Smithy

Some of the honkers (Canada Geese) that inhabit this lake have babies afloat. We don't know whether all have hatched yet; the behavior of some of the geese on shore make us think there might still be nests. At any rate, the little floating puffballs are charming. I like the adults too but they make a frightful mess on the grass! He cooked dinner tonight. Well, I prepped it and he stuck it in the oven, else we'd still be palavering and nothing would be cooking yet. These are not schnitzels. These are pork shoulder steaks, done his favorite way with the breading and baking. You've seen it many times already this trip. Now I have a question that may deserve its own topic: why are the pork steaks getting so huge? Are the pig farmers killing off all their brood stock? If so, what happens next? And no, we didn't even try to eat all that in one sitting. One steak would have done the two of us handsomely, with leftovers - but then we'd have had to argue over who got the bone. This way, each of us has leftovers. They may be tomorrow's dinners, rather than the crab cakes I'd envisioned. Heck, they may be tomorrow's dinner and lunch the day after.

Thanks for the well-wishes. I admit that I'll be glad to be home too. By this time in our trip, I'd be glad to be home even if the trailer were working flawlessly. As it is the trailer isn't working flawlessly, and my bicycle lost a crucial part - probably when we were packing up in Mineral Wells - so I'm restricted to exercising on foot. I'll be glad to get home to repair stations, and more living space. Still, these trips have their compensations. I see places and eat foods that I wouldn't otherwise experience, and I learn a lot (not just about trailer mechanics) on every trip. I even get silly pleasures out of knowing which side of the Rockies I'm on by some of our purchases. We're back in the land of short, fat butter.

... and how long will it be? If it isn't too personal, where are you/ will you be going?

Hello and welcome, Bryna! Ask and you shall receive. This topic discusses sous vide tongue, and corning beforehand: Sous vide tongue? Feel free to add to it with questions or, better still, documentation of your own efforts.

I too appreciate the comments on grapefruit vs. medications. I'm not at that stage yet, but I note that the antihistamine I use a few times a year - and this is such a time - can be made less effective by grapefruit. Who knew?? I only have a few more grapefruit to enjoy, and enjoy them I will. Ahchoo! The macaroni puttanesca was finished for lunch. Sour cream helped tame the flavor and smooth the texture, but it was only a minor improvement. If I remember what I did (almost 2 years ago!) I won't repeat this recipe. We drove into town for propane and beer. I discovered a couple of wines I've never seen before. I generally look askance at wines from Lodi, but the shopkeeper said these wines get a lot of repeat business from his customers. It's a small town, and he caters to his base. I had to try them. I didn't notice the alcohol content until we got home. I'll have to go easy with these! Dinner tonight looks like we're going to the wolves. Tube steaks of our choice; potato salads of our choice; beverages of our choice. Simple cleanup. I'm about to go do it.

Nice start! I like your take on stemless wine glasses.

The topic Free Cookbooks is a good giveaway site, but it's traditionally been a place that titles were actually listed. If @Janet Helm is interested in going to that level of detail, it's another possibility.

Welcome, Janet. I hope you stick around, even after you find new homes for the cookbooks and cooking pamphlets! Please don't hesitate to ask for help from a host - I am one - if you have questions about how to use the forums or where to post. Since you have such a wonderful collection, you may be interested to peruse and participate in the topic Vintage Cooking Booklets and Pamphlets. @David Ross, another host, also has quite a collection and has been keeping a discussion going. Anyone can participate!

Breakfast. I still have a few giant pink grapefruit left from Yuma. This isn't the classic presentation of the fruit, but it's the way I prefer to eat it: standing over the kitchen sink, savoring that juice. We've got the back gate ready to be raised if necessary today, to block the wind. Yesterday it was gusting up to maybe 30 mph and kept blowing the window panels out. Today it's forecast to gust to 50 mph! With the deck rails folded in at the bottom, all we'll need to do is raise the tailgate. The wind will no doubt do most of the work.

It's springtime in Kansas. We left Texas a couple of nights ago and spent one night in a Walmart parking lot in Kansas. It was a long, very long drive to get there. I think we ate leftovers and promptly dropped into bed. The next day I picked up some things from Walmart. One of them was this road-food sandwich: their Italian Hero Sub. For once we tried it with the sauce they provide. I didn't know what to expect of that sauce, and I still don't know what it is exactly. It's spicy-hot with peppers of sort, and some vinegar, and a slight touch of sweetness. As you see we didn't leave much of it behind. As this road trip winds down I'm a bit embarrassed to realize that some food will be making the full round trip with us. Some of that is accident: a smoked pork shank was hiding in back of the refrigerator, and we thought we only had 1 shank when we really had 2 to cook. Some of that is the realization that what he wants - his comfort food - and what I want - my experimentation - aren't necessarily compatible. Will I ever get a good grip on Indian or Thai curries? There are several cans of coconut milk and tomatoes that left with us and will be coming right back. And then there are the freezer contents. I give you Exhibit A. Did that come with us last year too? I don't think so, but it didn't get used last summer either. Tonight I decided its time had come. There was leftover cooked elbow macaroni from my last batch of mac 'n' cheese 'n' ham. I gave that a quick reboil, nuked the puttanesca sauce, and served. It needed...something. Either something to be added, or something I wish hadn't been there. You can see that the texture of the elbow macaroni isn't right for this sauce. We experimented. Cheese didn't help. At least, the grated cheese I had lurking in the fridge drawer didn't help. He added White Wine Worcestershire, his preferred remedy for almost anything that's too salty or tart. I had to agree that it helped a bit. I had better luck with sour cream. The creamy texture added some cohesion and the fat helped mute the salty tart flavor a bit. I like puttanesca sauce, at least I used to, but I think this was too heavy on the capers and/or the olives. I wish I could remember which recipe I used back then! All i remember is laughing at the cognitive dissonance of making and freezing a sauce that's supposed to be quick, easy and a la minute. The best news about this particular dinner is that it emptied 3 containers. That's progress! In other news: one bedroom glide motor has failed, and the glide won't slide out. There's no manual crank. Unless we can get an emergency repair here, we'll be living without access to half the closet until we get home, and one of will be crowded against a wall at night. At least we have the rest of our living space here, while we wait for the weather to improve at home. Once we leave here the back room will resemble the laden pickup from The Grapes of Wrath or, more humorously, The Beverly Hillbillies. It'll be a fast dash for home when we leave here. 2 nights should do it, we hope. I'll be ready.

Welcome! We love having members from around the world; it's a good learning and sharing experience. What is one of your favorite things to cook? Is your restaurant fairly traditional and classic French cooking, or do you experiment?

Can you elaborate on Russell Williams, without derailing this topic?

One last Mineral Wells post, to recognize the last purchase of Texas 'cue for the season. I placed an online order for pickup at The Mesquite Pit Steakhouse in town. This place, like Cooper's in Llano, isn't quite a one-off; there are 3 restaurants in this chain. This one is well worth visiting. Since I had Rams on my mind I appreciated seeing this mural on the building next to the restaurant. It's doubly appropriate because it's the Dodge dealer in town. Dodge is pretty proud of its Ram pickups. I didn't take many restaurant shots this time. I've posted them before, and there were a lot of people waiting for their takeout orders. I didn't feel right photographing them. The bar and restaurant weren't packed, but seemed to be doing good business. Staff were masked, by the way. Most customers were not. We had ordered pork ribs and a pint of their barbecue sauce for him, armadillo eggs and fried green tomatoes for me, and brisket for us. Onions, pickles and pickled peppers rounded out the sides. Last time we ordered from them - last fall, I think - we were a bit disappointed in the brisket and ribs because they were dry and a touch overcoooked. Not this time! The ribs were tender and delicious, with just a little resistance as the meat came away from the bone. (They were his ribs, but he shared, bless him.) The fried green tomatoes could have been better. I've had better. The crust was almost hard, and the tomatoes themselves didn't have much flavor. Note that the crust kept its cohesion and didn't stick to the 'maters. Reminds me of our schnitzel discussion a while back. The tomatoes were a good carrier for ranch dressing, though. That's never a bad thing. The armadillo eggs, on the other hand, were a joy. They were stuffed with juicy brisket and maybe a touch of hot sauce. There was no cheese inside. The breading was perfectly flavored and crisp. I shared with him, but I was glad when he decided one was enough! I'm glad I got these, not only because they were goood but also to remind myself of how they're constructed. These have no bacon on the outside. They probably wouldn't lend themselves to oven baking. Something to work on over the summer. We kept the brisket for tonight, but I did sample one piece. Delicious, not at all overcooked. Tonight's dinner will be one last hurrah! We're headed into not-very-nice weather now, hoping to get clear of a predicted area of severe thunderstorms. We'd like to have stayed an extra night to ride out the weather, but Texas State Parks switched to a site-specific reservation-only system a year or two ago, since our last visit. You reserve a specific site and pay for it, and whether you turn up or not it's still yours. We had gotten the site with the most possible nights. Another site had opened for tonight, but moving the trailer is such a big deal that we decided simply to pack up and move on to Oklahoma. A road construction project on the way out of town took us entirely too close to Fort Worth while on a detour. Big City traffic is bad enough, but road construction makes it much, much worse. Not shown: a flashing sign that said "various lanes closed after 9 p.m." How helpful for planning purposes! We've been eating our typical road food and drinking plenty of water and coffee. If we'd known how much time we'd lose to detours and road construction, I'd have packed a couple of sandwiches. Writing about last night's dinner isn't exactly helping.

Tell me the sequence of making the sauce and adding the pasta, please. Do you just bung all the ingredients together in the pot and let the sauce cook the macaroni?

We went to town yesterday for groceries. The bottom right image is of the spillway that we drive across to get to and from our campground. I asked a few years ago what happens when the water level gets too high for safe driving across the spillway. The rangers said there's a back route out that comes out through "The Base". We think that means under the arch in the top picture. The high school sign gave us a laugh. Anyone who follows the Crazy Good e-Book Bargains topic, or topics devoted to dead tree cookbooks, knows that I find cookbooks irresistible. Sometimes I wonder why. In my case they're probably a triumph of ambition over good sense. When I buy them at bargain prices, or borrow from the library, they're cheap entertainment. But when it comes time actually to cook I often turn to old faves. I work from my own notes (paper scraps or electronic file) and work on refining the dishes to our satisfaction. So it was last night. We still have leftover ham from the last one we cooked, sometime before Llano. There are still sandwich slices for when we hit the road in a couple of days, but there are also chunks. Mac 'n' Cheese 'n' Ham it was! I used elbow macaroni, and less cheese sauce than in past iterations. I also baked it in a shallow baking dish instead of the usual Corning pot. This was my best result yet! The shallower baking dish meant more even cooking and a better texture overall. It could have used perhaps a touch more sauce, or more likely, less pasta. I'd like it to have been slightly more cohesive. I'd also like it to have had more brown crust, either on the top or the bottom. I think a hotter oven will take care of that. I forgot the mustard, and neither of us missed it. The only thing I don't like about making this dish is the cleanup. My best friend says she makes her version of it using a single pot. I want this to bake after being mixed. So there's the pot for the pasta, the pot for the sauce, the cutting boards and knives and graters and measuring cups/spoons...here's what I did after the baking dish went into the oven! (Okay, there's also a pre-dinner cocktail glass and a lunch dish or two.) In an ideal world I'd have had all that done earlier in the day, but we were in town and then I had a conference call that delayed the prep work. I was tired. We both were pleased. This morning's leftovers are put away, and they're as cohesive as I'd hoped.

So much for my moratorium on buying new e-books until l've explored the ones I already own. Crikey.

@Kim Shook, we really need a "drool" icon.

He was in charge of dinner tonight. Breaded and oven-baked pork steaks. Frozen peas, microwaved with butter. Toast from Cooper's for him. I'm about to wash up, then deal with the nascent asparagus soup.

A photo would be welcome. I have my grandmother's wavy potato masher at home. Is that what you mean by a heater coil? (Don't worry, I won't be insulted if it is. ) Anyway, the straits just got more dire. My would-be potato masher system for the Princessmobile seems dead in the water. Remember the asparagus trimmings from earlier today? They've been simmering away on the stove top, yielding their goodness for soup. It's prettier in person than in this photo. The idea is to blend it all to get the best of the flavor, then strain out the fiber - a mighty project, I might add - and then reheat with a bit of cream, and possibly top with fresh asparagus tips. I have a small food processor aboard the Princessmobile, and we have shore power, but my preferred way to deal with something like this is a wand blender and a deep container. The food processor tends to throw liquid too high in the container, and leak out onto the counter, unless I do very small batches. I have a wand blender with excellent attachments, and there's the connection with mashed (okay, whipped ... I know it isn't the same) potatoes. This was a Christmas present some years and one trailer back. I put the battery into my Ace of Wands so it could do its magic. Nothing happened. The battery was dead. I put the battery into the battery charger. What you can't see in a still photo is that the battery charging light is flashing rapidly. The battery is dead, not as in "drained" but as in "refuses to charge". I don't think it's a problem with the charger, since it shows the error light. I've cleaned all the contacts. Same error. The next step is to contact KitchenAid, I suppose. Maybe the battery can be rebuilt when we get home. In the meantime, those asparagus trimmings are simmering with a quart of my chicken broth - and no good way to extract the most flavor from it all. I think a very simple colander straining will be in order, despite the potential loss of flavor from the more stubborn stalks. Who knows? Maybe the convenience will be worth the lost intensity of flavor? And I do realize this is a first-world problem.

@Shelby, I'm torn between giving a "sad face" over your gardening and weather issues, and laughing over your potato masher comment!

We could be home from here in 4 hard days of driving, or even 3 very hard days of driving. We plan to stay here a few days and give the cold weather to the north time to move out. If all goes according to our loose plan, we'll move at the end of this week to Kansas, spend a few days there, and then drive longish (but not arduous) hours the last 3 days.

Leftovers for lunch today, in an effort to start clearing the freezer and refrigerator. He pulled out the container of potatoes from our last ham. We have ham slices left, but have been using them in sandwiches. The spuds are surrounded by a salty, smoky ham goo. I almost changed my mind about what to eat when I saw that, but had already started thawing my own choice: leftover rice from some recent roasting exercise - chicken, I think. Our refrigerator door shelves are littered with dribs and drabs... small containers of ketchup from takeout, little mustards. Two small containers with the very last of my Little Green Dress. A mystery jar with, er, oil? Garlic? Roasting juice? I was so sure I'd remember that I didn't bother labeling it. My bad. No matter. The rice, along with a spoonful of that mystery juice and a container of LGD, was peppery and lemony and a bit salty and flavorful. Delicious. I'm glad I didn't opt for the potatoes.

It's difficult to believe that we left the desert only 2 weeks ago. The memory of being out in the open and tracking the sunrise and sunset seems distant already. The water and greenery are beautiful, of course, but the desert had its own beauty. It's cool here (despite the view) and frost is forecast tonight. We're taking advantage of electricity in the park, and I'm about to fire up the Instant Pot for some soup. I'm amazed at much asparagus I've collected in the freezer by saving the trimmings! That's chicken broth in the upper left corner. I took out another container after taking this photo. We're still working on leftovers from Cooper's in Llano. He's looking forward to getting them out of the refrigerator. I'm not; it will be the end of a treasure. We have options here in Mineral Wells for one last hurrah, but it won't be Cooper's. Tonight, though, will be something warming from our oven - most likely breaded and baked pork steaks. He's been hankering for them again. Dinner last night: Breakfast this morning: One small freezer project I have going is avocado preservation. My best friend had gotten a windfall of them earlier this winter and had saved them using this method: mash them up, mix with a little lemon juice to prevent browning, stuff into freezer bags and squeeze out all the air. Freeze. The resulting guacamole, with addition of salsa after thawing, was quite good. I decided to try it for myself when I spotted avocados in New Mexico at bargain prices, and I loaded up. I realized in Llano that I didn't have a good way to mash the avocado. A blender or chopper seemed a bit much. I don't have a potato masher aboard the Princessmobile. I did what I could with forks until I ran out of patience, then loaded it into the storage bag and mashed and squeezed the pulp while it was confined. Here's the beginning and result (so far): This avocado adventure may seem a bit of a shaggy dog story, since I won't be doing anything with the stuff until after we get home. It's still a kitchen project. If I like the results, I'll post about it someday in the What Are You Preserving, and How Are You Doing It? topic.

I hope you don't mind another couple of questions! Do you normally put the potatoes under the rack and the duck (or whatever) on top of the rack, or does it all go atop the rack? This time, when you added the potatoes later toward the end of cooking, did you still put them under the duck and maybe the rack?

It seems I'm not the only one asking what happened. So far, Lone Star ain't telling.