Smithy

Breakfast this morning: yogurt, half of an excellent avocado, and the new batch of granola. The usual these days. The granola is better. I like the crunch; the sweetness is about right; the raisins aren't too intrusive. (He would say the same about the cranberries.) But I'm still getting mighty tired of yogurt for breakfast! Its benefit is that it's easy, quick, healthful...and probably lower in calories than the avocado toast I might otherwise have. The scales this morning told me that something has paid off in weight loss, so I'll stick with it a while longer. This morning's walk took me out across area that I haven't gone on foot yet this season. I was rewarded with a string of mallow bushes that are starting to blossom. Everything here needs more rain, but we'll take what flowers we can get. I was also rudely reminded that one needs to watch one's footing even out in the open. Ouch! Next up: lemon squeezers.

All your posted dishes look delicious, but the top photo here is flat-out gorgeous. Maybe "gorge-ous" would be a more appropriate way to spell it in this case. I just finished my November batch of LGD ("what's that stuff?" asked DH, but he thought it was okay on whatever I used it for) and I may have to make more soon rather than later. Our cookery and eating at home have been very pedestrian lately. Thanks for the inspiration to explore more.

Our vaccinations were cleverly scheduled for yesterday afternoon, so I could do some fun things in the morning. If you believe we had anything to do with the scheduling, I've another story to tell you. Nevertheless it worked out well for me: I could go make music with friends in the morning, and run errands on the way back before picking up my darling and heading for the clinic. Like a moth to the flame, I was drawn back to the kitchen store with the going-out-of-business sale. I had some specific purposes for going, but also gave myself permission to peruse without massive sales resistance. The back of my mind was yelling about More Stuff. The front of my mind firmly told it to shut up and let me have fun. I didn't buy that wooden tortilla press! It was there, same price, looking lonely - but I still don't know where I'd put it and y'all convinced me that I didn't need it. I also didn't buy any party lights, though I picked them up and put them back down more than once. Here's what I did buy: A folding cutting board, more substantial than the flexible plastic sheets one finds everywhere these days. This also has a non-skid base, unlike those flexible sheets. I've been thinking this looked like a good design ever since I spotted it, especially after the 50th time I'd tried to scrape finely-diced onion into the cooking pot and had some land on the floor instead. (Yes, I know that's the "beauty" of those flexible sheets. But they warp in the dishwasher and skid around on the counter unless there's a towel under them, and then they aren't very firm. I don't like 'em.) The board is dishwasher-safe. I think it will fit in the dishwasher, but won't know until we get home. A jalapeno topper / corer. Too cute to pass up. Small, pretty. I hope it works. If it doesn't, I'm only out $4. A bread knife. I don't really need another bread knife, here or at home, but I decided it's either a good backup or a good gift for some friend. Besides, I like this shopowner. For his smile and silly jokes I'd have been tempted to buy out the remainder of his stock! Finally...taDA! They had one more citrus squeezer like the one I bought last time. I scored! No, I don't want two. I bought this for a friend. I just realized that I owe y'all a series of tests and photos comparing the operation of this squeezer with that of a standard squeezer, and which lemon orientation works best. That discussion began here and went on for several posts, but I didn't have lemons at the time. Now we have lemons. As soon as I work out what to use them for I'll start squeezing and photographing. Anyway, that was my little shopping haul.

My most ambitious thing today may have been making another batch of granola, by tweaking the last batch I made. This time it was 2 cups oats, freshly purchased (Bob's Red Mill); 2T honey, 1T olive oil and 1 T vegetable oil - maybe a little more, to make sure all the oats were coated. Maybe 1/4 c coconut flakes. The oven indicated 350F but I didn't use a thermometer; nonetheless, I baked it all for 20 minutes, stirring at the 15 minute mark; removed the pan and stirred more, then gave it another 5 minutes, until it was beginning to look golden brown. After I pulled it from the oven I added 1/2 c each raisins and dried cranberries - less than last time around - and 1/4 c sunflower seeds and 1/2 c chopped walnuts. The initial taste tests are promising. I'll know more tomorrow.

The plants continue to sprout leaves, but there still aren't the flowers we've come to expect by this time of year. This morning it was 38F when we awoke! The flowers won't be in a hurry, since we seem to have returned to January. Oh, and the wind is blowing again! Or still. Take your pick. But we have had more lovely sunsets thanks to the unsettled weather. The weather isn't really much of an issue today. We're taking it easy by design, having gotten #2 vaccine yesterday. No major side effects, for which we're grateful, but we have been building a stockpile of planned-over meals. One of those meals was corned beef and potatoes. We wish we'd put more potatoes into that pot! The plan was to have one or two dinners from that, and use the leftover slices of meat in sandwiches. The meat was done to perfection: that jiggly texture that you get when a brisket is cooked just enough to start melting the collagen. The meat was fork-tender. I insisted that we had to have good vegetables to go with it; he would have been happy with microwaved frozen peas, one of his favorites. We compromised: I prepped asparagus and nuked it until it was tender-crisp. No complaints on either side. We could easily plow through that brisket in a couple of days! Yesterday we had half a sandwich each on the way to the clinic, but last night we took a deep breath and finished that green chile stew that just keeps getting hotter but losing flavor as we add more to it in a vain attempt to calm it down. I am definitely not buying packages of Hatch chiles labeled "medium hot" again.

I laughed at the food photo and description, but this is no laughing matter: This is Good News (IMO) and something I'd asked about earlier. I too will be interested to know how the mining company adapts.

What *I* want to know is why that split looks so lovely and delicious in your bread, and so like incompetence in mine!

All that talk about deserts and dust led us to reminiscences about my darling's research trips in the Eastern Egyptian Desert, and the times I was able to accompany him. That was tent camping, with someone else doing the (very minimal) cooking and washing up. We ate simply but well. One dish he was never able to convince his driver or guide to eat was what he dubbed "Traditional Bedouin Tuna Noodle Hot Dish". The moniker is outrageous because it was his own invention and none of his crew would touch it. Tuna and feta together, yes. Tuna and noodles together, sure. All three (and some onions) in the same dish meant he'd be eating it for dinner that night and all subsequent meals until it was gone. We love it. I have no idea where I bought these noodles. Some little farmers' market store, no doubt. Maybe the shop near my DIL's place. At any rate, I used it last night. The tuna cans are just visible above the cheese boxes, but you've seen canned tuna before. There's nothing complicated about this dinner. It makes what we consider to be good leftovers. The finishing touch is freshly-ground cumin. We love the fresh, citrusy scent those seeds release. I asked what he thought about the noodles. He didn't notice anything unusual about them. I thought they had a bit more toothsomeness, more bite if you will, than our usual noodles. Was it because they're genuinely better than the stuff we usually buy? Did I actually manage to cook them only to the al dente stage for once? It's a mystery. Maybe it's just my imagination. Seen around on our walks: years-old rock graffiti, desert lily getting ready to bloom, dirt patterns made by the latest wind storm. If you look closely at the center of that arc you'll see last year's plant skeleton. I don't remember the plant species, but there's a lot of it around and none of it has started to grow yet this year. Spring is late.

This, among other comments, made me laugh... ...and this is simply amazing: It's amazing because it's such a lovely gift and a treat that you have it, but also because somehow you had to get it UPSTAIRS and, I presume, will be taking it with you when you move. Thanks for the tour. Like Anna, I have trouble imagining things without the visuals.

I'd forgotten this aspect of wind storms: every counter surface is gritty now. We won't talk about the floor. At least the refrigerator is clean! The pork saga from a few nights ago has a couple of funny follow-up stories. After I wrote that story he told me that the entire dish had been unpalatably cold. This was news to me: mine was warm and the plates were heated, and he hand't mentioned it the night before. It turned out that he'd covered the entire serving with the cold tzatziki sauce (I hadn't noticed) and it had cooled everything down. No, that wasn't how it was supposed to go, I told him. We ate microwaved leftovers for lunch, with the sauce on the side to add at each bite. Ah, he said, much better. He liked the meat and veg dish. He liked the tzatziki, especially when he learned that its base was yogurt rather than sour cream. BUT, he said, those two dishes don't go together! (I didn't try convincing him that they're a traditional partnership. Heck, AnnaN had to remind me of that last year. Strangely, he liked the combination then. What can one do, but laugh?) The rest of the story I think I'll call pork revenge. There was still a clod of pork shoulder left that I hadn't cut to use yet. I'd intended it for something like a stew or stir fry, or properly skewered kebabs when we wanted to cook outside. Nope. He wanted comfort food: breaded and baked pork steaks, cut the thickness we prefer. I obliged to make up for the souvlaki trauma. These are nearly 1" thick. I did a good job slicing, didn't I? We got 2 meals each out of this. We may make another run to Calipatria before leaving this area. It's so hard to see the last of that fine pork shoulder! And I still want to do things other than breaded/baked or roasted with it! The sunset before the wind began. Stormy weather brings its own beauty.

We're having a windstorm today, the first in quite a while. With gusts predicted as high as 40 mph, the farmer's market in town was cancelled. The upshot is a quiet day at home in the Princessmobile, and time to defrost the refrigerator. Usually by this time in the trip I would have defrosted once or twice already. This year's weather has been enough cooler and, apparently, drier that I've beeh able to hold off. Still, it needed to be done. I suspect the power consumption will go down now. And look: there's actually some empty space in there! Yesterday we were in town for a medical appointment (not vaccine #2, alas) and stopped at the nearby Burger King for Whoppers. I have to commend the staff for their careful observance of COVID-19 protocols. Even cash can't be passed directly from hand to hand. The restaurant was painfully empty - a common and unfortunate sight - although the drive-through was doing steady business. I studied the operation while awaiting my order, and was surprised to see the updates in electronics. I feel like such a hick! Note the tickets displayed on their screens (I enlarged that photo)...no more paper tickets hanging from a rack! The burgers were good although they'd cooled too much by the time we'd driven to a scenic spot to eat them. It's been a while since we've eaten BK burgers. We think they're far better than the Carl's Jr burgers we've had lately. I still haven't gotten him to try In`n`Out, but the line is so long at their single Yuma store that I'm not willing to wait either.

We plan to be back around May 1 if the snow is gone by then, but probably not sooner than that. We'd like to take a few weeks getting home as usual so we can see some other areas, maybe even get to the Gulf Coast. Our timing and route will depend both on weather and vaccine availability. We've had #1 and hope to get #2 before we leave. Here's how I know we won't be heading home for a while yet. A friend sent me a video from a fly-in chili feed that he attended yesterday, and I've taken a screen shot. That's Mille Lacs Lake, in the middle of the state. No way will my darling consider heading home while it looks like that! 😄

I have to get more lemons to try a comparison, but I think you're right. When I get more, I'll post photos and results, and test @rotuts' hypothesis above while I'm at it.

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.