Adventures beyond time

Adventures beyond time

Sunday, March 24, 2013

Corned Beef, Red Flannel Hash, and Cabbage Soup

I have never much cared for corned beef. Tough and fatty, it is highly processed and seems the very opposite of health food. Besides, we seldom eat beef of any kind. Nevertheless, corned beef was on sale last week, as was cabbage (at 19 cents a pound!). So I succumbed and, following an old recipe, made a New England Boiled Dinner, with potatoes, beets, carrots, and of course, cabbage. It wasn't too bad.

The same old cookbook had a recipe for Red Flannel Hash, made from the leftovers of the first recipe. You drain off the liquid, chop up the meat and vegetables, and bake in a cast iron skillet lined with butter until it is brown and crusty. It was very tasty.

Some other leftovers remained, including about a quart of cooking broth from the boiled dinner and half of a large green cabbage. Skimming the fat from the cooking broth and adding chicken broth to make two quarts, I used it in my cabbage soup recipe. The taste was delightful! I'm still not a fan of corned beef brisket, but wish the recipes using the leftovers weren't one-offs.


Reheating the soup for another meal

Friday, March 8, 2013

Hospitalero time is coming

 We have our plane tickets. We are studying our Spanish every day, but we do not feel ready for prime time conversation yet. Even in our dreams, we only see ourselves as being able to communicate basic needs, like shopping in the little tienda-- “I want those vegetables, over there on that shelf.”
 
 But we are greatly looking forward to the experience and then to walking with Pam and James for a couple of weeks and almost 200 miles.
And, we are having fun buying gear again, although we already own more than we would consider carrying. It is just such fun to find new, lighter, better versions of stuff we have. I’m bringing my same rain poncho. After my testing it thoroughly last year, we never had any rain.
Right now, we enjoying our great Golden Retriever, Jake. We do not have many days left with him. We keep him close for this last little time we have together.
 Next weekend is the Annual Meeting of the Friends of the Lower Suwannee & Cedar Keys NWRs. I will move from being president to being past president. I feel good about what we’ve accomplished in my two years, getting 12 paddling trails mapped out, with a 13th underway; establishing 12 Initiatives for 2013, with a volunteer champion for each of them, and putting some governance changes in place to strengthen succession of leadership. 
I will be happy to hand over the gavel…well actually we don’t need a gavel at our meetings. I think I’ll hand over the coffee pot…we do need coffee.

After that…train, train, train for the hike and study, study, study our Spanish. It is almost countdown time.