Sous Vide Chicken Thigh seared in a cast iron skillet

Pork Agrodolce and Grilled Tuscan Flat Iron at Three Forks Grille in Columbia Falls, MT

Recent trip to a seafood restaurant in Whitefish Montana.  

Dixon Melon Daiquiris 

I picked up a couple Dixon Melons at the Missoula Sunday Farmers market and wanted to make a delicious end of summer beverage.  I got a Honey O (Cantaloupe/ Honeydew), and a Tropical Sinful melon after tasting samples of each on the back of the melon truck.  

These melons are only around once a year and once they are gone, you are out of luck.  This is how I made the Daiquiris:

Cut the melons in half and scrape the seeds.  With a melon baller, Extract melon balls for the garnish.  Try to make the melon balls as round as possible.  After you get enough sweet orbs to garnish your drinks, take a spoon and scrape out the remaining fruit from the melon and put it in your blender and add the following:

1. One can frozen lime aid concentrate
2. Equal amount rum (optional)
3. Fill blender remaining 2/3 with Ice

I like to pour the rum into the lime aid concentrate can for measuring and also to rinse out  any leftover flavor.  Cover and blend on a high setting for close to 90 seconds or until all the melon is pureed and the ice becomes smooth, to your liking.  Take a bamboo skewer and make a melon kabob garnish with the melon balls.  The garnish is as dramatic as the hints of melon flavor.

Missoula Sunday Farmers Market

Not all the fanfare of the Saturday market but a nice excuse to go to the park.   A vendor was making some kind of waffle sandwiches with a campfire mold that looked like it was used in the civil war.  Will go back to try that for sure-

Lemongrass Thai Food, Billings, Montana  

If you don’t already know where this place is, good luck finding it.  I have been doing business on King Ave for close to 20 years and had no idea it existed.  Granted, it is in a new little strip mall so I don’t actually know how old it is.  But that is in the past.  It has been discovered.  It’s review on Yelp caught my eye.  I ordered the Thai spring roll App, and Mu Tod Pad Gra Tiam Prik Thai for an entree.  The spring rolls were simple, not a lot of pizzazz.  I will try the fresh spring rolls next time.  The entree dish was something else.  on the menu it reads “Stir fired pork with onion, garlic sauce, and black pepper”.  Shrimp is an extra $ 2.00.  I got the pork and asked to add the shrimp just for the heck of it.  The depth and diversity of the flavors among it’s simplicity was insane.  So simple and wonderful at the same time.  The shrimp was not rubbery, overcooked, overly fragrant (aka cheap quality), or mealy.  They were done perfectly.  The pork had a nice sear on it yet was tender and juicy.  Other than heading home, it is my new favorite thing about Billings.  

I got to go fishing for the first time this year on the Missouri river below Holter Dam.  One of my favorite places to fish, the MO has a mystique about it that can kiss you and cut you in the same breath.  Upwards of 6,000 fish per mile in certain stretches and a thriving insect population to keep the salmonids well fed & growing.  These fish seem to have vinegar running thru them, and fight so hard we often think they are foul hooked, which is seldom the case.  Friday evening we floated from the Wolf Creek Bridge to Craig.   Our timing was ideal - later in the day and not a lot of other boats to interfere.  When the wind would subside, there were fish up and sipping on clusters of midges so tiny it looked like they were eating caviar one egg at a time.  One of my favorite indulgences when fly fishing is just observing the fish feeding, presuming they are unaware of my presence.  At times, there is no other place to better observe trout feeding than on the MO.  Friday evening was one of those times.  Unfortunately, the fish were on to our shenanigans, and it was quite challenging to put a few in the net.  We were grateful for the few rainbows we did catch, and the opportunity to catch some late afternoon rays.  Saturday, we floated from Prewett to Cascade.  I probably will not be going below Pelican any time soon without a trolling motor.  We got a few, but the fishing was also quite slow.  At one point, we had better luck catching flies in our mouths than fooling fish with our imitations (see photo).  It is interesting that if I catch a bunch of fish or no fish at all on the Missouri, I get the same feeling.  I feel like I want to go back and do it all over again as soon as possible.  

A highway sign near Alberton MT encouraging us to stop and check out the 100,000+ used books was all the enticement I needed to hit the blinker and pull off the interstate for a peek around the small town.  A very interesting bookstore, a couple of bars, antique shop, train museum, and a teepee for smokers, complete with a wood stove, tv, XM radio, and that morning’s paper were some of the things that welcomed us to Alberton.  I can’t wait to go back when the museum is open for visitors.