Winter Ramblings and Rote Kraut (Red Cabbage)

Do you remember last week when I said our Saturdays had been cold and snowy? Well that changed this week, just in time to celebrate the release of Hannah's Choice!

My husband and I have a favorite restaurant to visit when we want to celebrate - well - just about anything. Since last Saturday was a beautiful, sunny day, we headed up into the Hills to eat lunch at the Alpine Inn.

The lunch menu at this fabulous restaurant in Hill City features authentic German food. I ordered the "German Plate," packed with two kinds of sausage, sauerkraut, German potato salad, kase spaetzle and red cabbage. So delicious!

The rote kraut is hiding under the sausages. Do you see the purple
sticking out?

If you've read Hannah's Choice already, you might remember that Hannah's favorite food is rote kraut - red cabbage. Believe it or not, it's one of my favorites, too.

 Rote Kraut (Red Cabbage)
(serves one or two rote kraut lovers, about four normal people)

ingredients:
4 Tablespoons butter (or bacon grease)
1/4 cup minced onion
4 cups shredded red cabbage (The recipe doesn't make this much rote kraut! The cabbage shrinks as you cook it!)

1/4 cup vinegar
1/4 cup water
2 Tablespoons sugar

1 apple, pared and quartered

Melt the butter in a large pot (I use my 8 quart stock pot), then cook the onion in the melted butter until it's translucent.

Put the shredded cabbage into the pot. Then mix together the vinegar, water and sugar, and pour on top of the cabbage.

Season with salt and pepper to taste and mix lightly.

Place the apple quarters on top of the cabbage mixture.

Cover the pot and cook on medium-low heat until the cabbage is soft, about 20 minutes.

Note - the apple is for flavoring. You can mix it into the cabbage before serving, or eat it separately.

Serve as a side dish with any kind of meat.

We drove by Lake Pactola on our way to Hill City. All of the
lakes were covered with ice fishermen on this fine day!

After lunch we drove to Custer State Park and visited some of our favorite places. I was able to drink in the views I've missed so much during the past few months.

The grass is winter brown. Snow still lingers in places, but the sun is strong at this altitude, and all of our friends were enjoying the 50°+ weather.








We saw this little guy with his mom -

His crooked ear stands out, and I remembered that I had taken a picture of him last summer:

He's a little bit bigger and a LOT shaggier than in July, but he still has that funny lop ear.

We saw plenty of pronghorns, too.

These two were posing very nicely...

Until the guy on the left had to see what we were doing.

And we saw a lot of bison - probably close to three hundred in several different herds like this one. (Do you see the pronghorns in the lower right of the picture? They're hard to see against the brown grass!)

Last year's calves are looking good. Their horns are beginning to grow - they're between four and six inches long - and the young ones look like abbreviated versions of their mothers.

While I was taking pictures of the calves, this mama bison started walking toward our van.

It took a minute before we realized what she was doing.

She was licking the salt off the front of our van! She was a little disappointed when we backed up and drove around her.

When we were safely out of her area, I took a picture.

Bison tongue marks! That's a first!

So two questions for our chat today:

1) Red cabbage - love it, or hate it?
2) How was your Saturday - snowy in the big storm back east, or bright and sunny like ours?