Turkey Day [sans turkey]

 Heads up:  Lots of pictures here.  One animal carcass.  Just so you know.  :o)

This year for Thanksgiving, Kevin and I met up with Jana in Talkeetna.  Kevin's friend Karen has an ADORABLE cabin up there, and let us use it for the weekend.  

Yoga time!

Lots of cozy time with the pups...

Books...

And beer.

Oh, and did I mention the AWESOME view from the bay window?

Jana and I went out and explore the "backyard"

Rudder couldn't come.  He did some damage to some tendons a few weeks back, and is on strict bedrest from Dr. Jack.  He was not pleased...

Ended up on the railroad tracks...

Poor Rudder...

 

Kevin bought a frozen turkey on Wednesday morning.  I was thinking we could just have a rotisserie chicken (kinda looks like a mini turkey, right?) but Kevin thought a Hungry Man frozen dinner would be better than having chicken for Thanksgiving... so he bought one.  It definitely didn't have time to thaw... so plan B was...

Yup, he went out rabbit hunting behind the cabin with his 22 pistol, and came back with this.

I have never cooked (or eaten) a rabbit, but just gave it a whirl...

I coated them in some flour, herbs, and salt & pepper, and browned them in olive oil.  Inspiration: watching Chopped.

Then roasted them in beer and vegetable stock with onions for a while.  Inspiration: watching Chopped.

Here's the Turkey Day spread!

Cornbread stuffing, steamed green beans, beer-braised rabbit, mashed potatoes, cranberry-peach sauce, and sweet potato rolls.

It killed me to make boxed stuffing, instant potatoes, and microwaved green beans... but when in a little cabin in the woods, ya have to keep things a bit simpler.  :o)

I adapted a recipe from Miss Smart a made a DELICIOUS cranberry-peach sauce.  For the thing on the table that I never touched before, I think cranberry sauce is now one of my favorites!  All the way up there with the stuffing and potatoes (those will eternally be my favorites).

Posts on how to reuse your cranberry sauce - coming soon!

Dinner entertainment consistent of a little Arlo Guthrie...

Oh Rudder...

Dessert was a pumpkin gingerbread pie, and a salted maple pecan bar.  I had made the pecan bars before for a school thing, and they were a big hit!  Recipes to come later.  :o)

 

So cold outside, so cozy inside.  :o)

During the long weekend there, we went on a couple short walks with a [mostly] leashed Rudder.  Poor thing has so much energy...

Naturally, I was enamored with the rusty bridge.

Rudder was enamored with crunchy sticks...

We went to one of my favorite breweries, Denali Brewing Co., and had linner (lunch/dinner).  One of the most delicious veggie burgers + amazing Slow Down Brown Ale...  mmmmm mmmm mmmmm!

I took 400+ pictures.  No surprise...

Rudder abusing his off-leash freedom by hopping through the tall grass...  Just don't tell Dr. Jack!

Cabin from the woods behind it.

Dinner of rabbit stew with mixed in Thanksgiving leftovers.

Such a cuddle bug (and patient with our shenanigans in hairstyling).  :o)

 

No visit to Talkeetna is complete without breakfast at the Roadhouse.  Favorite by far.  I love the family style seating, and the food is both AMAZINGLY good and reasonably priced!  I always drink copious amounts of coffee there... 

By the way, I did NOT eat that all by myself.  I maybe made a dent in 1/4 of that...  Rudder and Kevin helped with the rest over the next two days.  :o)

Then we took a few pictures for Christmas cards.  Oh, and because we have next to no pictures of the three of us.  Always the photographer, never the subject.  ;o)

Such a great Thanksgiving!  :o)

The One Where Pumpkin Beer Became Even More Awesome

Anyone else think of the Friends episodes and how they all start with "The One..."  I'm in a Friends kind of mood...

Anyways, the point.

Kevin had a brilliant suggestion of how to serve our pumpkin beer.  Oh goodness, it was good.  It made it a beer'ssert.  Yup, pumpkin beer for dessert.

Yeah, I was having a little bit of fun with photo editing there...

So, we've had a bit of a weird Fall here.  First it rained buckets.  Then we had these super crazy winds that blew off all the leaves from the tree (and knocked quite a few of them over).  This means fewer leaves on the trees to turn a beautiful yellow for fall.  So here we are, in a wind damaged, rain soaked, and color diminished state of Fall, and it snows.  What???  Snow in September??  Not just a few flakes randomly falling.  We're talking ground sticking, grass covering, snow.

You can see the falling snow and snow covered houses and trees from the window.

 So sadly, the house begins prep work for the winter.  This year Kevin convinced me to try some of that plastic window covering stuff.  Assuring me that the plastic won't look that bad (jury is still out by the way) and that I'll save a lot on energy costs.

This room is actually a blue'ish gray.  Not at all green.  Yay strange lighting and not working on white balance!

 At the grocery store today, we picked up a six-pack of pumpkin beer.  It's pretty rare that we drink beer at home, but I was in the mood for some pumpkin goodness.

Here's how to make an already awesome pumpkin beer an awesome pumpkin beer'ssert!

Sugar & Spice Rimmed Pumpkin Beer
From: Kevin's suggestion

Ingredients:

• 1 T light brown sugar
• 1/2 T white sugar
• 1/8'ish t pumpkin pie spice
• orange slice (or orange marmalade) 
• pumpkin beer of your choosing

By the way, I totally made up those measurements.  I think its probably close to the ratio I did for ours though.  :o)  

First, rim your glass with either an orange slice, or if you don't happen to have one but have orange marmalade in your fridge and thought "oh that'd be tasty!', with orange marmalade.  You could really use anything here to make it sticky.  I did really like the orange marmalade though!

Then, roll your glass into your mixture of white and brown sugars, and pumpkin pie spice.

Pour in beer.

Drink!

I love that my Grove City College pint glass, home of the [then] dry town, has beer in it.  Just makes me giggle.  Guess you would have to be a Grover to get the irony of the situation... :op

Or take pictures of it.  :o)

It's quite delicious and really is a dessert (even if I did drink mine while making dinner...) :o)