room for Dessert.  I won’t copy the recipe here so check it out on her site along with plenty of good shots.  I made it per the recipe except I omitted the sugar – we had bought some fresh western slope sweet corn from the local roadside market.

The pork, salsa and casserole were all delicious.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

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

Larry

8/22 – 8/23/16 event dates