Betty's Cabin: Minnesota

For those of you who don't know Betty, she is an American lady who was married to an Aussie guy- they would spend 6 months a year in Aus and 6 months in USA - bit like us really. Betty & her husband Brian sang in our church choir (Canberra) with Murray and we had planned to drop in on them during our RV travels last year. Sadly, Brian was diagnosed with pancreas cancer just before we were due to meet up with them in Minnesota. They immediately flew back to Aus for medical treatment, and from memory, he died within three months of his diagnosis. As we hadn't seen Betty since before we left Aus, it was lovely when she contacted us and suggested we visit her at her cabin in Hackensack, Minnesota. Her cabin is only an hour from the headwaters of the Mississippi River and about 3 hrs NW of Minneapolis-St Paul. The cabin is right on Big Deep Lake with woods on one side making it so lovely and tranquil.

The weather was glorious during our 3 day stay. Betty was in fine form and we took in it turns of cooking meals the other hadn't tried, and exchanging recipes. Thanks to a recipe from Avalyn, I was able to prepare a Taco Salad (ground beef, red beans, lettuce & crushed taco chips) and Betty cooked some delicious smoked pork chops which we had never tried before, and a traditional Minnesotan bratwurst, sauerkraut and molasses bean meal. Our trip to the US wouldn't be complete without having some s'mores around the campfire - takes me back to when Dick & Jan prepared them for us for the first time, back in Kentucky last year. For you aussies out there who may not have had them, the term s'mores is a contraction of 'some more' , and is a sweet treat to have around a campfire when you want 'some more' after dinner. You take two sweet dry biscuits (they use Graham crackers (pronounced Gram)) but would be nice with our malt biscuits, then they place a piece of Hershey's chocolate on one biscuit (we would use a small Cadbury's Dairy Milk). They then toast a marshmallow over the coals and when soft, sandwich it between the biscuits. The heat of the marshmallow melts the chocolate, and voila, a sweet treat.