The Pines was invited to offer food as a food vendor at the second annual “A Taste of Wines and Blues Festival” held at the AEL BEKA Estates this past Saturday. This southern plantation-style estate provided a wonderful site for this wine tasting benefit for the Red Cross.

The Pines was one of four vendors providing food for purchase for the event. Guests bought tickets and redeemed them for glasses of wine from eleven local and regional wineries. Additional bottles of wine could be purchased and enjoyed onsite or packaged to stock the wine rack back home.

Guests enjoyed music provided by local musicians while sipping wine under the shade trees over looking the landscaped grounds on the back acres of the AEL BEKA Estate. The weather was beautiful for the event Saturday. A continuous breeze cooled the event under blue skies. We cooked all day and served Pulled Pork, Grilled Chicken on a bed of Fried Rice, and Char Grilled Buffalo Style Chicken Wings as featured in an earlier entry. click HERE

After we got the trailer in place and got set up, I visited some other booths before I started cooking for the day. I knew some of the girls in the booth next door. I think they were from the Redeemer Lutheran Church. They called their cook team the “Desperate Church Wives”. I know Kim as my classmate in high school and asked her what they were cooking. She told me they were serving pork skewers marinated in a Sati Babbi Sauce. THEN SHE TOLD ME THEY GOT THE RECIPE OFF THIS WEB LOG !!!

I was floored !!! I think some of the girls were waiting to see how I would react when Kimbie (as we used to call her in school ) told me they were using my recipe. Of course I felt they had paid me a big compliment that they would use my recipe off this Web Log. If you want to check out the recipe you can find it by clicking HERE

Here are the “Desperate Church Wives” at the beginning of the day.

Here is classmate “Kimbie” showing off her pork skewers. (They were excellent, by the way)

Here we are at our booth. Brenda, Katie, and I put in a long day serving the guests.

.

Here are some of the wineries represented at this event.

What a peaceful setting…

Making sauce today getting ready for another Backyard Barbecue…

You may ask ” Why the different styles of jugs?”

I reuse the empty jugs that I gather from the ingredients that go into the sauce. Mismatched and mislabeled jugs is the sign of true, hand made barbecue sauce. I make every ounce of it myself from scratch using all natural ingredients, never any liquid smoke or other chemicals.

In spite of the signs at the junction of US 31 and Hwy 50, the road IS OPEN to The Pines. Some sort of road repair is taking place over a mile south of us, I think they are replacing some of the concrete decking on one of the bridges, but I am not sure. I believe the repair is going to take three to four weeks.

Anyway, if you see this sign, rest assured you can get to our restaurant with no hassles (actually, with a little less traffic, it is easier)

AND…
Don’t miss us this Sunday for our Father’s Day Backyard Barbecue !!!

A few weeks ago I received an Email request. Cheryl writes:

“You have a salad that I love - it has rice and marshmallows, pecans, and it is light yellow in color - It is sooooooo good is there anyway I could have a recipe of it? Thanks Cheryl (our food and waitress were great - Missy I think was her name)”

The recipe you were referring was our Million $ Rice Salad. It is a favorite among many.

As usual with requests, I had to scale down the recipe. The size of the cans and packages of ingredients don’t always match up for a scaled down version when you go from institutional to consumer packaging. I had to do some “rounding off” to get this to come out with something you could work with. If any of the ingredients need to me “tweaked” a little to get the salad tasting the way you want, be my guest.

I hope you enjoy this salad,

Mike…

We have this storage shed, kind of a glorified pole barn if you will. I have all my “man toys” out there; mowing equipment, shovels, tools, etc. Last year there was a big black snake that I saw out back of the building. I think the snake was living under the foundation. This spring I had forgotten about the snake until I saw a snake skin laying on the concrete pad out back; I knew he was there, I just hadn’t been re-introduced.

Now, many people are afraid of snakes. Some will see a big black snake and want to kill it or remove it and take it far, far, away. As far as I am concerned, if a snake is not invading my home, let him be. Snakes feed on mice and vermin. I don’t like mice and vermin, that makes the snake a valuable ally. I was wondering why I hadn’t had any mice in my shed lately, maybe Mr Black Snake is part of the answer.

Yesterday I was working out back of the shed, moving some stuff around. I looked to my side and there was the black snake. He must have been laying there the whole time I was working. I let him be and completed my work and walked away.

I guess I should have thanked him for saving me ten bucks on mouse bait this season.

Another whirlwind of events in the past two weeks; two house parties, graduation, and all the chores that go with it…

As you can imagine, with all these people coming to our house, we had to do a complete spring cleaning, completing all those little tasks and house projects that had been either abandoned or put off altogether. You know what I mean, little tasks like: power washing the siding on the entire house, edging the sidewalk, washing ALL the windows inside and out, planting more landscaping, re-mulching, washing all the lawn furniture, etc, etc, etc… Did I mention all the routine yard work that we barely keep up with and all the house cleaning that goes along with keeping up with two boys and their friends?

Then comes the preparation for the parties; all that set up work!!! Katie and I should have hired a caterer!!!

Sunday a week ago we hosted about 30 young people for a “senior” party. This past Sunday we hosted about 70 for the family graduation party. Of course we have a reputation to live up to with the food we provide. No hamburgers and hot dogs here, thank you! We are doing Chicken Pasta Primavera, Barbecue Ribs, Grilled Pineapple Spears, Texas Style Beef Brisket, Grilled Vegetable Medley, Homemade Desserts, Homemade Salads, Appetizers; Mitchell even fired up his culinary torch and melted the sugar on some Creme Brulee’ and served it with fresh razz berries.

After the families left this past Sunday, the young people stayed. I heard footsteps through the house and the TV going until the sun came up in the morning.

All day yesterday we cleaned and put everything back that we had borrowed from The Pines, The Catering Trailer, and the Evergreen Room. Our house is finally back to “normal”.

Whew…

It was fun, but part of me is glad it’s over!

Here are a few pictures of the new graduate…

I got Mitch to take off his “Cool Shades” for a few pictures. Here is Mitch with Uncle Monty and Aunt Kathy.

These are the four boys we always talk about. Brent, Mitch, and my Sisters two boys, Adam and Nick with “Ma maw” in the middle. These four boys will all be sharing a house at Ball State next year… now that’s SCARY !!!

There is always some silliness that goes on after the ceremony. Here is Mitch and some of his friends.

The Graduate with his diploma.

.

Want to be part of The Pines Email family and receive special offers and news? Click Here to Email us. Questions and Comments Welcome !!!

A couple of years ago my Mother got me interested in putting up a hummingbird feeder. With a few days of purchasing one and filling it with faux nectar, I had hummingbirds. As a matter of fact, I wrote an entry last year entitled “They’re Back“, celebrating the return of those dancing, darting, acrobatic birds.

This year we have an empty feeder, not a single hummingbird. What’s up ???

My Mother next door has hummingbirds. I just don’t understand…

Two summers back I went to Aunt Nancy’s and she had so many hummingbirds. I recall that she would watch them by the hour and could identify each on by habit and coloration. Aunt Nancy had 14 hummingbirds that would feed from her feeder.

Mom told me yesterday that Aunt Nancy has not a single hummingbird this year while a friend down the road from my Aunt has several frequenting her feeder.

What makes them go away ???

This is one of two lonely, empty, hummingbird feeders…

Want to be part of The Pines Email family and receive special offers and news? Click Here to Email us. Questions and Comments Welcome !!!

Several months ago I wrote about our Lab Dog Abby digging in the pond. The area she has chosen to dig was and old dump site on the bank of the pond that was used many years before the pond built. Little did we know there were hidden “treasures” underneath the mud that Abby is so obsessed with digging up. You can read about a couple of her treasures HERE and HERE.

The other day Abby found another interesting artifact, a very old horse shoe. Actually, this horse shoe is way too small for a horse, it is more like a pony shoe.

I started thinking, “Why would there be a shoe for a pony on this property?” I realized there was only one pony that was ever on this property. My Father and Grandmother talked about the pony “Beauty”. Dad’s two older brothers used to ride a cart that the pony used to pull. The pony was a work pony but Dad’s two older brothers enjoyed riding her around the property.

Doing the math, the pony has to have been gone now for over 70 years. The pony died and my Uncle Tom and Uncle Jerry buried Beauty somewhere on the property, not too far from the our house and the pond site.

Could this shoe be from that family pony from all those years ago?; it is the only explanation I can come up with. The old trash pile is not nearly as old as the horse shoe that came out of it. Could the shoe have been lost by the pony and just happened to land in the same spot of the future trash site? Or could this be the actual burial site of the pony and the shoe is all that is left after all those years?

Who can tell…

This is the only picture of the pony Beauty and Uncle Tom and Uncle Jerry. The picture was taken beside the “packing house” for the Hall Apple Orchard.

Want to be part of The Pines Email family and receive special offers and news? Click Here to Email us. Questions and Comments Welcome !!!

If you follow our Calendar of Events at The Pines, you may know we (OK, “I”) scheduled a Jamaica theme for the Friday Night Double Feature Buffet this coming Friday.

Well….

I am changing it to a Backyard Barbecue Event !!!

Why? you may ask…

Well, as it turns out the ingredients for the side items were not easily obtainable, some nearly impossible. Then when I informed people about this NEW event with a Jamaica theme I got that “deer in the headlights” stare from my customers.

We have had a load of inquires asking the date for the next barbecue. In our schedule we had a whole month between barbecue events and THAT”S TOO LONG !!!

So…

This Friday is a Backyard Barbecue Event.

We hope to see you there…

Mike…

Besides, who can turn down these succulent ribs ???

Yesterday was our third day straight making pizzas. Oddly enough, we aren’t getting tired of pizza… yet. This evening we will be making a few more to take over to The Pines for Charles and Kimberly and crew to try.

Last night the pizzas were nothing short of magnificent. The dough was “spot on” and Brent has mastered the right thickness in rolling out the crust. Brent dressed all the pizzas, cooking was an effort shared by Brent and myself. We did a total of nine pizzas. With help from many of Brent and Mitch’s friends, we ate all of them. The three favorites were Shrimp Alfredo, Meat Lovers, and Barbecue.

This is a picture of the mixer going early in the day. I made a total of three batches, each batch made three crusts when rolled out after the second raising of the dough.

After mixing the dough I let the dough raise for the first time. Here is two of the three batches in metal bowls. I put olive oil in the bowl and rolled the ball around, coating the bottom of the bowl and the dough ball. I then covered them with a damp towel and let them raise at room temperature for about three hours.

Here is the dough after three hours. It doubles in size and becomes spongy.

After the dough had a chance to raise, I rolled out the dough into 8oz portions and let the dough raise for the second time. This is what the individual pizza doughs looked like when they were ready for rolling.

Brent got “dialed in” on the right thickness when rolling out the dough. Using a rolling pin is an accepted method of rolling out the dough. We will try the traditional hand rolling and tossing in time.
We decided the doughs are going to be larger for The Pines on this Friday Night. After getting the thickness “right” we came out with a nine or ten inch pizza. We are shooting for a 12 inch pizza next time.

Dressing the pizzas was the fun part. We dragged out all kinds of ingredients and used them in a variety of ways.

I mentioned in an earlier post that we were using the Silver Grill for cooking the pizzas. We got real good at cooking last night. We now have a procedure for the process. Most pizzas only take five to six minutes to cook.

Here is a perfect Shrimp Alfredo pizza. People are going to LOVE this one Friday night.

.

Katie even cleaned the kitchen after the mess we made!!!

Well, it’s on to make more dough for another round of pizzas tonight !!!

A Closing Comment:
If you are wanting to make pizzas at home yourself I got most of my information from an online tutorial made by Chef Ruth Gresser. You can watch the tutorial series by going HERE. I want to thank Chef Gresser for the great information she shared.

Want to be part of The Pines Email family and receive special offers and news? Click Here to Email us. Questions and Comments Welcome !!!