2011 Bear Hunt

It's nearing the end of the summer and since we haven't had time to do anything too fun... Bill decided to go bear hunting... Bill and his brother Jim (and Jim's wife Stacy) were able to get a last minute trip to a place called bear lake wilderness camp (sounds fun doesn't it). http://www.blwc.com/ this camp is on an island and requires a 45 minute boat ride with all your hunting gear food, etc. to get to the camp (which has electricity part of the time and as Bill would say "no flushy toilets") - which is a huge bummer...

While the views were beautiful (notice the huge moose and buck in the photos above) no Bear's were spotted, therefore no bears came home. Here are some photo's of the trip.
https://picasaweb.google.com/PeckontheWebGallery/BearHunting2011?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCL2v9ZX38fflWw&feat=directlink

Freezer Corn

I remember when I was a kid my mom, her sisters and my grandma Tootie (and sometimes even her sisters) would get together on a weekend (typically the hottest one of the summer) and freeze corn. Trever & I, and all of our cousins would spend the weekend picking and husking the corn. We would literally fill up the entire back of my dad's brown truck with corn. Since then I have felt it required an entire weekend and a small army to freeze corn.... Not true if you can slightly scale back from the truckloads they used to do. From field to freezer in just 4 hours you can freeze 9 quart bags of corn... it's easy - just follow this recipe I got from my friend Christine!

First start out by picking, husking, washing all the corn (cut out any bad spots) a soft vegetable brush works well for getting rid of the remaining silk - just don't brush too hard.

Then using a deep pan to cut down on the splatter - use a knife or your handy dandy Pampered Chef corn cutter shown below (if you don't have one of those call Aunt Lori) and cut all the kernels off the corn (yes you are reading this correctly we have not blanched the corn)

Recipe:

13 C. Corn Kernels

2 C. Water (more if the corn is not very juicy - this happens if the corn is past its prime)

2 T. Sugar

1 t. Salt

1 Stick Butter

Mix together in a stock pot and cook on med. heat until the corn begins to simmer. Stirring constantly wait for it to begin to simmer and let it cook for another 5 minutes then remove from heat and pour into a bowl to let it cool.

Once it has cooled, pour into quart sized bags making sure to distribute the liquid evenly amongst the bags, remove all the air from the bags, seal, freeze and Enjoy!

I didn't count the ears but one turky roasting pan full of kernels made 9 quart bags full of corn. That was 3 1/2 batches based on the recipe above (33 C. of corn)

Salsa Verde

Did you know that green salsa (Salsa Verde) is not made from green tomatoes? If you haven't had it - you should try it - it's the "medium" salsa if you've been to Qdoba and it's "Delish". Since Bill was off on his Bear hunting extravaganza I decided to play suzie home-maker and jar some salsa. Here's how it went...

First I needed some tomatillos - ours in the garden are not ready. Tomatillo's are these litle green tomatoes with husks on them (seen below)... you know they are ready when the husk part on the bottom splits open. You can get them at any grocery store or farmer's market.

To clean them you remove the husks and the core's (the little stem part) and soak them in water - they have some kind of oily film on them from the husks so make sure you soak them well. Salsa verde is pretty easy to make just put all the ingredients in the pan and cook - then run it all through your blender or food processor... you will get something that looks like this....
Process the jars in boiling water for 15 - 20 minutes and voila - salsa verde!

Ingredients: (there are many recipe's cook to taste)

51/2 cups husked, washed, cored tomotillos
1 cup onion
1 cup green chillies
1/2 cup white vinegar
4 T lime juice
4 cloves garlic
2 T cilantro (best fresh)
2 t. ground cmin
1/2 t salt
1/2 t. hot pepper flakes
(of course I added Jalapeno's to my batch)

Summer 2011

Wow - summer has flown by and no pictures on the blog to prove it. Here's a few highlights although there were many more fun times not pictured here:

Lots of party's on the peck patio, the kids decided that catching toads was a fun sport - then they let them go in the pond..... wonderful Nancy and I went to Traverse City to hang on the beach for the weekend - these are some baloons that were at one of the weekend festivals....
Can't have summer without a 4th of July Party at Trevor's house... complete with food, kids and fireworks It was a good summer for the flowers - we love hanging out on the patio all summer
Lilly turned 4 and Rilley turned 5 and neither of them hold still long enough for me to get a good photo...

We hope you had a great summer too!

~Bill & Traci

Hey Bill, "We are Sinking"

Grand Marais tag line is "Nature in Abundance" - so on the way here I was mentioning to Bill that I wanted to see 2 things... a porcupine and a bear. Strangely I've never seen either of these creatures up close (dead on the side of the road doesn't count). So yesterday on the way to the lake there was a porcupine in the road. They don't move too fast so Bill chased him into the woods to get pictures for me.. and I have to admit they are cool critters.
I was sure that seeing the porcupine on the way to fishing was good luck. So off we go to our hot spot withBill telling me he was going to catch a bigger bass than I had yesterday... as we get to our hot spot and Bill catches the first fish, I'm thinking huh I wonder why the boat seems so much closer to the water, it must be the waves are higher today than any other day this week... I didn't think much of it as I was busy trying to find the fish and next thing I know I look down to see water at my feet. So I calmly say Hey Bill.... I think we are sinking... maybe the plug is not in the boat.... (for those non boaters out there - there is this little plug that goes in the back of the boat - it's purpose is to have a way to let any water out of the boat when you are on dry land, however it needs to be in the boat when you are in the water)... anyway needless to say we made it out of the water and it was quite an adventure... not sure the porcupine was lucky after all. Here's a few pics of some other friends we met along the way...

Fishing in the Rain

Yes blog readers, since we are in GM to fish, Bill really doesn't care if it happens to be windy, cold, raining, or any other variety of horrible weather. I might have preferred to stay at the cabin with a book, however that was NOT an option... Don't worry, I made the best of it (what rain?)

Grand Marais v2011

Hey blog readers, it's the end of May - which for many mean's time to plant your garden, time for Cole's birthday, time to plant corn, and for Bill & I... time to go to Grand Marais and catch FISH... on this trip we decided to take the long way and visit Escanaba (because Bill loves the movie) but now we are here, catching our favorite fish... today after a particularly good day of fishing, it started to thunder storm while we are on this huge lake, just about as far from the launch as you can be... we are catching fish left and right and the thunder starts to roll.... after a few last catches and a few last fish (just one more cast Bill) we drove as fast as the boat could take us off the lake just in time to miss getting soaked..

But, here I am, sitting at the cabin writing this blog, and I see the sun is coming back out now and the storm is over... so I think we will go see if the fishies are still in their same spot waiting for us... more fish stories coming soon... Here's to hoping you are having as much fun as we are!