More road trip from Carolyn. Whenever I dig out my suitcases, my kitty, Angel, is ever so curious. He’s blind, but hey, it doesn’t bother him one bit, he’s just as inclined to jump into boxes. He was all over this suitcase, pawing the corners, for bugs? Who knows what cats think sometimes.


These photos aren’t in any particular order, so I’ll just give you a little bit of commentary. I love big flower arrangements outside, this one at Big Sky, at the golf course restaurant.

Big Sky, Montana, is surrounded by mountains, these were on the east side.

Other than the scenery in Big Sky, on one of my days returning to California I drove from Klamath Falls to the north east side of Mt. Shasta. This was a view as I was driving. It was a gorgeous day, bright blue sky, and no fires or smoke anywhere to be seen there.

This was actually on my first day out, driving up the “old” 395 highway with a view of the Sierra Nevada. It was crystal-clear that day (and beastly hot too) but the views were beautiful.

At Big Sky, the small private lake there serves lunch from a food truck, with a small set of tables set amidst the sand. This beautiful group of flowers graced one side of that area.

At Powell & Karen’s condo, this picture hangs on the wall in one of the guest rooms. It just riveted my eye, how curious the dog was, about to sniff that lovely trout.

One of my favorite pictures of the whole trip, a view of the lake at Big Sky, through the trees. My grandson, Vaughan, went out into the lake in a kayak for awhile.

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The picture above shows the chicken in mid-bake – – – forgot to take a photo of the finished goods! When finished, the grapes were mostly wrinkled and had oozed some juice that went into a sauce.

A post from Carolyn . . . I’m back home from my 2 1/2 week road trip and haven’t had time to write another post about my trip – but this recipe was sitting in the drafts – something I made a month or two ago . . . . I had friends and family here for dinner. I served some various cheeses with crackers, this chicken alongside the layered salad that’s already been posted. I’d stewed some cherries, already on my blog, called Bing Cherry Compote, that I’d made a few days before, that were put on the top of some vanilla ice cream, for dessert. We opened an old bottle of red wine from the cellar and there was dinner!

There were 5 of us, and two of them hungry men, so I figured I’d best make two chickens. Probably I could have made do with just one chicken, but oh well, I’ll make soup or something with the remaining chicken. My cousin Gary is visiting as I’m writing this (although he’s driving back to the Bay Area in a couple of days) and he’s expressed interest in learning more about cooking. So I suggested HE make the spatchcocked chicken. I know I can buy already uncooked, but dressed/marinated spatchcocked chicken at Trader Joe’s, but those are seasoned, and I wanted to try this recipe. Besides which, I was happy to have Gary’s strong hands to cut out the backbone of those two birds. Sometimes I struggle cutting the largest bones. If you don’t know how to spatchcock a chicken, there’s a 1 1/2-minute video on youtube.

You know that when you flatten a chicken, it cooks more evenly. The breast meat and the thigh meat seem to cook to just the right temp without compromising each other. The recipe came from The Splendid Table, from Melissa Clark. It was described in a podcast I listened to and I promptly came to my computer to look it up. It’s a great recipe.

The essence of this recipe – the chicken is flattened on the baking sheet and a rub is added to it (EVOO, salt, fennel seeds, pepper and lemon zest) both top and bottom. I used two sheetpans obviously, as a flattened chicken takes  up a good part of the big pan. After the chickens rest a bit (sitting with the rub), they’re baked at high temp (475°F) for 20 minutes. Then you add the grapes (I bought a mixture of colors because they’d be pretty on the plate) which have been lightly tossed in EVOO and salt and pepper and a tiny sprinkling of sugar. The pans go back in the oven for another 20-25 minutes until they’ve reached the correct temp. Once they were removed, the chickens were put off onto a cutting board, and they rested under foil for about 15 minutes while we put the pan on the cooktop (without the parchment), simmered the juices there (after having removed the grapes) and then added a pat of butter and some sherry vinegar. What a lovely combination! The grapes and sauce were heated on the stove, poured into a pitcher and people drizzled the sauce over the chicken.

My friend Cherrie’s husband Bud carved the birds for me, and we sat down to eat. Daughter Sara had driven up from San Diego, as she wanted to visit with cousin Gary, so she came for dinner too. Anyway, we all went back for seconds on everything, I think.

What’s GOOD: liked the fennel flavor in the chicken, and oh gosh, the grapes were a genius idea to serve alongside chicken. Loved the flavored sauce and did I say how good the grapes were? Oh my.

What’s NOT: nothing other than you need spatchcocked chickens to make this. It’s a relatively easy recipe otherwise.

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Snapshot I took of the Sierra/Nevada mountains (California) as I was driving.

Last year, my son and his wife Karen bought a condo in Big Sky, Montana. They’d vacationed there for several years, and decided they wanted to have their own place to ski and summer vacation. For the month of July Karen and grandson Vaughan are here, with Powell flitting in and out when he can get away from work. So, several months ago when they invited me to come visit during July, I said yes. And I’d make a road trip out of it. Having never been to Big Sky, I didn’t really know what to expect, other than photos I’d seen. Big Sky is located about 1 1/4 hour drive south of Bozeman, and about an hour north of the western gate to Yellowstone. Set nestled in between very tall peaks and valleys.

That picture was taken from the restaurant at the golf course near the Big Sky Resort. As you can see, there is smoke in the air, but we enjoyed a really nice lunch, sitting outside.

As I’m writing this, I AM in Big Sky, and have been for several days, enjoying the alpine location (7200 feet), the wonderful pine tree smell that pervades, the good food (both out and at home). And not enjoying the altitude sensitivity I have. I won’t be here long enough to acclimate to the altitude, so I’m just being careful by not exerting myself too much. I had a low grade headache for the first two days, but that finally went away. Walking much at all is out of the question as I get winded. But going in and out of various restaurants is certainly do-able!

That’s the view from their living room window. Ski slopes abound in every direction and that ramp you can see on the right is a ski-on, ski-off way to get down the hill to the ski lifts.

And again, as I write this, I’m having to re-adjust my itinerary as my next stop was going to be in Lolo National Forest (near Missoula, Montana), which is currently under fire evacuation orders. So, scratch that long day trip of driving in the Bitterroot Valley. In a few days I’ll head back to Coeur d’Alene, where I’m staying with my friend Ann (you’ve seen photos of her when she visited SoCal over several winters for a week in Palm Desert with me – we couldn’t do it that last Jan/Feb because of Covid, but hopefully this next winter she’ll be able to fly south).

My plan is to do some wine tasting in Walla Walla, Washington and if I find anything I really like I’ll have it shipped to home. I don’t want to cart cases of wine in my car trunk through hot summer weather. I have encountered lots of high temps on this trip (over 100 degrees, driving up the old 395 highway along the eastern edge of California). I had just driven through the area that was hit with a 5.9 earthquake that tumbled boulders down onto the highway. And yes, my car tipped left and right – I thought it was an uneven road . . . no, it was the earthquake! I stayed at a hotel nearby and was awakened several times during the night with aftershocks. Good thing I’m used to those kinds of tremors.

Once I arrived in Idaho it was about 100 degrees every day. Oh my goodness, is that ever hot! During my drive in California I encountered one day at 109 degrees, but I was comfortable in my air conditioned car, thankfully! I enjoyed the three days of driving to get from Southern California to northern Idaho, and I’ve been listening to a couple of books as I go. I’ve subscribed to Chirp, a discounted website for audio books. They don’t offer very many books at the lower prices, but I’ve found a few to keep me entertained. My car doesn’t have a CD/DVD slot anymore (my newest car that’s now 1 1/2 years old and still had less than 10,000 miles on it because of Covid) so I can’t use books on CD anymore from the library as I’d done in the past.

FYI, last night I made those vegetarian enchiladas that were posted about a week ago. Karen and Vaughan really enjoyed them, and me too. That recipe is a real keeper. I’ll post again in coming days if I have time.

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Utter deliciousness. Is that a word? Should be if it’s not.

A post from Carolyn. You will want to make these. They’re actually quite easy. My granddaughter Taylor has moved in with me because she’s in nursing school at Concordia University here in SoCal. When she finishes her 13-month accelerated nursing program she’ll have her second bachelor’s degree, this one a B.S.N. (nursing). Her first B.S. is in hospital administration. She drove down from NorCal with her good friend Quinn, to keep her company, and I wanted to have dinner for them before Quinn got on a plane to fly home.

So, dinner. My other granddaughter, Sabrina, got me onto a new (to me) blog called Half Baked Harvest. Tieghan is a very gifted and prolific food blogger – she puts together the most interesting combinations of food, and the photography definitely intrigues my taste buds. The impetus of my version was her post about these vegetarian enchiladas. I made some changes to her recipe, however. I added a sweet potato and a yellow squash to the roasted veggies. I didn’t add chipotle (I like chipotle, but thought the mixture had enough heat from the pepper jack, which was quite hot). I didn’t add honey, either. I also used more cheese. And I totally forgot to add all the garnishes (avocado, sour cream for instance). Tieghan is a wizard with garnishes.

The vegetables are roasted – I didn’t buy fresh corn – I used frozen, defrosted – so they aren’t showing up in the photo. I forgot to halve the poblanos. Next time I wouldn’t keep the onions intact as they needed to be separated once adding to the enchiladas, but you can do what you prefer. Really, these enchiladas could be called calabacitas enchiladas, but for sure some Southwestern cooking gurus would lambast me since calabacitas is a vegetable dish, not a Mexican enchilada . . . oh well. Do you ever have these kinds of conversations with yourself? Like my head was going . . . if these are made with flour tortillas, then they become a burrito, don’t they? instead of an enchilada. Corn tortillas = enchiladas; flour tortillas = burritos?? Or the one about calabacitas maybe I should call this calabacitas enchiladas. Or, no, calabacitas burritos. Oh dear, never mind. (telling my brain to be quiet!)

Prepping the veggies was easy – a bit of EVOO, salt and pepper and into a hot oven they went for about 30 minutes. I skinned the poblanos, chopped them up, grated the cheeses and I was in biz. I used a brand of thick salsa verde – a bit is poured into a baking pan/dish, then you make the enchiladas. Now, I used flour tortillas (I prefer them to corn) but you can use either. The veggie mixture with the cheese is put in the center of a tortilla and rolled up, seam side down in the pan. More salsa verde is spread on top (not a lot – just enough to moisten all of the top of the enchiladas), and a little more cheese and back into a hot oven they go. I baked them at 400°F for about 20 minutes (because the veggies were cooled to room temp when I constructed them). If the veggies are still hot from the roasting pan, you could probably bake them less time.

This version made 7 enchiladas. My guests ate two per person; I had one. I suppose it depends on what size tortillas you use. More hungry appetites will want two per person, so keep that in mind if you make this. If your family is sensitive to heat, use regular jack, not pepper jack.

As I said, utter deliciousness. Everybody’s plate was slicked clean.  I served it with a green side salad. I was a bit alarmed at the calorie count on this, AND the sodium. It appears it comes from the flour tortillas, as I had no choice on size. So I hope these really aren’t this high in both.

What’s GOOD: cheesy and veggie goodness. Quinn thought she might be able to fool her growing boys with eating more veggies. You could add some chicken to these if you wanted protein in them. I loved the flavors from the veggies – and the smoked paprika. And the poblano – I love the depth of flavor from that variety of chile pepper. This recipe is a keeper.

What’s NOT: nothing really – it does take a bit of time to roast the veggies, but it was a relatively simple dinner to prepare once that was done.

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Another biscotti variation, this one adapted from Giada . . .

A post from Carolyn. If you’ve been reading my blog of late, you’ve seen a bunch of biscotti recipes. I’ve been on a roll with biscotti. It’s something I can make for myself and since I use fake sugar in it – truly I can’t tell the difference (from fake sugar vs. real sugar). They are quite low in calorie and fat (although some do have quite a bit of butter).

I went searching around on the ‘net to read more about biscotti. Way back when, biscotti were developed by Italian nonnas as a little sweet something that had to be dipped/dunked into hot liquid (obviously, espresso) in order to make them edible. Probably it was at a time in history when fat was precious, whether it be butter or olive oil. Earlier versions of biscotti had no fat in them. None. And truly, they were little, rock-hard nuggets; hence they sliced them thinly and when you dunked them, you could eat just the part that had been dunked. It would break off where it has softened. And there was a trick to how long that little slice was dunked. Too long, and it would fall off into the coffee. Ever had that happen? I sure have! In fact it happened to me recently, with one of my biscotti I’d made (that did have butter in it). As I said, there’s a trick to how long to dunk. If it has little fat in it, maybe a second or two longer. With fat, less time.

After I made the last batch of biscotti, I got to thinking. I had a bag of macadamia nuts. And I’d been thinking about buying some fresh dried apricots. As I thought, I conjured up a biscotti that had candied ginger (minced up finely), apricots (also very finely minced) and the macadamia nuts (also minced). But what spice to put in it? Vanilla? No. Anise? No, as I’ve done anise in all my recent biscotti. Cinnamon? No, that didn’t sound good. The more I thought, the more I thought I should use a savory herb – and bingo, rosemary. And goodness, I loved the flavor combo.

Using the Giada recipe I’d used most recently, I merely swapped out the add-ins for the apricots, macadamia nuts, crystallized ginger and a little pile of finely minced fresh rosemary. They baked up easily and I made a double batch.

During the two weekends I spent with Karen, teaching her how to post on the blog, we had some very intense sessions together, with her doing photos, staging some pictures here and there, and getting her acquainted with the back-end of posting. And I took a bag of the biscotti. The family seemed to enjoy it as much as I did. I’d definitely make this again. The only thing I might do differently is to use slivered almonds instead of macadamia nuts. The latter are so expensive, and their flavor is quite subtle. I think they were kind of lost as an ingredient in a flavorful biscotti. But if you love macadamia, by all means use them. I just felt you couldn’t really taste them as much as eating them out of hand.

What’s GOOD: loved the flavor combination. Loved the rosemary. Who knew that rosemary would add such a nice, gentle flavor in a cookie?

What’s NOT: nothing really – easy to make. Only caution – once they’re finished, with the really-firm dried apricots, it’s a “hard” cookie – – don’t break a tooth. I freeze all of my cookies, and when I grab one out of the freezer, those little nuggets are very hard. Advice: let them defrost 10-15 minutes before serving.

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