Smithy

I saw the first mallow blossom of the season. There are several different varieties of mallow in this area, and although the leaves have been rehydrating, if you will, we haven't seen any blossoms until yesterday. Here's the blossom, and below it is last year's remains of a seed pod from a nearby mallow. When we bought that beautiful pork shoulder in Calipatria a couple of weeks ago, I reserved some of it for souvlaki. Yesterday was going to be the day. My intent had been to skewer it and cook it over the campfire, along with a melange of fire-grilled steamed potatoes, asparagus and some too-long-neglected cherry tomatoes. During the afternoon, before it got too warm in the trailer, I did all the prep work and let the pork chunks marinate in oil, lemon juice, garlic and herbs. The tomatoes went into the marinade as well. I mixed tzatziki sauce and put it in the refrigerator until dinner time came. We haven't been doing nearly as much campfire cooking this year as in previous years. How much of that is the cooler weather, and how much is increased laziness? We don't know. (I firmly deny that it could be aging!) When it came time to cook there was no interest in cooking outside, so it all became a sauteed salad over pilaf. Dinner, before the tzatziki went onto the plate: I was delighted. He wished I'd done another pork roast! 😐 He thought the pork too chewy this way. Would the flame grilling have made a difference in the flavor or texture? I don't know. The meat wasn't overdone, but it was more firm than a low-slow roast would have been. I know I'll enjoy the leftovers. When we married nearly 24 years ago, we promised to be each other's best friends. We didn't promise to agree on all things culinary.

Remember the citrus juicer I bought a couple of weeks ago at the kitchen store? Now that I'm back from visiting my friends in San Diego I've had a chance to try it out. You may recall that its label says "rotating reamer produces more juice". I wondered how far that reamer would actually move, and whether it would make much of a difference. How far could that reamer rotate, anyway? The answer is that the reamer rotates maybe 10 degrees. What you do is, you rotate the grey reamer as far as it will go in one direction or the other, then start squeezing the lemon. Each grey triangle starts at the top of a notch in the bottom half of the press, and as you squeeze the triangles slide into the notches, thereby rotating the reamer. A whopping 10 degrees. Is it really more effective than my tried-and-true Wear-Ever aluminum squeezer? Probably not. However, it's more compact and fits into a drawer where it's handier to reach. I do think it's more efficient than the handheld Mexican-style squeezer that everts the lemon halves. It's also more convenient than that style, because it's only slightly larger but sits on the counter and contains the juice. I think someone with hand problems (I'm thinking of you, @Kim Shook) would find it easier to use because it takes less hand strength. Is it a keeper? Yes. Easily worth the $13 I paid for it. Would it have been worth the original $26 asking price? Well, I dunno. I'm glad I don't have to think about that.

It's starting to warm up now. Yesterday it was about 80F outside by late afternoon; inside the trailer it was closer to 90F in the dining room because of all the sunlight. We'll probably have to try out our shade cloth today. We chose superburgers for dinner last night because they're dead easy and quick, and could be cooked outside over the camp stove. I didn't bother with pictures. For once, we'd finished eating by 8:30 p.m. We spent time last night and again this morning wondering why those burgers seemed much hotter than usual. Could the mix of hot Italian sausage and burger have been uneven when we made the last batch? We didn't think so. Our current idea is that the burgers kept more heat because they weren't cooked as thoroughly as usual. Neither seemed unsafely rare, but there was a touch of pink inside.* What do you think? Does cooking somehow break down the spicy heat of red pepper? If the burger is cooked to a firmer consistenty, has it lost juice that contains the spicy heat? Gratuitous flower collage included because I don't have any dinner pictures. *(Yes, we have thermometers. No, he doesn't use them when he cooks burgers. Yes, the juices were running clear. No, I wasn't going to interfere with his cooking any more than that simple "spatula press" step when he claimed for the 50th time that he doesn't know what he's doing.)

Oh, sure...now, as I'm trying to simplify my pasta inventory, you find another one for me to try? 😉 On a more serious note: does it come in various gauges and lengths? Any I should look for or try to avoid?

I admire your creativity, David. That looks delicious! Like Heidi, I admire the serving dish too.

That looks good, as so many of your shared lunches do. I'm very glad you can get together to do the takeout lunches, and I look forward to the time when you can go out for lunch together again. Thanks for sharing your meals with us.

Thanks for the comments on the schnitzel, everyone. I'll go back to the Schnitzel Cook-Off topic and read up more before trying it again, and do something different about the coating. I'll also use fresher meat! Two nights ago I set a new record for late dinners, to our shared dismay. Note to self: do not start stuffing and wrapping jalapenos for the night's dinner at 7 in the evening! Dinner was eaten somewhere around 10:30 p.m. or possibly even 11. We both had to laugh at how bitterly I complain when he is cooking and we don't eat until 9! A major factor in how much I mind eating late is whether I have had a late lunch, around 3 or 4, or eaten at the classic noonish time. Another factor, I suspect, is that when I'm cooking I can snack and taste as I go. Anyway, here were the night's dragon eggs / armadillo eggs / ABT's / whatever. I cooked them inside, in the oven, and roasted a poblano for later while I was at it. I have no idea now why I didn't simply prep them for another time and then heat up leftovers. The 'eggs' were good, but a little too large for this preparation. In future I'll choose small peppers for bacon-wrapped and/or fried stuffed poppers so they can really be finger food. The large ones like this are a better choice for the casseroles we've seen in the past. To make up for the ultra-late dinner, the next night (last night) I fired up the Instant Pot, cooked a batch of Rancho Gordo flageolet beans, and cooked Smoky White Beans with Brussels Sprouts, from a Washington Post article. My best friend and I tried this last week and liked it a lot. My darling liked it a lot last night, and not only because we ate at around 8:30. 😉 The bacon in this dish was my own addition. I don't think it was necessary, now that I've tried it that way. The only thing I don't like about this recipe is that it starts by cutting the sprouts in half and browning them in oil, cut side down, then turning them. I first saw this trick in one of @Franci's posts a few years ago, and to my taste it helps the sprouts immeasurably. But oh, what a fiddly step it is! See how far north the sunrise has moved! The top photo is from yesterday morning. The bottom photo is from the Winter Solstice.

Seasoned flour, then egg dip, then panko with dried parsley and maybe some additional seasonings. No puff between the coating and the meat; for once it all stuck! But I do think I overcooked a couple and made the coating tough instead of crisp. The golden ones had a nicer coating, but then I could taste the meat....whoops, in the freezer too long!

Who knew that a schnitzel coating could be too tough, or could overpower the meat inside? In this case the meat was 4 very thin boneless pork steaks that had been in the freezer too long. 😒 I'm not sure we have liked it any better if we could have tasted the meat... but the next time I do schnitzel I'll make sure the ratio of coating to meat thickness is better. (I'll also post about this in the Schnitzel Cook-off topic if I can think of something more sensible to say about it.)

My friends live in suburbs with no room for a firepit, and not much view of the night sky, but we had a great time anyway. The moon shots are from when I got back home to the Princessmobile. We have a firepit, but when it's warm sometimes we just sit out on the deck and don't bother with the fire. It's funny about elbow macaroni: I'm just beginning to appreciate it myself. I have unhappy associations with the boxed macaroni and cheese mixes. Now that I'm learning what you already know I think I'll keep it around and ignore most of the "cute" pasta shapes I've bought in the past. I have one more package of butterflies/bowties to use up. A couple of nights ago I did a smoked salmon pasta that used the last of the World Market Orechietti (little ears) that I bought pre-pandemic. They were fun, but not worth seeking out again.

I've been away for a week, visiting my best friends, over in San Diego. It's been a delightful break, filled with fun changes of pace and scenery, and some very good food as well. My friends keep expenses and fat down in the food choices, but anyone who thinks that means poor food would be in for a surprise at their house. I only took two food photos, however. My first night there we had a grilled salmon with their own barbecue sauce - delicious, and the only way they'll cook salmon since they hit on this method oh, 25 years ago. I didn't get a picture of that. The next day we had a "stretch the leftovers" lunch, a common routine for them. The resulting salad was brilliant, and almost too much again! In addition to the salmon there was elbow macaroni, chopped red pepper, chopped green onion, cut cooked asparagus, chopped kalamata olives, a bit of oil and vinegar (with mustard?), a sprinkle of Presidents feta cheese crumbles. I've probably forgotten something. It really came together as a "what needs to be used up" sort of dish, never to be repeated, worth commemorating as inspiration. The other food photo showcases a brilliant 3-way collaboration on dinner on my last night there. He roasted a chicken in a cast iron skillet, and cooked mashed potatoes in the Instant Pot. She made her delightful cornbread dressing, and gravy from the chicken drippings. I made cranberry relish and (the forgettable part of the dinner) steamed broccoli with lemon vinaigrette. In between times we had a lot of meatless dinners and never missed the meat. Some other time I'll cook up the brussels sprouts with white beans that we tried, from a Washington Post recipe I flagged last December. The recipe is a keeper. We did some good things with those leftovers too. Back home, I find that flowers and plants are FINALLY starting to come to life. It's so much later in the season than usual that I'll be surprised if we are here to see the wolfberries ripen. The tiny flowers (bottom left in collage below) are just starting to appear. The full moon has been putting on a show. We don't track its orbital antics as carefully as we do the sun's, because it varies from night to night. I'm not talking about the phases of the moon; I'm talking about where it rises and sets. Note the butte in the collage below. Two nights ago the moon came up well to the left of the butte; the next night it rose from behind. I wish I'd known to expect that! I'd have had my good camera set on a tripod. These are all cell phone pictures. (The glow at the left is from neighbors.) This morning I made another batch of granola, this time based on my best friend's recipe. She started me down this path a year ago! For 1 c oats there's 1 T honey and 1T oil. I doubled the batch, and baked at about 325 (stirring occasionally) about 10 minutes before adding a handful each of sunflower seeds and chopped pistachios. After another 5 minutes I turned off the heat and went for a walk. When we got back and I'd broken everything up I added a handful each of raisins (for him) and chopped craisins (for me). Breakfast will look a lot like this for the next several days: I remembered belatedly that I had no yogurt, so I poured the only fruit juice I could find on it - passion fruit pulp, purchased for a dessert that still hasn't happened. He thinks the granola is fine as is. I think it has too much dried fruit and possibly too much honey - it's pretty sweet - but I also think something tastes a bit rancid. The oats were purchased fresh from Sprouts a few weeks ago, but I sitll suspect them. I'm almost done with them and will try another source next.

@FauxPas, thanks. I think.

A couple of nights ago it was MY turn to cook a dud dinner. Hank Shaw's Hunter Gardener Angler Cook blog had a recipe for Green Chile Stew that looked just the ticket for a cool night. We had a package of roasted, skinned, chopped Hatch Green Chiles from a grocery store in Deming a few years ago, when we couldn't make it through Hatch. I had spotted an eye of round (beef) roast at a great sale price during our previous grocery visit. It was too good to pass up. I know it's a challenging cut, but surely a stew would be a good use. The steps are actually pretty simple, and as Shaw notes it's all about the quality of the ingredients. I tested the "medium-hot" Hatch chiles after they had thawed. A-HOO-ah! I used half the recommended amount. I supplemented it with a deribbed, deseeded and chopped fresh Anaheim chile I'd bought when I purchased the beef. That has nice flavor without a lot of heat. The stew steps: The stew: There are extra potatoes in there because as I'd been tasting the stew I could tell it was too hot. Even with the extra potatoes it was too hot. All we could taste was chile heat! We supplemented the stew with sour cream. That helped tame the heat and we could taste some pretty good flavors. The beef was good: flavorful and not tough. Still. The day had been trying for reasons irrelevant to this story, and this dinner was a terrible disappointment, certainly not worth the effort I'd put into it, especially when The Partner is perfectly happy with microwaved tube steaks and grocery-store potato salad. I was all in favor of taking the rest out into the wilds to see if it made the coyotes howl with pain, then throwing away my cooking gear. My darling persuaded me to try putting pasta into the stew instead. Maybe that would dilute the heat and let us taste the underlying flavors. What the heck. I'm not into abusing wildlife anyway. I heated up egg noodles in the stew and turned off the heat to let it sit overnight. By the next morning the noodles had cooked, the stew had thickened and the good flavors could be discerned. It's still hot, but tolerably so. We had some leftovers for lunch, and the remnants are divvied up for later meals. So the dinner and cookware were rescued, but I'm not buying those medium-hot chiles again. I think the recipe I tried is a generic enough stew recipe that it need not be saved.

I'm getting ready to leave town for a week and leave my darling to his own devices in the Princessmobile. We made a quick trip to town to get propane and fuel, and stock up on his preferred foods. His preferred dinner foods are tube steaks, burgers, potato salad and leftovers - especially if there's chili or pea stew in the freezer. He really isn't into cooking things that need more than one cooking step or utensil. I'm glad he likes my cooking. "Tube steaks" is a catch-all term and I'm being a bit too broad with it. He's had Polish sausage on the brain lately. Especially smoked Polish sausage. Especial Bar S brand smoked Polish sausage, which has the added benefit of being inexpensive at the best of times. Today they were on sale, and downright cheap. We bought a package of these last week and have already made a sigificant dent in it. He wanted more to make sure he didn't run out. He likes other sausages like Andouille if it's mixed with rice or pasta, and Italian sausage if it's mixed in a pasta sauce, but the nights are beginning to hint at being warm enough to cook outside over a fire. For that, it must be Polish sausage. I was intrigued by these specialty bratwursts, although we didn't buy any. It's fun to see that Four Peaks Brewery, of Kilt Lifter Scottish-style ale fame, has branched out on its brew and bratwurst offerings. We got home around 10:30 a.m, hungry because we'd skipped breakfast in order to expedite the expedition. I indulged in brunch: a pork roast sandwich. Oinkerooo. That will keep me until dinner! Speaking of those Polish sausages: nothing would do but last night we had to cook some over a campfire. We, ah, got a refresher course on the difference between cooking over a fire and cooking over coals. Patience is a virtue.

It looks as though we could set up two of the slim racks side by side in the space available. Each rack could roll out individually to allow access to what we need. Of course, I'm talking about a roughly $100 solution for an aggravation that I've almost gotten used to. There's also the question of how exactly we'd manage to install the racks. Drill holes in the base, then slide the racks in and insert the screws? Mount the whole thing to a base board and slide that into the cabinet? And then anchor that somehow? It's something to think about.

The dimensions for that one are wrong (too large to fit through the opening) but the idea might be workable. That site has another possibility that looks more promising and - wait for it - considerably more expensive. Still, it's a possibility. Thanks!

Thanks for that. In fact, I was thinking both corn and wheat. I even have masa! But I have yet to try making tacos of either type. Does the rolling pin or a skillet mash work for corn tortillas also?

Interesting that the salad book has a vase of scallions. Here I thought that technique for keeping them around longer was a new discovery! It must have been new only to me. Does every photo in the Quick and Easy book show a time piece?

Every one of those I've seen is for a small tortilla, though: 6" or 8", I forget which. Are there bigger presses for the grande (10", 12") size you'd use for burritos?

The other day when I was at the East end of Yuma I discovered a kitchen store! Oops. It won't be here much longer. Everything must go, and everything's half off except the shelving and other store equipment. I don't remember what the deal was on those appurtenances. Too bad I'm making the discovery so late in the store's life cycle. I'll take you on a little tour anyway. This place was a gadget-lover's paradise. You want silicone trivets or pot lids or bowl stabilizers? You got 'em. You want individual covered holders for cupcakes? They're here. How about silicone double-boiler inserts, or an old-fashioned peanut butter stirring gizmo? (I'd have gone for that last if "natural" peanut butter that settles and separates hadn't been banished from the household.) They also had the old-fashioned wall-mounted Swing-a-Way can openers, though I didn't get a picture. I'd have bought one if I could have figured out where to mount it. It may be a cheap revival of an old standard anyway. That's my story and I'll console myself with it. There were gadgets it never occurred to me to want. My sales resistance was high, so I wasn't tempted. I love the idea of entertaining. If I actually entertained guests the way I'd like to, I might have gotten some of these cute little shell plates. I've already tried a pepper roaster similar to this one, so it wasn't much of a temptation. If I actually made popsicles instead of drooling over the delightful creations of other eG members, I'd have gotten one of these kits. But my sales resistance was high, and it's rarely warm enough for me to want popsicles. Did I mention that I love the idea of entertaining? These party lights were so cute! But my sales resistance was high, and we don't entertain enough to use the cool stuff we already have. There were graters in styles I've never seen before. Has anyone else ever seen a fan grater? My sales resistance wavered here. I love the idea of making my own tortillas. For $8 it could have been mine. I really had no idea where I'd stow it, though, and we've seen my ineptness with tortillas. Maybe I'll try rolling them out with a rolling pin first, or flattening between two skillets - if, that is, I ever get around to trying to make them myself. Besides, it shouldn't be difficult to make one of these. But I admit to circling back more than once and picking up then putting this down. Sales resistance.... There were plastic baskets of the type one loads burgers and fries into, and unbreakable drinkware, and a few odds and ends of "gourmet food" (popcorn, salsas, dessert sauces). The baskets were $0.50 each, and that seemed a good price. I didn't need 'em. My sales resistance finally crumbled in the juicer section, and I walked out with this for $12.75. I think we already got $13 worth of entertainment just trying to figure out how it's supposed to work! There were no instructions on the package. I'll take photos later of the thing in action, and post an assessment of how well it works. Does that rotating reamer really produce more juice? Time and tests will tell. Speculations about its action are welcome, of course.

While I don't think it's a normal accompaniment for posole, what about sour cream, or Mexican crema? My green chile stew last night was an overspicy disaster until I added sour cream. Hmm, maybe a dollop of guacamole would achieve the same effect of toning down the heat.

How big did that bamboo get? I suspect these are dwarf varieties; otherwise I can imagine them taking over the house. I really like the mustard but the beer steins give me a qualm about throwing them away. I collect them and then when I have several I donate to a thrift store. I can imagine using them for food gifts, but haven't done so.

We usually have horseradish mustard around. When French's first came out with theirs I called and said how happy we were to find them getting on that particular bandwagon. The customer service person was so pleased to get a happy comment that she sent us a coupon or two for more. We made a point of buying French's for quite a while after that. Apparently it didn't catch on in our local grocery stores, though. When we could no longer find it we went back to buying some other brand. I had no idea McCormick was the parent company for French's, Zatarain's and Lawry's until I followed your links!

I had occasion yesterday to be at the far eastern end of Yuma again, so I once again did grocery shopping at the Foothills Fry's. I'm beginning to think that Wednesday may just be the day all the old fogies come out to shop, regardless of whether it's super-discount day! At any rate, the place was packed. Fortunately I only had a few items to buy. I wish I'd thought to peruse the meat counter for "pork steaks" so I could show the cut and the bone it contains, but it didn't occur to me. Still, there was a lot to see. I was ogling the plants and realized that there are some very creatively-trained bamboo plants for sale. We aren't in a position to have something like that, but it was interesting to see the offerings. The citrus season is full upon us. Grapefruit were parked right next to pummelos. The grapefruit were large, as I expect them to be. The pummelos dwarfed them! Want some rice cakes? These were on the back side of the sushi bar, which I've never mentioned before (or explored). They were the size of my hand. Is that typical for rice cakes? I wanted to pick up some of my favorite mustard, which can't be found at the nearer Fry's. I was momentarily alarmed to see that it wasn't amongst all these choices. Then I remembered I had to go one aisle over to the "European Foods" section! Couldn't get a picture of it because of a couple standing in the way, but I got three of these. I also spent time looking at all the bottles sauces and marinades. It seems that Aji Amarillo has become all the rage; ditto Peri-Peri sauce. This find surprised me. I thought back to ElsieD's question about being able to dish things from a buffet by oneself instead of having to request it. I don't remember seeing this buffet before. I don't know whether I simply overlooked it or they're relaxing their restrictions a bit. They're still requiring masks, and the customers seem good about abiding by it.

I'm still not sure, after puzzling a couple of days, how you might have thought your posts were like spam...but at any rate, thanks for the compliments!