Wishing Everyone Seasons Greetings!
Ho Ho Ho Merry Christmas
EASY RECIPE
She Who Must Be Obeyed came home from work the other day with portions of a holiday basket. I quickly examined the score, and found amongst the chocolates, and pretzels a pouch of smoked salmon. Eureka! I figured I could do something with that. So I went over three or four cookbooks, and did a quick search on Google on the topic of salmon. I concluded there was not a heck of a lot I could do with 2 oz of smoked salmon.
So the project would have to be scaled down. And then it came to me, an individual size nann bread pizza could be the ticket. The recipe is super easy, and the result is a gourmet style pizza with very little effort. Get 4 oz of smoked salmon, a DVD, and have a friend over for a nice meal and movie night.
Serving size: 1
Ingredients 
1 Nann Bread
2 oz smoked salmon
2 oz goat cheese
3 slices of red onion
1 tsp capers – drained
fresh dill – sliced into appealing looking segments.
1 tsp olive oil
2 Tbsp Hawaiian BBQ Sauce
3 sundried tomatoes – sliced
Preparation:
Heat oven to 350 degrees. To flatbread add olive oil, and then BBQ sauce. Next add crumble and add goat cheese, and then red onion slices, and capers. Finally add the salmon. Place in oven long enough to bread to brown a little and the cheese to melt. Remove, add fresh dill. (note dill in photo prior to cooking – not recommended) And that’s it, an easy gourmet pizza start to finish in what, 9 minutes?
AND STUFF
You know, one thing great about growing up in the Great Plains about 90 miles south of Canada is that there was plenty of open space in which to do really dumb things. As I recall, we almost couldn’t get in trouble because there was no one around to notice.
You likely know that North Dakota is very cold in the winter. But you may not know that it is on avarage two degrees warmer than the dark side of the moon. OK, I can’t back that up. But, for sure it gets down to minus 40 degrees F, before factoring in wind chill. Yet, if that is what one has to work with one must be creative in finding ways to have fun.
I recall one winter night, while living in Bismarck a friend, with a jeep, came up with a great idea. He concluded that since the ice on the ponds was frozen solid and there was not too much snow on the ground yet we could easily drive his jeep off a dirt road, down the small bank, and onto a frozen pond to do any number of spins, slides, and all around crazy driving.
As the evening progressed, and more beer was consumed, we got even smarter. It occurred to us, that it would be even more fun to use a water ski rope to connect a snow saucer to the bumper of the jeep so that one of us could be towed while the other drove the jeep through various death turns. Perfect. The only nagging issue was would we remember the idea in the morning.
We did.
So, around noon on a very cold Sunday we loaded the saucer, and piled into the jeep. Unlike LA, one gets out of Bismarck and into the country in a snap. Minutes after starting our drive, we were leaving the dirt road and driving onto the frozen pond. So far so good. The ice held. Since I didn’t own the jeep, and because I thought I might have a second or two to bail should the jeep go through the ice, I volunteered to ride the saucer first. At the time it seemed like the safe choice, but in hindsight, I think not.
My buddy started off slow enough, and the saucer cruised over the ice quite nicely. But, clearly the fun-o-meter inside the jeep was low. So he picked up speed, as did me in the saucer. Soon he was doing power slides, and I was traveling at speeds very near the speed of sound as the rope would whip the saucer and me around the corner. Let’s recap: no helmet, no goggles, no padding other than an air force style parka, being pulled at high speed by a jeep on a sheet of ice. Like I said great idea, hatched after perhaps one too many beers under the glow of the Northern Lights!
I think it’s like the old saying if there is no one in the forest to hear a tree fall does it make a sound. Cuz, since there was no one around to see how stupid we were acting, nothing went wrong. We took turns sliding the jeep and riding the saucer until we couldn’t stand the cold anymore.
I really, really, do not advise anyone to try our stunt. The level of fun we had was only exceeded by the level of danger! Man, wish I had a dollar for every stupid thing I did back in the day.
If there are no kids around the table, how about a table conversation about some of your dumber exploits? Could be funny.
Good Eating and Table Talk,
Roger
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