Smithy

I can feel isolated and inconvenienced with boondocking, but the wide-open space and quiet settle into me anyway. Then it's an adjustment to return to closer quarters and more rules. There are worse places to be for that re-entry than the Picacho / Tucson NW KOA campground. The view is pretty good, especially if you're lucky (as we were) to get a spot at the western end of the trailer line. There's shore power again! We have electricity without relying on our batteries or generator. I've made great use of that with the Joule circulator and the Instant Pot. I'll show some of the IP work later, but here are some slices from a sous vide pork tenderloin. There is also a hungous pair of chicken breasts, sous-vided and chilled and ready to slice into sandwich slices or chop up for chicken salad. I haven't taken a picture of that yet. I used 150F for a couple of hours instead of my usual 160F for one hour, which seems to dry it out. I'll be interested to see how the texture is different. There are changes afoot in the area. The owners were good enough to call us ahead of time and tell us about the road construction on the nearby freeway. There's quite a detour going on, and parts of the old freeway are going away. This is what we saw happen in a single day: A change closer to home, so to speak, is this campground's ownership. The atmosphere is still relaxed, and the new owners are lovely and energetic people. They're making the brave decision (probably a necessary financial decision) to stay open year-round, whereas the previous owners closed the campground during the hottest months. I wish them well. ...but, BUT!... This is drastic, and very disappointing. I've written before, probably several years running, about Frankie's Chuckwagon Steakhouse. Here is a 2017 entry, with pictures, so you can see what they did. The food was excellent, and while it wasn't exactly inexpensive it was one of our favorite types of place: easy to get to, generous portions, excellent food and service, relaxed atmosphere. Once we stumbled over this place, Frankie's was a major reason for our return to this campground. At least once each trip, we'd blow the budget (and diet) on dinner there. The restaurant is temporarily closed for renovations, and they hope to have it open sometime this spring. When it reopens, it will be considerably scaled down. The new owners don't know yet quite what they'll do, but they are so overwhelmed with running this new (to them) campground and hitting their stride that they don't want anything as elaborate as a steakhouse. It takes too much expertise to run the Santa Maria grill, and they haven't been able to recruit the sort of staff they'd need. The new place will be something like burgers and fries, or pizza. Maybe there will be a pool table (I don't know where they'd put it) and a TV screen or two. It will be, we're told, more in keeping with restaurants found at other KOA campgrounds. Oh, dear. Maybe I shouldn't jump to conclusions, but I rather doubt the new incarnation will be the regional draw that the original was. I know the previous owners ran themselves ragged trying to run both the campground and the steakhouse, and relied heavily on camp volunteers. I also know they had been trying to sell out for 2 or 3 years, and they must be relieved to be free of the enterprise at last. Still, I'm disappointed. I could taste the steaks from 100 miles away, and the joy of another visit had helped compensate for moving back into more crowded conditions.

Interesting about the quick cooling. We weren't close enough to the operation to be sure, but it looked as though these vegetables were going straight from the field to a conveyor belt and into cartons. Maybe the cartons are hustled to refrigeration units; there are certainly buildings big enough for that operation in Yuma. I too would imagine that the soil needs replenishing. That's why I'm surprised that they don't seem to be planting alfalfa or another legume. They may use tons of fertilizer in a sequence that we've never observed.

I love the elaborate and delicious-looking preparations above, and hesitate to follow them with something so simple. I'll justify it by using it to encourage folks who may be leery of elaborate preparations: simple can also be good. I bought some very good avocados and roma tomatoes in order to make guacamole for a dinner party. Somehow, the gaucamole didn't happen. This morning some of the abundance made it onto my breakfast plate: diced avocado, diced tomato, and a squeeze of Mexican lime juice, with half-whole-wheat sourdough toast. It was messy but delicious. I had to slice more bread and toast it, simply to sop up the juices.

I don't think I've ever seen tuna packed with a chili here. I'll look for it. Like @chromedome and a few others uptopic, I've taken to buying oil-packed tuna. DH and I think it is much more flavorful and moist than water-packed.

I purchased some excellent avocadoes and roma tomatoes with the intention of making guacamole for a dinner party. The dinner party happened but the guacamole didn't, but nobody felt the lack. This morning, some of the tomatoes and avocados, with just a squeeze of Mexican lime, make a great breakfast on sourdough bread. This is the last of a loaf I made for the aforementioned dinner party. I'll tell more about that in another post. Someday, maybe, I'll take the trouble to find someone who can explain to me the exact sequence of planting and harvesting the row crops we see grown near Yuma in the winter. What we know from watching is that large fields of broccoli and cauliflower are planted, ripen fairly rapidly, and are harvested with the help of machinery and manual labor, seemingly in the space of a month. Within days after a field is harvested, the remaining greenery is disked under, sprinkler lines are laid, the field is watered, and then planting begins anew. One of many things I don't know is whether a new crop is sometimes planted - and if so, whether it's a crop rotation - or a field of grass always follows the crop. It may be that the grass is planted when the winter cultivation season is coming to an end. I also don't know why it would be grass, but it doesn't seem to be alfalfa, which would be a nitrogen-fixer. What I DO know is that I'm grateful for fresh winter produce, and we have been staying near one of the principal sources for the United States. These pictures (clockwise from the upper left) all took place within a week. Here are some shots of the mobile equipment used for packing broccoli and cauliflower. It looks as though the same equipment and technique are used for both crops; only the packing boxes change. Spring was springing when we left. We left earlier than we have in past years in order to meet up with friends, but we weren't really ready to go. If there was a superbloom we weren't there to see it, but the flowers were good and the Painted Lady butterly migration was spectacular.

Does the chef explain why he does it that way? I imagine it would keep the edges from browning and getting crusty. In my case it might also make cleanup easier, since spills would go into the water instead of onto a dry pan. I hadn't heard of this method before. I'll be interested to read what others say.

That salad looks delicious! Just to be clear: are the jalapenos and onions in the dressing? I wouldn't have thought of that, but I can imagine that it helps extract the flavors into the dressing.

I may yet buy the Maya Angelou book, just so I can have it when traveling, but I haven't pulled the trigger yet. I did, however, buy the Irish Pub Cookbook (just in time!) because it looks like it has some recipes I'll enjoy. That, in turn, led me to Real Irish Food: 150 Classic Recipes from the Old Country for $1.99. The Amazon writeup alone was irresistable.

I have a hard copy of Maya Angelou's book. It's delightful to read. At $2.99 the Kindle version is a bargain.

What do you do about seasonings, either during the sous vide bath or during the sear stage? As @rotuts points out there may be an issue of blandness that needs to be overcome.

I know some of you have had success with sous vide pork tenderloin. I'm looking for advice. I bought a pork tenderloin (the pair, actually) and pan-cooked one today to great success. Pork tenderloin can be dry if overcooked, but thanks to a dandy marinade, attentive pan work and probably dumb luck I made one of those dishes that I'd be proud to produce again. All that said, I'm considering doing a sous vide treatment for the other tenderloin to see how well that works. Right now it's been rubbed with vegetable oil and a light dusting of @rancho_gordo's smoked pimentón paprika. The silverskin has been removed. The tail has been tucked under so that the meat is a fairly uniform 2" thickness x 4" width in the vacuum bag. The total weight is about 11/4 pounds. I don't want to dry this out, and of course having blundered into something wonderful once I have a standard to meet for the next experiment. What do y'all recommend for time, temperature and finishing? Yes, I know I can look at Anova and Chefsteps, but I'm in a roomful of experts here. For those of you who like pork tenderloin done sous vide, what's your favorite treatment?

@Dejah, I wish you would come help cook through my refrigerator and freezer! Your results are always so delightful! On the otherr hand: would I rather you come help clear out my stuff, or go on your trip to Malaysia and Indonesia, then report about it? No contest: Malaysia and Indonesia win. I do hope you'll consider food-blogging during the trip, or else reporting about the food afterward.

That sounds like a great gift for the children! I have to ask what you do about writing down recipes when you tend not to do things the same way twice. When I make up something nice and my husband asks me whether I wrote down what I did, I (almost) always answer that I did ...but still, the next several iterations aren't quite the same! Are you better at reproducing results when you want to than I am?

My best friend reported making the NYT Citrus Salad with Peanuts and Avocado and liking it, but thinking the fish sauce was a bit overdone - and she used less than the recipe specified. The next day she finished the salad for lunch, with a little boosting of one or two ingredients - but no fish sauce.

I dusted the avocados with flour before they were stuck together, per instructions, so there was a bit of flour on the exterior. After that it was a triple coating of dipping in beaten egg then rolling in panko, repeat. I'd be afraid that the stuffing would fall out if I did cook the halves separately, since this was deep-frying. You're probably right about the avocado flesh being a good insulator!

Interesting! I've heard it referred to as "poor man's butter" from, I think, Mexican culture, but hadn't heard the butter fruit name. Can you give examples of or recipes for the desserts?

Did the person who got the King / Baby get out of doing the dishes?

Today I took another crack at Dutch Crunch bread rolls. The last batch was an interesting proof-of-concept test, but I suspected that the interesting crunchy coating would work as well with a known good roll recipe. I used Peter Reinhart's recipe for soft dinner rolls, from his Craftsy class. I used the coating instructions from the recipe to which I linked earlier. This batch of rolls was better than the last. I still need to sort out or even out the oven gradient so I can brown the roll tops without burning their bottoms. That said, these were good. I'll say it again, especially to @Shelby: the coating is special, but the rest of the bread-baking is not. Use that coating on your favorite bread! I bet it will work! We had deep-fried burgers, made from a mix of ground beef and hot Italian sausage, tonight. It's lovely to be able to fry outside!

I'm going to follow up on my own post from last night, with an update and a repeated question. My question of those who have had stuffed fried avocados was whether the interior (avocado and stuffing) is to be warm or cool when it's served. The second question was how to heat it without its falling apart, if it's to be warmed before frying. Last night I kept the stuffed avocados in the refrigerator, wrapped, until it was time to coat and fry them. I had the idea that they'd hold together better that way. Today, I ate the remaining avocado. The coating had gone soggy (no surprise), and heating the avocado in the microwave did not help the crust. A gentle heating, however, turned the stuffing soft and a bit gooey from the cheese and mayonnaise, and brought out flavors that weren't noticeable last night. I don't think the heat did any favors for the delicate avocado flesh, but I also don't think the gentle warming hurt it. I conclude from this that the avocados and their stuffing should be warm after frying. Does anyone have suggestions about how to accomplish that without overcooking it?

At the grocery store we're currently frequenting, medium-sized avocados run somewhere between $0.50 and $0.75 each. Large avocados (the size I showed in my previous post) were $0.99 each when we bought them. I haven't seen any roadside stands around here where they'd be cheaper - say, 10 for $1.00, a price we saw last year (somewhere). My best friends, in San Diego, seem to have relliable access to cheaper produce. I think they stop buying when the price gets much above $0.50 per avocado.

We've been set up for outdoor cooking, with little inclination to actually do it, since we landed in the desert. Oh, there have been a few campfires, with food cooked over them. However, it's been colder or windier than we would like. Compared to almost anywhere else in the country the "colder / windier" bit would be a laugh. We compare it to the comfort of cooking indoors, in the Princessmobile, where we can have a furnace running if need be. Earlier this week we decided it was time. I had some deep-frying to do, and the camp stove was the preferred source of heat. I went to fire it up...and discovered that it had quit working. I couldn't build pressure in the fuel container, because the pump didn't have a good seal. If anyone wants an explanation of how a Coleman camp stove (or lantern) pump works, feel free to ask. Suffice it to say that I know far more than I did, and we got it working without buying spare parts, but the outdoor cooking was put off for a few days. Today, we inaugurated the stove along with the wok I inherited from a dear friend last fall. Joan would have been proud. I wrote about the stuffed, deep-fried avocados in detail, in the eG Avocado Cook-off topic. I think it's worth doing again, with some possible revisions. My darling would always prefer something like the pork roast we've been feasting from for the past 2 weeks, with variations on what to do with the leftovers. But he's happy to see me having fun in the kitchen, and willing to put up with avocados for the cause.

OK, I have a report and questions on my first attempt at stuffed, deep-fried avocados! We had them tonight. Inefficient cooks like me will know, from @Dejah's recipe here, that it's best to allow time for the multiple steps in the process. I poached the chicken breast yesterday, and did it delicately enough that I have several fine slices of perfectly-done, not-dry chicken breast for sandwiches. I shredded and/or chopped roughly 1/3 of that breast for the avocado stuffing. The seasonings weren't quite the same as Dejah's. I used shredded cheese (Monterey Jack and San Joaquin Hanford Jack), a combination of oregano, smoked paprika and chili powder, a bit of pepper vinegar, and a touch of mayonnaise for binding. That was yesterday's project. It was difficult to keep my mitts off the stuffing; it would have made a great sandwich spread. Today came the slicing, scooping, peeling and stuffing. I had worried about losing a lot of avocado flesh during the peeling stage, but I'd worried for naught: these avocados were ripe enough to peel easily, but not so ripe that they were falling apart. They held together well. The filled avocados sat in the freezer until I was ready to fry them. This was for two reasons: first, I wanted to make sure they were really firm, lest they disintegrate in the hot oil; second, I had made the unwise decision to defrost the refrigerator during the heat of the day. Hours later, the freezer still isn't back down to freezing temperatures. I mentioned that this is a multi-stage process, but here's the payoff: once the oil is hot, cooking is a FAST process. These avocados browned quickly. Here's the frying process, and the finished product. Finally, the money shot, before we started adding chopped greens or salsas as we saw fit: Our opinion of the finished result was somewhat divided. I was delighted at the creamy texture of the avocado, contrasted with the crunchy texture of the fried outer shell. I loved the flavors. He was nonplussed by having a crisp fried coating that surrounded a cool interior. (Aside from that, he doesn't love avocados as much as I do, but he's a good sport about it.) We both found that a single stuffed avocado was more than enough for dinner, so there's a spare for tomorrow. We're going to try heating it gently to see what difference the internal temperature makes to our perceptions of its flavor. That leads me to ask, for those of you who have cooked or eaten stuffed fried avocados: how warm were the interiors? Were they warm all the way through? Hot? Or were they cool to cold? I was leery of overheating the flesh and having it disintegrate in the oil, but even I thought there was a bit of cognitive dissonance to having a hot fried exterior around a cool interior. This tasted good, but we weren't thinking along the lines of Baked Alaska or fried ice cream. What should I have done differently to produce a warm (hot?) stuffed fried avocado, or is this supposed to be cool? This is a showy dinner piece that I think would lend itself well to company, since all the prep work is done well in advance and the actual cooking is blindingly quick. I await information about the desired temperature of the interior, and how to achieve it.

@heidih, thank you for those links. I am illumminated... ...and actually, I was especially delighted by the story in the first link, which you seemed to indicate was a mistake. What delightful writing! I can tell I don't spend enough time perusing the back pages of the L.A. Times.

I do, except when I can get realio, trulio San Francisco sourdough bread as in the photo above. That bread outdoes anything else for avocado (or for a BLT, with or without avocado) in my book.

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