The day began with the making of cinnamon rolls! Mmmm, they are never made often enough and today was a perfectly quiet day spent mostly by the woodstove to wander into the kitchen to check on the rising, rolling out, rising again, baking, and then icing. In between we drank plenty of coffee and enjoyed the 27 degree, foggy day!
Finally, the call of 250 little Chinook Salmon who were ready to be released drew us out of the coziness of our home and we scooped these little beauties up. It is not so easy to catch a fish in a confined tank, so just imagine how challenging it is to catch a fish in the wild! These were raised from hatchery eggs through a program with ODFW. The third graders in my class loved watching them mature from the egg to the fry!
Here is my dear sister Trina and two of our childhood friends. Lois is on the left and she and Trina were inseparable as kids, and Jackie is on the right and she and I were inseparable as kids! Lois now lives in New Hampshire and Jackie moved back to the Rogue Valley a year ago from Florida. What an amazing evening. Trina is holding a bowl full of Yorkshire pudding cups.
My niece, Margaret, who is holding a very well dressed cat name Kenai, and my oldest grandson, Ryan who wishes he too had a bowtie like the cat!!
Part of the group gathered around the table included Jolene, our oldest daughter, Marge, Lois's mother, Lois, Jackie, Trina, Tim, and yours truly. My brother in law, Rob was the tallest to get the group in the picture. The giggling you hear in the background are the five children at their own table!
The the lighting of the birthday pie! It took three people to set the most amazing pie aglow! The official birthday pies were a three layer delight that we renamed Banana Split Pie. It has a bottom layer of chocolate cream, a middle layer of coconut cream, and a top layer of banana cream and it is unbelievably delicious. My sister created and perfected this masterpiece. She also made the unbelievably and mouthwatering scrumptious lemon meringue pie.
It was indeed a happy birthday spent with dear family and friends ~
We used the wonderful smoker last night to make some hickory smoked pork chops. It helps to raise the pork yourself, then this clever little stove top smoker did its magic! If only you could smell the delicious hickory smoke.
There was some apple rosemary stuffing to go with the pork, fresh apples, peas and that was just right for a midweek meal. There were plenty of leftovers from this dinner to enjoy for a second meal. The chops cooked on top of the stove in about 25 minutes.
Here is the happy farmer man who found the perfect stove top smoker!
