Interestig Sources of Food!

We realized that we had taken several pictures lately that seem to have a common theme--Food.  So it seemed reasonable to write a blog on some of the interesting new places we are getting our food while we are in South Fork.  

The first interesting place is Mark's favorite--the Miller Bakery south of Monte Vista.  Ran by an Amish family that is now locally famous for their fried pies, they are only open on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.  There are no signs to direct customers to the bakery, and their only advertisement is word of mouth.  We found them only because we got directions from friends, and we are glad we did!  We had a hard time narrowing down our purchases, but we finally bought only the ones pictured below.  That would be a cherry pie, rhubarb nut bread, cinnamon raisin bread, banana nut bread, and jalapeno cheese bread. 

Now that we have already consumed most of them, we can happily report that they were all very good.  We found that you can only get their famous fried pies if they are ordered in advance.  But they actually gave us a couple that a customer didn't pick up, apologizing the entire time that they were stale.  We decided that if those raspberry fried pies tasted any better fresh, they should probably be illegal.  But then again, we are in a state that legalized marijuana, so fresh fried pies will probably remain legal as well.

Our next food stop that day was the Amish grocery store--home of outdated goods and dented cans.   At ten cents each, we stocked up on Clif and Luna bars that we see retail for over a dollar most places.  We should have enough granola bars to hike many more miles now.  But Denisa's favorite is still the dented cans without labels for a dime.  Our new favorite game is opening cans and then figuring out a menu that will make use of them.

Mark had mentioned several weeks ago that he liked cream corn.  Denisa tried to ignore that comment because she has always thought there was too much of the mysterious cream sauce, and not enough corn in those cans.  So Mark was pretty happy that one of the no-label cans was cream corn.  When we opened that meal's second can, we found regular canned corn. So we promptly mixed the two together and made both of us happy--cream style with lots of corn in it!  We found out that the third can didn't have a label because it must have burned off.  It was the hottest enchilada sauce we have ever tasted (and Denisa thrives on spicy food).  So we used it very sparingly as a dipping sauce, and chalked that dime up to experience.  At the time of this writing, the fourth can is still a mystery.

Our next food items have an unusual source--hiking!  We threw in this beautiful blue sky picture taken at the first of the hike because we felt you deserved some good mountain scenery after looking at dented cans. (Sorry that we can't also include the fresh pine scent.)

We learned from our Durango Mountain nature hike that wild strawberries are in season, and are certainly safe to eat.  So when she spotted some near the trail, Denisa started picking.

We discovered that the two of us have completely different picking styles.  Mark eats them as fast as he picks them.  Denisa likes to pick them all now, and then eat them later as we are hiking on the trail.  So there are no pictures of Mark's strawberries, but we can see part of Denisa's harvest.

Not exactly enough for a meal, but they make for a refreshing hiking treat.  It's like fruity trail mix; they are tiny but tasty.  We stopped in several places, so it really slowed down our hiking pace.

We also had to stop to inspect several different mushrooms along the trail.  New friends, Kevin and Paula, had described the mushrooms that are coming into season right now, and we were excited that this could also be a new source of food.  We found one huge puff ball mushroom the size of a football.  We didn't take it home to eat, but that would have made many meals if it wasn't past its prime.

We were pretty excited about one of our mushroom finds.  They encompassed all the characteristics that our mushrooming friends described, so we felt good about them being edible.  I guess if you don't find another blog in the next day or so, then you'll know they were poisonous mushrooms.

Actually, before we ate them we had them checked.  Turns out that they weren't the boletes mushrooms we thought they were, so we promptly trashed them.  Without supervision, it looks like we won't be mushrooming any more.

Our final new food source is from that cast-iron pie iron that we bought at the Amish store a week ago.  It didn't come with any instructions, but through the magic of you-tube we got plenty of recipes.  There was a hotdog campfire meal here at Aspen Ridge RV park, and the coals were just perfect for making our inaugural pies.  We used two slices of bread (with an ample supply of butter and sugar sprinkled on just the outside) with blueberry pie filling sandwiched between.  Cooked over those hot coals for a couple minutes makes a lightly toasted warm pie that we didn't have any problems giving away.  We made around 15 pies before we ran out of bread.  Later we realized that we had been too busy making the next pie to take pictures.  But I think you will be seeing some pie pictures soon, as it will certainly be used again.