Showing posts with label the high country housewife. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the high country housewife. Show all posts

Monday, April 18, 2011

Building a High Country Clubhouse out of Pallets

As if in the NC Mountains wasn’t enough, My husband decided to use some extras and make a little club house for our 2 year old (and himself).
Took about 10 dollars some donated pallets from the nice folks at Village Hardware in Blowing Rock and 2 hours of labor to complete but the hours of entertainment and extra porch space are priceless!
We don’t have much of a yard so making un-usable space useable is a great idea (of which I can take no credit for…or the execution for that matter)



Trillium - Found a patch of these down by the club house too for an added bonus!!!
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Thursday, January 20, 2011

Rough Ridge Trail - A good one for the kiddies...











Rough Ridge Trail is has a really great hike to view ratio. It only takes about 10 minutes to get to the big vista and it's a big one folks. It goes way up from where these pictures were taken and connects to the Tanawha trail as well. The round trip is 2 miles but you don't have to do all of it to get a big pay off!
You can access the trail right off of the Blue Ridge Parkway. It's before the Linn Cove Viaduct if you're traveling from Blowing Rock to Linville. Great family hike... if my 2 year old can hike it, anyone can!!!





Friday, July 23, 2010

High Country Housewife Tips

Can’t take credit for this one. My sister Kate who is also crafty in the kitchen showed me this the other day when she was making chicken pot pies. Can’t Kate's Wedding 015_800 believe I never thought of it before.
--Save all of your veggie cast offs that you would normally throw away or compost (onion and carrot and celery stubs, herb stems, rinds of lemons/oranges, the ends of peppers etc.). Put them in a zip lock bag in the fridge and then whenever you stew a chicken throw all of it in the pot of water with it.
When you’re done cooking the chicken, take it out, put it to the side and strain everything left in the pot (in a normal colander) and you’ve got great already seasoned broth to either make soup with or add into a rue sauce for casseroles, pies etc. (I would try to cycle weekly with this though, you don’t want it to get too burly). Also if you want the broth to be lower in fat you can pop it in the fridge for a while and skim the fat off of the top with a spoon.
I know I usually stew a chicken or some split breasts at least once a week September Oakland 038_600 and then make an assortment of things with it. It’s one of the smartest and easiest things that you can do on a budget and with all of the great local produce that you can find in the Boone and Blowing Rock areas, you might as well have fun with the variety of vegetables knowing you’ll get double usage out of them.
Maybe my next post will be about easy and cheap ways to use stewed chicken.
As always, thanks for reading and please feel free to contact me directly if you have things you’d like to read about!