A Nice Snow Fix

Some of my fondest memories as a kid growing up in northern West Virginia involve the snow and to this day I still enjoy it and need an occasional fix.  I love how clean it makes the ground look and how sweet it makes the air smell when all of the pollutants are removed. 

Last Tuesday we awoke to the results of the ice storm, but this Tuesday, we had a nice, beautiful snow cover to look at with the official total of 4“ here at Almost Heaven South as measured by a yardstick on my deck railing. 

I don’t believe the RV was quite as angry about this event.

Then, after a day of melting, winter storm Remus rolled through beginning on Wednesday evening and we even had the outside floodlights on so we could watch the snow falling in the dark. As pretty as it was on Tuesday morning, we got up Thursday to these beautiful sites and a moderate 30F temperature.

With a total of 7¼“ now on the railing, I can definitely say my snow fix has happened and I’m glad we were here to enjoy it.  This is the view from my chair as I watched the birds have their breakfast.

This was the perfect snow for me as it was deep enough to cover everything and followed by a 41F day that melted nearly all of it from the roads.  And now that the snow fix has happened, I'm ready for spring.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

2/24 & 2/26/15 event dates

Winter Arrives At Almost Heaven South – Lots Of Photos

After some pretty mild weather the first part of February with six inch tall daffodil leafs, winter storm Octavia finally touched us in the worst way on Monday.  As the storm moved east, it provided snow to its north, rain to its south and freezing rain in the middle – we are in the middle.  In case you are not a Weather Channel watcher, the freezing rain often begins as snow at the cold, high altitude, then changes to rain as it passes through a warm layer and shows up that way here.  Unfortunately, with the outside temperature in the mid 20’s the rain freezes after landing.

This had several impacts for us but most importantly it glazed any untreated roads and made them totally impassable and it stuck to trees and power lines.  I originally didn’t know what caused the problem, but our power went off about 10pm Monday and fortunately we got to use that generator we bought a couple of years ago – it now seems worth the money.

The RV is definitely angry at us for leaving Florida as the rain turned to ice all over it.

Our fine feathered friends kept busy at the feeder even though it developed icicles.  

It looked even worse Wednesday morning and this is the look before I broke off the icicles - only the small birds were getting in.  The birds can hang on the icicles and walk around the icy dome with no problem.

Strong preference for thistle seed at the other feeding station. 

So far we’ve identified the following visitors to the feeders and the ground beneath them: Carolina Chickadee, Tufted Titmouse, Gold Finch, House Finch, several Sparrows, Wren, Cardinal, Nuthatch, Downy Woodpecker, Rufous Sided Towhee, Pine Siskin, and Dove.

I walked around the yard on Tuesday and got a few shots of the ice coated vegetation.

When the roads cleared, we had to make a run to town and got these shots including the one creating our power outage.  The ice laden pine trees were snapped off everywhere, including three across our road, fortunately our neighbor with the big tractor had it cleared in short order.

This one was across the road when we returned.

Fortunately we were set to go after a propane tank refill (for the generator) and 25 gallons of diesel for the RV heater just before the power came on after an 18 hour outage – it was off several days longer for some.  So we just settled it and waited for the snow showers on Wednesday - we got less then an inch but the RV is even angrier.

The sun came out on a very cold Thursday and the trees glistened like they were glass covered and many now had icicles from the sun hitting them.  Unfortunately, I didn’t know how to set my camera up to catch the real beauty of them so I lifted the last shot from my friend Kathy's Facebook post as ours looked just the same.

Even the weeds glistened.

By Friday this very unusual event happened - our cove was frozen over.  Looks like a little trimming will be required to access the dock, but at least no trees laying on it - whew.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

2/16 - 2/20/15 event dates

Our Valentine’s Day Meals

While Bev was hanging out in Gatlinburg, I read the post from Catherine Mayhew for Grilled T-Bone Steaks with Crab and Hollandaise on the Char-Broil Live site and decided this would make a delicious Valentine’s Day meal.  Then I remembered the whole beef fillet in our freezer and decided it would work well for this meal, so out it came for thawing and trimming.

We also had a package of King Crab in the freezer to use for that part and we decided on some asparagus and a Caesar Salad to round out the meal.  This is the amended recipe as we made it.

Grilled beef Filet with Crab and Hollandaise Sauce – Adapted from Char-Broil Live

Ingredients:

5 Filet steaks, 1½“ thick  

1 pound King Crab legs, meat removed and roughly chopped

For the hollandaise sauce:

2 egg yolks

1½ tablespoons fresh lemon juice

½ teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon pepper

Pinch of cayenne pepper

6 tablespoons butter

One bunch asparagus, trimmed and steamed until just tender

Directions:

1. Preheat the grill to medium high.

2. Let the steaks come to room temperature and season with your favorite seasoning – Montreal Steak for us.

3. Warm the crab in a small skillet on low heat with 2 tablespoons butter and reserve.

4. To make the hollandaise sauce, add the egg yolks, lemon juice, salt, pepper and cayenne pepper to a blender and blend for 5-10 seconds. Melt the butter and, with the blender running, slowly stream the melted butter through the top of the lid. Taste and adjust the seasonings. The hollandaise can hold at room temperature for at least 30 minutes.

5, Grill the steaks to you desired level of doneness, remove to a platter, and loosely cover them with aluminum foil for 10 minutes to rest.

6. Top the steaks with some of the hollandaise a few spears of asparagus, the warm crab, and a little parmesan.

It was a delicious meal for me and the four Valentine ladies who shared it with me.  And to show that I’m not the only one who can whip up a breakfast form leftovers, this was Sunday’s meal ALA Bev.  We had combined the leftover Hollandaise and crab so the meal was comprised if toasted English muffin, over easy eggs, nuked asparagus, and the crab/sauce.

Needless to say, it was delicious.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

2/14 & 2/15/15 meal dates

2015 Blogger Party and Breakfast From Leftovers

Greetings fellow bloggers – We are happy to announce that the 6th rendition of our annual blogger party will be held at Almost Heaven South during Memorial Day Weekend.  Chris (Nibble Me This) and I still have the final details to work out but wanted to tell you the possible dates (most likely May 24) in hopes you would pencil it in on your calendar.  We would appreciate if you would mention it on your blogs as well so more people will be aware of the event. 

Date: Memorial Day Weekend (popular recommendation from last year’s attendees)

Time: TBD

Place: Almost Heaven South in Greenback, TN

Theme: Tapas Party (another popular recommendation from last years attendees)

Many of you have expressed a desire to come in the past so why not make this your year – before I get too old to host them.

More details will follow in March.


Another Dippy Egg Meal From Leftovers 

Referring back to my previous post on how I cook dippy eggs, I mentioned they could be used in other ways and my favorite is with potatoes and onions.  I kicked this one up a little by adding some other ingredients and using the leftovers from the previous night’s meal. 

I started the breakfast meal buy slicing some onions, julienning a green bell pepper, chopping a seeded jalapeno and cooking them in olive oil (drat I realized as I was typing this that I forgot the garlic).  After they had been tossed a few times, I added the cubed leftover potatoes - I love that I took the time to learn to toss a skillet full of ingredients. 

After the potatoes had cooked to nearly ready, I added the diced the pork chop and a couple pieces of diced breakfast sausage (cooked previously) and cooked until they were warmed through.

In the meantime I cooked the eggs as I did in the previous post and topped the potato mixture with them.

Where you go from here is a personal choice, but this is what I do.

This meal was totally delicious and I liked the way all of the flavors worked together, including the BBQ sauce on the pork chop.  It was a great way to begin the day and I ate it using the same goal as with dippy eggs - minimize the yolk that gets left on the plate for Coco.  You've likely figured out that the runny yolk is my favorite part of an egg.  In case you were wondering about bread, there was no way I was going to use up valuable stomach space when I needed it for the potatoes and eggs.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

2/9/15 event date

The Consumption Of A Fried Egg

Since it didn’t rent and to keep it from going to waste, Bev and some girl friends are spending the week at our timeshare in Gatlinburg, TN doing a little shopping, exercising, and eating out.  Meanwhile I’m watching the house, the pets, and tending to Madison.  When I talked with Bev one morning, before I ate breakfast, she read part of the breakfast menu from Crockett's Breakfast Camp to me and I became instantly hungry.

Now if you have stopped by here more than a couple of times, you probably know I love eggs and eat them most mornings for breakfast and after this days meal a blog idea was born for a repeat meal.  There are many ways to prepare eggs and several methods just to fry them, not to mention the many, many ways to consume them once cooked, but this post is just about cooking and eating fried dippy eggs.

I had done a similar post four years ago, but I cooked the eggs differently and did not publish my criteria back then so I decided on a redo. 

My disclaimer is that I am not a professional egg cook nor do I claim this to be the ideal way to cook or eat them for everyone.  Having said that, here is my criteria for cooking:

1. Maximum amount of runny yolk.

2. White part done or mostly so.

3. No crispy edges as they make cutting with a fork difficult.

4. Cooked reasonably healthy (olive oil vs. my preferred butter).

I always use a non-stick skillet and for these and I didn’t want to flip them so I added about 1/2 tsp. of olive oil (#4) and 1/2 tsp. of water to make steam – for this method I use just enough flame to make the water boil (sizzle) – (#1, # 2, & #3).  

When the water begins to sizzle (can you hear it out there?), I add the eggs and quickly cover with a glass lid – so I can check doneness without removing the lid (#1 & #2). 

The purpose of the water it to create steam and hot water droplets which cook the top of the eggs (no need to flip) while the direct heat cooks the bottom thereby making the process happen faster and reducing the amount of hard cooked yolk next to the skillet (#1).  

As soon as the white is done enough for me the lid is removed and the eggs are slid onto a plate taking care to keep them together – bear in mind that the white does not have to be completely done around the yolk as it will continue cooking on the plate - it will disappear into the running yolk anyway, but try convincing Bev of that.

I usually take mine out before the the yolk begins to whiten and I make removing them on time the kitchen priority regardless of what else is happening with sides, etc – all to achieve #1.

The following are shots from the previous post when I flipped the eggs, but the eating process is the same.

Now, let’s discuss how to eat them using this criteria:

5. Some of the yolk in every bite.

6. Eat the last of the yolk with the last bite of bread.

7. Leave as little yolk on the plate as possible – for Coco to lick off.

I begin by puncturing one of the yolks such that it runs onto the egg white and not the plate, then I use half of one slice of bread, or English muffin, to sop it up (#5 & #7).

Then repeat with the other egg.

It is now time to cut up the eggs with the fork side while stirring to distribute the remaining yolk evenly among the pieces of white and coating most of them.

The egg is then eaten while using the bread to keep moving everything toward the pile and wiping up any yolk on the plate all the time insuring that at least two bites of bread are left to wipe up any remaining yolk from the plate bottom once the white pieces are gone (#6).  This may take some practice to make sure the yolk on the plate and the bread comes out even.

And this my friends is the recipe for the perfect (for me) way to cook and eat dippy eggs but a caution - don’t try this at home unless you are willing to eat eggs several time a week as it can be habit forming.  

It should be pointed out that this same cooking method works for using the eggs to top almost anything - see next post.

Thanks for stopping by and joining me on the fun little post at Almost Heaven South. 

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Larry

2/08/15 event date