the sweet toothed bear

             I had a bit of trouble waking up this morning. I went to bed early or on time, it always depends on the trend of bed times from nights previous. So last night I went to bed early, around 10:30. Every time my alarm would go off I would hit the snooze and go back to sleep, telling myself it was an alarm for something or someone else. Considering my bosses were still out of town I gave myself an extra twenty minutes to arrive to work. The first stage of breakfast, for the crew, would be leftover coffee cake and doughnuts that I had made the day before. 
When I finally left the GQ (girls quarters) and headed up the road towards the dining hall I noticed a crumpled pile of something black in the middle of the road. Had I unknowingly dropped my sweatshirt on my walk home I asked myself, thinking that would have been quite stupid had I not noticed. I then thought maybe something had fallen out of someone's car. When I got close enough I saw that it was a pile of bear crap. Three months ago I would not have been able to tell the difference between horse crap and bear crap, Now I know, bears leave massive dungs that are black as a cast iron. I also now know that when a bear leaves his crap behind the bear was eating. I immediately scanned the properties seeing if I noticed any trash cans knocked over. Nothing. I looked at the windows where one bear had broken into a month earlier. Nothing. I was put to ease then and walked the rest of the way to the kitchen. 
As I opened the screened door I noticed that the trash can INSIDE had been knocked over. We always leave the last batch of trash inside so the bears won't get to it and here this bear was wandering all over my kitchen! It opened the cookie jar and ate all of the cookies, managed to open a tupperware container holding fresh picked raspberry scones, the left over birthday cake was now just an empty plate with it's saran wrap covering neatly placed to the side. My heart was pacing wondering if this bear was still in the building. I walked around assessing the damage. A trail of powdered sugar led into the dining room, where the remaining bag had been left behind and TWO trails of foot prints led out two sets of windows, where the screens now lay on the outside. I walked around the porch that lines the dining room some more trying to figure out how they could have gotten in. A few windows down there was another broken screen and claw marks going through the curtains. A failed attempted it looked like. Two more windows down the screen had been pulled out and the curtains completely torn down, here was where they made their entrance. 
What amazes me is the polite manner in which these two bears handled eating all of my baked goods. Aside from the trail of powdered sugar and knocked over trash there were hardly any crumbs. Ate the cookies, scones, doughnuts, coffee cake, some biscuits and some left over cake and by simply opening the lids on the containers and helping themselves. 
They seemed to have trouble with the peanut butter jar though.

Faux- Jitas

Ah, one night when I made fajitas for the crew one crew member, Lindsay came to me and said, "you should make a hamburger but with fajita toppings."  Our conversation progressed and had many tangents, eventually ending with me promising her that when I opened my restaurant on the menu would be "Lindsay's Faux-Jitas".  Today I had lots of ground beef on hand and decided it would be the right time to try this recipe out.  I decided to take it one step farther and instead of just making a hamburger with fajita like toppings I was gonna put the fajita INSIDE the burger!  I've just finished mixing up the patties and they look so awesome I just had to run to the computer and share this idea with all of you.  I definitely was making them on a whim, so I didn't pay close attention to the measurements.   I can tell you that what I made came out to about 18 patties! yikes.   More or less I think you will be able to get the gist.  

Lindsay's Faux-Jitas

Ten pounds ground beef

3 green/red bell peppers, cleaned and thinly sliced

1 onion, thinly sliced

8 cloves of garlic, minced

4 tablespoons olive oil

2 packets of taco/fajita seasoning (which can be substituted with cumin, chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder, salt and pepper)

2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

1 cup sour cream

1 jar of salsa

hamburger buns 

First you want to cook down the peppers and onions.  Heat olive oil in a pan and then add the vegetables.  Once they have started to cook down add the garlic and about two table spoons of the taco seasoning.  Once the peppers have become soft, remove from the heat and let them cool down.

Once the veggies have cooled a bit, chopped them up as fine as you can and in a large bowl mix the beef, cheese, peppers, onions, one packet of taco seasoning and 1/2 a cup of salsa.  Form them into patties that fit your desired size ( I prefer 1/4 lb).

For the sauce mix the sour cream and one cup of salsa and spread on the toasted buns before serving.  

In about a half hour I will be grilling mine and I will let you know the end result.  But really how could all of these things mixed together turn out bad?  My only concern is that the cheese might melt before the burger is fully cooked. 

Check back to hear how the end result was, OR try it yourself and let me know!

cheers!

nyks