In my backyard….Original Del Taco

We go to Vegas A lot!  I do have to say that after all these years that drive still intrigues me.  There are secret places that people do not even exist…Are you kidding me??????  you are probably saying right now.  No, I am serious!  Take this for instance; did you know that the FIRST Del Taco was in Yermo?  Yermo,?????where in the world is that????


Yermo is located on Interstate 15, 17 miles from Barstow and is where the California agriculture inspection station for traffic heading south on Interstate 15.  Very close to the U.S. Army base at Ft. Irwin.
This is where a secret comes in….when you drive home from Vegas you will ALWAYS hit traffic around the inspection road, take Harvard Road exit turn left and then right at the stop sign and travel along the feeder road parallel to the freeway.  It will save you a lot of time and a whole lot of aggravation. When you are traveling, take a look  on the right hand side, you will see the Burger Den which was where the original Del Taco was.
The road goes all the way to Calico Road where the old mining town is now called Calico Ghost Town.  There you will find a couple of gas stations (by the way, they are the cheapest, that is where we stop and get gas) and a Jack in the Box, where we normally stop and get a quick bite to eat, too! Then proceed to the 15 and head on out! 
We try to help out little towns that try to keep their head above the water or rather their nose. 
History lesson: 

“When Interstate 15 freeway opened in 1968, the town of Yermo was immediately bypassed by traffic traveling to and from Las Vegas, Nv. As a result, 90 percent of the local business's were unable to succeed and closed. During it's heyday, Yermo had 27 gas stations with mechanics on duty, 7 bars, 2 grocery stores, a hardware store, a pizza shop, 4 real estate offices, 3 motels, a thrift store, several restaurants, roadside camping sites and 2 parks.^[ In 2009, Yermo played host to 1 grocery/general store, 1 bar, 1 thrift store and 1 park in town and 3 restaurants, 4 gas stations, 1 motel 3 miles south of town. The fast-food restaurant Del Taco was founded in Yermo in 1964 and the original structure remains active as a local fast food restaurant, The Burger Den.”

It really hurts my heart to see this town sleepy.  But great things did come out of here and we are so happy to see this landmark.  Who knew! 

Cabbage with Leeks

I looked at my calendar and saw that St. Patrick's Day was on the 17th, which is tomorrow! You ask, do I celebrate St. Patty's Day?  Only when it comes to food. Give me any holiday and I will think of a meal to go with it, Halloween ='s chili, Easter ='s Ham, Cinco de Mayo='s Tacos, My Birthday ='s crab, 4th of July ='s ribs, see it's that easy!

So, on the 17th when everyone is eating Corned Beef, I do as well, (my findings will be on another post) what do you serve with it? Cabbage of course, but how blah!!!!!!
I found the most incredible recipe from a cookbook my sister sent to me years ago. Actually, of all the hundred's of cookbooks I own, this is one of my favorite's. It is called the Greenbrier Cookbook from the Greenbrier Hotel in West Virginia. I love cookbooks that have history, stories, pictures and of course, great recipes! I made this not knowing the incredible flavor it would have and the requests I have for the recipes is soooo much I have them on note cards to give to my guests when they ask (which is every time).

Simple but elegant: Here is my gift to you for St. Patrick's Day:

Savoy Cabbage and Leeks in Cream
(Don't worry I don't know what Savoy cabbage is either, I just used regular cabbage, just as good)

1 medium head Savoy Cabbage (1 1/2 pounds), cored, and tough outer leaves discarded
1 1/2 Ounces Bacon (about 3 strips) cut into 1/2" strips
5 Medium Leeks (2 pounds) white part only, split and cut into 1/2" slices
3/4 cup Chicken Broth, preferably homemade
3/4 cup of heavy cream
Salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
Few drops of lemon juice

Separate the cabbage leaves. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil and blanch the leaves by boiling them for about 2 minutes. Drain, then refresh under cold running water and pat dry with paper towel. Stack several leaves together and roll them up like a cigar and slice crosswise into 1/4" strips.

In a large saucepan, cook the bacon strips over medium heat until the fat is rendered and the bacon is almost crispy, 3-4 minutes. Drain off most of the fat leaving 2 tablespoons. Add the sliced leeks to the bacon and saute over medium high heat, stirring until slightly softened, about 3 minutes.

Add the cabbage and saute for another minute, stirring to combine the ingredients. Add the stock, season with salt and pepper, cover and simmer, stirring frequently, until the leeks and cabbage are tender, about 20 minutes. Remove the lid, add the cream and simmer uncovered another 10-15 minutes to reduce the cream until slightly thickened. (The mixture should be very creamy, but not runny). Add a few drops of lemon juice, taste, and correct seasoning.

Serve hot.

Now, in regards to the leeks, it took me until this recipe before I tackled these unknown things. What are they? Huge onions, well in a form, yes. So, I took these aliens home, cut them like they said and thought, "wait a minute, I remember something about sand and dirt being in them from the Food Channel". Good thing I remembered that, so I soaked them and boy the dirt and sand that came off of them!!! Please do this because your side dish is not to have crunchies in them! Make sure you swish them when they are soaking and rinse thoroughly!

Let me know your thoughts on the recipe once you make it, I promise this will be a favorite of yours and it makes you look really good!

In My Backyard..Windmills

Here is a post of what I think is one of the wonders of the new world.
Andy and I drove down to Palm Springs for the day, considering it is only an hour and a half away.  Seeing that it was 45 here on Saturday and 75 there, it was time to go have a nice lunch OUTSIDE.  We have a favorite Irish Pub we go to, sit and have a nice lunch and watch people walk by. 
When we are heading home after a lovely afternoon, I always marvel at the windmills that are row after row after row.  The first time I ever saw them was in a movie in the 80’s who I remember had Michelle Phieffer in it  and I thought where in the world are those?  Does anyone remember the movie?  Could it be Tequila Sunrise?  Don’ know….Now they are one of my favorite things to see.  

Can you hear the wind when these are moving?

There are thousands of these lined up.  Man o man are these a sight!
I am so blessed to live where I live.   I never take it for granted….Until the next “In My Backyard”.   I encourage you to go out and explore what is “IN your backyard”.  Let people see through your pictures what you see, you would be surprised once you open and see what is around you. 

The Winner Is....

Well, I have a winner. After picking the name AT RANDOM, the winner is JEANNE! Congratulations!!! Contact me and I will be more than happy to get you the prize! I know you will love them and thank you for following my blog!

Now, everyone, I will try to start having giveaways on a weekly basis, so keep tuned and and let's play!

Have a great week and keep watching!

Springtime giveaway…well almost spring, but definitely a giveaway!

I used to think that March was the boringest (is that a word????) month.  However, THIS March is sooo cool.  Why?

1. Time Change, March 14th
2. St. Patrick’s Day is March 17th
3. 1st day of Spring is March 20th
4. Palm Sunday is March 28th
5. Passover is March 30th
6. Not to mention the desert flowers are going to be in full bloom (getting ready to plan a trip to take photos if anyone is interested, let me know, it is going to be awesome with all the rain this year, WOW).

With March busting out at the seams, I wanted to have a little giveaway.  I am going to be giving away two dip mixes from Pepper Springs:

These are my best sellers when I do craft fairs, they are yummy

So, how do you get these little gems?  Well, this is where the fun comes in.  For my faithful followers it will be easy, but for the newbies it is defiantly hunt and peck. 

Here ya go:

On one of my older posts, I mention the name of one our tenacious chickens getting out when we had the “epic snow storm”  What is her name? 

I will pick the winner (with the correct answer)  and you may enter as many times as you wish.  The drawing will be COMPLETELY random and will be drawn on Monday March 8th.  I wish you luck and have fun……

JSBBL (doesn’t this look like Jezebel)……hum…may need to think of another way to end. my post.

Another fireplace, MORE Construction?!!!

I truly am addicted to fireplaces, looked in the phone book,  Googled and nothing for fireplace addicts!!!  This past BAD storm has made us change some of the ways we live and with some of the things we have.
Now last year, we put in a fireplace in our bedroom:

LUUVVVLYYY!!  I am extremely happy with it, and it worked when our power was out for 36 hours!!!
Well, the one we have in our living room:  

(I know it is blurry, this picture was taken when the power was out) Not a lot of light.
Was OK for the most part, but not for a lot of reasons:

1. The fireplace was on the ground, no hearth to sit at, but your feet kept warm if you sat and put your feet close to the fire!
2. It never heated up past 62 degrees therefore, the heater came on all the time!  It USED SOO MUCH GAS!  We live on propane and it is as expensive as gold!  So we try to use it as sparingly as possible, especially when we are low, the gas truck has to get here to fill it and with the mud as bad as it is, they have a REALLY good chance of getting stuck!  I am sitting here now and watching the bag that we have over the pipe (lovely) move into the pipe.  I know that is where our heat was going!!!  Thief!  
3. The amount of heat coming out of the fireplace was probably 3% and 97 going up and out!
4. It was just plain and U-G-L-Y!

Well did a lot of homework and decided on a gorgeous unit that will be an enclosed unit that will heat the entire home!!!
Let the construction begin:::We have a BIG HOLE!

But first take a look at the wall unit we had made and installed this past week, it is so nice!  I LUUVVE it!  Nicer than the shelves I had there on a“temporary” basis.  I didn’t even really see how ugly it was until I took pictures of the fireplace and noticed all the wires in the back!  UGGG!

All gone!
Now being married to an electrical contractor gives me some privileges that a lot of people don’t have, uh like having an electrician in my home all the time…

With all the construction being done, I asked Andy, “How about adding some speakers throughout the house”?.  He said ok, (little did he know that I was going to ask for FOUR sets).  I love music!  Well now, how about running wires so I can hook up my laptop to the TV?  Again, OK.   Alright we are getting somewhere, about about running another set of cables just in case I want to ad more components to it at a later date. Again OK!!  Wow!  I just didn’t think it would be THAT many wires!!!  Wow!  I am so grateful he is patient. Especially when it came to connecting all the wires Whew!
See, we never seem to be done with projects, and I say “NEVER be done with projects”  Where’s my banner??
I will post more pictures in stages starting when they have finished with installing the fireplace .  

Diary of a snow shoveler

I laughed so hard that my sides hurt!!!! Tears rolled off my face!!!

I truly believe Andy wrote this.....


DIARY OF A SNOW SHOVELER

December 8 - 6:00 PM
It started to snow. The first snow of the season and the wife and I took our cocktails and sat for hours by the window watching the huge soft flakes drift down from heaven. It looked like a Grandma Moses Print. So romantic we felt like newlyweds again. I love snow!

December 9
We woke to a beautiful blanket of crystal white snow covering every inch of the landscape. What a fantastic sight! Can there be a more lovely place in the whole world? Moving here was the best idea I've ever had! Shoveled for the first time in years and felt like a boy again. I did both our driveway and the sidewalks. This afternoon the snowplough came along and covered up the sidewalks and closed in the driveway, so I got to shovel again. What a perfect life!

December 12
The sun has melted all our lovely snow... Such a disappointment! My neighbor tells me not to worry- we'll definitely have a white Christmas. No snow on Christmas would be awful! Bob says we'll have so much snow by the end of winter, that I'll never want to see snow again. I don't think that's possible. Bob is such a nice man, I'm glad he's our neighbor.

December 14
Snow, lovely snow! 8 inches last night. The temperature dropped to -20. The cold makes everything sparkle so. The wind took my breath away, but I warmed up by shoveling the driveway and sidewalks. This is the life! The snowplough came back this afternoon and buried everything again.. I didn't realize I would have to do quite this much shoveling, but I'll certainly get back in shape this way. I wish I wouldn't huff and puff so.


December 15
20 inches forecast. Sold my van and bought a 4x4 Blazer. Bought snow tires for the wife's car and 2 extra shovels. Stocked the freezer. The wife wants a wood stove in case the electricity goes out. I think that's silly. We aren't in Alaska , after all.
December 16
Ice storm this morning. Fell on my ass on the ice in the driveway putting down salt. Hurt like hell. The wife laughed for an hour, which I think was very cruel.


December 17
Still way below freezing. Roads are too icy to go anywhere. Electricity was off for 5 hours. I had to pile the blankets on to stay warm. Nothing to do but stare at the wife and try not to irritate her. Guess I should've bought a wood stove, but won't admit it to her. God I hate it when she's right. I can't believe I'm freezing to death in my own living room.


December 20
Electricity's back on, but had another 14 inches of the damn stuff last night. More shovelling! Took all day. The damn snowplough came by twice. Tried to find a neighbor kid to shovel, but they said they're too busy playing hockey. I think they're lying. Called the only hardware store around to see about buying a snow blower and they're out. Might have another shipment in March. I think they're lying. Bob says I have to shovel or the city will have it done and bill me. I think he's lying.

December 22
Bob was right about a white Christmas because 13 more inches of the white shit fell today, and it's so cold, it probably won't melt till August. Took me 45 minutes to get all dressed up to go out to shovel and then I had to piss. By the time I got undressed, pissed and dressed again, I was too tired to shovel. Tried to hire Bob who has a plough on his truck for the rest of the winter, but he says he's too busy. I think the asshole is lying.


December 23
Only 2 inches of snow today. And it warmed up to 0. The wife wanted me to decorate the front of the house this morning. What is she, nuts?!! Why didn't she tell me to do that a month ago? She says she did but I think she's lying.


December 24
6 inches - Snow packed so hard by snowplough, I broke the shovel. Thought I was having a heart attack. If I ever catch the son of a bitch who drives that snow plough, I'll drag him through the snow by his balls and beat him to death with my broken shovel. I know he hides around the corner and waits for me to finish shovelling and then he comes down the street at a 100 miles an hour and throws snow all over where I've just been! Tonight the wife wanted me to sing Christmas carols with her and open our presents, but I was too busy watching for the damn snowplough.


December 25
Merry f---ing Christmas! 20 more inches of the damn slop tonight - Snowed in. The idea of shovelling makes my blood boil.. God, I hate the snow! Then the snowplough driver came by asking for a donation and I hit him over the head with my shovel. The wife says I have a bad attitude. I think she's a fricking idiot. If I have to watch "It's A Wonderful Life" one more time, I'm going to stuff her into the microwave.


December 26
Still snowed in. Why the hell did I ever move here? It was all HER idea. She's really getting on my nerves.

December 27
Temperature dropped to -30 and the pipes froze; plumber came after 14 hours of waiting for him, he only charged me $1,400 to replace all my pipes.

December 28
Warmed up to above -20. Still snowed in. The BITCH is driving me crazy!!!


December 29
10 more inches. Bob says I have to shovel the roof or it could cave in. That's the silliest thing I ever heard. How dumb does he think I am?


December 30
Roof caved in. I beat up the snow plough driver, and now he is suing me for a million dollars, not only the beating I gave him, but also for trying to shove the broken snow shovel up his ass. The wife went home to her mother. Nine more inches predicted.


December 31
I set fire to what's left of the house. No more shoveling.


January 8
Feel so good. I just love those little white pills they keep giving me. Why am I tied to the bed?

Homemade Italian Sausage!

There have been many times that I have wanted to post the different types of food that I love to make.  Not only the great recipes but with the great pictures.
I have wanted to make homemade Italian sausage for a very long time and finally decided to get on the internet and look up different recipes.  The one I most like is from a guy named Tom Papoutsis and he is on monkey see.com.  He has a few clips with GREAT instructions.
So when the storm was in the throws of being ugly and we had electricity, Andy and I decided to try it, what the heck. But way before this day I had to……
First, I had to order the meat grinder for my Kitchenaid Mixer and the sausage maker.  Now I could have gone down the mountain to get these at like Kohl’s or any department store that carries Kitchenaid.    The order took almost 2 months to get to me!  But I finally got it, now what?  I then went to the grocery store and ordered natural casings from the butcher.

It would be easier to go to an Italian Market and get them.  Ordering them took time and was quite expensive.  So, now I have almost three months into this project and I haven’t even started yet!
Well, here is the recipe we followed:

8 pounds Pork Butt or also called Pork Shoulder – both are the same.


Try to get the pork on sale, see I got it for 89 cents a pound!  Now that is a lot of sausage for a little bit of money!

9 cloves of garlic –minced
Dry Spices:

• 1 Tsp Kosher Salt
• 1 Tsp Dried Basil
• 2 Tsp Dried Oregano
• 2 Tsp Paprika
• 2 Tsp Red Pepper (Pizza Pepper)
• 2 Tsp Cayenne
• 1 Tsp Rosemary Leaves
• 2 Tsp Cracked black pepper
• 2 Tsp Fennel Seed ( I grounded mine)

Secret Ingredient:  1 Cup White Wine
Directions:
9:30AM  Take the casings out of the bag.  They are incased with salt.  You will have to rinse and rinse and rinse them.  Follow the directions  on the back. They have to soak for two hours. There are over 50 feet of casings!  This was the really strange part and it will even get stranger as this story goes!

11:20AM  Take the pork butt and cut into chunks.  I didn’t take out the fat due to what I found out, see Italian sausage that you buy in the store is about 50% fat.  The pork butt that you buy in the store is between 25 and 30% fat.  I just didn’t use the big slab of fat on the back part, but used the marbling throughout without getting crazy to cut it out. 



Put it into the meat grinder on the larger of the two blades, put the motor on 4 and let it go!  Make sure you have a bowl underneath it to catch the meat.  Even the simplest things get by me sometimes.

  

It gets messy with the grinding of the fat with the meat, you may need to stop it a couple of times and clean it out.  ( I had to). 
Once it is all grinded that is when you start to add your ingredients.  Make sure you take off your rings or you just may lose it in the mix.  It mixes really easy, just be thorough in the mixture

To make sure you have enough ingredients, you can take a little and make a patty to fry up and taste before you doing the second grinding.

 

I needed to add more heat, good thing I checked.


So now you are ready for the second grinding:
This is where it becomes a work of art!  WOW!  I would suggest as with the first grinding and second, work at a table that is lower than a counter.  my shoulders were killing me when I was done!  Because you are literally working over your shoulders, Whew!I am going to show you how to make sausage links.
I did this because I wanted to try to make authentic sausages.  Been there, done that, and DON’T WANT TO DO THAT AGAIN!  Note to self:  Self, next time make patties out of it, it is A LOT easier!!!!

When the casing were finally finished, we put it on the sausage maker, let’s just say we tried and tried and tried, but it finally worked.  What a pain!  
We worked on length of casing on it and stuffed the mixer and away we went, well not exactly away we went it was sort of ----what the hell?!!!!!
I didn’t take any pictures of the actual filling of the casings due to the fact I was using my hands and Andy’s too.  We only had four hands and the camera would have been gross!

We used only four strands and I didn’t know if we could of saved the unused ones so I threw them out,  when in doubt, throw them out.  I just found out yesterday that I could have froze them and it would have been fine.  (I thought to myself, “Yeah like that would have happened then I could have used them again, yeah like that would of happened!) SEE NOTE TO SELF!!!!
We only split a couple and I didn’t take into consideration about the uniform links, some large, some small and a lot were ugly.  I want to take a picture of them in a circle and that is what I did. That will be the last time I make links, I had to save that picture.
I took cookie sheets and laid them out and partially froze them.  Then I took them and but them into bags and stuck them into the freezer. 

I grabbed some and took them over to our friends home for Super Bowl.  They were a hit especially when people found out that you made them yourselves. 
It took me about 2.5 hours from the time I started with cutting the pork until they were stuffed.  You probably could cut out about 45 minutes if you didn’t stuff the casings.
I look forward to making them again, but this time patties please. 

Update Notes: 
I have made patties since then and cut out all the fat, oh boy you need fat for these babies.  Way too dry, however, they were excellent in spaghetti sauce, but too dry to eat by themselves. 

In My Backyard…Events of the past storm!

Now I haven’t been able to write about all the havoc we  have been here in the mountains.  I knew this year we would have El Nino and it would pretty bad, but I had no idea that it would be THIS bad!

Like I said in my other post, we had a series of storms that dumped over 5 feet of snow in just a couple of days. 

We were out of power for 36 hours due to wind gusts that went over the lake at 80 miles an hour and sheared eight power poles like toothpicks.  Here is a picture of them, if you look at the back of the picture you will see one power pole down,.  They closed the road in order to work around the clock to get them up and God Bless the electric company.

I had to take this with my cell phone after trekking as far as I could before being asked to leave and trek back to my truck.  (hey that was kind of funny).

 

Well that is were funny stopped.  The first night wasn’t so bad with not having electricity, used a lot of candles and fires in the fireplace.  But the next morning, OH MY LORD!  Here are some pictures of what we woke up to:

Beautiful  isn’t it?  Now you ask about the chickens, what happens to them when there is this much snow?

Well, take a look at their chicken run:

What do chickens do when there is this much snow? 

Andy went out there to shovel a path so at least the chickens could get out and when he went to the back guess who was looking right at him at eye level?  Susie Loo Who!  Can you believe it?  She pecked at the snow a little at a time until she reached the top of it!  Aren’t chickens amazing!!!  Unfortunately, since the storm they have only laid one egg, it traumatized them. 

We are having another storm come in tonight and is supposed to last for the next few days, so here we go again, however, I don’t believe it will be as bad or even near as bad as this last epic storm. 

It feels so good to have the internet back, just makes me so nervous to be so dependant on this machine, I don’t ever want to be without it again, I felt I was all by myself on a mountain that was snowed in…wait a minute……..