Desolation Sound 2012

Our August boat trip was as good as it could possibly be with perfect weather every day, lots of swimming, family time, good food and relaxing! It doesn't get any better or more beautiful than this!

Beautiful drive up the Sunshine Coast

Welcome cocktails: Dirty Shirley's

Manson's Landing / Hague Lake + baby bump!

Entrance to Desolation Sound

The famous Peregrine Breakfast Tart

Roscoe Bay / Black Lake 

Booze Cruise outside Laura's Cove

We're going to have to make room for Baby Pit on this bench next summer!

Notice Murray, the life guard, ready to save Curtis

Texas Style Kolaches

If I lived in Austin, TX and had a kolache bakery down the road from my house, it would be bad news. I’m pretty confident I’d eat so many I’d turn into a kolache.

When Curtis and I stayed with Kelly and Mark in January (click here for an avocado margarita recipe and my Austin Top Ten list) they introduced us to so many fabulous new foods. We don’t own a deep fryer so most of these new experiences will have to stay in Texas, but kolaches are a baked homemade bread treat that I couldn’t wait to try making when we got home.

What is a kolache you ask? They are an amazing Czech pastry traditionally filled with something sweet but they can also be savory. Kelly brought home jalapeno sausage and bacon and cheese kolaches. They’re a perfect little square bun of sweet pasty bursting with a slightly spicy, savory filling. Curtis and I both fell hard!

As soon as we got home I consulted with Google and found a kolache recipe on The Homesick Texan blog. So the first weekend we stayed home, and I had enough time to let the dough rise, I was all over this. It turned out to be super simple - yes you do have to run into the kitchen occasionally and punch down the dough, but it’s really enjoyable when you have the time. I made them on a Saturday, refrigerated them and then baked them on Sunday morning so we could have them for breakfast fresh and hot out of the oven. Our kolaches in Texas were square and mine turned out round, but they tasted pretty close to the real thing!

The filling possibilities are endless. I’m sure it wouldn’t be a traditional kolache, but you could be seasonal with corned beef and cabbage, add pulled pork and BBQ sauce, cream cheese, cinnamon and sugar, or Curtis suggested next time we put in an egg yolk (this could be tricky, but I’m willing to try it!).  The first time around I wanted a full combination of what we tried in Texas so I stuffed mine with little chunks of apple sausage, bacon, pickled jalapenos AND cheese! They rocked.

Here’s the recipe from The Homesick Texan who describes kolaches as a sweet, soft, yeasty roll filled with either apricots, prunes, cheese, poppy seeds or sausage. 

What kind of a filling would you put in your kolaches?

Kolaches 

from The Homesick Texan who adapted from recipes found in Texas Monthly and the HoustonChronicle

Ingredients:
1 package of active dry yeast
1 cup of warm milk
1/4 cup sugar
3 cups of all-purpose flour
2 eggs
3/4 cup of melted butter
1 teaspoon of salt

Method:
In a large bowl, combine yeast, warm milk, sugar and one cup of flour. Cover and let it rise until doubled in size.

Beat together eggs, 1/2 cup of melted butter (reserve 1/4 cup for brushing on the pastry) and salt.
Add egg mixture to yeast mixture and blend.

Stir in about two more cups of flour, 1/2 cup at a time. The dough should be soft and moist.
Knead dough for about 10 minutes on floured surface. Don't worry, it’s a joy to knead as the dough is smooth and highly malleable. (I just used my kitchen aid, the bread hook and let it do it's thing for about 10 minutes.) 

Put dough in a greased bowl and let rise covered until doubled in size—about an hour.

After dough has risen, punch it down and pull off egg-sized pieces. In your hands, roll pieces into balls and then flatten to about three inches in diameter. Brush with melted butter. Place flattened pieces on a greased cookie sheet, cover and let rise again for another half-hour.

After second rising, with your finger gently make an indention in the center of the dough (be careful not to flatten it too much) and fill with one tablespoon of fruit filling (recipe to follow) and sprinkle with posypka (recipe to follow). (This is where I stuffed in my sausage, bacon, jalapeno and cheese mixture.) 

Bake in oven at 375 degrees for 12 to 15 minutes. Brush with melted butter when you take them out of the oven and serve warm.

Kolache filling

Do anything you want! I combined cooked cut up apple sausage, bacon, jalapenos and cheddar cheese. Here is what the recipe suggested: 

Ingredients:
1/2 pound of dried fruit such as apricots or prunes.
Sugar to taste
1/4 teaspoon of cinnamon
Lemon zest

Method:
Soak the dried fruit in water for a few hours or overnight.

When fruit is re-hydrated, cook on low for 15 minutes, adding sugar to taste (I find the fruit sweet enough so I don’t add sugar, but you may prefer it sweeter), cinnamon and lemon zest. Mash with a potato masher until you have a puree.

Posypka

Ingredients:
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tablespoon butter
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon

Method:
Mix all ingredients until crumbly.

This recipe makes about 18 kolaches, depending on how large you make them. And the variations are endless. For additional flavor you can soak the dried fruit in tea such as Earl Grey or you could sprinkle goat cheese on the apricot kolaches before baking. You can also make sausage and jalapeno kolaches by wrapping the three-inch flattened piece of dough around a two-inch piece of sausage and a couple of pickled jalapeno slices.

Smoked Salmon Bloody Mary

A little while back I labeled my posts so I’d have an index of all the recipes I’ve put up. Curtis and I were looking through it and laughing because, beside all the cookies, it doesn’t really represent us and what we eat. On average our weekly rotation includes salmon stir fry, tacos (every kind), soup (especially during the winter months) and pasta (with Italian sausage, caramelized onions and mascarpone. and maybe a veggie or two mixed in). I guess when I post it’s usually because I’ve tried something new and I think you may want to try it as well. And I’m sure you’d like our staples, they are our main meals for a reason, but they just don’t seem exciting enough to write about and photograph.

This following recipe is not one I think many of you will actually replicate. It won’t have the same nostalgia for you as it does for us and let’s face it, smoked salmon vodka is not a staple in most liquor cabinets. But this blog is also a journal so I’m posting it for myself to have as reference and to remember where and when we came across the recipe.

The last town we stopped in, in Alaska, before heading out to sea was Petersburg. It’s amazing when you either haven’t been around civilization or you’re about to leave all of a sudden all you want to do is shop, spend money and eat out. So we did just that, we got up early and I drug poor Curtis into every single store (don’t worry, he found things to buy and I didn’t) and never mind our boat was provisioned well enough to feed ten people for three months, we decided to hit a local hole in the wall for breakfast to sample their Smoked Salmon Bloody Mary’s and some of the best (and spiciest) Chilaquiles I’ve ever had.

After seeing signs proudly promoting Smoked Salmon Bloody Mary’s, my first thought was “Eww, gross, but we should try it!” I really thought we were going out on a ledge with this Bloody Mary and it had the potential to be nasty, but when in Rome… so I was pleasantly surprised when it was one of the BEST bloodies I’ve ever had.

We’ll never give up our Ultimate Bloody Mary recipe, but every now and then when we want to relive our trip and have a little taste of Alaska, or mix things up a bit, this is where we’ll turn.

Smoked Salmon Bloody Mary

Courtesy Kito’s Kave ~ Petersburg, AK

The Drink

Smoked Salmon Vodka

Demitri’s BloodyMary Seasoning (Available from our friends at Amazon.com)

Spicy V-8 Tomato Juice

Pepper Juice (from cherry pepper jar)

The Flair

Salt & Johnny’s – for the rim

Cipollini Onions

Olives

Peppadew Peppers

Salmon Jerky (to use as a stir stick)

Rim a tall glass with salt and a pinch of Johnny’s seasoning. Mix vodka, Demitri’s seasoning, V-8 and pepper juice in a shaker filled with ice. Give it a shake shake and pour it in the rimmed glass and garnish with an onion, olive (we left this out, C does NOT do olives), peppadews and salmon jerky as a stir stick (when we recreated at home, we just used a pepperoni stick … don’t worry the smoked salmon vodka still gave it a nice smoky flavor). And since we had them in our fridge, we threw in pickled green beans too.

Jason, Henry and Dad heading into Petersburg in the rain

Leaving Petersburg

SE Alaska

Our big summer vacation this year was joining my parents on their Selene for a two week leg of their SE Alaska adventure. We flew into Wrangell, cruised north and then around Baronof Island and ended up in Sitka. This is the first year we didn’t bring Murray on a boat trip with us because 1.) We didn’t want to put him on a commercial flight and 2.) We weren’t sure how the grizzlies would feel about sharing their beaches with a big yellow dog.

It was an incredible trip. The beautiful landscape, waterfalls, ice bergs and wildlife took our breath away! And as always it was so much fun to be on the boat with my parents, brother, sister in law and nephew. Between all the seafood we hauled in and my mom’s cooking, we ate like royalty! We came home with over 1,000 photos so it was hard to narrow it down, but here are a few!

Highlights of the places we stayed

The crew celebrating 4th of July in Wrangell

Awesome small town parade

One of the best firework shows we've ever seen!






Tracy Arm and South Sawyer Glacier








Bergie bits make great cocktails!



Pybus Bay ~ Cannery Cove


Peregrine breakfast tart

Red Bluff Bay (Baranof Island)
We were probably going much closer to these guys than we should have been, but lucky for us they were nice and we made it out alive.

Have you ever seen a bear paw?








Captain Curtis

Alaska Highway System ~ Warm Springs Bay

Hot springs overlooking the waterfall


Fishing with Granddad

Mmmmm, salmon burgers!

I've watched this bear video Curtis took about 100 times but I still giggle every time I see it!