MAMMOTH CAVE: FROZEN NIAGARA TOUR

On Saturday, August 30th, Marie and I drove a couple hours to Mammoth Cave National Park.  Neither of us had been in quite a while.  Because it was Labor Day weekend, we bought the tickets online (Recreation.gov) about 10 days in advance.  Even planning that far ahead, we couldn't get the tour I wanted - Focus on Frozen Niagara, which is geared toward photography and accordingly allows some extra time for tour participants.

The standard Frozen Niagara tour, which we took at 4:45 PM (side note: we both totally forgot we'd be switching to Central Time, so we arrived an hour earlier than planned), is the shortest and easiest of the tours.  It's also the most scenic.  Mammoth Cave may be spectacular in scope, but most areas are not particularly stunning in comparison to some other caves.  The portions seen on this tour are an exception.  From bus pickup to dropoff, the tour takes 75 minutes, but you only spend about 45 minutes underground and travel about a quarter of a mile.  During this brief trip, you see some pretty amazing things.  There are only 12 required stair steps, but an additional 98 (49 down, 49 up) to see the Drapery Room. Check out some of my pictures below.

One of the buses.  Our driver got a little frisky around the moist curves.

Silhouettes of other tourists in the "Rainbow Room."

Looking down into "Crystal Lake."

Frozen Niagara

The Drapery Room

Looking up in the Drapery Room

More drapes.

Drapes for days.

Formations next to Frozen Niagara

Frozen Niagara

Frozen Niagara

And...Frozen Niagara

The view when you enter the chamber that includes Frozen Niagara and the Drapery Room.

The bridge between the hotel and visitor's center.  The hotel has a much nicer gift shop, but the visitor's center is where you can get your National Park passport stamps.

SIR SMOLLIE COOKS!: Spicy Worcestershire Turkey Burgers on Rye, Spinach Side Salad with Candied Pecans

On Sunday, August 24th, Marie and I made some pretty delicious turkey burgers and a side spinach salad with candied pecans for dinner.  We didn't follow any recipes for this one, but picked some ingredients we wanted and chose the quantities as we went along.

For the candied pecans:
- about 4-5 ounces of pecan "pieces" (smaller than halves)
- 1/4 stick of butter
- 3 tablespoons of brown sugar
- 1 tablespoon of sugar
- 1 tablespoon of cinnamon

Add just enough water to allow thorough mixing of these ingredients in a small frying pan, and slowly cook it down over medium heat until no liquid remains.  While cooking these down, start on the turkey...

For the patties:
- ground turkey patties (or shape your own)
- Worcestershire sauce
- Worcestershire black pepper
- Montreal steak rub

Cook the patties in water in a large, flat-bottomed frying pan, adding the sauce and seasoning as you go.  

Finishing the burgers:
- put them on seeded rye bread
- add pepper jack cheese, sriracha mayo, spinach leaves, and tomato slices

Finishing the salad:
- spinach leaves are the base
- add goat cheese crumbles, candied pecans, cucumber slices and berry vinaigrette dressing
- optional: strawberries and blueberries also work well in this salad

Cooking down the candied pecans

Delicious, sweet, buttery goodness

These patties don't know what's about to hit them.

Worcestershire sauce!

Plus seasoning!  Anything works, really, as long as it has plenty of black pepper.

Almost done!

Reebar sliced the vegetables!  She's much less of a danger to herself when slicing, peeling and dicing than I am to myself.

A couple of the salad ingredients.

What we used for our sriracha mayo.

We both liked this dressing quite a bit.

Spinach in bowls!

The sriracha mayo.  Like everything else in this "recipe," just choose the proportions by your own feel or taste

Finished salad - spinach, candied pecans, cucumber, goat cheese, and raspberry walnut vinaigrette.

Finished burgers - rye bread, turkey burger, pepper jack cheese, sriracha mayo, spinach and tomato

SIR SMOLLIE COOKS!: Ree Drummond's "Best Tomato Soup Ever"

I used Pioneer Woman's awesome recipe (http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/best-tomato-soup-ever.html) to make tomato soup for my own Ree on 8/16/14.  

Suggested ingredients:

1 medium white or yellow onion
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) butter
Two 14.5-ounce cans diced tomatoes
One 46-ounce bottle or can tomato juice
3 to 6 tablespoons sugar
1 or 2 tablespoons chicken base, or 3 chicken bouillon cubes
Freshly ground black pepper
1 cup sherry, optional
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
1/4 cup chopped flat-leaf parsley

My specific choices and deviations: 

- two small homegrown onions
- a full stick of butter
- 5 tablespoons of sugar
- 2 tablespoons of chicken base
- LOTS of black pepper because both Reebar and I prefer it that way
- I did include the sherry
- I went a bit heavy on both basil and parsley, and also garnished with both.

Honestly, we both felt it was one of the best soups we've ever had.  Here are some pictures!

THE INGREDIENT LINEUP.  Even if you buy all of these ingredients new, the total cost for this recipe is only about $30, which is very affordable when you consider it makes about 10-12 servings (not the 6 to 8 the website claims).  We used store (Kroger) brand or other cheap alternatives whenever possible.

Melting the butter and cooking the onions.

After adding the diced tomatoes.

Mixing in the diced tomatoes.

After adding tomato juice, sugar, and plenty of black pepper.

After removing from heat and adding cream, sherry, basil and parsley.

Mixing it all up!

Finished product.  Smells amazing.

Garnish with more basil and parsley.

Enjoy!