Fall Colors

I love this time of year around the neighborhood. Our trees turn a beautiful shade of yellow and form a canopy as we drive home. So we went out for a walk in the afternoon sun and I took the camera along.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, here is a long essay.

The camera I have my eye on has GPS, so pictures will post with their location.

(Further down I added pictures from our Sunday walk to the pond near Nimbus Ave.)

These trees caused our neighbors many problems over the years. No more

Then on Sunday we walked over to the pond near Nimbus Ave.

An alley way between Southridge HS and Nimbus

Fanno Creek

A little red among the green

Tough thing about suburbia; can't get away from poles, roads and what-not.
That's the original Fanno Creek farm house in the background

Looking across the pond

My jig-jaw picture

Interesting plant at one of the buildings in the industrial park near the pond

Carla's coleus outside our front door. Just a few more weeks before it gets too cold.

Saturday October 29; still a few trees with colors left. I'm no biologist but it seems that the yellow/orange leaves are gone and the mostly red leaves remain

Our 2011 Tomato Crop

Our complete tomato crop this year. Good thing I'm not a farmer.

2011 Tomato crop

Chicken and Dumplings

I've made this dish a few times now using a couple of different recipes.  This one is a definite fall/winter go-to.

I like chicken thighs more than breasts because they have more flavor. We start with the skin-on bone-in but we'll shred it later. We also have a pound of chicken wings in the background; they release their collagen to make a nice thick stew.

Ingredients lined up for the pot.

 The chicken thighs get fried 7 minutes per side.

Fry the chicken

Believe it or not, I drained the fat from ol' blue leaving only 1 Tablespoon before cooking the mirepoix

Chicken's done; the mirepoix goes in the pot for about 7 more minutes

Add the chicken broth, thyme, chicken wings and thighs back in for a 55 minute simmer.

The stew on a simmer

After about an hour of simmering, the chicken goes on the cutting board to cool for shredding. We also skim some more fat from the top of the pot.

Shredded chicken

Meanwhile I combine flour, sugar, salt, baking soda, melted butter and buttermilk for the dumplings. 

The dumplings

It amazes me the transformation this dish makes in the last 15 minutes while the dumplings simmer on top of the stew. I wrap a clean dish towel around the lid and cover for a 15 minute simmer. The dish towel keeps the condensation from the lid dropping back down on the dumplings. 

Just after adding the parsley and dumplings

15 minutes later it looks so rich and creamy. You can see the dish towel covered lid on the right side. If you make this yourself make sure the sides of the dish towel are on top of the lid and not drooping into the flame; that would not make for a good dinner. 

After 15 minutes of simmering

I would have had a beer or glass of wine with dinner but I had a church meeting later in the evening. 

Dinner is served

When storing the leftovers, we separate the dumplings from the stew; otherwise, the dumplings soak up all the liquid and you end up with paste.

Cedar Plank Salmon

Today was a beautiful fall day so Carla and I thought we ought to try cooking some fish on the grill. A few cedar shakes blew off the roof so it was the perfect time to try cedar plank salmon. I had grocery shopping duty this week and got to go into the new New Season's market. The fish there is fantastic and I got a nice fillet. There were some planks there and they looked a little bigger than the shakes that blew down so I thought I'd splurge.

We soaked the plank for about an hour; I think 2 hours is more the norm. The shakes from the roof were plenty wet, I could have saved time if I used them. We rubbed the fillets with EVOO, salt, and pepper.

Had to cut up the fillet to get it to fit on the plank

On the the Mak at 400* It would cook 20 minutes before I checked again.

On the grill at 400 for 20 minutes

Monitoring the temperature of the grill from inside.

After 20 minutes the little piece was ready but the 2 big hunks needed about 5 more minutes to get to 125

Almost ready

Done!

Done

Carla made a salad with a homemade Siriracha dressing

Dinner is served. Our DIL-to be introduced us to chutney as an accompaniment for salmon. We had mango chutney tonight.

Notice the chutney. We learned this from Henriët

Great dinner; easy and delicious. This will go on the regular rotation.

Pulled Pork - New method to avoid the "stall"

The best thing about this cook is that we didn't have company over for dinner. The 2nd best thing is that it served as a Thomas Edison moment; I succeeded in finding a way not to make pulled pork.

A couple of weeks ago I used a Cook's Country recipe to prepare Kalua (Hawaiian) pork. It was prepared similarly to pulled pork but was cooked in an aluminum pan with a few holes poked in for smoke for a couple of hours, then completely covered for a few more hours. I wasn't a big fan of the rub; but the meat was tender, succulent, juicy, delicious. It fell apart like regular pulled pork. I thought at that time it might be worth trying a method like this for pulled pork.

Then this week I read Craig "Meathead" Goldwyn's article on methods to avoid the stall. It is a great article worth the read. The short version is you can avoid the long "stall" where the internal temp of the pork shoulder (or brisket) sits at 160* +/-  for a few hours. The solution is to tightly wrap it in foil. Hey; that's what I found with the Kalua Pork. I was intrigued and thought I'd give it a shot. If I could cook a good pulled pork in just a few hours, I'd be very happy.

So, I went for it. My earlier results were so good I thought I'd skip the injection and brine, so I went straight for the rub. I put a basic pork rub on a 3.8 pound boneless pork shoulder Saturday night, wrapped it tightly in plastic wrap and let it rest in the refrigerator.

Sunday morning it came out as Carla and I headed to church

After church it went on the grill

So far a normal cook; it was on at 235* waiting for an internal temperature of 150* when I would wrap it.

I wrapped it a few degrees early; at 145* IT after about 4 hours.

Once it was wrapped I bumped the cooker up to 335*; It only took an hour to get to my target of 190. I didn't like the color of those juices. Much redder than when I did the Kalua pork.

I let it rest and then attempted to pull it.

Okay smoke ring but it was way, way too tough. But I wouldn't be detered; I used the bear claws best I could

It may look good, but it sure didn't taste good.

Thank goodness for barbecue sauce. I used a little Bob Gibson's sauce and served up a sandwich with some slaw.

I was too disappointed to get a real good plate shot.

 Part of the problem may have been the meat, I had 2nd thoughts about it when I picked it out Saturday; it had a lot of fluid in the package. The other problem may have been that it went from 145 to 190 so quickly. I think next time, I'll pay closer attention to the piece of meat I use and then  smoke for only 2 hours then put in the foil.

I had such high hopes but ended up being very disappointed.