The Parents Are In!

I was so looking forward to my parents arrival and must say we had the best of times.  For starters, they showed up with a car load of goodies.  Now we have an entire fridge full of fresh produce.  Yessss!  We spent our days touring the area and evenings relaxing with good food and games.

Relaxing by the fire.

Rocco saying hello during our walk.

We walked the loop and were accompanied by Rocco, yes, we have finally confirmed from the Judge's wife that this is in fact the big white dog's name.  We also toured the ski resort and had a look inside the old ski shop.  Mom's feet nearly froze off but we got in some good photo opportunities and had a nice look around.  

Cuchra Pass

A handsome view!

A brief snowfall passed through leaving a couple inches of fresh powder on the ground.  We first attempted to drive to Cuchara Pass in our Toyota. With a little coaxing (getting out and pushing the car) we were able to get our little front wheel drive safely back to the garage.  Thank goodness we had my dad's four wheel drive to get us up to the pass.  After blowing through some snow drifts we made it to the lookout for some mountain views.  We decided to visit the Dog Bar for their Sunday chicken fried steak special and the Ryus Ave. Bakery in LaVeta.  Both were good, but resort prices still remain even though there's not much of a resort left.

Posing in LaVeta after checking out some of the shops.

Lobster feast anyone?

Cooking up a storm...
a storm of lobster that is!

Our evening meals were simply gourmet thanks to Mom and Dad.  We had a delicious taco dinner and even a lobster feast!  Talk about the good life.  This past week was surely it.  We swapped music, stories, and played some serious games of dice, backgammon, and spades.  In fact, I almost feel the need to catch up on some sleep after our late night card games.  I'm not sure if they did it on purpose, but they left the backgammon board with us, so now we can brush up on our skills for our next group of visitors.  We'll bring it back to KC in March!  This has been an action packed few weeks thanks to our family and friends.  We've had so much to look forward to and are so glad everyone has been able to share a little part of our sabbatical with us.  This whole thing really is flying by way too fast, but I feel like we've seen, done, and enjoyed so much more than we ever anticipated.  Thanks to you all!

Cucina Aber

One of the best dishes that I even ate twice while at Cucina Deli in Salt Lake City, UT was their spaghetti pie.  Mmmmm mmmmm good.  Dean gave me the recipe verbally while at the deli one day and I decided it was time I give it a shot.  Now there were several substitutions that had to be made due to what we have in stock here at the condo, but all in all it turned out swell.  I was pretty worried that I'd end up with a pie plate full of loose spaghetti on my hands but the thing held up nicely.  I really think this will become a go to dinner dish for us.  

Boil up some spaghetti until it's just underdone and prepare the filling.  I chose to use spinach, onions, mushrooms, black and green olives, and ham.

Add the filling along with two beaten eggs to the prepared spaghetti and mix.

Place the whole concoction in a greased pie plate.  It looks a lot cooler if you use a spring form pan like Cucina Deli and display it as a stand alone pie. 

Sprinkle the top with Parmesan cheese, or in our case extra sharp white cheddar (that's all we had). 

Bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

Top with pasta or marinara sauce.

Thank you Dean Pierose and Cucina Deli for the inspiration!

Say Cheese!

I knew that I wouldn't be able to brew beer on our sabbatical due to various logistical issues (mostly just bringing all of my brewing equipment out here). I have like 6 cases of homebrew in the basement right now, so fear not, I am not without my homebrews. But, having beer aside, I knew that I needed some fermentation in my life. I imagine most people who start to make beer, wine, cheese, cured meats, or any other kind of fermentation get infected themselves and can't go long without having something growing in their basement. I knew that I had to do something, and what better than cheese! Nearly as delicious as beer, and pretty good together with it too.

Edam in the front, caerphilly on the right and
Monterrey Jack in the back. 

So, the cheese factory has begun to churn out products in the Aber's laboratory kitchen. Soon, you will all be calling me the Cheese-Whiz, since I'll be like a wizard making cheese. Wait a second...never mind that. In any case, I've got a block of caerphilly, edam, and monterrey jack curing away in my cheese cave right now. The edam and monterrey jack should be done in about a month, and the caerphilly in a week or two from now. We're also mostly through my first batch of cottage cheese, which I might just make another of if we're not too sick of it by the time we finish (you find that a pound of cottage cheese goes a long way...).

Cutting the curds is Serious Business.

I'm pretty surprised by how easy it really is to make cheese. I'm always trying to get people to start brewing beer, but it really can be somewhat of a dauting undertaking. Cheese on the other hand, will probably cost you like $20 in equipment and supplies to make your first curds, and the recipes are straightforward enough that you don't really have to read up much on it at first to start. Most of the stuff I've used here, we already had in the kitchen, or I constructed out of junk. Literally, the stainless steel bottom of my cheese press came out of the trash. (Don't worry though, I did scour the thing like no other and put a new brushed finish on it using sandpaper, steel wool, and rippling biceps.) My cheese mold is a $1 plastic pitcher, that I cut apart and drilled holes in, and the rest of the cheese press came off of various parts of broken furniture among other things that we had in our basement.

This is what I love about cheese--it seems so complex and like something that could only be made in a sterile factory, but in reality its something that's been made in the home for the last 9000 odd years up until like 1950. I suppose this describes most food come to think of it... Also, the best part about making cheese is that  you generally get a pound of cheese out of a gallon of whole milk. So, based on the confusingly low price of $2.75/gal here in Colorado, we're going to be eating cheese for $2.75/lb. I can't imagine finding any cheese at the grocery store for less than about $4/lb. And you get the supreme satisfaction of eating some home made cheese.

And now, if you will excuse me, I have to go make some colby.

Poor little edam, being crushed by 60 lbs. of weights.

My water bath setup. Helps to heat the milk without scorching it and to hold a
constant temperature over long periods. Its just an electric roaster oven I randomly
found out here. 

Monterrey jack coming out of the press. That is one sweet cheese mold, isn't it? 

I Found the Polish Cook Book

We had a nice trip into Walsenburg to pick up some milk for Jay's cheese making and saw 6 deer on the road from Cuchara to LaVeta.  The deer were the tame city variety and we haven't seen any up in the wild near us yet.  There's plenty of wildlife sign around here but nothing seems to be sticking around long enough for us to get a peek at it.  

We decided to have a big night out on Friday evening and went to the Dog Bar in Cuchara.  I even blow dried my hair and put on makeup.  There was lots of interest in us new kids in town and we met several of the locals.  I'd say a good 20 people came and went as we ate though the place was less than half full the entire time.  We dined on fresh salads as we don't keep a large supply of fresh veggies on hand at the condo.  The food was good and it was nice to see some other human beings.  The owner of the bar filled us in on some upcoming events including some live bands and a local game of broom ball that will be taking place up at the ski resort.  We'll report back when we figure out just what broom ball is.   

With 6 gallons of milk in the fridge Jay is hard at work getting some cheeses made and ready for curing in his makeshift humidity closet in the basement.  I'm sure he'll be posting a detailed cheese making update soon.  While Jay has been in the kitchen stirring his curds and whey I have been cooking alongside him.   After some experimentation with a bread maker donated to the condo by my sister-in-law Amy, I've finally got a loaf to come out without one end being sunken in.  A cinnamon raisin loaf is kneading away in the cooker now.  The bread maker has been a good introduction to working with bread making ingredients and sure does make easy work of getting a loaf of bread made.  Soon I hope to graduate to the real deal, baking in the oven, and kneading the dough myself.  

Today I found the Polish cook book and it just so happened that Jay had made a fresh batch of cottage cheese.  It seemed that fate had a batch of Pierogies in store for us.  They weren't bad for a first attempt, but  certainly need the Amy touch with vinegar in the dough next time.  We ate the first batch boiled and will freeze the leftovers to be pan fried in butter later. 

Rolling out the dough.

Jay's fresh cottage cheese.

The filling made with salt, sauteed onion, egg, and cottage cheese.

Packing the dumplings was the hardest part for me.

We ate ours boiled, though they should be pan fried in addition to the boiling.  We were just too hungry.  

Pierogies Please!

Boiling the Weisswurst.  Believe it or not these came out of a jar and are just delicious.

A German - Polish fusion meal.

Day One Down!

 Operation cat hair removal is in full effect.  We spent most of our first full day in Cuchara vacuuming and organizing.  It's been really exciting taking inventory of our pantry goods and getting them shelved and organized for use.  I'm looking forward to the challenge of making our staples stretch and trying new recipes with all of the food we brought out.  We stopped on our way into town to pick up milk, eggs, and butter.  I think we'll have a good long run before needing to get groceries again.  Soon Jay will be beginning his cheese making and I have lots of dishes in mind for the soft cheeses he'll be starting out with.  I have a feeling many of my blog posts will center around what we eat, as cooking is something I really enjoy.  So here it goes with our first meal at Cuchara: Ham and bean soup with corn bread muffins. 

These are not from scratch because you just can't beat a Jiffy mix.

Ham bone, white beans, and a little canned corn.

Dinner for the next 3 nights!

These are not as good as my mom makes, but I've got plenty of beans to work with as I try to reach that goal.  For dessert I made macaroons drizzled with chocolate.  They weren't very pretty but sure hit the spot.

Aber & Out

Whoa! We're Halfway There...

Yeah! Living on a prayer! This has been my music in my head for the last two days. (Without other means of music, walking lends itself to having songs play on repeat in your head for days.) It is appropriate though considering we passed the halfway mark a couple days ago. Spirits are high in the Aber camp. Today was our longest day yet at nearly 17 miles, but it didn't seem much harder than an average day for us now. Our feet seem to be mutating into rawhide punishment machines and aren't hurting as much anymore. (I also do math in my head when I walk...go figure. Anyway, I figured up that we're going to take about 900,000 steps on the Camino)

We've lost some of our original walking mates now, but we're on to a new chapter. We've been walking with Jim and his grandson, Nick from Minnesota for a few days now, and the Utah 4: Dean, Tracy, Jane (actually Canadian), and Kaitlin (actually from Colorado). We've also got the Flying Dutchmen, Mike, Erik, and Op, all of whom walk neatly twice as fast as us. It seems we've lost track of Marius, Tom, Martina, and South African Hank and his groupies. So goes the Camino, many new beginnings and endings.

Tonight, we ate the communal dinner at our albergue. We took part in preparing the salad, and also had some awesome lentil stew with potatoes and chorizo. Also, wine. Always wine. It was so perfect because I was starving. Its amazing his much food you can eat when you spend all day walking. This is how I imagine the Camino in the middle ages, walking all day then coming in to eat hearty stew with 20 fellow travelers in the basement of your albergue. And also being serenaded by an elderly peregrino in Spanish just because.

We've been getting some pretty rad dinners in general lately. Last night was artichokes and ham for the first course, rabbit and meatballs for the second. The night before we managed to get ourselves whole trouts, heads and all, on our plates. (Although, sad to admit that we're seriously craving some Chinese food and McDonalds milkshakes with fries for dessert. We actually haven't seen a single McDonalds, Burger King, or KFC along the Camino. I find this pretty amazing.)

The best part about dinner is the company. We haven't eaten dinner alone for days or weeks now. Lots of people say that they're on the Camino to learn how to live with less. I've learned that you can live with less of everything except other people.

Anniversary & Camino Packing

Look at what a good husband I am.

Monday was our 1 year wedding anniversary! There were many exchanges of niceties and flowers and cards in addition to light supping and sipping of homemade foods and wines. We chose not to do anything too over the top, and instead focused on our final packing for the Camino.

Of course, Lauren's parents did take us to Fogo de Chao on Sunday for dinner where I proceeded to stuff myself so full of beef and pork and chicken and various cured meats and cheeses that I nearly got to taste it all a second time after dinner. I'm starting to believe that Brazilian steak houses are instruments of the devil; however, I'm sure I will be going back as soon as the after-dinner memory fades and all that I can remember is how awesome it all was when I was still eating the steaks. So needless to say, we weren't really in the mood for another feast. Of course, Lauren still made the perfect dinner of pasta with venison sauce.

My last bottle of riesling that I made 2 years ago in the fall. And damn was it good, if I do say so myself.

Anyways, speaking of our packing, we've nearly got our final list together. We're sitting about 25 lbs on my back (including food & water), and about 23 lbs for Lauren. This is about where we were aiming for at the beginning, but we're only able to get our weight down this far by taking our our tent and sleeping pads. We wanted to take our tent and camp as much as possible, but the more we hear from other pilgrims, it sounds like we would only be able to realistically camp 4 or 5 nights of the 35 night trip. Most of the land around the Camino is private or protected wilderness where camping is not allowed. So we figured that a couple more nights in albergues was a fair trade for 4 lbs of gear.

If you're interested, we've got a spreadsheet of our packing list that includes every bit of stuff we're taking with us. Only 2 pairs of underwear for 42 days! Going to be a lot of clothes washing happening on the trail...

Anyone see anything that we left off the list? Or things that we could probably do without?

General Tso's Venison

I still need to work on the cook time for the venison but this turned out pretty tasty and cooked up really quickly.  We're going to try and eat a lot of venison during the sabbatical so I'm experimenting with a variety of new recipes.

Ingredients:
1 pound venison tenderloin
2 tbsp oil (I used canola)
2/3 cup General Tso's Wok Sauce (From Aldi)
1 yellow squash
1 package of Asian style frozen veggies (snap peas, red pepper, onion)
A dash of red pepper flakes
2 tbsp sesame seeds

Directions:
Chop the venison into 1/2 inch cubes and cook it in oil for about 3 minutes.  Strain off the oil and remove meat from the heat.  In a separate pan steam the frozen veggies and squash until tender.  Lastly, stir the meat, a dash of red pepper flakes, wok sauce, and sesame seeds into the veggies and bring to a simmer.  Be careful not to overcook the venison as it can get rubbery and chewy.