Local Dim Sum restaurant

We went out for Dim Sum recently and I took all these great pictures of the food they serve.  It is a tiny restaurant and the food is great but because they only serve Dim Sum on Saturday and Sunday morning, it gets quite crowded!

You are seated at a table with plates and hot tea and a small card to record all your purchases.

Soon after these giant carts on wheels called the steam carts roll by.  They are steaming like mad and the waiter/waitress shows you whats inside each little container.  If you choose something, she places it on your table and marks your card.

They have a cart with fried items too and usually someone walking around with a big tray of desserts as well.

Here are some of our choices!

Pictured above: (top right going clockwise) Pineapple buns, Chinese broccoli, crab claws, fried shrimp dumpling, one pineapple bun, pork buns (shiny). fried taro balls.

My absolute favorite is the fried Taro balls!  They have a very light, airy, almost wispy crunchy exterior and underneath is mashed taro around some vegetables!  It's so awesome!!

At the end of the meal you take your card up to the register.  They total up all your choices and you pay there.  A 15% tip has already been added to your check so you don't need to tip them, unless of course you want to tip them more.

After looking at all these pictures again I have to admit I want to go back this weekend!  Any of my chums care to join us??

Our 4th of July weekend

We had a very nice 4 day weekend for the 4th of July Holiday.  We decided to get together with the family on Saturday instead of on Thursday.  We had fondue for dinner!  Cheese fondue and Chocolate!!!

The recipes were super easy and didn't require a lot of time or special ingredients.  I will post the recipes at the bottom!

Our family gatherings are so much fun and by the above picture you can see we get a little crazy sometimes!

 After dinner, the boys went outside to light fire crackers and blow up things :/  (not to worry, no animals were injured )                                                                                                                                       

 
 After we ate we played this fun while elephant dice game, it is such a hoot!  Basically, everyone who is playing brings a gently used item from home wrapped like a gift.  If they can't find anything they can purchase something but the cost should not go over $5.  We roll dice and if you get doubles you pick a prize.  All the gifts are opened, the game goes on and there is swapping of gifts and then at the end there is stealing of gifts!  There is a lot of laughing, and moaning and it is such a hoot, everyone loves this game!!  There are many ways to play it but we've revised it so that most everyone goes home with a gift.  Hope you enjoy the recipes!!


FONDUE RECIPES

Bacon Tomato Fondue

1 brick of Velveeta, cubed
1 can of diced tomatoes 
1 package of real bacon bits 

Heat diced tomatoes and their juice in a pan over medium to medium high heat.  Add cubes of Velveeta and stir constantly until all is melted.  Add bacon bits and stir.  Pour into a fondue pot and place over a lit candle.

For dipping in the cheese:
French bread, cubed
tortilla chips
cooked chicken, cubed
steamed broccoli
cooked cubed potato
raw celery
bread sticks
pretzels


Easy Chocolate Fondue

8 oz. semi sweet chocolate chips
1/3 cup evaporated milk

In a double boiler melt chocolate in evaporated milk.  Water under pot should be bubbling but not touching the bottom of the pot.  Transfer the whole double boiler to a fondue stand over a lit candle.

For dipping in chocolate:
pound cake, cubed
strawberries
mini marshmallows
cookies
cut up banana
pretzels

On our way to Ron and Marge's

On our way to Ron and Marge's we stopped at a farm that had trout fishing.  It was a really cute set up with an adorable little house used for storage and a little pond fed by a stream.  They raise the trout themselves and you don't need a fishing license to fish there.  My only complaint was that it was over in about 6 seconds!  You get a cane pole with a rather short line and a hook which they bait for you with a piece of corn.  You toss the line in and about 2 seconds later you catch a trout and just yank it in!

It was a nice shady spot right next to their field of cows and the dogs got to come watch!

It was run by a cute little 17 year old girl who unhooked the fish, gutted and cleaned the fish and everything, she was fearless!

More vacation pics

While we were in South Dakota we visited the Crazy Horse Memorial.  They are making a lot of progress on the giant sculpture and it is quite impressive.  We learned that the man who started the sculpture is the same man who did Mount Rushmore.  Unfortunately he died after only completing the head of the sculpture.  His children have now taken over this huge task and they have more modern equipment to move a lot of rock.

This sculpture is so much bigger than Mount Rushmore!  We found out that all of Mount Rushmore would fit inside the head area!

After we watched their informational video and after looking at the sculpture we got to see some Native Americans play some drums and dance.  They were really good and there was some audience participation!!

                                                                                                                                                                 

Fish are in the pond!

I've been working very hard at getting my pond done.  We have had so much rain that I was unable to work on it for a while and dirt was eroding from around the new upper pond.  It was quite frustrating as I couldn't figure out where all this dirt was going, it was as if it dissolved!  We had great weather this weekend so I took it upon myself to work on protecting the dirt from erosion.  I had to dig a lot of dirt and put it around the upper pond, place rocks around it and they spread wood chips in between the cracks.  I also had to pump out the water from all 4 ponds (2 upper and 2 lower) and bail out every last bit of water because of all the mosquito larvae that was swimming around in there! :/  There was a leak in the new liner that had to be repaired and then more rocks had to be placed inside the pond while it filled with water.

To the left is my nephew Phil who really enjoys the pond and has been helping out a lot!!

Here's the work I've been doing on the new upper pond, it was exhausting!

 My family took pity on me and really helped me out today so that I could put my fish in the pond tonight.

In the above picture you have a full view of the old pond on the right with the new addition on the left and the fish floating in ziploc bags.  I float them in bags with their tank water for about 15 minutes until the temperature of their water becomes the same as the temperature of the pond.  We also place some hiding areas in both of the deepest parts of the ponds so they can escape racoons, cats, or birds of prey. 

Tomorrow I plan on replacing part of the liner for the waterfall on the original falls.  A leak developed as a result of an aggressive mole that caused some settling of the rocks.  I kept trying to repair it but it continued to leak so I decided to remove the old liner and redirect the falls.  I will show more pictures of my progress as time goes on.

I appear to be running out of large rocks!  I guess it's time to pay a visit to friends and family in northern MN in order to collect some more for my project!  I will show more pictures later!!  Thanks for reading!

Bison Behavior

While in South Dakota and North Dakota we noticed that Bison like to make wallows.  They rub themselves on the ground exposing the dry earth which helps them in several ways.  It helps them to shed their winter coat, it coats them with dirt that keeps bugs away and it is also soothing for them as the ground is cool.  Bison also rub against trees a great deal to help them remove their shedding winter coat.  We went up  and explored the wallows and some trees that looked very damaged and here is what we found!

 We found wallows of various sizes with lots of hoof prints and even some Bison fluff laying in them

Be also found a lot of different sized hoof prints as well.

There were plenty of trees that were damaged from the Bison rubbing on them, some were even dead!

And here's the evidence, Bison fuzz!!
We noticed that the Badlands of North Dakota are quite different than the Badlands of South Dakota!  The South Dakota Badlands are quite desolate looking, and the hills (if that's what you want to call them) look like they should be on an alien planet!

We visited part of Theodore Roosevelt Park in North Dakota where they have Wild Horses!

They were so beautiful and majestic looking and some had adorable little colts with them!  There are two other areas of the park that are not connected that I would love to go visit some day.