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While visiting ESD Sault Ste. Marie for a retirement ceremony I had an opportunity to go see a couple of Harris Hawks. One of the Petty Officers at the ESD has been working on his falconry permit, and he invited me to go visit his sponsor and see his birds. He has a young pair of captive bred Harris Hawks that he is training to hunt. The bird I am holding here is a female named Sadie who is capable of hunting jackrabbits that are 4 times her weight! Maybe when I retire…
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Another winner from Simply Recipes – this sweet and sour stew of beef and onions with Belgian Ale is perfect for a cold winter afternoon. It goes great with rice, mashed potatoes, French fries, or large egg noodles. I used Ommegang Abbey Ale, a Belgian-style Dubble brewed in Cooperstown, New York.
Ingredients
- 4 lbs chuck roast, cut into bite-size pieces
- Salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 4 Tbsp butter
- 3 medium yellow onions sliced about 1/4 inch thick (about 8 cups)
- 3 Tbsp all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 cups beef broth
- 1 1/2 cups Belgian beer
- 4 sprigs fresh thyme
- 3 bay leaves
- 1 Tbsp whole grain mustard
- 1 Tbsp vinegar
- 1 Tbsp brown sugar
Directions
- Pat beef dry with paper towels, then season well with salt and pepper. On the stove top, heat 2 tablespoons of butter in a large heavy bottomed dutch oven over medium-high heat until hot, almost smoking. Working in batches, brown the meat, minimizing stirring to give the beef an opportunity to brown well. Transfer browned beef to a separate bowl.
- Add 2 tablespoons butter to dutch oven; reduce heat to medium. Add the onions and 1/2 teaspoon of salt; cook until onions are browned, about 15 minutes. Add flour and stir until onions are evenly coated and flour is lightly browned, about 2 minutes.
- Stir in broth, scraping pan bottom to loosen browned bits; stir in beer, thyme, bay, browned beef with any of the accumulated juices, and salt and pepper to taste. Increase heat to medium-high and bring to a full simmer. Reduce heat to low, partially cover, let cook for 2-3 hours until beef is fork tender. (Alternatively can cook in the oven at 300°F.) Stir occasionally, scraping up anything that is sticking to the bottom of the pan. About half an hour before it finishes cooking, add the mustard, vinegar, and brown sugar. Adjust seasonings to taste.
- Discard thyme and bay leaf. Adjust seasonings with salt and pepper to taste and serve. Can serve plain, with potatoes, over noodles, or over French fries.
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Here are the pictures from the snowmobile portion of our trip to Montana and Yellowstone National Park. The only thing I would have enjoyed more is an extra day or two to put the skis on and head out into the backcountry. I thoroughly enjoyed the snowmobiling, but I don’t think you can really enjoy and appreciate the winter landscape unless you are on foot and away from all the noise. Maybe if we go again we’ll try for an extra day and take skis or rent there and spend some times on the ski trails or even better, totally off the trails in the woods.
Tags: Austin, Snow, Snowmobiling, Winter
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Here are a selection of the pictures we took during our tour through Yellowstone National Park last weekend. Some were taken by Austin, and some by my mom and dad. We managed to get a picture of just about every kind of animal that we saw, although the quality may not be stellar. It would have been nice to have a good telephoto lens – some thing to keep in mind for our next trip. There are also pictures of all four geothermal features in Yellowstone – springs, geysers, mud pots, and fumeroles.
Tags: Austin, National Park, Nature, Wildlife, Winter
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Today we went on a tour of Yellowstone Park – in a "Snow Coach" rather than on snowmobiles. The advantage is that you get to see some of the wildlife in the park rather than scare it all off with the snowmobile noise. In the first 30 minutes in the park we saw a pair of bald eagles, a coyote, bison, elk, and trumpeter swans. We continued to see wildlife throughout the tour. The weather was absolutely beautiful – clear blue skies with temperatures in the low 20s and no wind
We drove the Firehole Canyon loop and stopped for a while at Firehole Falls, then continued on to the Upper Geyser Basin where stopped for lunch at the Old Faithful Lodge and got to see Old Faithful erupt. We also took a walk around the geyser basin and saw some of the other geysers & beautiful pools. Austin has been our official photographer and he took a lot more pictures with a better camera, so I will do another post with those pictures after we return home.
