My first stab at real Indian cooking!

So I've been in a "food rut" of late. It gets hard after awhile trying to please everyone while at the same time trying to figure out something creative that a 14 year old and an 11 year old will eat as well as a husband who is not that adventurous when it comes to ethnic cuisine. No one around here has been big fans of Indian food (which I am) but I thought to myself..."Tandoori Chicken is pretty tame - maybe I should give that a go". So I did. My sister and brother in law make all sorts of interesting meals and I decided it's time that the Hokes branch out a bit. I used a nice Greek yogurt and despite having two pretty decent looking recipes for Tandoori chicken, my brother in law convinced me to use a ready made Tandoori paste. It was pretty good actually but next time I'm going to try it from scratch. I will say though that for the Mom trying to run kids to football and other activities and doesn't need to spend inordinate amounts of time in the kitchen, this is the way to go. Mix the Tandoori paste with a nice full Greek yogurt, cover the skinless chicken pieces with the marinade and marinade it over night. When you take it out it will look like this:

the recipe said to press out the excess marinade but I am always one of the concept "more is better". In this case I was wrong. Too much remaining marinade on the chicken makes it gloppy and it doesn't roast as well so shake off the excess! Place the chicken on a rack for roasting, spray or brush with some olive oil and roast in a 450 degree over for about 30 minutes, turning it once.

After turning it you can toss some onions on top to roast with it. The chicken will come out like this!

Don't forget the Indian Raita Yogurt sauce - very easy to make with your extra greek yogurt and some cucumber, cumin and cilantro or mint - whichever you prefer. I served this all with a nice brown Jasmine rice.

Et Voila! Fabulous and healthy meal! The entire - and I mean ENTIRE family gave it 2 thumbs up! What will be the next interesting dish to add something different to the menu...? I'm all ears and open to suggestions!

New Seasons and Old Traditions

So we are at the official end of summer. Summer really ends for us at the beginning of August when Tommy reports in for August football camp and 2 a day practices. School starts here next Tuesday, day after Labor Day and I am ready to get back to a semblance of normal life around here...whatever that is. We had our first game of the season Friday night under the lights versus Youngstown State. We had a blast tailgating and my sister and nephew attended their first ever Spartan game!

My friend Heidi, my sister Kathy, Jen, Heidi's daughter Maddie and Drew

Jen tailgates!

The fabulous Spartan Marching Band!

After the Friday night game we stayed up until almost 2 am (that's LATE for us oldies) and gabbed for awhile and watched some other great college football games. And because it was a Friday night game Tommy was gifted with a RARE day off on Saturday which NEVER happens during football season. So we decided to give my father Hank Putnam's infamous Pit Steak dinner a try again with a few fun neighbors over.

I forgot to take a photo of the roaring fire but the key is to start a big fire around 2 hours before you're ready to dress it with the cherry wood. Then we used scrap cherry wood from Harden Furniture factory in McConnellsville, NY (my hometown) courtesy of Greg Harden, an old friend. We loaded this scrap cherry hardwood up in the Land Rover and brought it home with us for this very purpose.

Burn the cherry down to red hot coals, generously salt a thick piece of Top Round (London Broil) with course sea salt and lay it directly on the red hot cherry coals

Crack open a PBR and let it cook!

We like to cook it rare to medium rare then pull it off and the coals just flick right off the meat! It sears in a delicious flavor! Slice the steak on the diagonal and put in a shallow pan with melted butter. Serve it on a kaiser roll or just as is! It is delicious!! I am happy to report that after a few failed attempts my husband has perfected Dad's Pit Steak and the Meat fork has officially been passed to him from the heavens! What a great and fun way to honor and remember my father. He would be so happy to see us continue the tradition.

Now we just need to figure out how to get a regular supply of Harden cherry...

A summer of many journeys...

It's been awhile since my last blog entry and I feel as though I've lived a lifetime during these past two months. We started a 2 weeklong vacation in North Carolina with kids and dogs at the beach. We rented an adorable little cottage in Kure Beach, very near where Tommy went to college at UNC-Wilmington. It was my first time there to see his stomping grounds and I rolled my eyes at how tough he had it going to "University of the Beach". Poor guy...

We then headed to his Mom's for the second week and a quick 4th of July day with the Hoke clan. We love staying at that little cottage in the woods. Unfortunately our time there was cut short and we left to drive through the night when my mother became very ill back in Michigan. My mother had been steadily declining in her health over the past few months and sadly left us on July 16th. The time we spent with her these last few months and even the 2 and a half years that she was with us in Michigan were priceless moments that I will never forget. But no matter how much you prepare, you can never prepare yourself for the loss of a parent.

It has been a surreal summer of ups and downs and now we enter the end of summer with Tommy in 2 a day football camp and working 17 hour days. Drew has started freshman football and the summer for us is really over sadly. We look forward to the start of football season on Labor Day weekend with a game on Friday night, September 2nd versus Youngstown State. I'll attach a few highlights of our summer...

I'll start with a wonderful photo of Mom and Dad from many years ago, this is exactly how I remember them both for the majority of my childhood

kids, dogs and me at the beach. Dogs aren't allowed on the beach but we snuck em on around twilight. We got busted the last day though so no more beachtime for the doggies which was a bummer because they loved it!

our cottage kitty - free of charge!

Tommy arrived in Wilmington on Thursday and the kids were glad to see him!

After summer conditioning this is about all the exertion he wanted to have

Later in July we were treated to a weekend retreat with the football staff and families. We started with a boat ride around the harbor in Harbor Springs

This is a pic of Me with George Blaha, the voice of Spartan Radio and a generally great man!

the ladies of Spartan Football on the boat

and a few of the guys

hubby and me on the boat

the 2011 media guide family pic - this time featuring the ENTIRE Hoke family!

and finally the last addition to our beautiful Zen Garden, Buddha who sits atop the waterfall and brings peace and serenity and a beautiful bonsai tree below him. All brought there by wonderful family and friends to remember Mom and Dad and honor their amazing lives.

Spring Cleanup, Pond draining, landscaping and koi karnage...

Well we went about our usual spring cleanup of the pond with Tommy draining the pond, donning waders and scooping the fish out to a large trash can filled with pond water. Since we were able to drain, clean and refill the pond in one day we didn't think we needed to put the air bubbler in the trash can with the fish. Boy were we wrong. This is the second or third time we've watched as our poor fish make it through the winter under the ice, greet us in the spring ready to be fed and have the algae and sludge cleaned out of their home only to be  carelessly handled by us in that endeavor and sent on their way to fish heaven. Man we felt really badly about that. Part of the learning curve I suppose and we now know never to move them without adequate aeration even if only for a short time. We lost our largest two koifish but the smaller guys survived. We also decided on Mother's Day weekend that we needed to dig up the grass alongside the bamboo fence that the dogs had peed into oblivion with no real chance of ever looking like grass again. We have made that into a nice perennial garden of sorts with some Japanese flair.

This is an idea of how nasty the water and algae are in the spring

can't really see all of the algae blooms and string algae but it's rampant!

getting prepped with the power washer and the trash can of death... :-(

Tommy scooping fish. Those are some mighty fine lookin waders! 

There's the big guy...last we saw of him alive sadly

power washing the pond

yitch

now onto dealing with the dog pee dead grass...

digging up the sod and replacing it with some landscaping like these cute little bonsai's, some perennials and Japanese Flame Grass

We moved the Japanese Maple next to the fence

Our awesome neighbor Tom came over with his wife Kris and our other neighbor Nancy with bloody mary's for Mother's Day! He ended up getting put to work! Thanks Tom!

we supervised...

Tom and Tommy digging up dead sod

and here we have the after effects of all of the hard work!

no more algae!

flowers planted and pond plants coming back

 the fence behind the pond will be finished this summer to match the rest of the cedar/bamboo picture frame fence around the yard

the Belizean hammock is up and some azaleas and rhododendrons planted this year!

outdoor living room and Zen area back in business!

Wow! What a difference from before and after!

It took us a month of digging up, cleaning up and replanting but it's all worth it in the end! We can finally enjoy our backyard and the summer months of Zen Garden time! It's a vacation right in our backyard! Come on over... the Zen is OPEN!

Nature's beauty...found right in our backyard!

I don't fancy myself as much of an Audubon Society type, despite being dragged on a birding expedition with my friend Nancy in Belize in search of the ever elusive Jabiru Stork! But you have to be blind not to recognize and appreciate those rare and beautiful birds that happen upon our backyard. I have only ever seen one Indigo Bunting before and it was in a tree way far off in the distance. But you can't miss that brilliant blue bird! And guess what? It has decided to take up residence in my backyard! It has come back nearly every day for almost a week now! I have no idea what it seems to be enjoying but I continue to throw every seed imaginable out there in hopes it likes one of them. With any luck it may mate around here and we will get to see the entire family!

I finally got him on film!

He always eats off the ground

I had an oriole come in a week ago so I put up and oriole feeder for the first time ever!

and now they're here in droves!

that's an orange on top, sugar water in the bottom and grape jelly of all things in the little dishes on top. They love it and empty the jelly out daily!!

Then Mr. Bunting came back again this morning

If I thought it would bring in a drove of indigo buntings I'd put up a bright blue feeder! I don't think it works that way though... if anyone knows how to bring em in please comment! I have no idea what he's eating but he's been back every day and I'm loving it.