Escapades.. mostly culinary

We got a late start on Saturday, but headed to White Oak Canyon to hike. It was a bit cooler in the mountains, and though the parking lot was packed, I don't feel like we really passed too many folks. Some stopped to swim in the waterfalls, we passed some folks coming down, and some folks passed us going up. The leaves were green, the water trickling, hiking was good.

White Oak Canyon is cool because there are so many waterfalls. The hike up is steep and rocky, but I think there are six or seven big falls and plenty of gurgling small ones along the way. We made a loop of it and crossed up a fire road and came down Cedar Run Trail. It took way longer than I remember so I suspect that the hike is actually longer than I think too. However I have not taken the time to look up the length yet.

It got dark and then I checked the time and it instantly got really dark. We had just enough light to finish the trail and make it out. When we got to the trailhead a voice called to us from the shadows - "can I ask you a weird question?" Apparently this lady had parked at the top, hiked down with her kids, couldn't find a flat place to camp, and wanted to know would we drive her back to her car - she'd pay us 30 bucks in gas money. She'd used the emergency phone, but the park service told her it would cost $100 (see the sign - we know she passed it!). I didn't mind terribly, I'll be a good neighbor, but she didn't want to leave her kids behind (understandable), didn't want to squish all four of them into my backseat, and she really had no idea how far around it was and how long it was going to take. It would be easier to hike back up then drive around. With the help of some other hikers, we suggested that she just camp there in the parking lot, hung her food from a tree, and told her to hike back up in the morning. She really wasn't that bad off, though I can see why a mom might be freaking out.

We got home around 10 and had decided to eat some mac n' cheese - but it was infested with bugs! Gross. So we had this spicy pilaf stuff Dad had gotten me that was awesome and went perfectly with the kielbasa I had heated up. Started gross, ended well.

This morning we knew we were going to make biscuits and gravy... we just needed a few things at the grocery store that we didn't get the day before because we got home so late. We got up and drank coffee and talked and sat around and realized we were both waiting for each other to be ready even though we were both ready. Surprisingly we were in and out of the food dog in good time and back home before we knew it.

I put Aaron in charge of browning the sausage while I made the biscuit dough. I was still rolling and cutting, so Aaron made the gravy and happily snacked on it as he was perfecting it. I don't have any round cutters so I made biscuits in the shapes of stars, pumpkins, ghosts, cats, bats, dolphins, fish, and penguins. :) They were tasty, but now I know to roll them a bit thicker. The gravy was fantastic and we both ate plenty. There wasn't really any left! Even though it was still morning, we both took a nap on the couch because of the sausage gravy-induced food coma.

Eventually we decided we needed to get up or we were going to be stranded on the couch all day. We decided to go to Carol's to see if there were any blackberries left. They had all dried up, but we did pick a few apples to I could make a pie. More will be ripe soon.

When we got home, Aaron started making the noodle dough while I dusted the noodle maker and attempted to put it together following the diagrams and trying to decipher Italian. Then I tried to read the Italian directions. The funny thing is that the noodle maker comes with recipe books for sauces, but none for noodles, no directions for the maker, and most of it is badly translated and proofread English. I think we got it figured out pretty well considering we translated every third or fifth word.

With the noodle maker, making noodles is easy. Just feed the dough through, progressively making it thinner and thinner and then through the slicer. We laid the noodles out on the racks to dry until we were ready to cook them. In the meantime Aaron worked on the sauce and I put together two apple pies. I was only going to make one but I had leftover apples that had been peeled and sliced, so I just picked out another that didn't require a crust and made that too. Ironically the second one turned out better than the first... mostly because the first tastes a bit too strongly of cloves...or maybe it had too much brandy in it.