Smithy

A dear friend went to Ireland late last fall, and brought me this tea towel from Ulster Weavers. 💕

We had some lovely dinners from Cooper's, and as I noted we got several dinners out of each purchase. We ordered beef brisket (from the fatty end, if you please) that was jiggly and juicy and delicious. There were pork ribs. I splurged on a ribeye steak one night. That's cooked to order, so took 15 - 20 minutes to cook. Medium rare, just as I like it. He had more pork ribs one night. We had a pork skewer one night, and decided that I do it better. I braised baby potatoes one night, and they featured prominently as a support for reheating brisket and beef ribs, once I remembered our method: put it atop something like potatoes, or a rack or flatware, in a heavy dish like my enameled cast iron Descoware. Add a small amount of water -- enough to cover the bottom to about 1/4 - 1/2 inch, put the lid on, and rewarm slowly at low temperature. You can see that we also had vegetables! Peas one night; corn another night; cole slaw (not photographed) yet another evening. I'm not as crazy about their potato salad as I once was, but I enjoyed a small container of that once or twice; in addition to a dinner accompaniment, it was lunch one day and breakfast the next. The potatoes are almost mashed, and this salad includes bits of dill pickle and red bell pepper. Not a touch of sugar to be had. My kind of potato salad! Here's the pork skewer, along with a hunk of brisket as we whittled away at it. The pork was a bit dry. Again, I'll say modestly that I think mine is better. For some odd reason, all the photos were taken before we added barbecue sauce. I'll have more to say about barbecue sauces in another post. At last, we were down to these bits of leftover meats. I suffered from allgoneaphobia and stretched them as much as I could after we left Llano. But alas, they're all done until our next visit.

You all have raised good points about the problems of the beans (and any other food waste) at the end of the evening. One of my cousins works with food shelf programs to rescue food that's about to be discarded from the food shelf programs due to expiration dates, and get it to homeless shelters and some of his poorer neighbors. He and his unofficial co-workers put a lot of time and effort into it. It takes motivation, and planning and coordination...and a certain amount of working around laws.

I can imagine that being a special, classic dessert. Medjools are very good for stuffing with something savory.

Before I show you more of the Cooper's dinners, I want to tell what to me is a very sad and puzzling story: what happens to their beans at the end of the night. They get thrown away. I'm talking about huge stockpots worth of slowly simmered pinto beans, with bacon and jalapeno and possibly some lard. They're delicious. They're free with a meal, as much as you want. On our first night there, business was slow. Was it because it was Hallowe'en? I never found out. But I talked to one of the workers, who lamented that he had an entire fresh pot of the beans simmering in the kitchen and he was pretty sure they would all have to be thrown out. They aren't kept overnight. His statement was very matter of fact: "Of course we can't keep 'em overnight." I didn't ask why. I know I often save and maybe even freeze my leftover beans for later. I didn't ask what happens to other leftovers. It seems to me that the waste would hurt Cooper's bottom line and they'd prefer not to make more than needed -- but they have to balance not wanting to waste with not wanting to run out. But it also seems there should be a way to get those goodies to a local food pantry. I know there's a food shelf in Llano, but I don't know how active it is. Thoughts? Insights?

They're heirloom beans, organically cultivated. Some varieties are being rediscovered thanks to a project @rancho_gordo has going in Mexico. There's a lot of love and discussion about them here: Rancho Gordo: Beans and More.

I'm pretty sure I confessed to doing this in the I Will Never Again... topic, years ago. Sure felt stoopid!

So much to see and comment on! I love the gleaming floor in the restaurant where you had to remove your shoes. The selection of beers, wines, snack foods, tinned seafood is amazing and enticing. The scenery is beautiful. I don't think I've ever seen sesame, except for the seeds. Can you say more about those bundles? Are those stalks from a field, growing the way rice grows? Or are they small branches off a bush? Did you take more photos of the sesame plantings and production?

So, back to Llano. I have a few more stories to tell, most of them regarding Cooper's Old-Time Pit Bar-B-Que and their food. The link goes to their corporate web site. We've only had the 'cue from the Llano site, so can't say whether they're all of equal quality. (Note: they ship!!) The place is billed as an old-time pit barbecue. The mesquite is cooked down to the proper level of charcoal in an oversized chimney; there are half a dozen heavy-duty "pits" (really very large, very heavy metal cooking boxes into which the coals are shoveled at one end) and one serving pit where the finished meat is held until someone buys it. You can take the food to go, or eat inside. Here and here are some shots of the interior, as well as the serving pit. There are a lot of choices of side dishes inside: mac and cheese, various cobblers, green beans, potato salad, cole slaw, and so on. Drink offerings include beer, wine, water and various soft drinks. Pinto beans, pickles, barbecue sauce of their own devising, onions and soft white bread are all free. As I noted a few posts ago, I didn't take as many photos as usual. I did take the trouble to photograph the menu. Yes, it's expensive. It's gotten a lot more expensive (hasn't everything?) since we first started coming; this post shows the spring 2015 menu: Still, we are happy to indulge when we come. We buy a lot over several evenings, then enjoy the leftovers for meals afterward. The price per meal isn't as bad as you might think. Here's my kittywompus picture of the pit, the one time I photographed it that week. What you do is, you choose what you want and how much, then the pit servers put it on a tray. They'll dip it in their warm sauce (see the pot at the far end of the pit) if you ask; we always do. We're told that it's their standard barbecue sauce, but I'm sure the juices and spices from all the meats dipped into it change the flavor somewhat. After it's dipped -- or not -- and put on the tray, you take it inside. They'll cut it if you want (we never do) and wrap appropriately for eating there or taking out. You add whichever sides you want, pay, and go on your way after visiting the freebies bar. That first night, due to a bit of a miscommunication (and massive hunger) we bought beef ribs AND pork ribs. Way too much to eat in one sitting, as we knew it would be. I also brought home beans, pickles and barbecue sauce, per my plan to stock up. 😋 Oh my, it was good. And what you see on the plates was more than a gracious plenty. The next morning, I enjoyed their pinto beans for breakfast -- doctored with their barbecue sauce and sour cream.

After we left Llano, we had 2 more marathon driving days. (I'll get back to Llano, really.) At one stop we shared split pea soup, I think. Too tired to do anything more interesting. The next morning, we stopped for fuel some 30 miles down the road. Look what we found! Closed, alas, and we'd already had our breakfast sandwiches anyway. Still, it reminded me of this topic on Indian food becoming common at truck stops. The paintings are a small sample of what's for sale in the truck stop. There are also hats, purses, Mexican blankets, grab-and-go fast food, and of course fuel.

Yesterday I cooked another batch of the Pillsbury whomp cinnamon rolls. I don't normally eat them -- I have enough culinary vices already -- but it really smelled good. I said to myself, "I'll try just a bite". Then I ate the whole thing. Today, as a change of pace and because I need to be using this stuff up, I had yogurt and granola for breakfast. This is a good granola, and my preferred yogurt, but I bought way too much of this particular granola when my DIL was visiting and we could use her Costco card. I'm really quite sick of this stuff. I'm on the final bag, after months of avoidance. I'm not done with Llano food yet, but we're well past there now. This was the predawn sky a few days ago. If you look carefully, you can see Venus about halfway between the tree top and the moon.

Mine is pretty specific about not using the Creami as a chopper or processor, because it could damage the motor. My model is a couple of years old. Maybe someone with a newer model can speak to the question of what it can do now.

What is Pico Pica, please?

Here's dinner from a couple of nights ago, featuring another of our favorite Miiller's products in one of my darling's favorite dinner specialties: hash. He dices potatoes and onions, slices a sausage into coins (one of these large links is enough), soaks the potatoes in water before draining and patting dry. He does all that well in advance. Then, when it's time to start cooking, he has at it in a large straight-sided skillet. I've shown pictures of this before, and no doubt will show the process again sometime during this trip, but on this night I just pictures of the mise and finished dish. This is his type of cooking: single, one-pot (or skillet), no fuss. There's an art to getting the potatoes crisp, and he doesn't always manage. (He refuses to do the individual elements separately, as suggested by @Lisa Shock(RIP) years ago. He also insists on crowding the pan, as @Anna N (RIP) pointed out. Hey, he's cooking -- not me!) This time the potatoes were quite brown on one face and soggy on the others. He thinks it's because he forgot to salt them during the frying stage, and that salting helps draw out the moisture to produce a crisper result. What say you?

And mighty fine bacon it is, too! We had the jalapeno poppers last night. Most were what Miiller's calls "gator toes": jalapenos stuffed with cream cheese, then wrapped with bacon. The rest were what they call "brisket poppers": brisket AND cream cheese inside the jalapeno, then wrapped with bacon. I cooked them in the oven along with, and after, a rice dish I'd read about in the New York Times. The rice dish is Ali Slagle's Baked Rice with White Beans, Leeks and Lemons. (For those who don't have a subscription, here's a gift-article link.) Ms. Slagle seems to dream up very flexible recipes, and it's a good thing. I flexed this one to bits and still have learned a good method. I had leeks, looking a bit worse the wear, from a neighbor at home. They needed to be used before they went even farther south. My cooked white beans had already gone south. I might have had canned white beans, but we both agreed that we needed vegetables. I used corn from the freezer. I had no almonds, so substituted walnuts. I ran out of lemon, and used lime. I used chicken broth instead of water, per the suggestion of another subscriber. Finally, I used the last of my basmati rice and came up short, so supplemented with the long-grain white rice I'd picked up at Miiller's. (I know: this substitution list reads like one of those wild comments where someone changes everything and then says the recipe was terrible. 😄 Stay tuned!) The method is pretty easy, and this is what I'm going to take away: baking instead of cooking on the stovetop may be the way to go. First, roast the sliced leeks, citrus zest, nuts and red pepper flakes (I augmented with hot paprika) in olive oil at 400F in a baking pan until the leeks are soft and golden. Then scatter the rice over the roasted layers, scatter the beans (corn, in this case) atop that, pour in boiling water (broth here). Cover tightly, put in oven until the rice is tender, about 25 minutes. I think it took longer in my oven. When the rice is done, pull the dish out and let it rest, covered, for 5 minutes. Then fluff the rice and stir in grated parmesan. Garnish with more parmesan. There's supposed to be more garnish -- herbs of some sort, say -- but I didn't have any. The finished, garnished rice dish as I cooked it last night: While that was going on, I roasted the poppers in a dish atop the baking dish. Once the rice was out I cranked the heat up higher -- 450 or 480F -- to get that bacon crisp. Dinner, complete with a closeup of the rice and a cross-section of a brisket popper: Delicious! My darling admitted later that he'd flinched internally when I said we were having rice. He usually finds rice to be bland. This had enough spicy heat that he thought it excellent. I'll have to remember to step up the spicy heat, the way I did last night, when I make this. And I will be making it -- at least, using the method -- again.

@rotuts, you raise a good point about the fuel. In the parts of Texas we frequent, the preferred wood seems to be mesquite at the commercial operations. I've seen competition folks there use oak instead, and there may be barbecue places that we haven't tried that prefer oak. Both types of wood are abundant in the area.

Not even my biggest group-serving platter! 🙂

I'd hate to be a vegetarian in that town!

On our second-to-last day in Llano, we made it to Miiller's Meat Market and Smokehouse. This is one of those fine establishments to which @rotuts referred, with zillions of types of sausage and meat and condiments and...well, you'll see. They cater to the hunting crowd, and will process people's deer. This also means they cater to the do-it-yourself sausage and meat curing crowd. There are lots of spice mixes, dry cure ingredients, and -- for the hard-core camping crowd, dehydrated meals. \ There are prepared spreads and dips, and fresh produce, and beverages galore. (There are also gift sets for cooking, serving, drinks, and so on. I didn't snap pictures of those this time.) Specialty prepared dry snack mixes, and a broad variety of mustards. I was very pleased to find Creole mustard, in light of a conversation last year with @Dave the Cook about his recipe for green beans with mustard, lemon and butter. The freezer section is a sight to behold. "Dave" and "Don" have a marvelous time coming up with new creations -- stuffed this, wrapped that. They must have an excellent source of good bacon, because bacon wrapping features prominently in these creations. There are also frozen dinners all ready to heat and serve. I've had their potato hot dishes (excuse me, casseroles) before and thought them quite good. These cookies may sell well, but I'm not sure enough of the combination to want to try it. If they'd offered samples, I'd have tried part of one to see what I thought about bacon and chocolate together. They did have a sample table set up with slices of their sausage links, sizzling on a small griddle, along with dipping sauces. I didn't get a picture of the sample table, but we certainly went for some of the sausages! I forgot to take pictures of the sausage selections, though: I got distracted by all the other meats they offered. Tomahawk! Brisket we expected, but picanha was quite the surprise.... And then there's the butcher counter, where nothing is sealed up and they are glad to answer questions and wrap up as much as you want. (In case you're wondering, I asked about taking photos and the answer was "yes".) We came home with our prizes: a selection of sausages, two types of jalapeno poppers, some much-needed produce (really!) and mustards. And yes, I managed to find refrigerator and freezer room as necessary. 🙂

This morning's breakfast was half of a perfect avocado, on the last of the buns I'd bought at Lowe's. A squeeze of lemon and a splash of Spike set it off perfect, without needing the hummus I'd brought along as an extra. Lunch today was a pitiful attempt at roll-ups, using nearly the last of our lettuce and substituting crackers for bread. That chicken has been good, but it needs to go. We're getting low on bread, and unless I get around to making some we'll have to settle for something I don't particularly like (squishy, sweet, "whole wheat" bread). But I'm getting ahead of my story.

Thanks for that. I agree that Lodi can now be the source of some fine wine, but I think it wasn't always that way. I appreciate this particular recommendation. I'll have to see if I can find the wine to try it out on a luxury splurge dinner.

That looks like it must be a brilliant book. On the other hand, everything you post looks brilliant. I think you'd be a great cookbook influencer marketer!

Pomegranate, orange and pistachio DOES sound like a good combination. What fun! Like you, I'm surprised that the orange was decent.

One of the things that continues to amaze us about Texas is their drive-through liquor stores. Steve's has a drive-through (or curbside service) shed loaded with wines and beers. I didn't think to take a picture of the interior, but the driving lane is fairly narrow because of the stock -- cases and crates, and refrigerators and at least one freezer. We usually go into the associated walk-in shop. The proprietor is an interesting character, quite flamboyant for this part of the world (Hallowe'en painted fingernails, anyone?) and quite knowledgeable about beers and wines. I get good recommendations from him based on my wine tastes. When I asked about the Llano Estacado wines he cautioned me that they come from Lubbock. What exactly that meant I wasn't sure, but it might be like a California wine coming from Lodi: until recently, not likely to be a good source. He said this Sauvignon Blanc is good, and fairly dry, so I came away with a bottle of it and a Castle Rock Columbia Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. It's already gone. It was pretty good. He also sold us a 6-pack of Saint Arnold Christmas Ale. We'd noticed it in the grocery store, in cans, but passed it up. He said this had some hints of warm spices, but not overpowering. We love the narrative on the label. 🙂 It is a good beer: good body and flavor, just a touch of spice. We'd buy it again. We are also amused by the bottle cap interiors. Unfortunately I threw away a couple before realizing that each one is different.

Everything's working correctly now! We had to cool our heels in Llano for the landing gear to get fixed, though we spent less time there than usual. The furnace problem resolved itself. It may seem ironic that the furnace started working when it got warmer outside, but we think there had been frost or ice blocking the air intake until the warmer weather melted it. The weird thing is, we usually spend up to a week in Llano anyway, yet this time the waiting -- and calling to find someone when the first guy didn't come through -- and helping with the repairs when we finally found someone -- preoccupied and apparently stressed us to the point that we did much less exploring than we usually do. We never even crossed the bridge to get to the main part of town and visit my favorite kitchen store. Not that we needed anything (so far I seem to have remembered it all, for once) but it's always fun to look. This time, I couldn't be bothered. Stress. For the same reason, I didn't take as many photos of the grocery store offerings as I usually do. Still, we visited several times and kept buying more food or wine. Here, I give you Lowe's Market. This place has a fine selection of starter plants and herbs in the spring. In the fall, everyone's busy thinking about deer hunting instead, with deer corn and automatic feeders for sale. There are always smokers and cookers outside the store, but it appeared that the stock had almost completely been bought out by the time I took these photos. The barrel barbecue cost a couple hundred dollars, as I recall. Inside the store are a lot of sporting goods and kitchen appliances (meat grinders and sausage stuffers, anyone?) They have an interesting selection of beer and wine. We've been making the most of the Oktoberfest offerings, and bought what seems to have been their last Hacker-Schorr and Paulaner. The offerings now are going to the "winter" seasonal brews. They have racks and racks of sausages, though their offerings aren't as good as at the next place I'll show you. I very much like the Opa's sausages, so I picked up some of them. I've had lobstah rolls on the brain for quite a while, ever since the lobster meat arrived last summer in my ButcherBox shipment. I still haven't eaten that meat! It's in the freezer somewhere. Meanwhile, I found rolls at Lowe's that looked like they'd be perfect. I've been enjoying them for sandwiches. By the time I get to the lobstah, I'll have to find more rolls.