Greensky Bluegrass plays Asheville, NC

Greensky Bluegrass finally made their jammy way back to Asheville on September 24th. They were playing a rather strange venue, the Mellow Mushroom, but it seemed to work for the sizable and raucous crowd of eager supporters who turned out for the show.

As always, the Kalamazoo, Michigan based Greensky Bluegrass delivered the finest in contemporary Americana jamgrass. They certainly perform some of the most exciting and innovative live music that you will see today. If you don't own any of their music, you are really missing out. Do yourself a favor and check 'em out. http://www.greenskybluegrass.com/

Greensky Bluegrass is Dave Bruzza/guitar&vocals  Anders Beck/dobro  MikeDevol/bass  Mike Bont/banjo  Paul Hoffman/mandolin&vocals

Double Dutch Stacked Dinner/Stuffed Acorn Squash with Ham Patties and Potatoes

I called this one "The Double Dutch Stacked Dinner" because I liked the name, but in reality, it is baked acorn squash stuffed with apples and raisins in the bottom pot and ground ham patties with potatoes in the top pot. I'll break it down into two separate recipes.

Start by firing up 36 briquettes.

I used a 12" and 10" dutch oven.

I also used a 10" cast iron frying pan.

Stuffed Acorn Squash

Ingredients:

2 acorn squash

2 large apples (your choice) peeled, cored, chopped

4 tbs golden raisins

4 tbs melted butter

4 tbs brown sugar

1 tsp cinnamon

Cut the squash in halves and scoop out seeds with a tablespoon.

Pour about 1/2" boiling water in a 12" dutch oven.

Place squash, cut side down in pot. Place lid.

Bake for about 30 minutes with 6 briquettes below oven and 18 on lid.

During this time combine the rest of your ingredients for the stuffing in a glass bowl.

Also prepare the following vegetables for top pot:

Top Pot Veggies

Ingredients:

white potatoes (a few handfuls) cut in half and sliced

1 onion, diced

1 red pepper, diced

1 cup fresh mushrooms, sliced

4 cloves of garlic (I missed this one)

3 tbs olive oil

salt, pepper, dried herbs (your choice)

Place the olive oil in the bottom of a 10" dutch oven.

Put the remainder of ingredients in the dutch oven and place lid.

At this time carefully remove the lid from the 12" dutch oven and turn the squash halves over.

Stuff the center of each squash with the apple/raisin mixture.

Place the lid (coals still on it) back on the pot.

Stand the 10" pot on the 12" pot.

Put 12 hot briquettes on lid.

Let these cook for an hour.

At this point, I started preparing my ham patties:

Ground Ham Patties

Ingredients:

1 lb. ground ham (I bought a reduced sodium ham steak and ground it in the food processor)

1/4 cup finely chopped onion

1/2 cup soft bread crumbs

2 eggs

Combine the ingredients and form 6 patties.

Brown both sides in cast iron fry pan with olive oil.

Remove from pan when brown and set aside.

After the pots have cooked for one hour, remove the lid on top pot.

Gently stir the potatoes and place the ham patties on top of the veggies.

Carefully replace lid (with coals).

Bake for 30 more minutes.

Serve and eat... it's good stuff!

Dutch Oven Moroccan Lamb Stew

I went to the Lodge Cookware factory outlet in Sevierville, Tennessee over the weekend and purchased several new pieces of cast iron cook ware at a great price. I've been dying to try one of them out so I put this dish together in my new 10-quart dutch oven.

Ingredients:
1 Bone-in lamb shoulder
2 cans of low-sodium chicken broth
1 can diced tomato
1 can chick peas
1 onion diced
1 cup sliced carrot
2 stalks chopped celery
1 cup diced dried apricots
3 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper
6 cloves crushed garlic
2 tsp curry powder
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp Garam Marsala (cinnamon, cumin, coriander, black pepper, cloves, cardamon).
1 tsp ground cumin
1/4 tsp ground cayenne

Preparing the Lamb:
Because I was using a bone-in lamb shoulder I pre-cooked it, so that I could easily separate the bone, fat, and connecting tissue from the meat.
Salt and pepper the lamb shoulder and brown it all sides in a 10" cast iron dutch oven in 3 tbs. of olive oil.
When it's browned, pour one of the cans of the chicken broth over it, put on the lid, and bake at a low heat (around 300F) for 4 hrs.
After 4 hrs. the lamb was cooked and the chicken broth was mostly evaporated. I put the lamb in a dish and placed it in the refrigerator for a few hours. When I was ready to use the meat, it was easily separated. I cut it into bite-sized pieces.

Cooking the Stew
To start, scrape most of the lamb fat out of the bottom of the dutch oven (up to you), but try to leave some of the good drippings for taste.
Add a little olive oil and brown the onion.
Pour in 1 can of chicken broth.
Add carrots, celery, canned tomatoes, garlic, and dry spices. Spices should be used to taste.
Bring to a boil, reduce to simmer.
Add meat and apricots.
Simmer for one to one and half hours until carrots are tender.
(I did have to add 1 cup of hot water before it was through)
Serve over cous-cous.

First of all, I must say that I don't know anything about Moroccan food. I'm really just a dude with a couple of Dutch ovens and a penchant for cast-iron cooking. I do like Indian food and this dish has curry and Bengali spices in it, so maybe it should be called Bengali Lamb Stew. I don't know about that, but I do know that this dish is spicy, exotic, and scrumptious. I can definitely see myself lounging around on big pillows with hookah pipes and belly dancers while eating it. It's good stuff, maybe one of the better things I've cooked in a while. Black Betty thinks so too!

I was inspired by a Moroccan Chicken Recipe that was posted by Cliffmeister2000 at the wonderful and informative camp cook forum:  Camp-Cook.com
Bob appetit y'all!

Town Mountain at Del Yeah! Black Mountain

Black Betty and I were thrilled to see one of our favorite bluegrass groups, Town Mountain on the lineup for  Del Yeah! over Labor Day weekend in Black Mountain.  I managed to shoot this clip of  Town Mountain joined by Andy Thorn (banjo) and Tyler Grant (guitar) of  The Emmitt Nershi Band.

Asheville's Town Mountain consists of Robert Greer (vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter); Jesse Langlais (banjo, writes a large part of Town Mountain’s original material and sings tenor and baritone); Barrett Smith (bass, guitar, vocals); Phil Barker (mandolin, vocals); and Bobby Britt (fiddle).

Del Yeah! Black Mountain

We were fortunate enough to be able to attend the first Del Yeah! weekend at the Pisgah Brewery venue in Black Mountain yesterday. It was a wonderful day spent enjoying beautiful mountain weather and listening to superb mountain music. Labor Day weekend doesn't get any better than this; if you missed it, you missed out indeed!

The lineup featured Charlotte rockers The New Familiars, Asheville bluegrass band Town Mountain, Black Mountain's Paco Shipp on blues harmonica, Colorado super group The Emmitt Nershi Band, and, of course, the one and only Del McCoury Band.

The enthusiastic crowd gave their love to Del and the boys. Del summed it all up in the lyrics from "Sweet Appalachia":

I’ve got that sweet mountain soul down in my bones,
And I can feel it when I sing them lonesome songs.


And I can tell by the way I feel,
That it comes from somewhere else,

Got that sweet mountain soul down in my bones.


I’ve got that sweet mountain spirit down in my veins,
And it flows through my heart like a mountain rain,

And no matter where I might roam,

These hills and hollers are still my home,

Got that sweet mountain spirit down in my veins.



Some people call me Hillbilly,
Some people call me Mountain Man,
Well, you can call me Appalachia,
Appalachia’s what I am.


Music on the Mountain Top

Black Betty and I had a great time of fun and music (and nothin' but fun and music) at the Music on the Mountain Top Festival in Boone, NC on Saturday. We spent the day with our favorite groups Snake Oil Medicine Show, Larry Keel and Natural Bridge, Acoustic Syndicate, Toubab Krewe, Sam Bush, and Railroad Earth. They rocked us like we needed to be rocked. We're some happy Festivarians, indeed!

The Great Family Road Trip

                                                                  Art by Aijia

7/7  We left home with the Jeep towing the little pop-up loaded with bikes. Granddaughters Aijia and Scout joined us. We drove 420 miles to Metropolis, IL on the banks of the Ohio river. Camped at Fort Massac State Park which had around 50 sites with only about 6 occupied. We visited the fort, rode bikes, grilled burgers, and played bean-bag toss.

7/8 Drove about 400 miles to Pershing State Park near LeClede, Mo.  A small, secluded campground with only hosts and us camping. Lots of bicycle riding for the girls. Cloudy weather and pleasant breeze kept the bugs off. Spent a relaxing evening.

7/9 Newton Hills State Park near Canton, SD (mile 1218) Beautiful park in SE SD. Lots of campers, great swim in Lakota Lake. We stopped to resupply at Walmart in Sioux City.

Swimming in Lakota Lake

7/10-7/15 We stayed at the wonderful Bluebell campground in Custer State Park located in the Black Hills of SD. We really loved this park and CG. While here, we saw hundreds of bison, pronghorn, prarie dogs, and a couple of little big-horn sheep. We drove the gravel roads of the Black Hills and the Badlands and visited Deadwood with the graves of Wild Bill and Calamity Jane. Went to Lead and saw the "open cut". Visited Mt Rushmore, Crazy Horse, the Corn Palace, and  Wall Drug. We learned about Lakota astronomy one night during a naturalist program. We drove the Needles Highway and had dinner in the lodge. We also had a $900. repair to the Jeep (a/c compressor) and a rental car for a day.
Did I mention the hail storm where it covered the ground? Also, lots of bike riding and some CG bluegrass.

The Badlands

7/16-7/18 Buffalo Bill State Park near Cody, WY. This has to be the windiest CG in the USA! I really thought that our little pop-up was going to be blown away a few times. It was also the most scenic CG spot of our trip, so it balances out. By the way, did I mention the heat? We loved Cody. We went to the Old Trail Town and saw the grave of  Liver Eating Johnston and the cabin of Butch and Sundance and the Hole in the Wall gang. The Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody was the best museum I've been in for many years. We spent hours there and could have spent an entire additional day there. The museum actually houses five separate museums covering Buffalo Bill, the Plains Indians, Western Art, natural history, and firearms. The Whitney Museum of western art and the beautiful Plains Indians artifacts (shields, head dresses, bead work) were among the highlights for me.  We took the girls out to the Cody Cattle Company for a dinner and a show. This turned out to be great fun and we were fed and entertained with cowboy music by the Martin family, champion yodelers and flatpickers. Aijia and Scout really loved this stuff (we did, too). We wrapped up our Cody stay with the famous Cody Night Rodeo. It was the girls' first rodeo experience so they were fascinated with the entire program.

Buffalo Bill State Park

7/19-7/24 Indian Creek CG, Yellowstone National Park. I cannot say enough about this little quiet CG hidden away in the NE corner of Yellowstone, far away from the crowds and noise of the populated parts of the park. This place was a gem, no generators allowed, no monster motorhomes, unbelievably clean vault toilets. Great! We were able to take nightly mountain bike rides down a secluded and gated gravel road and spot elk and coyotes and ride through creeks and just have all kinds of fun with the girls. No tourists, just us and the critters. So, for all the folks who told us how crowded Yellowstone was in July, I agree with you, if you are around Old Faithful and the other big commercial centers in the south and central areas of the park, but it was a different experience in the north! Since we spent 6 days in Yellowstone, we really saw all the main attractions. We never saw a grizzly but we did get to see a black bear on the Blacktail Plateau drive, a 7 mile gravel road that followed the Bannock tribe trail on the way to the buffalo hunting ground, pretty cool in itself. We did a great little hike with the girls on the high towering cliffs above the Yellowstone river (again no tourists, just us). My favorite time came the last evening we were there. I decided that we would go out to the beautiful Lamar Valley far in the NE corner of the park and look at wildlife. As the sun was going down, we found ourselves sitting quietly in the Jeep in the midst of a huge herd of bison as they migrated from one side of the road to the other. This situation wasn't the same as the numerous "buffalo-jams" that we had encountered in Custer and Yellowstone; in this setting, in this pristine and secluded high mountain valley, in the last rays of the setting sun, this was something timeless and primitive and beautiful and sacred. I feel honored to have been there. Wow!

Lamar Valley

7/25-7/27 Colter Bay CG Grand Teton National Park. We stayed at the huge centrally located CG at Colter Bay Village. We were in a no-generator loop. After Yellowstone, it did feel like we were staying in town, but we made the most of it (again riding our bikes all over) with nightly rides to get ice cream at the general store. Teton is pure eye-candy with the big alpine mountains and high mountain lakes. We spent the time swimming (OK, mostly Aijia and Scout) in the cold mountain lakes and hiking. We did do an early (beat the crowd while you can) boat shuttle across Jenny Lake with a hike to Hidden Falls, Inspiration Point, and a short way up Cascade Canyon.

7/28   Super 8 Motel Wheatland, WY. We left Tetons and headed east across WY on the secondary highways and encountered lots of road construction with long sections of  muddy gravel roads.  My advice to anyone driving on the back roads through Wyoming: Fill up with GAS if you drop below a half of a tank!  The map had town names on it in fairly large type, but did these towns have more than a population of 10? No. Did they have gas pumps? No. We drove a record 45 miles with the gas light on, towing a trailer! I can't believe that we weren't stopped dead on the road but somehow we made it. We were ready for a motel room and swimming pool by the time we reached Wheatland, WY.

7/29 Sherman Lake State Recreation Area, NE.  We walked out to the parking lot and found a flat tire on our little pop-up, so I started the day by putting one of my two spares on the trailer. Still keeping to the back roads, we continued across the beautiful Wyoming country side to the town of Guernsey where we stopped to see the deep ruts left in the rock by the hundreds of wagon trains above the N. Platte river as they journeyed west on the Oregon trail.  Next we stopped to see Carhenge near Alliance, NE. We continued across the little back road Hwy 2 and camped at Sherman Lake SRA for a bargain price seven dollars. When we got there, I noticed that my other original tire was low on air. When I pushed on the tire valve stem, it leaked air. I went ahead and switched it out with my remaining spare.

Carhenge

7/30 Best Western Motel, Moberly MO. Found a tire store first thing this morning and had a valve stem put in the spare for $5 so we were ready to roll. Heavy thunderstorms pushed us into the Best Western motel in Moberly, MO.

7/31 Best Western Motel, Murfreesboro TN. Again, a swimming pool!

Art by Scout

8/1 Home, Franklin NC

Stats: 26 days, 5600 miles. 5 State Parks, 2 National Parks, 1 State Rec Area, 3 Motels, 2 flat tires.