Steak and Pepper Stir Fry And Chicken Waldorf Salad

I’m working on reducing our frozen food inventory (again) and when I saw this recipe for Steak and Pepper Stir Fry, I knew it would get some freezer burned beef out of the freezer and prevent some of our recently picked peppers from going in.  A one pan stir-fry meal works well for our Friday group and Mary’s recipe from her “Vegetable Recipes” blog fit the bill.  I used beef tenderloin which I grilled over high heat for a couple of minutes to add another layer of flavor.  The original recipe with great pics like the one below can be found by clicking on the above link.

Awesome Fried Bologna For Breakfast

We stopped by Benton’s Country Ham’s the other day so Eric could pick up some ham and bacon for his friends back home and Bev decided to buy a few thick slices of good bologna for frying so I decided to try some for breakfast.  The creation was an open-faced fried bologna breakfast sandwich.  It began with a slice of Bev’s homemade bread coated with Duke’s mayonnaise.

A Little Fall Boat Ride

Due to several factors, we took our first ride on the pontoon boat last week in hopes of seeing some fall colors along the lake.  Passengers included Cindy and two of her great grandchildren, Michael and Lily, Pat, Bev, and me and of course three dogs.

Unfortunately, we have very few native maple trees around here so most of our color is provided by golden hickories.  The overcast day also muted the tree colors and the first shot is heading out of our cove.

Rotisserie Chickens And Visit With Eric & Matthew

The last time I cooked a rotisserie chicken in April, 2020, we thought it was very good and I’ve been looking forward to doing it again.  Before, I cooked one 5½ lb. chicken and I wanted to use two smaller ones this time but could only find 2½ - 3 lb. fryers at Knoxville’s Fresh Market so I bought a couple a while back, stuck them in the freezer and hoped the burner was long enough to cook them together.

Mushroom Swiss Burgers

The burgers you see on many TV cooking shows from restaurants look more like a slightly flattened meatball than a burger patty and as thick as they are, it’s impossible to add many condiments and be able to get your mouth around the sandwich, unless you are Guy Fieri (Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives) who seems to have a giant mouth.  This makes an impressive pic but hard to eat without destroying it.

Day Trip To Carver’s Apple House And Restaurant

Carver’s Apple House and Restaurant is located near Cosby Tennessee (a wide spot in the road nestled in the mountains about 20 miles northeast of Gatlinburg) and is the retail arm of a 75 acre orchard with 40,000 trees and 126 varieties of apples.  

Pepperoni Pizza Pasta

I really like Kevin’s recipes and I really like pasta and I really like pepperoni pizza and I really like one dish meals so when I saw the recipe for Pepperoni Pizza Pasta on his “Closet Cooking” blog, I knew it was a must try and I thought it would be perfect for our Friday evening get together.  For gluten intolerant buddy, Joe, I decided to make one batch with gnocchi and one with pasta (Bev’s preference), so I doubled everything but the pasta and used both ground beef and Italian sausage to get the recipe below.  I also changed the cooking instructions quite a bit  You can click on the above link for Kevin’s original recipe and I thought it was brilliant to cook the bacon and pepperoni first then cook everything else in the same grease with all that flavor.

Grilled Dry Rub Honey Mustard Salmon

It’s been a while and I was ready for some seafood and had a nice looking wild caught sockeye salmon fillet in the freezer that I wanted to try with a new recipe.  I looked thru my saved recipes and found the recipe for Grilled Dry Rub Honey Mustard Salmon from Chef Dennis in his “Ask Chef Dennis” blog that looked interesting and I had all of the ingredients.  Since I had about three times as much salmon as the recipe called for, I tripled the rub and sauce ingredients to get the recipe below.  Once it thawed, I realized why it weighed so much – I had two fillets so I did them both.  The original recipe can be found by clicking on the above link.

Carne Adovada & Charro Beans

I don’t normally think of the Pacific Northwest as a hot bed for Hispanic food but both or these dishes came from Portland, OR and from the same source.  While I had made both of these dishes before I wanted to try the recipes for Carne Adovada & Charro Beans ala Pam from her “For The Love Of Cooking” blog.  By necessity, I made a couple of ingredient changes as noted in ().  The original recipes can be found by clicking on the above links. 

Home Made Corned Beef

We’ve been buying corned beef lately but I’m usually disappointed with the small size and the last one we cooked was about one third fat and the whole thing only made four Reubens.  So, I decided to get back into making my own using the 13.64 lb. choice brisket I had in the freezer and that was bought on sale for $1.99/lb. 

Sweetwater RV Rally, Wrap-Up, Campground Review, & Scrapple

Our four-day, five-night rally began on Sunday night and officially ended when people departed on Friday morning and I believe I can say we took in about all of the available sites to see in the Sweetwater area.  Our attendance for this rally varied between 15 and 19 attendees which I thought was good for a rally so close to home.

The Sweetwater KOA was a very pleasant surprise both from a facilities standpoint and how we were treated as the management bent over backwards to make us feel welcome and attend to our needs.  The park has 66 sites with a full range of lengths and several holiday sites – they were well spaced so as not to feel crowded.  They also had seven cabins which one of our couples used and liked.  Our site.