Lots of Updates--Part 2

Here's the second installment of updates, enjoy!

David's Gelateria(By David)

I decided that we should make use of our ice cream maker this summer, and I found an absolutely terrific recipe book. It's called "Making Artisan Gelato" by Torrance Kopfer. We've only tried two recipes from it so far--blueberry and pistachio--but they were both fantastic. They're the first homemade ice creams we've made that don't freeze into a block of impenetrable ice overnight. I highly recommend the book to anyone with a home ice cream maker! Here are some photos of me making pistachio gelato last week.

First, here's a photo of the raw pistachios toasting on the stove and the milk and most of the sugar heating up.

Once the milk came to a simmer, I added the pistachios, simmered for 15 min, removed the pan from the heat and steeped for an hour. Then I pureed the milk and pistachios in the blender and let it steep another hour.

Here's the milk and pistachio puree heating up to 170F along with the beaten egg yolks to temper into the milk.

Once they were tempered together, I stirred them until the custard coated the back of my spoon. The finished custard went into an ice bath with a little heavy cream to begin chilling, and then into the fridge overnight to let the flavors marry.


The next day, I stirred in some vanilla extract and poured it into our ice cream maker.

I packaged it in 8oz containers so it would be easier for us to eat some without the rest getting all melty and then icy when it refreezes.

It's some pretty darned good pistachio gelato if I do say so myself--and I do say so!

Visitors from MN (by Abby)

In other new on our way home from visiting folks in MN and WI I got a call from my friend E who I went to Stout with. E is a flight attendant with Northwest and I have been bugging her to come and visit us in MT since the day after we moved here. She called and announced that she would be visiting us the weekend after we got home from our Midwest adventure. She had told her folks about her trip to MT and they decided that they wanted in too. It ended up that E’s dad got bogged down at work and couldn’t make the trip so it was David and me and the Hanson ladies.

We had a great time hiking, shopping, eating, and drinking far, far too much wine. It was so great getting to know Mrs. Hanson better, and getting to sit on my patio and have some much needed girl talk over a bottle of wine...or two…or three with E. She and I took wine classes at Stout and in Spain together and had a blast recalling those crazy college days over some vino. Here is a photo and E and I on a hike in the Rattlesnake. Don’t we look outdoorsy?



Julia Child’s Birthday Dinner

On August 15th we celebrated Julia Child’s Birthday with a meal Julia herself would have been proud of. We made Julia’s Roast Chicken (which has onions, lemon, herbs in its cavity, and is then smeared with a whole stick of butter) mashed potatoes, and beautiful green beans. We watched our DVD of “The French Chef” and watched Julia make the perfect omelets and watched as she used a saw to break down a whole swordfish. Where in 1960’s you could find a whole swordfish in Cambridge Mass? I have no idea. Or where the housewives in the Midwest were supposed to find one as they watched her show on PBS is anyone’s guess. But God love her. We hope all of you had a great Aug 15th, and toasted Julia’s 97th.




Don't worry, there are more updates coming shortly!

Love,
Abby and David

Lots of Updates--Part 1

We have quite a few things to put on the blog, so here's part one:

Way back in the last week of July, we drove down the Bitterroot Valley to go on a scenic hike to the Blodgett Canyon Overlook. It started off a little shaky with a sign at the trailhead warning about an aggressive mountain lion that had chased some campers from their campsite that week. We read the info on what to do if we saw a lion and got all prepared to look big and throw things, but we didn't see it. Here are some photos from the hike, including lots of wildflowers and the scenic overlook at the end of the trail. You can click on any of the photos to enlarge them.

This last photo is a grouse we saw on our way down from the overlook. It's right next to the nearest tree trunk. It's much easier to see if you enlarge the photo.

The first week of August, we went home to Wisconsin to see our family and friends.

And what a whirlwind that was! After driving 21 hours, straight we collapsed at Abby’s Aunt’s. We got up; feeling very jet lagged, and went to visit Gram who was feeling a bit under the weather. 4 hours later we were in the ER with her. We were all terrified at the possible scenarios that were being thrown at us by ER doctors who looked younger than me. David and I were happy to be there for hand holding and supporting my aunt and little cousins, and eventually my mom and dad who drove to MN. She came through it and is recovering at a rehab facility. She’ll be back at her usual digs in no time. I told her it was quite a stunt to pull to avoid a humiliating loss to me at Old Maid (My grandma never loses Old Maid, she is so cute and little but deep down is a card shark)

With Gram out of the woods by Saturday PM we were able to keep our date with my friends from college. We hit Bucca’s and then went to a bar in uptown. Here are some photos of some of my favorite people doing what we do best. (Eating too much…Drinking too much… Laughing too loud…)

The one of David and Leigh I think should be their Christmas card. Aren’t they the perfect brown haired couple? How adorable! Oh wait he is my husband! SO in retaliation the blondes had to step it up.

After our crazy weekend in MN we headed home to Wisconsin.

David headed off to hang out with his folks in GB and I stayed in Shawano with my folks. While in Shawano my friend Zac took time off from getting his PhD to hang out with my folks and me. As our adventure/project du jour we went blueberry picking and made scrummy blueberry jam.

Mom and I made Zac work for his supper, but we had lamb chops that night, so it was worth the picking and jamming. Doesn’t he look so domestic in the photo of him jamming? The next Martha Stewart for sure!

Other excitement from Shawano was that I found a bat in my room, or he found me by dive-bombing me. Dad and I fearlessly (ok we were both a little freaked out by Batty) took on the bat and cornered it in Wade’s old room. We swooshed him out the door so he could play with his bat friends. A few days later my folks had another bat in the down stairs of their house. My mom thinks its because she has been reading books about vampire this summer!

Creepy!

Here we are with my folks at the chef’s table in the kitchen at Chives. Aaron Rodgers has sat at this table so we felt especially honored that we were allowed to sit there too.

While home we also enjoyed having lunch with David’s Grandma, celebrating Don’s (David’s dad’s) 70^th birthday, hung out with David’s best friends from high school, and their wives, and David and his mom went to see the new Harry Potter movie. Thank goodness I didn’t have to go and pretend to be into wizards ;) David and I also played a little pac man at the Spinning Wheel, a Shawano institution for the best perch fry. Chris beat both of us by about a million points, but he has had a few more years to hone his skills.

We had fun at home, but it was nice to be back to our quiet lives in MT.

More adventures to come in a few days, and then we'll be all caught up! Finally!

xoxoxoxo
Abby and David