Smithy

I find that some smoked cheeses are overwhelmingly smoky. I thought this Croc Smoked Cheddar had just a nice light touch of smoke, not overwhelming. Although we're still in the Sonoran Desert, we're at a higher elevation and the vegetation has changed. In addition, the freeway that passes (all too closely) by this campground has been rebuilt and moved, and the frontage road seeded with the classic Arizona highway blend. When we walk outside the campground, we're able to admire some of these beauties. Why they planted wheat by the roadside is a mystery, but it gives me a special chance to appreciate its symmetrical beauty. (Someone in an earlier lifetime snookered my darling into thinking that cereal grains were so named because the seeds were all in a series. It helps to know how to spell, doesn't it? ) Another local food source, I suppose, could be the chia that grows abundantly. I think it looks like some crazy Mid-Century Modern sculpture. Last night's dinner was our "Traditional Bedouin Style Tuna-Noodle Hot Dish". We now have quite a few prepackaged meals. This is comfort food at its finest for us, especially with liberal quantities of freshly-ground cumin. Especially because I didn't have to grind it by hand. We aren't crazy about living in relatively crowded conditions, but it's lovely to have electricity again.

An earlier sense of the word "croc", but still IMO an amusing name and slogan: "Careful...it bites!"

I wish I had regular access to it, although it might be hard on the waistline AND the bank account. I bought a chunk of their smoked cheddar and the extra-sharp cheddar you see in the photo above, I think at my last Trader Joe's visit. I think I liked the smoked cheddar better, but they were both great.

I don't know how universal the closures are. We are in the habit of using the Princessmobile's facilities anyway. Freeway rest areas were open along the way. Surely the truck stops are also; the truck traffic continues to shift goods around and the truckers need those facilities. This campground has restroom and shower facilities for campers only, but I don't plan to use them. I probably won't use their laundry room even, although ours is piling up.

We've moved. We had a final good walk, and a fascinating sky. Note the arrow pointing our way: go north now, it seemed to be saying. We had one final campfire, and intended to have one final outdoor-kitchen dinner so that he could cook his beloved hash outside. I have no photos of that, because the mechanical gods decided to have their laughs with us again: within minutes, the propane bottles for both our lantern and our (recently converted) Coleman stove ran out. We don't have more. The lantern's propane bottle usually lasts a full season. This one lasted no more than a month. Converting the stove to propane was easy and, I admit, a more convenient fuel source, but it appears that the fuel doesn't last nearly as long as the liquid Coleman fuel. I'm glad we still have the old cranky pump and tank, and the fuel. He cooked inside. We thought it was better than usual. Perhaps he's been cooking it at too high heat all this time. The next morning we packed up, with a few minor electrical misadventures related to using the pickup to charge the trailer's batteries. Nothing that we couldn't overcome. Then, with considerable reluctance, we hit the road and headed for Arizona. We had a fine tailwind the whole way. Traffic on the freeway seemed to be a bit down, but the biggest changes we could see were the nearly-empty parking lots. The Pullman, above, looked like it had no business although it has a large parking area where people can camp overnight. It's supposed to be a truck stop. It's competing with the major chains some 20 or 30 miles east. We stopped there a few times in earlier years, and liked the young (east) Indian couple running the place. We couldn't tell whether they were still open. We didn't stop, of course: we have plenty of road food, at least for now. While we were setting up at our next place - a KOA campground with hookups and healthy distance between units - my darling groused yet again about the weight of the coolers that we originally brought to fill with citrus, as we have in previous years. Those coolers were filled with overflow pantry and refrigerator items when we left home. The plan was to have them empty by New Year's, when we would have been visiting our old ranch. Our route never took us that way. Once I knew we weren't going there, I began feeling free to stock up at Trader Joe's and other favorite shops I can't visit at home. "These are magic coolers!" he groused. "We've been traveling with them for 6 months and they're no lighter now than when we started!" What an ingrate. I ask you: who wouldn't like such a gizmo in these times? So I promised to cook from them last night. I warned him that it would mean more partially-used containers in the refrigerator. The puff pastry and the pancetta came from the freezer, actually. The pancetta I found while defrosting last week. It's traveled all the way with us from Duluth! I didn't finish it, but I finished the puff pastry. Puff Pastry "pizzas" with marinated artichoke hearts, pancetta, and sun-dried tomato. I remembered the asparagus after the first pie was in the oven. He was pleased at my keeping my promise. We were both pleased with the dinner. It will be interesting to see how the leftovers are today.

All this discussion about bread baking in CI, or ECI, reminded me of the Loafnest topic. The Kickstarter campaign was finally funded, but the cost was mighty high for those of us in Canada or the USA. Did anyone here ever spring for the Loafnest?

A discussion over here reminded me of this topic and the Loafnest. Did anyone here ever spring for it? If so, what do you think of it?

That is a lovely turn of phrase, Anna.

I think our husbands are brothers.

I love the dedication: "For you, Mom. You were right All Along.

We think this is the last campfire dinner for this location and this season. We keep dithering over whether to stay or go: how long to stay here, which way to go home, how we can most effectively remain isolated as we travel. It's been pleasant here, much more pleasant for me than in previous years. On the other hand, we need to head home sooner or later and, we hope, keep our "social distance" as we go. We're leaning toward packing up the outside kitchen tomorrow (Sunday) and leaving Monday. I have been carrying with us a couple of sets of bamboo skewers. One set I bought at TJMaxx, a special deal. The other set came in a cooking set at a silent auction. Note to self: don't use bamboo skewers again. They splinter. @Anna N will be scandalized that I did not make tzadziki sauce for our souvlaki. (That discussion begins here.) I decided against the sauce because I have no cucumber and not nearly enough yogurt. However, I'm somewhat scandalized that I didn't make pita, or better still, pilaf, to go with this pork. Nonetheless, the pork was delicious, we didn't get any splinters, and the rest of the skewers went into the fire. The roasted cauliflower was a bit overdone, I thought, but he was sorry that I hadn't made more. I had forgotten how much this stuff cooks down. I'll try again with the other half, and watch the process more closely.

When all was said and done, I realized that I didn't have any cucumbers and I'd rather save my precious yogurt for breakfast: So here's what the finished plate looked like. It looks like a dog's dinner, and it could have used some other colors, but we closed our eyes and enjoyed the flavors. The (over)roasted cauliflower was an excellent accompaniment.

Yogurt, avocado, freshly-squeezed juice from the last of the mandarin oranges someone gave me.

Patricia Wells' book was too good to pass up for me. I love the theme-and-variation approach to learning about cooking, and I think I'll easily get a couple of buck's worth of knowledge. Thanks, Toliver!

This marinade... ...and this last bit of pork shoulder from that little store in Calipatria... ...are getting acquainted in the refrigerator. They were going to be grilled over the fire last night as souvlaki. I forgot that Friday night is our news-junkie night. We watched news instead of the fire, and ate leftover corned beef brisket and potatoes. Since our generator stopped working (again) nearly 2 weeks ago we've had to rely on the pickup to recharge the trailer batteries. We disconnect the pickup at night to ensure that the trailer doesn't drain the pickup's batteries. There's supposed to be electronic protection to prevent that from happening, but we learned at the Salton Sea that it doesn't work. The upshot is that, by morning, the trailer's batteries are nearly dead. This morning I awoke to a beeping. My darling couldn't hear it, so he couldn't help identify it. It turned out to be the CO detector, complaining that it was low on power. The trailer's batteries were THAT low. I got dressed, went out and started the pickup, connected and reset everything, then started the water for my coffee. The benefit of all that was that I got to see this: The sun has swung nearly 40 degrees northward since the winter solstice: from the right side of the notch in the mountains in the center picture, to its current position. We see this at home too, of course, but with "no trees to spoil the view" (as my darling puts it) the swing is quite dramatic.

Tzatziki! I'd forgotten all about that! Thanks, Anna.

I'm with you on that! So now I'm going to solicit ideas and opinions for tonight's dinner. I have chunks of pork marinating for souvlaki. The marinade is essentially an oil and lemon mix with oregano, bay leaf, and a touch of garlic. I had intended to also cook cauliflower* by a recipe from the same Greek cookbook: boil it, then toss with an oil and lemon juice salad dressing. Maybe that will work. Maybe it will be too bland, too much of all the same flavors. Another idea is to use one of my favorite cauliflower treatments: Spicy Roasted Cauliflower with Tahini. Those seasonings are turmeric, paprika, garlic, jalapeno, lemon, olive oil, tahini. I know the seasoning is good. My mind's tongue is not sure whether it will be compatible with the more simply seasoned souvlaki. What say some of you? Is one of those a better match than the other? Do you have an alternate suggestion? *I can already hear JoNorvelleWalker and other cauliflower haters saying "why?"

I admire your definition of "essentials", @blue_dolphin. May we come hunker down with you?

I'd love to get in on a deal like that. One of my favorite wineries, Sunce (in the Sonoma Valley) is sending out deals for their wine club members. I'm looking forward to the shipment I ordered, but it is a while and some miles away, and still not as good a deal as yours.

Has anyone else tried the recipe from NYTimes Cooking, Salmon with Whole Lemon Dressing? When that landed in my email a few weeks ago I set it aside until my sister could be here to try it with me. The remarkable thing about it is that the dressing really does include entire lemons, chopped. Our take on it was that the low-and-slow cooking method brought out the goodness of the salmon, but even lower and slower than my oven could manage (or a shorter cooking time) would have been better. It was a bit dry. The other thing was that the dressing had a bitter quality, due no doubt to the pith. If/when I do that recipe again, I'll zest the lemon, peel it, and then proceed with the recipe without including the pith. It'll be a bit more work, but worth it. (A couple of commenters said the same thing.) I didn't take pictures of our dinners last week, but here's what happened to some of the leftovers today: Salt helps offset the bitterness, just as Shirley Corriher promised. In other news: a shower just went through and gave us a beautiful full rainbow. It was a double rainbow at one end. Now we know why the Princessmobile keeps taking our money. How else will that pot o' gold be filled?

Yesterday we went grocery shopping for a few items, and splurged on sandwich food. It's intended to be road food, but I simply couldn't resist getting into the deli meat. I should know better than to get into the Genoa salami! I also opened a last jar of homemade pickles. Since they were labeled 2016, it was probably time.

The next day, we went to buy groceries anyway. We had to go to town: to return my rented car, to get propane, to check mail, and to get just a few items from the grocery store: yogurt, half-and-half, almond milk, beer, wine, some fresh produce. As reported in the Food in the time of a pandemic topic, grocery stores are becoming crowded places with scarce resources. Even though there have been no cases of Covid-19 infection reported within 200 miles of our location, the hoarding and panic-buying has hit Yuma. I got the last loaf of good bread, which may mean I actually go back to baking our bread before we get home. I have the supplies for it. We stayed pretty much with the shopping list but I confess that the overbuying fever hit me too: I bought yet more pasta, although we have a lot and I have the equipment to make it. I bought yet more canned tuna. And we saw some great deals on meat, too good to pass up: By the time we came home, the skies had opened up again. I don't think I've ever seen so much rain here! The ground was pretty mushy. We had put off pumping water from the pickup tank into the trailer tank, and we decided to wait until the rain had passed. I amused myself by wiping the exterior of every package I'd bought and giving the produce a bit of a bleach rinse. Ufda. That detail-oriented project is enough to discourage shopping! When the rain passed, we once again were treated to the sight of water running in the nearby wash. That's 3 times in one week. We still aren't tired of it. What we ARE tired of is equipment malfunctions. The pump refused to work, and we were low on water. I opened one of those new bottles of wine and consoled myself while we finished the pork roast and potatoes left from my sister's visit last week. By this morning, the pump had dried enough to work again. Whew!

I decided the other day that the refrigerator was entirely too frosty again and that it might be partly the reason the freezer compartment is relatively warm. This time, I decided to inventory the contents of the freezer, following the advice of the more efficient freezer-cleaner-outers in the Cook Your Way Through Your Freezer topic. It was an educational experience. What I didn't list was left out to thaw. Sheesh! Keep in mind that this list doesn't include the contents of the refrigerator or various pantries. If we were sensible, we'd avoid the grocery stores on the way home - both to lighten the load and to observe the social distancing needs due to the current Coronavirus pandemic. The Black Angus steak was intended for a cooking project before we left home, and I feared it would be freezer-burned. The burger and Hot Italian sausage were to be mixed with chopped onion to make our current version of "Super Burgers". We did that. I dug through the refrigerator and began to address items that needed to be cooked before they went off. The celery root had seen better days, but was perfectly edible. I chopped the greens and soaked them so they'd revive a bit, and got the root ready to use. Half the root and all the greens joined a red bell pepper, jalapeno, onion and cherry tomatoes to make a relish for our super burgers that night. It was a clear, calm night, good for cooking outside. I used the camp stove to cook the relish... ...and when it was done I moved it to the campfire to stay warm while my darling cooked the super burgers. The Angus blade steak cooked in a basket over the fire. It doesn't seem freezer burned after all. The dog will be disappointed. We probably don't need to shop before we get home - except for fresh produce and dairy, if we choose to brave the grocery stores. Coronavirus hasn't come anywhere near our location yet, but in the next few weeks it may seem as though we're running a gauntlet to get home safely.

We went today to the Fry's in Yuma. Late last week they were out of paper products; today they were running short on foodstuffs also. Pasta was mostly gone. Pasta sauce mostly gone. Ditto rice. I got the last loaf of Dave's Killer Bread. Large holes in the produce section, and in the cured meats (hot dogs, etc.) sections. The weird thing is, no cases have been reported, detected, suspected in this county or anywhere within 150 miles. People are stocking up anyway. I didn't try taking photos, but we did get some really good deals on beef and pork. I may post about them later. I did, quite unexpectedly, find rice (and antiseptic wipes) at a smaller store where we buy our propane.

Interesting that they're so difficult - I wouldn't have guessed that, since they do so well out here on their own. There's a stand of them about 10 miles south of here that's bright orange at the right time of year! There are at least 3 other species of mallow growing around here. We thought they weren't going to do much this year, or maybe we'd missed it, but with these rains they're going great guns. That goes to your observation that they need the drought stress and rain both. That makes me wonder about cotton cultivation...something else to explore.