Thanksgiving and the return of the coffee beans

Thanksgiving has a specific picture in my mind of 70 members of my family eating massive quantities of food and getting as much quality time crammed into one weekend as we possibly can... it is something that we all look forward to all year and as November approaches you get a little more excited about it each day. It was truly difficult not to see my family this weekend but we still had a great day! Our dear new friends, Todd and Jenny Moore, invited us over to spend the day with them. We had more food than 12 people could possibly eat (love Thanksgiving leftovers!) and great fellowship. Jeff was, once again, the big toy for the kids so after a day of cooking and playing we came home full, tired, happy and thankful for our day.

As we reflect on the last year we see some truly difficult times in the loss of our close friend Kelly and the loss of our baby... but the thing that really stands out in our mind is how thankful we are to have a God who carries us through these times, to be able to rejoice in the truth that Kelly and our little one are in the presence of the Almighty and that we have the hope of Christ to rejoice in ALWAYS. We discussed many things that we are thankful for this afternoon so I could give you a list from each of us but the above is what stood out the most.

Back by popular demand (and also just because I miss them) are our coffee beans... the blog is a bit different than it was and hopefully will soon see a few more changes but, at least for now, the coffee beans will remain :)

Here are a couple of pictures from our day:

Comments

So, some insight into Jeff and I with the blog. We write a blog and then proceed to stalk the comments section to see if anyone is reading it and what they might have to say about it :) Sad, I know, but what I also believe is the result of living so far from our family and friends. I know that not everyone has a blog so it can be difficult to figure out how to leave a comment, fortunately our friend Molly has already written a blog explaining how to go about this and this is the link to that explanation http://gtrankandfamily.blogspot.com/2008/10/want-to-get-set-up-to-leave-comments-on.html.

We are going to miss spending Thanksgiving with our Texas family but will be attempting to recreate some of the amazing food that will be there. We plan to have pictures up on the blog with our first Montana Thanksgiving and hope it will not be to terribly long before we can visit.

We want to say congratulations to Tim and Liz on the arrival of our niece Michala Eve Grissom, we are so excited and can not wait to meet her. Her arrival (and a little peer pressure from us) has inspired The Chronicles of Grissom, a new blog that we will be following.

Let us know what you think of the new blog design, there is a place where you can vote to the right of this blog under the list of followers.

Happy Thanksgiving a few days early, hope everyone has a fantastic week!

Recipe 6

I made these the night before we went hunting and I have already made them again, one of Jeff's new favorite items:

Apple Pie Muffins

2 1/4 cups flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt

1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup butter
1 tsp. vanilla
1 egg [beaten]
1 cup buttermilk or sour cream [or substitute]

2 cups diced peeled apples
1/2 cup raisins
1/2 cup chopped apricots or prunes [optional]

Topping
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup chopped walnuts [or pecans]
1/3 cup flour
1 tsp. cinnamon
2 Tbsp. melted butter [or olive oil]

Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl. Cream brown sugar and butter. Add vanilla, egg, and buttermilk. Mix well. Add wet to dry and sprinkle with diced apples. Stir just enough to moisten dry ingredients. Mix first four topping ingredients, drizzle butter over and toss with a fork. Spoon batter into large greased muffin tin - filling only 3/4 full. Sprinkle topping on top and put another spoonful of batter on top. Or - stir topping ingredients into batter until just barely blended in and spoon batter into muffin tin. Bake at 375 F for about 25 min.

[Buttermilk substitute - 1 Tbsp. vinegar and 1 cup of milk. Let sit for 5 minutes]

THE HUNTRESS

2008 continues to be an astonishing hunting season. LeeAnn and I got up early and went hunting this morning and by 4:00 pm we had a deer and an elk in the back of the truck. The Elk have been hunted pretty hard this year and are quite spooky so it took us a while to find them. . . quite a while, but I was able to knock a cow down shortly after noon. After she was in the truck we went down to the lower part of the ranch and I am very proud to report that LeeAnn shot her first deer shortly thereafter. It's a sweet first deer too actually it's just a sweet deer period. He is a nice four point mule deer and unfortunately for him he was more interested in chasing does around than he was in running away from my wife's bullet. LeeAnn made a nice shot nice shot and down he went. Here are some pictures

Rouladen is RAD!

I know I just posted a dead deer recipe and some of you may not have any dead deer to cook, but rest assured this works on dead cows too. This stuff is great!! Thanks to my sister in law Suedee for sending it. . .

Here's the rouladen recipe: Slice the round steak or roast thin (about 1/4 in. Make sure it is a very lean cut of meat) cut into pieces about 4in. by 6in. and pound each side well. spread with mustard and salt and pepper. put a slice of raw bacon on meat and a thin slice of onion and roll up and secure with toothpicks or cooking string. brown in a little oil on all sides. Put in a dutch oven pot or slow cooker and add water or beef broth (I use water with beef broth base) and simmer 2-3 hours with a lid on the pot or in slow cooker on low all day. If the liquid gets low in the pot add more. It needs to cook until the meat gets tender. We also like to add mushrooms at some point. The broth becomes gravy so you serve the meat rolls with the gravy on the side. Let me know if you have any questions. It's not an exact recipe...just passed down in our family.

Deer Chili

I got my deer back from the meat shop Saturday and while LeeAnn is typically the chef in the family, I do make a pretty good deer chili so I thought I would share the recipe. You will need:

2 LBS Ground Venison
1 Onion Diced
2 jalapeño peppers split in two with seeds removed
2 cans of tomato sauce
2 cans of kidney beans (I like to do one light and one dark for looks)
2 cans of Rotel Tomatoes or 2 cans of diced tomatoes depending on how spicy you like things (not everyone is from TX)
2 packages of McCormick chili seasoning (I use the stuff with 30% less sodium)

The most important step is to smoke the frozen deer burger and the jalapeños in your BBQ over Mesquite chips. I usually do this by putting a bunch of soaked mesquite chips over the flame guard and turning the heat to low. Smoke the meat and peppers for about 20 minutes, this will mostly thaw the burger and it helps get rid of the any gamy flavor.

Once the meat and peppers have been smoked, dice the peppers and place the meat, onions, and peppers into a stock pot and brown the meat over medium heat. Once the meat is browned, add the remaining ingredients (drain and rinse the beans first) Let the concotion simmer for 20 minutes or more and serve with cheese and sour cream. It should feed four or five adults no problem devide the recipe in half for two people. Happy hunting.

Jeff

My Dad

Last week my Dad called and said that if we were available he could come for a visit on Sunday and Monday and, thankfully, it was the perfect weekend for a visit. He arrived Saturday night, Sunday we went to church and took Dad to see where we work, watched the Broncos (ugh), ate good food and ended with a trip to Red Lodge. It was a good time and I am so glad that the trip worked out! Here are just a couple of pictures from our weekend:

Recipe 5 Kori's Baby Shower :)

Last Sunday we had a baby shower for my friend Kori, it was a lot of fun (I'll throw a party with Abby any day!). Below are some of my favorite pictures and below that are the recipes for the sandwiches I made, enjoy :)

Goat Cheese Cucumber Sandwiches



The spread is soft goat cheese, cream cheese (more goat cheese than cream cheese), crushed garlic, fresh thyme and parsley, salt and pepper. Put spread on both slices of bread with cucumbers in the middle, mmm mmm good.


Asparagus and Prosciutto Sandwiches



Cut asparagus to fit your bread and then steam for 3 minutes immediately plunging it into ice water when it is done (you want 6 spears per sandwich). To assemble the sandwiches, spread cream cheese on both pieces of bread then season with pepper. place a slice of prosciutto on cream cheese, spread honey mustard on prosciutto, place 6 spears of asparagus on the mustard, place another slice of prosciutto on asparagus and then finish with your other piece of bread. One of the favorites at the shower.

We also had chicken salad on croissants, if you want my recipe for chicken salad let me know, I wasn't planning on posting it but I can...