Making Strudel

Well yesterday was a busy day as I predicted.

I attended the funeral, which was a little tough, just because of the reminders of Jennifer's service. I made it through it though. It was a nice service.

Then I went and grabbed some groceries. Just before leaving for the service my Dad decided he wanted to make a apple strudel with the boys. For years this was a tradition to make both apple strudel and poviticia. Anyway my mom also decided we should make a cheese and pineapple one as well. When I got home the Galbavy's had arrived and they were watching the North Dakota State vs South Dakota football game to see who the Grizzlies would play next weekend in the Semifinal playoff game. Well North Dakota State is the next opponent. They beat South Dakota pretty handily.

We will see how things go. North Dakota State plays in a dome and the weather forecast on the news last night has Missoula forecasted to get 3-6 inches of snow next Saturday. However the 10 day forecast on the weather channel app does not even have any snow in the forecast and temps in the 40's. So will have to see what shows up and if that will help the Grizzlies. North Dakota State looked pretty formidable, so the Griz are going to use every thing at their disposal to win and move on to the title game.

Anyway, Chad, Cindy and I did some musical bed adjustments around the house. Both my parents have been sleeping in Power recliners for some time. The physical therapist wants my dad to lay in a bed for a couple of hours a day, so he does not get pressure (bed sores) on his bottom. The issue we had is that their bed was too high for him to get on and off. The reason for that was they had one of those powered box springs that can raise or lower the head or foot of the bed. So we needed to remove that and go with just a normal box spring. However, we needed to just put the box spring on the floor. Because if we put the box spring on a bed frame it was still too high.

Fortunately we had a extra queen sized box spring at my grandpas house. So we were able to switch it out. However getting that powered box spring out of the house was a challenge. That baby was quite heavy. We got it out of the house but we determined that there was no way to get that baby into my grandpa's house because of the door situation, so we ended up taking it to the barn and covering it with a tarp. Anyway we got it done. We also installed a pole that dad can use to steady himself to get into and out of the bed. He has one for getting into and out of his recliner chair so we got him one for the bed as well..

After we got that done. Chad and I started on putting up outside Christmas lights. We got that done and then had a nice roast beef dinner. After we got the dinner dishes done then we started on the strudels. Chad, Cindy and the boys and I got the dough made and Dad peeled the apples. Mom supervised and answered all the questions on where various kitchen implements (pans, brushes, etc.) were. Case likes to cook so he was pretty active in the process. His brother Heath will cook but took a bit more prodding to get involved, but he did. We had him on egg cracking and beating duty. All the while we had the NFR rodeo playing on the T.V. You have to let strudel dough rest for a hour. So we watched the rodeo and worked on getting the sugar and spices mixed up and grating the apples while the dough was resting.

We also relived some of our trips to Vegas to attend the NFR rodeo, which we did for several years. We had some fun times and good laughs on those trips.

Then the fun and challenging part of strudel making started. The rolling and stretching of the dough. This is very much a art. We talked about several ladies that could whip out these strudels and poviticia in their sleep and their dough would be perfect and super thin, (you could read a news paper thru them).

Well let me tell you that is easier said than done. It is a very fine line of getting the dough thin but not having a hole open in it. Well it was a team effort and we got the dough rolled and stretched out. The boys did a good job helping with that. We then got the filling added and then the next challenge is rolling the strudels into what I will call logs and then getting them into the baking pans. Well we got it done.

We successfully made the two strudels, however we did not get a chance to taste them yet, as they were still cooling down when it was time to hit the hay. So today will be the day to grade our effort. While it was a lot of work, it was a nice way to spend the evening with the family and to continue passing on age old traditions to the boys. It also made my parents happy.

We did not make any poviticia (a nut bread for those reading and arennot from Butte) Cindy can't eat Walnuts (she gets sores in her mouth) and also because the folks had recieved as tasty one from a neighbor. So we have poviticia, just not one that we made.

Today we will have the Elk Park Volunteer Fire Department Christmas party and hay ride. They are predicting a good turnout (100 kids) so that should be interesting. We were talking about it and figured that this party has been going on for 40+ years. So another tradition that keeps on going.

Well enough therapy for today, better get going on cooking some breakfast for the crew.