Fall meet-up with friends #5 -- another breakfast and lunch at our little camp

 

It's a rare treat when we are able to get together with our good friends Syd and Cyndy from Vermont.  So when it happens, we like to spend most of a day together, usually beginning with breakfast.  Often it's at our home, but in summer and fall we love to entertain at our little cottage.  And thanks to a mild November, such was the case on Veterans Day.  Amazingly, this was the second meet-up with them this fall; they are the same friends mentioned in my October post about meet-up with friends #4!

I kept breakfast super-simple with breakfast sliders and with a Hash Brown Casserole, which I kept warm in a crockpot rather than baking it in the oven.   (The oven at the camp is tiny and only has one rack, so I could only bake one 13x9 dish.)   Cyndy is somewhat of a baked-apple specialist, so I had asked her to bring baked apples to add to the breakfast menu.  She surprised us with an unusual but scrumptious variation -- baked apples filled with bread pudding!  Of course we also had coffee with our breakfast.

The sliders were from Jamie at My Baking Addiction.  They were delicious!  I tweaked the recipe in a few ways.  I couldn't find Hawaiian rolls in the right size, so I bought Pepperidge Farm slider buns.  (They were still expensive -- $4.29 -- but not as expensive as the Hawaiian rolls would have been.)  I made homemade sausage patties instead of using purchased sausage.  And, I used American cheese for the cheese on the bottom roll layer and shredded cheddar for the top layer.  I really liked the cheddar, so another time I would likely use all cheddar cheese.   There will definitely be a next time! 

I imagine some readers might like to have the homemade sausage recipe.  I have posted it before, but it's been years.  So here it is:

HOMEMADE SAUSAGE PATTIES

1/4 cup water
2 tsp. salt
2 tsp. rubbed sage
1 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1/8 tsp. ground ginger
2 lb. ground pork

In a bowl, stir together water and seasonings. Add pork and mix well. Shape meat mixture into eight 4” patties (or a larger amount of smaller ones). In a skillet over medium heat, cook patties for 5 to 6 minutes on each side or until no longer pink in the center.

This is such a yummy recipe for homemade sausage! I often cut the amounts in half to make a smaller batch. This sausage is very lean and not at all greasy.  For these sliders, I used about 1 1/4 pounds of ground pork, which is what I had, and used half the amount of seasonings specified here.

We lingered over breakfast just enjoying the fellowship and wonderful food.  After the breakfast dishes were done,  we decided to take a walk at nearby Quincy Bog.  Syd took these photos with his phone.

There is just something about red berries after all of the other foliage is gone.  Love them.

We were fascinated by this large tree apparently growing out of a rock.

Such unusual moss growing vertically on this stump!

For lunch, we were joined by our daughter and three of the grandkids, who walked through the woods from their house next door.   Chili seemed like the perfect choice for a fall day, although the day turned out to be quite balmy. Once again I served  Easy Crockpot Chili.  And again I need to add a quick note that I tweak the recipe by cooking the spices and onion with the ground beef first.  It seems to add a very measurable depth of flavor to the chili.  (And the grandkids LOVE it!)   Even though this is a super simple recipe, I usually get many comments about how good it is.  I also use much less meat: a pound or less rather than the 3 pounds called for.  I often add an extra can of beans too -- usually kidney beans.  And I'd forgotten about this, but I usually cut down on the water and sometimes on that large quantity of tomato sauce as well.  It all depends on how many people I'm serving, the size pot I use, and whether or not I'm transporting it somewhere.  This time I used around 16 ounces of tomato sauce and no water, as we were transporting a very full crockpot over a bumpy dirt road.  (Once we got there, I transferred some of the chili to a saucepan and added some of the tomato sauce to each batch.)  So if you make this, feel free to tweak it too! 

Cyndy brought a pan of delicious cornbread and a jug of cider,  and we also had tortilla chips and a Baked Taco Dip.  I had seen this dip recipe on the Hodgepodge this week and decided to try it.  With teenage appetites present for lunch, I wasn't sure if the chili would stretch far enough without it.  (It certainly did, because two of the teenagers in question enjoyed leftover breakfast sliders and hash brown casserole.  After which I heard, "Amazing food, Grammy!")

For dessert, I had made two Turtle Pumpkin Pies.   This is apparently a Kraft recipe, but I found it in my Gooseberry Patch Big Book of Holiday Cooking (the link will take you to my review of the book).  In fact, it's one of the cover recipes!  I got this book at Thriftbooks for $5.99 a couple years ago.  It's always worth checking there for good deals on cookbooks.

 
I made homemade graham cracker crust (which the recipe I had specified doing).  Instead of cinnamon and nutmeg (which totaled 1 1/2 teaspoons) I substituted 1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice.  My pie slices came out looking just about exactly like the picture, which was surprising and encouraging!

 

(My family has teased me for years about trying out new recipes on company.  I'm notorious for doing that!  But this may be the first time I have tried three new recipes on one hospitality occasion.) 

Just one more photo, for fun.  Our dear friend is "Miss Cyndy" to our young granddaughter Arielle (as well as to many other children).  When she saw Ari's deer costume (purchased on clearance after Halloween) she decided a photo shoot was in order.  A little deer is bounding through the woods on a gray November afternoon!

What a delightful day it was!  So thankful for good friends as well as for family "just through the woods".