Smithy

If you like the aesthetics of wood over plastic, you might consider a cutting board by Epicurean. They are guaranteed dishwasher-proof and easy on knives. They are also considerably more expensive than bamboo or poly, I fear, unless you can find them on sale someplace. Disclaimer: I have some and have run them through the dishwasher, but haven't had them long enough to know how well they hold up over time.

More about the buttermilk ricotta, please. How did you make it? That may be just the way to use up some buttermilk I've had hanging around for far too long.

Yes, so sorry! Tomorrow will be April 13, and that is the last day of the sale. Guess I was stuck in a time warp.

I just got another email from Sur la Table. Their big sale ends tomorrow, March 13.

@Kim Shook - so you did all steps as before, except 4 minutes rather than 5?

Barrio Bread, a world-class bakery in Tucson, is currently offering video courses at a discount. So far there are two courses: "How to Make Barrio Bread Pizza Crust" (Free!) and "How to Make Whole-Grain Sourdough Bread" for half-price using the code FLATTENTHECURVE. This course is normally $30; with the discount it's $15. It can also be purchased as a gift to someone else. I think the offer lasts until the end of April, but I've lost that information. I'm partway through the pizza crust course and I think the video instruction is good. I have no affiliation with Barrio Bread, except as a very satisfied customer.

Late breakfast again: we do like our long morning walks when we're staying put. He had his usual fruit salad and Cheerios. I indulged in another pita, this time stuffed with cream cheese and avocado. This one didn't split properly either, but it's lightly toasted and the flavor is quite satisfactory. The bread flour is the Barrio Blend from Barrio Bread, here in Tucson. I am leaning strongly toward that "last trip" to town before we leave, so I can get more. They don't do mail order. We decided on pork roast for tonight - the usual treatment, with Lipton's Onion Soup mix and potatoes. I'm still pondering the vegetable accompaniment.

I am sooo glad I clicked on that link. Those are brilliant!

Nachos for dinner last night, using the leftovers from the previous taco dinner. There were still a few taco shells, and I broke them up and supplemented them with chips. Not shown: the salsa we added at the table, and the Kilt Lifter beer to accompany. It was pretty good TV-watching food. I think I preferred the taco version, at least in part because of the fresh chopped tomatoes and shredded lettuce I'd added that time. But this scratched an itch for me, and it cleared some leftovers out of the fridge. The saguaros are starting to pop out little buds at their tips, and I've spotted a few flowers. We won't be here (I hope!) for the fruit harvest this summer, but I have some saguaro seeds from a food festival here last fall. I can't say they have a particular flavor, but they're crunchy and make a nice bread topping. There's an especially interesting saguaro near one of the paths we regularly walk. It seems a prickly pear seed managed to hitch a ride up to a woodpecker cavity, 20 or 30 feet off the ground. Won't that be a sight in a decade or so! It's supposed to rain tonight. I'm trying to decide between a slow cooker or an oven operation. We could have bean stew and cornbread. We could have pork roast. We could cook the pork brisket that is in danger of making the round trip from home without ever being thawed!

No big cast-iron Dutch ovens? Somehow, I thought large-volume cast iron was part of your Renaissance Faire batterie de cuisine.

I've made crackers before, but never like these. They look deliciously crackly. Got a recipe that you can share?

@Haley, those are adorable! Congratulations on the work and the successful sales!

Today's very late breakfast: some of yesterday's pita, freshly hard-steamed (still warm) eggs, some of the new Egyptian feta, ground cumin. An aging Roma tomato that hadn't found its way into any meals earlier. I knew some of the pitas hadn't puffed properly. By chance I picked two that hadn't, so our sandwiches were a combination of pocket and open-faced sandwich. Tasted pretty good, though. This "creamy-style" Egyptian feta cheese was a new version, so a test for us. We like it. I may decide to go back for more before we leave town...which will make yet another "last" grocery stop before we get home.

Did someone (i.e. @IowaDee) mention pita? In fact, that was part of today's baking plan. I had a mind to make pita before all the aforementioned souvlaki and pilaf had been devoured. That plan was only half successful. (I was the culprit, not he.) There is still a half container of that batch. We have more pork and chicken in the freezer. All is not lost. This batch of pita was based on @FoodMan's recipe and instructions here. I say "based on" because (a) I used some of my precious Barrio Bread Mix of local heritage wheat flours, and (b) my nascent feel for breads told me that I needed more water. I kept kneading, and adding, and kneading, and resting (the dough and me) and kneading some more. Finally, it felt right. There is an art, I think, to making pita puff up properly. You have to roll or pat the dough out properly, and you have to have the heat just so. It was hot out today, and hotter in the trailer. I used the camp stove and a cast iron pan. It took time to get the heat right. The first couple of pieces were scorched, For the most part, though, it''s great. I had one of the scorched pieces this evening, and it was still good. My darling was a bit put out when he saw my bread-baking activities. We'd already agreed on his beloved Superburgers for the evening. We'd purchased whole wheat hamburger buns at the grocery store yesterday. He thinks bread is best eaten fresh. I don't disagree: but I really, really wanted to bake today. I think these will feature in tomorrow's breakfast. I wondered a few nights ago whether I'd been outfoxed on the cooking of Superburgers. The answer is no! He cooked them, taking a page from my book of keeping the heat low, flipping frequently, and pressing to check the juices. The burgers were excellent. Shown below: my burger, with mayo and mustard; on the side: the garlicky green beans and a tomato decorated with tzatziki. Vampires need not apply.

I can't find an end date for the sale on the Sur la Table email.

Well, well, well! Thanks to @Anna N's reminder and tweaking back here, I decided to try making tzatziki. I was able to get more yogurt during yesterday's shopping expedition. Haven't been crazy about the stuff I picked up the time before. Maybe cucumber, garlic and dill would improve it. Not shown here: red wine vinegar. It's part of the recipe also. I used the recipe from Susanna Hoffman's The Olive and the Caper: Adventures in Greek Cooking. This book is a fun read, and the recipes I've tried so far are good. I recommend it. The interesting thing about this tzatziki recipe is the way the garlic is handled: chop it up into a layer of salt, then add the whole shebang to the yogurt. I'd never seen that trick before, but it seems a good way to get the garlic to start releasing its juices. The sauce on its own is pretty potent, given the strength of the garlic I used. Put with the pilaf and souvlaki, though -- Ooh la la! Or, I guess I should say, Opa! That sauce made a much, much greater difference than I anticipated. Thanks again to Anna! I will remember the value of this sauce in the future. Now I just have to work out what else to do with this sauce. There's a lot. I also have to go brush my teeth! This garlic has staying power.

That's a lovely post, David. Thank you. I never met Steven, but it was my public and private interactions with him during a series of eGCI courses that convinced me to become a sustaining member. My cookery took off, I found kindred spirits here, and my life has been the better for his influence.

Hash it was, while we watched the moon struggle to clear a cloud bank. It still hasn't done so. Kilt Lifter Scottish-Style Amber Ale is one of the treats of being in this area. I bought a 12-pack today. I'll have to work at hoarding it; by the time it's gone, we'll be out of distribution range. What's the advertising slogan? "When it's gone, it's gone." Whose is that? Peeps?

This time, for sure, we've made our last grocery store visit for the trip. At least, we hope so. We were / have been well-stocked for the most part, but there were a few items we knew we'd need before we got home. Better to take care of it now, we reasoned. Especially because Fry's Grocery Stores have a special Senior Citizens discount on the first Wednesday of the month. Wait, you say: "first" Wednesday of the month? Well, yes. We'd lost track of the calendar. This is our first Wednesday in Tucson. Not the same thing at all! The streets and the parking lot were noticeably less busy than usual. Things were orderly in the store. Most people, except for a few apparent whack jobs who garnered attention from Security, kept their distance. About half the shoppers wore masks of some sort. (Ours need improvement, but they worked for the purpose.) As in every other grocery store we've seen lately, the paper goods and sanitizing goods were stripped bare. I don't think there was much, if any, flour, but I wasn't looking for it. The meat was in good stock. The rice was almost gone, except brown basmati. There were plenty of tortillas, but large gaps in the bread shelves. We bought almost everything on our list, and a few extras. Not too many, we thought, but I probably have some Apocalypse Shopper driving my brain behind the scenes, where I can't see it. Thanks to this spectacular overbuying we won't need to go to a grocery store when we get home, either, except for dairy, fresh fruits and vegetables. We'll probably run out of those on the road. We stopped by my beloved Babylon Market to stock up on Egyptain feta cheese and barberries. I kept my time in there to a minimum, and for once we didn't order shawarma or tabbouli from their deli. I think I'll be trying my hand at imitating their shawarma wraps fairly soon as a consolation prize. One of the good things about these boxes of cheese is that they're shelf-stable until opened. When we set out on the trip we had 10 boxes squirreled away in the refrigerator. We're down to 2. These new boxes are going into one of the ever-full, ever-refilling coolers. Won't my darling be surprised! A quick snack, now that everything's unpacked and stowed or rinsed. Hash tonight - his turn to cook - or else leftovers.

As much as I love northern Minnesota, I do envy the earlier (and longer) growing seasons of more temperate areas. That looks lovely!

Yesterday I found relaxation in washing and chopping and fiddly food preparation. It was warm (again, still) and the bright flavors of lemon and garlic called to me. I chopped some of the latest pork shoulder into bite-sized bits and marinated them for souvlaki. I trimmed, cut and steamed green beans, then mixed them with a Lebanese garlic/lemon/olive oil dressing. I've cooked both of these recently, so they aren't new to this topic. They're well worth a return visit. (I didn't realize how blurry the pork photo was until just now. Sorry!) I finally got around to making salad dressing -- something I've stalled off for no particular reason. Now I'll have one less excuse not to have salad for lunch! We've been doing leftovers, or peanut butter on crackers or toast, despite knowing it's not the best for our waistlines. This dressing is a simple garlic/salt/Meyer lemon juice/olive oil concoction. It separates quickly, but mixes just as quickly when I shake it. This time, I had all the materials for tzatziki, but by the time I'd finished with the other preps I decided against taking the time. I also decided against making pita. Pilaf, with the leftover marinade, would be fine. The walking around here is pretty, and there's a lot of room to walk without encountering other people. That occupied the rest of the afternoon. I'm out of skewers. I used half of our grilling wok over the barbecue grill. It still gets the same flavor, and may be easier than skewering all that meat! The view, just before I started cooking:

That is a really good price. I paid $50 for my motor drive, some 20 years ago. Do note, however, the warning on their page: "Make sure this fits". You enter the KitchenAid mixer model to ensure compatability.

We've moved. We're just outside Tucson, an hour closer to home, and plan to stay here 10 days. I just received an email that all Texas State Parks are closed; New Mexico closed its parks some time ago. We still may have an option for a city campground farther east, but we'll have to see about that next week. We've been in this area before, but it's still breathtaking to see how different the vegetation is from where we've been staying. You don't dare go walking without needlenose pliers here. This place positively bristles! Last night, to my darling's delight, I actually took a package out of a cooler and do not plan to replace it. (No doubt I'll find something else to put there.) Same for the freezer, and for the spice cabinet! A culinary hat trick! It's a good thing this package had 15 shells. I burned the first 6 in the oven, blindly following instructions without monitoring progress. The next 6 went into the microwave instead, and that worked out well. These were decidedly moreish! I only dished up two apiece to start with, but we each went for a third.

I have one of those. Makes a world of difference.

In what way is it getting weirder, weinoo? I assume you're referring to the dough itself?