Day nine broke to a pretty day in the upper mid-west farm country with a brisk breeze and a little chill in the air. By the afternoon, it was a little hazy due to the wind blowing up dust, the vehicles traveling gravel roads, and the web pic of harvesters bringing in the dried corn and soy beans (they just say beans around here).
We had a good crop of basil in our herb garden and with frost predicted, we decided to turn some of it into pesto to freeze. We used Ina Garten’s recipe for the pesto and I amended it for the amount of basil we had to get the recipe below.
Basil Pesto – Adapted from Ina Garten
Ingredients:
3/8 cup English walnuts
3/8 cup pine nuts, lightly toasted
5 tablespoons chopped garlic
7½ cups fresh basil leaves, packed tight
1½ teaspoon kosher salt
3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
2¼ cups good olive oil
1½ cup freshly grated Parmesan
Directions:
Place the walnuts, pine nuts, and garlic in the bowl of a
food processor fitted with a steel blade. Process for 30 seconds.
Add the basil leaves, salt, and pepper. With the processor
running, slowly pour the olive oil into the bowl through the feed tube and
process until the pesto is thoroughly pureed.
Add the Parmesan and puree for a minute. Serve, or freeze in half cup containers.
Continuing with day 7, for dinner, the Ethiopian restaurant that I had picked out from home didn't work out so Bev picked Crawford’s Bar & Grille in downtown Sioux Falls for an early supper and we were the first customers at 4:15 – we had skipped lunch. It turned out to be a pretty upscale place that included outdoor seating.
This day started the trip toward home and took us from Rugby, ND to Sioux Falls, SD to spend two nights. It was a 464 mile day so we got an early start and just ate leftovers and cheese & crackers for a quick lunch on the road. The drive took us back east on US-2 and south on I-29 which we had driven going to Rugby (I-29 only from Fargo). US-2 is a good, four-lane road with 70 mph speed limit and few vehicles. I think you would consider it as heavy traffic if you can look out your windshield and in your rear-view mirror and see more than two other vehicles.
There was a big difference in land from rolling terrain around Rugby to table top flat near Grand Forks and we saw some soybean harvesting happening and the wheat was done but there are lots of crops still standing ready.
We interrupt our trip to the Midwest for some other stuff.
We made some old-fashioned salmon cakes recently for supper
using canned salmon and we had a leftover that I turned into a breakfast
omelet. I chopped it up and reheated it
in butter and when it was hot, I moved it to one side of the pan and poured two
beaten eggs over it and the rest of the pan.
I added shredded cheddar to the non-salmon side of the pan, covered, and
cooked until the eggs were set. I slid
it out of the pan folding it into omelet shape as I did and topped with a
dollop of dill aioli to get this delicious breakfast.
The next day was spent in the Rugby area where we accomplished the reason for coming here, which was to see our little 68 acre piece of land that we bought several years ago (it's a long story) but have never seen. It turned out to be about 45 miles south of town and in the middle of nowhere. We had pretty good directions but still got lost and happened to stop at a home to ask for directions and it turned out this guy had sold the land to the person we bought it from (what are the chances) so he knew exactly how to get there. Here are pics of the land and the road it’s on starting from the top of the road and shooting east. In the distance you can see the pond (called sloughs here) and they are everywhere and at some point they are big enough to be called a lake and they are often dry.
On day four we drove from St. Cloud, MN to Rugby, ND to kill one of the birds with that one stone. I won’t go into the details but many years ago we ended up with a small piece of land near Rugby that we had never seen so since we were going all the way to Nebraska, we decided to go a little farther and see our little 68 acres - they farm by the square mile out in these parts.
Rugby’s claim to fame is that the geographical center of North America (Mexico, USA, and Canada) is located there. It was too cold and windy for us to pose with the marker.
The third day we drove from Madison, WI to St Cloud, MN via I-90 & I-94 and, just as the previous day, we saw fields and fields of corn and soybeans to the horizon ready to be harvested.
On day 2, we drove from Murphysboro, Il to Madison WI via US-51, I-74, I-39, and I-90 where I planned a stop in downtown Decatur, IL for lunch. Since we got an early start that morning, it was too early for lunch when we got to Decatur, so we went on up to Bloomington, IL and ate at Cracker Barrel – haven’t eaten at one in several years.
Our next leg took us to Madison WI for a stay at the Holiday Inn Express and supper but after discovering my restaurant of choice was closed, we opted to eat at the Northern Taphouse.
For supper on Day 1, we swung a little off the interstate path and went to Murphysboro, IL so we could have supper at 17th Street BBQ home of “The Legend.” Back in the days of my hobby BBQ business, I followed the world of competition BBQ pretty closely so I was very aware of Mike Mills. In the world of barbecue, champion pitmaster Mike Mills is affectionately known as “The Legend” and his specialty was pork ribs.
We’ve been trying to visit our daughter, Kathy, in Nebraska for a few years but with RV and other issues we have yet to make it, so this year we decided to go if at all possible. We tried to accomplish killing several birds with one stone (explained as we go) so we took a pretty convoluted way of getting from our place to Hartington, NE. I’ve always been a get from point A to point B traveler but for this trip, and taking a clue from friends Laurie and Dave (Big Daddy Dave we took a more leisurely pace (except coming home) and stopped for lunch vs. our usual of one stop for gas, fast-food, and bathroom. While Dave and Laurie generally take the back roads, I did mostly interstate as we had a bit of a time schedule to meet.
