Today's Special: Ranch-Parmesan Chicken, Korean Chicken & Peanut Noodles, Crap in Rolls, Beef Stroganoff, and BLTs

Ranch-Parmesan Chicken- New Recipe. I made this on the spur of the moment because I hadn't gone to the grocery store yet. It turned out surprisingly good. Not healthy in the slightest, but good!

Korean Roast Chicken (new recipe) with Peanut-Ginger Noodles (repeat)- The Korean chicken turned out surprisingly well. I actually used boneless skinless thighs and it worked just fine. It did reduce the cooking time to 45 minutes. I'd probably let these marinate longer if I were to make them again. And the noodles? What can I say? This is my favorite peanut sauce/noodle recipe I've tried. And it's super easy.

Crap in Rolls- Old family favorite. OK so there's a story to this one. These things are actually called "Chicken Rolls." We pronounce it more like "crap'n-rolls." My now brother-in-law JR was coming over for his first Sunday dinner at the Holley home. When asked what we were having, Corinne said something like, "I don't know... crap in rolls or something." And he still came over. Bachelors sure are desperate for a home cooked meal. Don't worry, they're better than they sound. And my mom still gets pissed off when we called them Crap in Rolls.

Crap in Rolls

Rolls
2 cups chicken, cooked and shredded
1/4 tsp lemon pepper
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1 can mushrooms
1 stalk celery, diced
2 tbsp. butter, melted
2 cups breadcrumbs
2 cans Refrigerated Crescent Roll dough (16 rolls)

Sauce
1 can Cream of Chicken Soup
Milk

Combine chicken, lemon pepper, cream cheese, mushrooms, and celery. Roll out dough. Spoon mixture onto dough (about 1 rounded tablespoon each), roll up, and seal. Dip in melted butter and then into bread crumbs. Bake at 375 for 20 minutes.

To make sauce combine cream of chicken soup with enough milk to thin to desired consistency and heat. Spoon over hot rolls.

Makes 16 rolls.

Beef Stroganoff- Repeat. Comfort food at its best. I always add mushrooms to the meat/onions when they're sauteing.

BLTs- Repeat. So I'm pretty sure the name is self-explanatory of the recipe for this one. Unless you want to get all technical and say it doesn't include the mayo or bread. But come on. If you don't know how to make a BLT, there's no help for you. Quit now.



The Colonel

Totally met Colonel Sanders today. He was even more awesome than I imagined.

Side Note: So you know when you write out a word so many times it starts to look wrong? That's what happened when I typed out 'Colonel'... so I looked it up just to be sure. This was one of the definitions:

"Older Use . (in the South) a title of respect prefixed to the name of distinguished elderly men. "

 So THAT explains it. I always thought it was dumb for a Colonel to wear a white suit in a war. I mean, HELLO... you're not really blending in. Unless it's winter.

He Must Have Known I Just Finished "The Sun Also Rises"

I went fishing up on the Weber again this weekend and besides the one massive fish I caught that got away (I'm serious... it really happened!), this cow was the only other thing worth noting. Or maybe it was a bull. I think it was a bull actually. But that's neither here nor there. The point is, he was staring at me so I took his picture. And I made sure to wave at him too. I didn't want him to think I was a snob.

Mountain Men, Firemen, and Fishermen... How Could This Possibly Be Bad?

How do I even begin to tell this story? I guess I'll start at the beginning...

Seth and I drove up to Wyoming last weekend intent on attending the Fort Bridger Mountain Man Rendezvous and doing some fly fishing on the famous surrounding waters.

We arrived at Fort Bridger around noon and wandered the grounds... admiring and being appalled by some of the people who decided to dress the part. For the record, I don't think loin cloths were standard apparel for old fat hairy guys. But I digress.

The best part of the rendezvous was watching the Native American dancers.

We were a little disappointed that there were no grilled turkey legs to chomp on. But maybe they only have those at Renaissance Festivals...

After the rendezvous we ended up driving through Kemerer to the Ham's Fork. Along the way we noticed what looked like a forest fire.

Turned out to be controlled burns by the local forest service/fire department. But here's the part that's cool. They had a couple different ways of starting the fires... neither of which were anything like what I'd imagined.

First we saw this helicopter flying around with a torch that would drop little fire balls...

Then further down the road we saw this "fire truck" and the guys had a fire hose that sprayed fire! (click on the picture to see a better view). How awesome is that?

So it was pretty busy up in the canyon along the Ham's Fork so we ended up camping way up past the fires, which was a good thing. Luckily we were trying out our minimalist camping (hot dogs for dinner, cereal for breakfast, and sleeping in the car) so we didn't have to set up much.

It was around 6:00pm when we finally got to our camping spot so we decided to hurry and make use of our $14 fishing day license before it was too dark. Seth always fishes faster than I do so he moved pretty quickly upstream and I slowly followed.

I wasn't catching anything at first because I kept hitting all the holes Seth had already disturbed, so I decided to catch up and leap frog him.

So I came to this deeper hole and needed to cross over the stream. I wasn't quite sure how deep the hole was so I squatted down and stuck my right leg in the water to see if I could touch bottom. All of a sudden I slipped and fell into chest deep water... my right leg touched the bottom of the stream but my left leg stayed up on the bank, bent weird and way out of my normal flexibility range.

At first my left leg felt relatively ok. It hadn't hurt much and I could still walk on it, so I continued making my way up to Seth. After catching up to him, we started back down the river to eat dinner. I ended up catching a couple nice fish out of the hole I fell in so I felt much better.

After eating dinner and sitting around for a while I stood up. Man did it hurt! My knee had tightened up a lot and it was really painful. That night only proved worse as I struggled to keep my leg from moving while sleeping in the back of the Xterra.

The next morning I was sure I'd sprained my knee. But, we paid for not one, but two days of fishing in Wyoming and I wasn't about to waste my $14 license! So, we drove back down the canyon below Kemerer Reservoir and spent the morning fishing a small stretch of the river.

Seth hooked into a couple huge fish using a streamer... man was I jealous!

I saw the biggest hatch I've ever seen that morning... the air was thick with mayflies. There were so many that at times we couldn't see because they were flying into our faces when the wind blew. Unfortunately the fish weren't rising for them.

This little guy landed on my jacket. The species of mayflies were pretty mixed, but most of them were BWOs and PMDs (at least I think so... my eye isn't fully trained yet).

So that was our first fishing trip to Wyoming. Definitely a little bit of a let-down not being able to wade and such with my dumb knee, but hopefully we'll get back there soon and try it out again.

At least I got to see a lot of firemen...

And Then on the Third Day Which Was Technically Like the Seventh Day...

And thus there were a few days in amongst which the Holley family was separated into their own units and carried on in various activities. Some did play, others toiled, but then after some time went by they rejoined in one last celebration...

And there was much moisture received and they were grateful.

After which they were they even more joyous for the receipt of their ice cream. Which was as manna from the heavens.

Thus ended the Holley family summer vacation.

And it was good.

And on the Second Half of the Second Day...

And on the second half of the second day we did thus travel far to view the hidden secrets of the universe... some did call it Buckskin Gulch. And it was good.

And thus ended the second day.

(It was a long one.)

And On the Second Day...

And on the morning of the second day of the Holley family summer trip we did travel to the desert. The Coral Pink Sand Dunes to be exact....

And thus we did see angels...

And curious wonders of nature...

And Corinne... who apparently has a hard time spelling her name...

There were bonds of friendship created across generations (or at least a couple years anyway)...

And fallen (or scooting) souls waiting for their turn to...

...view the miraculous creations of God's hand.

(Oh yeah... that's some nice creating right there.)

And thus ended the first half of the second day.