Firewood and Sour Cream Noodle Bake

Last Friday was one of those chilly, cloudy days that feel more like December than late March. I don't know about you, but those days always inspire me to put something in the oven, something nice and warm and filling to come to come in from the cold and enjoy. Those days also inspire Scott and I to cut more firewood to keep our little house nice and toasty.

There had been a stack of 2x2s and 2x4s in Scott's truck for a few days, which he'd brought home from work after a load of steel was delivered. Cut into thirds, they make great kindling, and we were all out, and Scott was out of his trusty lighter fluid to get the bigger chunks going, so we tackled the task of cutting them up and refilling our front porch.

Only this time, instead of using our circular saw to cut them one by one, Scott tried a new strategy, bundling them together then cutting them with the chain saw, and it worked well and went a lot faster carrying them to the porch when two-thirds of every bundle could be carried to the porch in smaller bundles with the ropes still on. My job was to pick up and stack all the loose ones.

Scott started on them while I was getting dinner put in the oven to bake, and what I made was Sour Cream Noodle Bake, from PW's website last week or so.

It started out with a package of ground beef. I love recipes that start out with ground beef, because of our neverending supply. It's cheap - as in Bob resupplies us from Association beef - and can be made into so many variations.

This was a recipe made from ingredients out of my pantry and freezer, so I did adapt it a little from PW's original, to suit the ingredients I had on hand, but I did happen to have these two cans of tomato sauce available.

I started by browning the ground beef on the stovetop.

Then added the tomato sauce. If I did it again, I'd season the ground beef as it was browning. I always forget, and always wish I had when I taste the final product.

Boil some water for some noodles.

Then add them to the pot. PW called for egg noodles, but I've had a box of whole wheat rotini in my cupboard for quite some time, so I used it in the recipe.

For the sauce to hold it all together, of course there had to be some sour cream.

And there was some cottage cheese. I always use lowfat dairy products instead of fat free - they cut the calories, while still having a somewhat normal texture and taste to them.

I think the recipe called for green onions, but I didn't have any so I just put in some yellow onion.

So you mix the dairy products, onions and seasoning all together, and it was actually quite good on its own. :-)

And this little 'pasta salad' mixture also tasted quite good on its own. :-)

I used my trusty Martha Stewart cast iron baking dish. After I've used it for a few months now, now I kind of wish I also had a smaller one for when I make recipes for just Scott and I. Sometimes the single batches kind of get lost in its large size. But, I guess soon enough I'll consistently make more family-sized recipes, instead of just meals for two.

With the pasta mixture on the bottom, layer some ground beef on top, top with cheese, then repeat the three layers again.

It's always better to grate your own cheese. It's so much more fresh and soft and flavorful and not dried out. And always grate a little extra. Extra cheese is never a bad thing.

I added a little sprinkle of parsley to the top of the whole thing, just to pretty it up a little bit. Then it went in the oven, and I went outside to stack wood.

When we were all done and came in the house, this is what we enjoyed for dinner, along with buttered and garlic-ed French bread I'd also stuck in the oven, wrapped in foil. And this kind of thing makes for great leftovers!

Cows + Calves = Spring!!

Something new on the Roundup's Facebook page is the occasional opportunity for our page fans to submit photos to correspond with an assigned theme, and in this week's paper we're running calving season photos. Even though it might still be bitterly cold and snowing when the earliest ones hit the ground, the arrival of the first calves means that spring must be near. Here are a few of the photos our fans uploaded:

“This calf was waiting in the branding corral for his turn! His face is priceless, and the question on his mind: you’re going to do what??????” says Lacee Sims of this Spring 2010 photo in Uinta County.

“These two girls weren’t far from calving, and just couldn’t stand to see any hay wasted over the snowbank!” says Jennifer Roberts, who submitted this photo taken by her mother-in-law Leisa Roberts of Merna.

 

Stephanie Russell of Wheatland says she loves the white faces on their Hereford calves. 

A Hereford calf gets some breakfast near Meeteetse. Britt Whitt photo

“Our mommas and babies enjoyed the bare ground after a Chinook ate the snow and the fog lifted,” says Don McDowell of Hells Gap, north of Fort Laramie. 

“Oftentimes we have to contend with spring snowstorms during calving – not much we can do about that! Thank goodness most cows know how to take care of their calves – here’s hoping we have a nice spring for calving!” says Jennifer Roberts of Merna in western Wyoming. 

Kim Bell submitted this photo of a heifer realizing she’s had her first calf.

Our own small bunch of cows won't start calving until mid-April, so I won't have any of my own springtime calf photos until then. Hopefully in another month the grass will be growing and there will be more than baby calves to signal that spring has arrived!

A wintertime chore

During the winter, Scott and Bob's cows are kept in a leased pasture west of Casper without good running water, so that means almost every day in the cold months someone has to go out and open the small reservoir so the cows have something to drink when they need it.

Because the reservoir level has fallen slightly over the winter, Scott decided to open two new water holes for the cows. Usually, if they're regularly opened, all it takes is a shovel, iron bar or an ax to break the thin ice over the holes, but since he was opening a new hole Scott used a chainsaw to make the initial cuts, and good thing, because the ice turned out to be about eight inches thick and would have taken forever to open with an ax.

(note: this is before he got his new Husqvarna chain saw. I'm sure he'd love to go open new water holes this weekend just for an excuse to use it.)

After he cut the outline of the rectangle, he cut the big rectangle into chunks to make it easier to clear the water hole.

Of course the dogs were there to help. It was very extremely windy that day, as you can see by Lucy's ruffled fur.

Once the ice in the hole is completely free, it's time to take other tools to it to get it scooped out of there.

First thing is an ax, to get the big blocks broken into smaller chunks.

Lucy makes a good supervisor.

Then the smaller pieces of ice can be shoveled out of the hole.

Scott likes to leave the smaller, wet pieces of ice right around the hole's edge so they'll freeze and provide some rough traction for the cows when they come to drink. The girls love ice cubes - the cracking of an ice cube tray never fails to bring them to the kitchen at the house - and Lucy was wondering if the big chunk could be all hers.

But Foxy is the one who really goes nuts for ice.

She's such an odd little dog. But at least it doesn't take much to keep her happy.

And she likes chasing ice chunks across the reservoir. There is much slipping, sliding and skidding that goes on.

And then she takes her ice chunks and loses them in snow drifts.

Togwotee: A Snow Lovers' Paradise

This morning Scott and I left town with Foxy and Lucy at about 6:30, heading for the ranch to drop them off and to pick up Bob and Becky before heading up to Jackson.

We hit Lander about 9:30 and were scowled at by Melissa as she walked across the street in front of us and we gave her a friendly honk.

And then we headed up through the reservation, Dubois and over Togwotee Pass - the main road from anywhere in eastern Wyoming to Jackson and its snow and world-class skiing.

Snowmobilers like Togwotee Pass very much, and there are tracks and trucks and trailers and snowmachines everywhere up there. It was a pretty drive on a clear day, so we could see the surrounding mountains.

After coming off the west side of the pass, eventually you can see the Tetons as you still descend, and Becky and i were disappointed they were shrouded in clouds.

It's still very pretty in the area. I apologize for window reflections, as I snapped these as we were driving from Moran Junction down to Jackson.

Lots of snow, almost covering the buck rail fences that line the road.

The southern end of the Tetons began to clear up a little, and the clouds look neat in this picture - I'm sad there's a windshield refelction.

We arrived in Jackson just before 1 p.m., and after a quick check-in to the Antler Inn I headed out to my 1:30 interview with Kate Mead, who lives on her family's ranch just north of town, and who raises and markets natural steers to sell to restaurants and retailers in town. We had a very interesting conversation, and I was out there with her for over an hour, visiting about everything from the local school board to her cattle to raising kids in a busy lifestyle with a working mom. She is also sister-in-law to our new Governor Matt Mead.

It's very pretty in this country!

It was overcast later this afternoon into this evening, and I hope the sun shines tomorrow because I'd really like to get some photos of the cutter races, and somehow they'd just be a little drab in overcast lighting, as opposed to sunshine with the racing horses and the flying snow chips.

Tomorrow I interview at Flat Creek Saddlery at 10 a.m., then following the races tomorrow afternoon I'm meeting up with a few of the Shriners to do interviews about the races themselves. Out of this trip we should get two solid feature articles for our cover, plus an article for our impending Horse Edition.

For now, Scott and I are relaxing in our hotel room, enjoying our crackling fire in the fireplace. Mini vacations are nice. :-)