The Return of The Klutz and a Tasty Veggie Soup

Potato Leek and Broccoli Soup with Pancetta Bread Crumbs

We’re back from our 20th wedding anniversary trip to our RV property on the Siletz River on the Central Coast of Oregon. Not too newsworthy unless I mention the fact that I pretty much shattered my left middle finger on the second day there in a boat launch accident.  I had surgery on the finger the day after we got back, and am now entrapped in a traction device. I don’t have the sling anymore at least, that was just to hold up my arm until the nerve block wore off.  After the recipe so you get to look at a few of “exciting” photos of the trip if you want. 🙂

Finger Traction Device ~ Only the second one made at the clinic, lucky me!

Yet, I’m feeling for ya’! So I’ll share a yummy soup recipe I made just before we left first. It’s the least I can do. I only got a couple of pics since I was also packing for the week.

p.s. I finally purchased a sous vide immersion circulator! I’ve been experimenting it (with the hubby’s help since I’m down to one hand, but so far so good!) Just had an awesome chuck roast beef stew cooked 26 hours at 165F then seared with pan gravy made from juices in bag. I’ll start posting those those types of recipes when I can. Picture-taking is mighty hard at the present. Typing with one hand is not exactly a picnic either…

Potato, Leek, and Broccoli Soup with Pancetta Bread Crumbs
Adapted from Food and Wine

3 cloves unpeeled garlic
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, divided
1 cup sliced leeks, white and light green parts only
1 pound Russet or other potatoes, peeled and chopped small
2 cups broccoli florets, coarsely chopped small
2 1/2 cups homemade chicken stock or low-sodium broth
1/2 cups Half and Half
Wedge of fresh-squeezed lemon juice
Salt or Mrs. Dash and freshly ground pepper, to taste
Handful of fresh parsley, chopped
1/2 cup cubed sourdough bread
1 tablespoon olive oil
1/8 cup finely chopped pancetta
2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh sage
1/2 teaspoon dried and crushed rosemary (or 1 teaspoon fresh)

Wrap garlic cloves in foil and bake at 400F degrees for 35 minutes. Remove and let cool then peel and add to a food processor or blender.

In a soup pot or Dutch oven, melt 2 tablespoons of the butter. Add the leeks, potatoes and broccoli and cook over medium-high heat for 10 minutes, stirring frequently, until the leeks start to soften. Add the chicken stock and 3 1/2 cups of water, cover and bring to a boil. Simmer over medium heat until all of the vegetables are tender, about 10 minutes.

Working in batches, add soup to the garlic in the food processor or blender, amd puree the soup until very smooth. Return the puree to the pot and stir in the Half and Half and wedge of lemon juice. Season the soup with salt or Mrs. Dash and pepper. Keep warm on low.

Meanwhile, pulse the bread cubes in a food processor until coarse crumbs form. In a skillet, melt the remaining tablespoon of butter in the tablespoon of oil. Add the pancetta, sage, rosemary and bread crumbs and cook over moderately high heat, stirring frequently, until the crumbs and pancetta are browned and crisp, about 10 minutes. Drain on paper towels.

Ladle the soup into bowls, garnish with the pancetta crumbs, and enjoy!

Potato Leek and Broccoli Soup with Pancetta Bread Crumbs

Download and Print this Yummy Recipe!

Here are some pics from our vacation:

An armada of kayakers on the Siletz River

Neighbor and hubby showing off the Dungeness crab

Me showing off some crabs

Our Dungeness crab haul for the day

 

Our Anniversary Dinner ~ Tee Hee!

Hubby built a new deck out of our old dock that washed away in flooding last year

 

 

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Fire-Roasted Tomatillo Sauce on Grilled Chicken

Fire-Roasted Tomatillo Sauce on Grilled Chicken

I am astounded I am about to make my FOURTH trip over the Santiam (mountain) Pass in Oregon tomorrow for the month of July. Let’s see, I’ve been over it to do a grueling hike to Blue Pool with friends from Ohio just after the 4th of July.

Blue Pool Oregon Hike

I’ve visiting friends (solo) at the coast in Yachats just after that and did another grueling hike to the top of Cape Perpetua. It was much shorter than Blue Pool but twice as steep to get up it! Luckily it was a cool and foggy-ish day so I didn’t die of heat stroke hiking up it.

Me and Friend at top of Cape Perpetua

This past weekend we spent four days at our river property on the Siletz River at the coast and got another base set for a new deck from our dock that washed it away last year in the floods.

New Base for Deck from Dock that Pushed it out Last Year in Floods

And tomorrow our family leaves for a Portland family reunion at Clear Lake! My uncle is turning 89 and my parents have also flown up from Texas so my dad (and mom) can join his brother and extended family and us for a weekend of fun. This is a photo from the reunion two years ago but we did go last year too.

Clear Lake, Oregon

Whew! So what does that have to do with food and recipes? Well, the month of July has been kind of a cheater month for me. I made this dish on a whim a couple of weeks ago on the grill when I discovered I had bought a pound of tomatillos and forgot about them in the fridge. It was hot as heck out so I whipped up an impromptu batch of tomatillo sauce to pour over grilled, marinated chicken. Yummy all the way around!

My “recipe” is just a guideline, as I didn’t even write any notes down. I just kind of cobbled it all together and served it with beans and tortillas chips. That’s just how some dinners go!

Fire-Roasted Tomatillo Sauce on Grilled Chicken

2 small chicken breasts, pounded thin
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon minced garlic
2 teaspoons fresh lime juice
Salt or Mrs. Dash, and ground pepper, to taste
1 pound fresh tomatillos, husked and rinsed
1 large clove garlic
1 1/2 large shallot (you can sub 1/2 small onion)
More oil and a little minced garlic for veggies
1/2 cup homemade or low sodium chicken stock or broth
Shredded cheese of choice

Marinate the chicken in oil, garlic, lime juice, and spices to taste for a half hour or more. Toss the tomatillos, minced garlic and shallot in a little oil then place on a pre-heated grill set to high. (The shallot kind of fell apart hence all the pieces)

Grilling the Tomatillos, Shallots, and Garlic

Grill and turn until charred.

Roasted Tomatillos, Shallots, and Garlic

Remove, place in blender with 1/2 or so cup of chicken stock and blitz until blended.

Ready to Blitz the Roasted Veggies and Chicken Stock

Pour into a cast iron skillet and simmer for about 15 minutes until reduced to desired consistency. (I put the skillet on the propane grill burner but you can do this inside too.) Stir occasionally.

Tomatillo Sauce Finishing on Grill

Meanwhile, grill marinated chicken for about 5 minutes per side.

Burning Some Chicken

In the last few minutes, toss some shredded cheese on the chicken until melted.

Melting Da’ Cheese

Remove chicken from grill, let rest under foil for a few minutes, then serve with roasted tomatillo sauce, and beans and tortilla chips, if desired.

Download and Print this Yummy Recipe!

All Work and No Play?

Stellar Jay

Hi foodie friends! I don’t want you to think I dropped off the face of the planet. We were gone for a week to our RV river property on the Oregon Coast with no cell service or interwebz. I didn’t give a heads up since I have quite a few more readers on board since I started my blog over four years ago — one can never be too safe!

My husband did the majority of “work” on the property to get it ready for the upcoming fishing and crabbing season, but we had plenty of relaxing time, including a trip to the Tillamook Cheese Factory and then to scope out a new store/exhibit in Lincoln City called “Prehistoric.” I got to touch dinosaur bones 165 million years old! I’m a kid at heart.

Prehistoric in Lincoln City <— click here for a video about it.

All is well in foodie land, I plan on posting a new recipe next week. Here’s a couple of photos from the trip to tide you over. 🙂

Husband and neighbor pushing dock into the river ~ it floods every year so we pull it out.

Here’s what we hope to be pulling out of the Siletz Bay in a couple of months! This is me with part of last year’s catch!

Kathryn and Dungeness Crab

A Weekend of Fishing and Camp Food Recipes

A pole in the water is a good thing!

We got back on Monday from our last camping/fishing trip on the Siletz River at the coast in Oregon. It’s that sad time of year where we have to pull in the dock out of the water, pull up the ramp, and move the RV to higher ground. (The river usually floods in late fall or winter.) We made plenty of time for recreation, with a bunch of work in between. I also got to play with my new camera! The weather was astoundingly beautiful, and the sunsets were spectacular, and the reflections in the river during evening were so colorful with the fall foliage. I could not stop snapping photos!

But with all that recreating and working, we still have to eat. I brought along a bunch of pre-made frozen bags of food to make the cooking experience a bit less time consuming, as well as planned some other quick and easy fresh meals. As much as I loved taking nature pics with my camera, I took nary a photo of the food. We were usually so worn out by the end of the day I was just glad I had enough energy to cook and sit down to eat.

However, come along for the ride through my photos and links to some of the recipes for the food we ate!

First evening of fishing off the dock

The first night there we always do something quick and easy. Actually this entire trip we did that, though. We heated up some delicious (frozen) fish chowder made from the sea bass we caught the prior fishing trip. Can’t get any easier than that! Link to recipe below:

Creamy Fish Chowder with Corn and Potatoes

Cool full moon photo through the trees

It was also a full moon, which made the fishing (and crabbing) not that good. But I will not complain, since the weather was outstanding. Last year we pulled out in a full-force Pacific Northwest storm, which was not very pleasant. We were soaked to the bone after that. Sunny weather is a good thing for these activities.

Heading out on the Siletz River to fish and crab

There were a lot of boats on the river the next day!

Fishermen on the Siletz River

For the second night’s meal, I brought some frozen spaghetti sauce my husband makes in huge batches. Boil water for noodles, microwave sauce. Put some garlic bread in the toaster oven. Done! Unfortunately I’ve never posted his sauce recipe, but it’s really good though! He uses a spicy cayenne sausage one of our markets sells along with ground beef.

All our crab pots had lots of crab, but none of them were big enough to keep. What’s up with that??? First time we’ve ever been skunked on crabbing.

Pulling in crab pot of (too small to keep) Dungeness crabs

OK I just have to share you a picture of our dog, Hannah Banana. She just loves to roam around the property for squirrels and birdies!

Hannah Banana

Oh, I guess another recipe or two would be in order by now. For lunch one day I made my tuna melts with the very last of my fresh tomatoes from our garden. Another lunch we had Carne Asada tacos with some of the canned homemade fire-roasted salsa I made earlier last month. YUMM! Links to recipes below:

Tuna Melts

Carne Asada Tacos

Homemade Canned Fire-Roasted Tomato Salsa

The next morning I made some killer Migas Tacos with same salsa, but alas no recipe yet for that dish.

Next thing we knew, it was work, work, work, with fishing off the dock instead of river trips. But let me share a couple of sunset/river reflection photos. The colors were spectacular and the river was like glass. Amazing!

Trees reflecting off Siletz River

Trees Reflecting on Siletz River

The next night we did the standard grilled steak and baked potatoes. Oooh but we loaded our baked potatoes with lots of goodies and fresh veggies. Can’t go wrong with that either!

And check out this huge mushroom I found on our property! It had to be at least six inches across in diameter. Since I’m no mushroom expert, I just took a photo. For some reason mushroom poisoning scares the crap out of me.

Large Mushroom at Camp

Awww, here is our last night of fishing off the dock before pulling it in the next morning. Not sure why I always caught empty chairs. Well of course mine was empty, but hubby was probably off doing some kind of chore. But our poles were in!

Last evening of fishing off our dock

On our last night, we grilled up some frozen pre-marinated chicken fajitas. Of course we had our salsa with that too along with some fresh veggie fillings. Link to recipe below:

Chicken Fajitas

And last, here is our dock and ramp all pulled in for the winter. We took the opportunity to add two more barrels under the dock, as it listed pretty badly to one side because two of the barrels got crushed by logs last year.

Adding new barrels under the dock

Ramp pulled in and ready to tied down

Neither of us caught a salmon this year. That happens, those darn fish can be elusive and the full moon didn’t help. Well I hope you enjoyed my journey and some of the links to the recipes!

Fresh Ling Cod from Depoe Bay and Dungeness Crab ~ Life is Good

Depoe Bay ~ World’s Smallest Harbor

Oh my, where do I start with this? I left over a week ago after a couple of grueling weeks at work which included a night up until 3:30 am. This was my “release.” No internet, no cell service, and I had the BEST time ever. Really. Good relaxation, good food, great scenery, great fishing, lots of book-reading, Yahtzee-playing, (my husband beats me almost every game) but really, I needed all that

The trip started out not-so-good. We were all packed, heading out of town, and got a mile from the house. “OH! I didn’t pack my favorite shoes!” exclaims the husband. I rolled my eyes but let him turn around anyways. He did a nice  safe turnaround in a parking lot, then we headed back home. Suddenly, he exclaimed, “WAIT, I DID PACK THEM!” Then yanked the steering wheel to the left very abruptly to change lanes to turn around again and WHAM! We are being dragged up the road by a big mongo pickup truck by the front bumper, spewing car parts all over the place. I then said words I cannot repeat here. My most recent issue of Southern Living has a full-page ad on the back that states the new 2013 RAV4s have a “blind spot monitor system” on it. Apparently they are aware of this defect. Sigh….

Lemony Ling Cod with Mushrooms

But we eventually got on our way, and had a fabulous week of fishing, crabbing, and good food. Since we don’t have cell service on our property, it took pretty much all week of phone tag with the insurance company of getting it all lined up, but it looks like I’ll be back in my car in about another week.

Our first boat trip on the Siletz river not only produced no fish, but we got heavily rained on. Well that’s coastal river life, We wore rain gear, of course. But we did catch one crab of regulation size, and had it as an appetizer prior to our dinner of grilled chicken and pasta.

Dungeness Crab Freshly Cooked

Then our nice neighbor friend up there, Stan, invited us to go bottom-fishing with him the next day out of Depoe Bay. Depoe Bay is the “World’s Smallest Harbor.”  I have been out of it before on chartered fishing trips in seas up to 15 to 20 feet, and it’s extremely scary. I get sea sick on “high seas.” I am glad to say that the ocean was really calm as we left, and I had  my first bottom-fishing trip without heaving over the side of the boat!

Out to Sea from Depoe Bay

I caught two sea  bass, my hubby caught one, and the star of the show was our friend and  captain, Stan. He caught not only one but TWO Ling Cods, which is my all-time favorite fish. He also  caught about six or seven sea bass. We could not figure out why he was so lucky with his catches except he had his pole between our two.  Either way, he split all the fish 50-50 and for that we are grateful. Thank you STAN!

Stan and his Ling Cod

I made my Lemony Ling Cod at the Coast recipe (<— click for recipe) from his generous donation, except this time I added a bunch of fresh mushrooms to the pan. We froze the rest of the fish and brought it home for future delicious meals. My husband plans on making fish chowder, yumm!

Me and My Two Sea Bass!

We also checked out a new fishing/crabbing spot on the Salmon River. This is a shallow river that leads directly to the ocean from Three Rocks park, that leads to, well, Three Rocks in the ocean. Absolutely beautiful! We caught three regulation size Dungeness on that trip, but unfortunately two of them were females, which can’t be kept. So once again, only one to take home. That one we cooked and cleaned and also bagged up for the freezer to make it into the fish chowder.

Salmon River

The elusive Chinook salmon evaded us once again this trip, but we plan on heading out there at least three or four more times this fall to try and hook that “big one” for the dinner table. I hope you are having a safe and enjoyable Labor Day!

UPDATE! How did I forget to mention this? While we were heading back into Depoe Bay, we saw two gray whales, a mother and her calf. It was so awesome. I had already packed away my camera but we couldn’t have gotten close enough for a good shot anyways since there were about five whale-watching boats surrounding them. What a great experience that was! Here is a link to one of the charter companies you can pay to go whale-watching with, but we did it all on our own! http://www.tradewindscharters.com/whale.html

Our Trusty Charcoal Grill

Our Trusty Charcoal Grill

Hello all my foodie friends! We had a splendid time on the river and bay at the coast last week, with beautiful weather and plenty of time for fishing and crabbing. The Chinook Salmon were leaping and rolling out of the river right before our eyes, but just did not want to bite yet. It is still a bit early but we have a few more trips planned to see if we can snag one (or two) of those beauties. But the Dungeness crab did not fail us.  We snagged enough keepers to put some in the freezer when we got home for good eats later.

Now, speaking to the title of this week’s post. Our Trusty Charcoal Grill is a family heirloom that I hold near and dear to my heart. My parents bought this grill when they got married in 1959. Countless family meals were grilled on it until the advent of the propane grill. They were going to toss it but I rescued it from its imminent demise when I volunteered to haul it to my rental house when I was in college.

Chicken and Veggie Kabobs with Foil-Pack Potatoes

“They just don’t make them like they used to” is an understatement when it comes to this grill. The solid cast aluminum body has weathered unscathed through through the scorching heat of Texas summers, hurricanes in Florida, brutal blizzards in Central Oregon, and insane flooding of the Siletz River. Although the wheels and grates have been replaced several times, the core of this beauty has never failed. No rust, no cracking, nothing.  My husband begged and pleaded for many years to put my baby to rest and buy a propane grill, but I held out until about five years ago when I conceded ONLY if we could bring it to our river property to use as our mainstay there. I was terrified earlier this year that my grill was lost to the seas after the flooding  when I didn’t see it lashed to the tree where we usually left it after securing the property last winter. But I breathed a sigh of relief when I found it inside our RV. Then it came back to me that I was so afraid of losing it in the floods that at last minute I stashed it inside the camper instead of trusting that the ropes would keep it secure. Whew! So glad I did that after seeing the damage from the floods.

Barbecued Oysters

This past week Our Trusty Charcoal grill provided us with hot dogs, carne asada tacos, chicken and veggie kabobs, grilled foil pack potatoes, and barbecued fresh oysters. I just cannot imagine life without my grill.  Silly, but true. Happy Grilling, my friends!

Vacation!

Fishing Off Dock on Siletz

I’ve been busy this week planning for a week off work and a nice long trip to the Oregon Coast to our RV property on the Siletz River. Between that and work itself I’ve had no time to cook anything new or blog for that matter. However, while we are there we are planning on plank grilling a big chunk of steelhead that one of our avid fisher-friends provided to us this week, so look for that write-up when I return. The picture above is my husband fishing off our dock last year. Our dock is back in the water, but that beautiful ramp down to it has seen better days. That will be one of our big projects we’ll be working on in addition to installing a new hot water heater in our RV. Ohhh, hot showers again out there! Be still my heart.

Wrecked Ramp

I hope everyone has a safe and enjoyable Fourth of July and please look out for the fur-kids too and help keep them calm during all the fireworks. See you soon!