Sunday, August 26, 2012

Wild Game Meals - come on be adventurous!

First off, I wanted to start with a beautiful sunset picture that I took tonight! It was gorgeous outside.

As some of you may know, Nick is a hunter so we have some wild game in our freezer and it is always interesting to try new meals with the meat. I did not grow up eating deer meat or wild birds so it took me a while to get used to. I have 2 recipes that involve wild game and both are good. The great thing is that other meat can be substituted if you do not want to be adventurous or you don't have chukar or deer in your freezer.
Here is a little about the meats that I used:
Chukar- this is a bird in the pheasant family and tastes just like chicken.
Deer backstrap - also known as tenderloin. This is a very tender piece of meat and super yummy.
So--here are the recipes.

Deer Backstrap (AKA ternderloin)
 
Ingredients:
Deer Tenderloin (desired amount)
Teriyaki Sauce (enough to cover meat)*
Juice from one Lemon*
Garlic*
Soy Sauce – ¼ cup*
Season Salt*
Course Ground Pepper*
Bourbon – ¼ cup (optional)*
Desired Seasoning for tenderloin, we used Daddy Hinkles
1/3 Less Fat Cream Cheese
Green Pepper in Large Slices
Bacon cut into small strips
Tooth Picks

Mix all ingredients for the marinade (ingredients marked with asterisk*) and submerge the terderloin into it for at least 30 minutes. Once the meat is done marinating, set everything out to assemble the meal. First put cream cheese on the seasoned meat, then add the pepper, wrap in a small piece of bacon and secure with a tooth pick. Grilled for about 10 minutes on the BBQ. It should be slightly pink inside so that it is still tender. Yum yum yum.
 
White chukar chili -
just a warning, this is not a very healthy recipe
*chicken can be substituted
Ingredients:
1 large onion, chopped
1 clove of garlic, minced
1/2 cup flour
1 cup butter
4 cups half and half
1 1/2 cups of chicken broth
4 cans white beans (navy, great northern, or garbanzo), drained and rinsed
2-3 (4 oz) cans chopped green chilies
2 pounds of chukar or 4 boneless skinless chicken breasts cooked and sliced into small pieces
2 cups grated Monterrey Jack cheese
1-2 tsp. Tabasco sauce
1-2 tsp. of chili powder (depending how spicy you want it)
1 tsp. cumin
1 cup sour cream (optional)

Instructions:
I cooked the chucker a day ahead in the crock pot on its own since it still had bones. I just put it in the crock pot with chicken broth for about 3 1/2 hours on low until it would shred. We shredded the chukar and removed all the bones.
Now to start the chili...Cook onion and garlic in a couple tablespoons of butter until soft, not brown. Set aside. Make a roux by melting the butter and whisking the 1/2 cup of flour in. Boil for 3 minutes stirring constantly. Add the onion and garlic to the roux.

Add the half and half and chicken broth. Simmer 3 minutes or until thick.

Pour mixture into a crockpot then add the white beans, chilies, chicken, cheese, Tabasco sauce, chili powder, and cumin.

Simmer 20 minutes. Right before serving add salt and pepper to taste and sour cream (optional). Garnish with cilantro.
This recipe is based on the one I found on The Girl Who Ate Everything, I just substituted chukar.

Let me know if you try one of the recipes!

-Court

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Family Week in Montana and a new B&B breakfast recipe


The past week in a half was AMAZING, because my family came to visit me. Christian flew in midnight last Thursday. Then we picked my mom and Ron up Friday afternoon and Courtney came in on the next midnight flight Friday night. They each stayed a different amount of nights, but when we were all together it was the absolute BEST! We went on Bitterroot Lake several times and fished, swam, and skied and of course had delicious meals on the lake. We hiked to the Bitterroot Falls, Kootenai Falls and Swinging Bridge, went to Whitefish a couple of times, and for the first time ever we kayaked (floated) the Flathead River which ended up being amazing. We had a picnic lunch on the river and floated for about four hours. Of course we had very good food and wine and now I feel like I need to work all the food off. I miss them all already and wish I could rewind time a little bit.
Here are some photos of our Montana vacation…..








Overnight Blueberry French Toast:
Ingredient:        
      12 slices day-old bread, cut into 1 inch cubes
         2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, cut into 1 inch cubes
         1 cup fresh blueberries
         12 eggs, beaten
         2 cups milk
         1 teaspoon vanilla extract
         1/3 cup maple syrup

Sauce:
         1 cup white sugar
         2 tablespoons cornstarch
         1 cup water
         1 cup fresh blueberries
         1 tablespoon butter

Directions
1.             Lightly grease a 9x13 inch baking dish. Arrange half the bread cubes in the dish, and top with cream cheese cubes. Sprinkle 1 cup blueberries over the cream cheese, and top with remaining bread cubes.
2.             In a large bowl, mix the eggs, milk, vanilla extract, and syrup. Pour over the bread cubes. Cover, and refrigerate overnight.
3.             Remove the bread cube mixture from the refrigerator about 30 minutes before baking. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
4.             Cover, and bake 30 minutes. Uncover, and continue baking 25 to 30 minutes, until center is firm and surface is lightly browned.
In a medium saucepan, mix the sugar, cornstarch, and water. Bring to a boil. Stirring constantly, cook 3 to 4 minutes. Mix in the remaining 1 cup blueberries. Reduce heat, and simmer 10 minutes, until the blueberries burst. Stir in the butter, and pour over the baked French toast

Yummy!!!!

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

What a wonderful surprise!


I have so many blogs to write. I need more time in my day.
First off–I arrived home from Montana late last night to a wonderful (well actually several wonderful) surprise(s). I will blog about my Montana trip another day. Back to my wonderful surprise, well I found this website a while back http://ana-white.com/ and I found plans for a headboard that I wanted Nick to make. Well this was several months back and we have been really busy all summer so we haven’t had time to work on it.  So…I was in Montana for 4 days and I had to leave Nick and home. I felt terrible about leaving him all alone and each time I talked to him he said not much is going on and he is getting bored. Well that was a BIG FAT LIE!
When I walked into our bedroom for the second time after returning home (the first time I just dropped by purse and took off to look for Dixie) I noticed something different about our room. For 1–our bed was made. And 2–there was this AMAZING headboard! WHAT! I *gasped* because I was so excited. Nick spent the entire weekend building and staining our new headboard and it turned out AWESOME.  It matches our mango wood nightstand and dresser and it is distressed and awesome. Seriously. I am so excited.



Here is the link if you would like to build your own. http://ana-white.com/2010/03/plans-reclaimed-wood-look-headboard-king-size.html
Nick said the cut list is great and the general directions are good, except for he added extra support. In order to get the distressed look, Nick used an ax, nails, chain, blowtorch, and all sorts of stuff. He also did several coats of a dark walnut danish oil and tung oil varnish. He did a great job. It ended up costing $170 and many many hours. But it looks awesome. 
The other surprises were that Nick cleaned the house, did laundry and cleaned the garage. The house looks amazing. Love him!
~Court

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

A Weight Watchers Lemon Cream Pie Recipe


This is such a good, yummy, super easy and light dessert. I got it from a friend of Mary’s and once I tried it I was hooked. I’ve made it a few times now, and  I wanted to share it with ya’ll. It’s weight watchers, which makes me feel better when I’m eating it.

Recipe:
7 graham crackers, crushed
2 tbsp butter
11 oz. fat free condensed milk
2 eggs
1/2 fresh lemon juice
1 tbsp lemon zest

Instructions: Preheat the oven to 350 degree. Crush graham crackers in a ziploc baggie. Place crumbs in a small bowl and mix with the melted butter and press crumbs onto the bottom of a 9 in. pie pan. Place crust in the refrigerator while preparing the lemon filling.  In a medium bowl, combine the rest of the ingredients and mix until smooth, then add the lemon and zest into the bowl and pour into prepared crust. Bake pie for 20 minutes, let it cool and I serve it chilled. 

Delicious!!!! Enjoy. 










Saturday, August 11, 2012

~ Visiting Texas, Stocking Up and Working it Off ~

Last weekend Nick and I went down to Texas to visit my Mom and Ron. It was my Mom's Birthday, so what a perfect time to visit. It is a 5-6 hour drive depending on traffic and how many stops we make, so not a short drive, but totally worth it.

Happy Birthday Mom!
she is so pretty

Once we arrived, we hit up one of our favorite BBQ places, the Railhead. Yum Yum Yum! They have great BBQ. The Jalapeno Cheese Sausage is one of my favorite things to eat. Amazing. The vibe at this place it great too, they have a restaurant, bar and live music.  I wish we had a place like this close to our house.

the boys
silly boys

On Saturday we had to make a few stops at our favorite stores that we do not have in Oklahoma: Trader Joes, Justin Boot Outlet and Cost Plus World Market.

We stocked up at all three places and I think we did pretty good.




Trader Joes has the most amazing snacks (not so healthy but super yummy). We got Powerberries, Chocolate Covered Peanut Butter Pretzels, Sea Salt Caramels, Wine, Beer and a few other things. I miss Trader Joes and Cost Plus.

The rest of Saturday and Sunday were spent with the family and Ron and Mom's house. We had such a great time. My mom always feeds us well. We had this amazing breakfast on Sunday (including an overnight french toast recipe that Corynne will post soon). It was awesome.

here is the breakfast spread 

My mom will not like that I posted this picture, because we had to use a throw away tin pan for the french toast casserole (since all her other ones were in use) and it didn't look pretty. She is silly, since everything else looked amazing.

Now that I have all these yummy snacks and ate all this great food, I will have to work out a little extra to not gain any weight. I found this workout through pinterest a while back and it is awesome. For days when I do not have time to go to the gym, but I want to get some exercise in at home, I will do this in the house and add in some more arm exercises. Try it! She's Got Legs Workout


Monday, August 6, 2012

The Lupine Hike





I’ve been doing this hike for now seven years. I first came up to Montana in the summer of 2006. I came up every year Chet and I were dating and we always did the Lupine hike, and there’s a reason why. As you can see in the pictures it’s gorgeous. And the best part is it’s so remote and unknown that you rarely see people on the hiking trail, unlike Glacier National Park. It’s only twenty minutes away from the B&B. While hiking you pass several creeks, you can pick wild huckleberries during the month of August and it’s completely shaded and very green. If you go off the hiking trail there’s a gorgeous waterfall. The hike in is three miles and you then get to Lupine Lake. We typically have a picnic lunch, swim and then hike back another three miles. 

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Hot hot hot weather...so I stay inside to decorate my bathroom!

It has been really really hot. 


I mean really hot, I took this snapshot of my phone today around 3pm.

 I am ready for it to be over.

Since it is so hot... 


I play with Dixie indoors.

Exercise indoors.

Watch a lot of TV at night, because I do not want to be out on the patio. 


Even the little froggie found a cooler place to hang out–in my basil plant. He knows I water it everyday. What a smart little guy.

And I find projects to work on indoors like decorating the bathroom (powder room) downstairs that has been empty since we moved in. I like the few additions I made and I might add a few more things down the road, but this will do for now.
I really hope it cools down soon, until then, I will keep finding projects around the house to keep indoors.

- Court -