Smithy

I appreciate your comments, but you're right that it sounds way far from what we want. I wouldn't mind trying it sometime if someone else cooked it, but I'd be reluctant to commit an entire cut to it without trying it first. You probably have the right idea: figure out what's in those spice packets, then double or triple it. Peppercorns, bay leaves, mustard seed...anything but cloves! (Well, no cinnamon or allspice in this either.) I think the saltiness does appeal to us although we know we should be rinsing that off, but this is already salty enough that there's no consideration of salting anything after serving it.

It sounds like quite a good feast. I hope we can see photos later!

I'm bumping up this old, old topic to see whether any of the current members have preferred ways to ensure that their corned beef -- purchased that way from the store, not corned at home -- has a good corned flavor. My husband and I have noticed a difference between corned beef purchased at home in Duluth, Minnesota and that purchased in the southwestern US. It might have to do with buying a store brand (Kroger's, in this case) as opposed to a dedicated meat packer (Klement's? Flanagan's? at home) and cost-cutting efforts. It doesn't really matter why the difference; what matters is that there IS a difference. So how does one know in advance that the meat won't be as salty and spicy, and what can one do about it?

It's a beautiful day outside, supposed to get hot. We're planning to cook outside this evening and take advantage of the sunshade. Last night it was corned beef and potatoes. @Porthos asked a couple of weeks ago whether we were doing that for St. Patrick's Day and I said we'd intended to but neglected to pick up the brisket. Perhaps, I said, we'll find some on sale later. We did. This is another case where the loyalty card made the difference between buying and not buying, based on the price. Based on the price, I got two. It's a good thing, too -- because while this brisket was pretty good, we both found it lacking in that distinct corned flavoring. The spices weren't intense enough. Although I suspect it has more to do with the original processing, there must be a way to give it oomph. Even the potatoes, boiled in the same water as the brisket, were pallid compared to our expectations. Maybe what we need to do with the second brisket is to add extra corning spices to the water. Suggestions are welcome, with the proviso that this is my darling's dish and he will insist on boiling. (Yes, we have a lot of topics about home-corned beef, or sous vide corned beef, but I haven't found anything directly addressing the question of boosting wimpy corned beef. I have also posted the question over here to revive the most relevant topic.)

That sounds like my dressing for 3-bean salad. I'll have to try it with these beans alone, after I've tried the recipe I linked above.

Dinner last night: Yet More Ribs (really) and vegetables of our choice. He chose green peas, microwaved from frozen with butter. I dressed some Rancho Gordo Royal Corona beans, freshly cooked, with pesto. He had his preferred Kinder's hot barbecue sauce; I used their Cali Gold. Not bad. I'll be able to get through it, but hope we'll be back to Llano in a couple of weeks so I can load up on their sauce and work on duplicating it. There's a story, and some commentary, on the Royal Corona beans. First off, these things are HUGE once theu're fully cooked and plumped. I cooked these with a few chicken bones from the freezer and a couple of bay leaves, also from the freezer but originally from Texas. I've been carrying these harvested bay leaves in the freezer for several years. They're still good. I cooked them partly to make space in the dry storage cooler (and, of course, require more space in the refrigerator) but mostly so I could cook this recipe soon: Gigantes Plaki (Greek Baked Beans) You're supposed to cook it using a can of cooked white beans and a can of tomatoes. Trust me to start from scratch.

@Tropicalsenior, for you story I'd need a double emoji: "wow" and "laugh" all at the same time!

That is one of the most heavenly smells in the world! Lucky you! I *thought* those mandarins seemed a bit small. Kumquats. Duh!

Are those mandarins from your tree. @blue_dolphin? That's what catches my fancy!

It's taken me far too long to adopt that practice, but I too am lucky to have access to good libraries...and now I use them.

My mother had a large version of the slap-chopper for nuts that I think Tropicalsenior is referring to. She used it a LOT. I had a smaller one adequate to my purposes, and did find it useful...until my knife skills got better. I gave it to my great-niece, who's just started setting up house. If she doesn't want it she can donate it. Ditto a hand-cranked nut grinder like the one I grew up with, that makes more uniformly small chunks but that I never used. (That went to my great-nephew.) I wouldn't call either of those useless, except to me; they were taking up space. I bought one of those plastic thingys for stripping off herb leaves, and it's probably going to go into a donation bin. THAT one I might seriously consider useless.

Breakfast this morning: toast with a marvelous Kirkland cheddar cheese that my best friends bought for me at Costco; cherry tomatoes; and the last of leftovers from yesterday's lunch. The "remains of yesterday's lunch" deserves some storytelling. A friend from Phoenix and I went to a Mexican restaurant that the Camp Host had recommended. There aren't any pictures; it was so dark inside that we both needed our call phone flashlights to read the menu! I had a chile relleno and a beef enchilada, accompanied by the standard refried beans and Spanish rice. I forget what he had, 2 burritos maybe, with the same accompaniment. Conversation was the main point of the meal. That's good, because I found my food decent but forgettable. I've had better versions of both the burrito and the chile relleno. Here's a closer look at the today's remains of the chile relleno: The cheese was nice; it had a rather tart flavor that I've never encountered before and would be pleased to try again. The breading was -- well, not much to it, and I'd have expected some sort of sauce with it. There was no sauce. (There was none on the burrito, either; both were simply nestled into the refried beans.) Somehow the whole thing had distinct layers instead of being a happy marriage of ingredients. As I said, getting together was the main point anyway, and we had a good time catching up. From there we went to see the Dwarf Car Museum. It's an amazing place, well worth a visit if you're ever near Maricopa, with amazing mechanical craftsmanship and funny old memorabilia. The only culinary connection is this startling (to me) bit of machinery among the collection of vending machines hanging around the museum: a soup-dispensing machine! I never knew such a thing had existed. It may have been common in some mechanics' garages, to allow workers a choice for lunch.

Breakfast today. Now I'm wishing I'd bought more minneolas in Yuma. These are really good.

Reminds me of when I was in high school in Central California. A new "Mexican" place had just opened not far from school, and our new friend (recently immigrated from Oklahoma) wanted to go check it out. "Let's go to TAYco Bell!" she said, "I've never had a TAYco before." We just about died laughing about her mispronunciation, and teased her about it probably harder than we should have. And yes, I AM old enough to remember a time before Taco Bell.

Finally! We finally cooked with fire! In that lovely pedestal-based grill! I coated chicken thighs with liberal amounts of Berbere spice and coriander. When the time came, I loaded them into our grill basket and parked them on the grill. From there it was just a matter of adjusting the height of the grill grate, and turning the basket occasionally until the thighs were cooked. I tossed cut-up chunks of cauliflower in a mix of tahini sauce, olive oil, paprika (sweet and smoked), cumin, coriander, and a lovely blend my sister gave me called "Five-Alarm Fire Sea Salt". (It's a good thing I tasted the coating before committing the cauliflower to it. That salt blend turned out to be a bit much, so I had to dilute the mix with yet more tahini and olive oil, and maybe the other spices, before coating the cauliflower with it.) Then I parked the florets on a lined baking sheet. When the chicken went onto the fire, the cauliflower went into a 425F oven until the bits were browned and crispy, maybe 40 minutes. Here's the before-and-after shot: This is pretty simple cooking, and it left time for socializing outside while the food was doing its thing with minimal monitoring. The chicken, taken off the grill and out of the grill basket: Dinner was delicious. There are still 3 chicken thighs left. Leftover chicken is never a bad thing.

If you have questions that aren't food-related, feel free to PM me. I'll be glad to answer questions if I can. And when you take to the road, I hope you'll post about it!

These campsites have very nice sun shelters, with concrete pads, sturdy picnic tables, and pedestal grills that pivot for best wind advantage. We swore last night that we'd cook outside, and got the firewood and the campstove out so as to give the cook a choice. Then we waited for the wind to die. And waited. (Our camp host commented that it's been so cool and windy this year that she used her gas grill for the first time this week!) We finally decided to cook inside instead. Superburgers, with vegetables of our choice. The extra rain that this area gets has made for an interesting comparison of plants between where we were staying and where we are now. The plant community is basically the same (creosote, ironwood, palo verde) but the flowers are much more abundant and much, much taller. The orange and purple flowers (apricot mallow and heliotrope phacelia, in case you care) are knee-high here, whereas they rarely got above a foot tall there. There are also new (to us) plants: the yellow fiddlenecks and hedgerocket didn't appear at all down there. We're only 1000' higher, but the mountains do seem to squeeze out extra moisture.

I want to make a pitch for The Rustik Oven's sourdough breads, in case someone else here likes San Francisco-style (really sour) sourdough bread. I discovered The Rustik Oven Bakery last year or the year before when I was looking in vain for San Luis Sourdough bread. (San Luis used to make a wonderful Rosemary Olive Oil Sourdough, but stopped making it for some reason. Their distribution range seems also to not be where we travel these days.) Rustik Oven makes several types of bread: Sourdough, Italian, Cracked Wheat, plain white, and Cracked Wheat Sourdough. I am a sourdough lover, and both of these sourdoughs fit my tastes. They seem to suit a lot of other people's tastes, too: in both Yuma and Duluth, it's been hard to keep the Sourdough on the shelves. I rarely see the Cracked Wheat Sourdough, but took a chance on it this year and discovered that it's also excellent. (The bottom part of that collage is from some oven-toasted bread for a salad, and doesn't show the cracked wheat version. I just finished it.)

Of course we have a topic about this! Peeps: Marshmallowly Goodness

This is a great question for @Dave the Cook.

I'll probably find 5 different brands of rice flour when we get to Texas. And they'll all be cheaper than what I ordered. 🙄

That sounds like a good way to treat globe eggplants. Yes, these had been quite fresh. They were starting to go soft when I finally coooked them, but still plenty good. What do you mean by the green pea ones? I don't think I've ever seen those.

I love eggplant. I especially love it in Middle Eastern dishes such as baba ghanouj and moussaka, and until we broke camp I had several eggplant recipes I wanted to try out of the cookbook Falastin (eG-friendly Amazon.com link). I bought a couple of eggplants, a couple of weeks ago, then got busy. Then I had to return the library book. And there the eggplants sat. (I did not love eggplant when I was a child. My sainted grandmother, whom I adored, would slice it, pepper the bejeezus out of it, and fry it. Whether she also breaded or battered it I don't remember, but all I could taste was the pepper! It was years before my sister and I overcame our dislike of black pepper. We think it's because Nana's pepper was always stale, bless her heart. It was years after I left home before I was willing to try eggplant again.) Our latest mail shipment included the March-April 2023 issue of Milk Street. That magazine has a "No-Fry Neapolitan Eggplant Parmesan" recipe that looked like something I wanted to try. I like eggplant parmesan. It's been ages since I had it. I mean, doesn't this picture make it look delicious? "What's for dinner tonight?" asked my darling. When I said "Eggplant Parmesan" I saw him flinch. "What meat will be in it?" he asked plaintively. Right away I decided to take liberties with the Milk Street recipe. I remembered, once I got going, that the reason I don't do eggplant often -- in fact, it's been a couple of years -- is the issue of getting it cooked properly without its soaking up half a bottle of olive oil. This recipe has you brush a baking pan with oil, lay the thin slices atop it, then brush the tops of the slices with more oil, and roast at high heat. I've seen this trick before. Madhur Jaffrey uses it. Lynne Rossetto Kasper may use it. It's a great trick...but requires very close attention lest the slices burn. Enough slices escaped the carnage that I could still make the dish. I had to take liberties with Milk Street's sauce, too. Because of the meat, I needed more tomato than they'd called for. I didn't have all the cheeses they specified. In fact, as I was putting the layers together I mused that this might be more like my Egyptian Moussaka than Eggplant Parmesan. That isn't necessarily a bad thing. We love moussaka! And it was good. We both liked it. Good thing, too, since there are plenty of leftovers.

Lunch today. I really wanted to use my lemon vinaigrette, but forgot to take it out of the refrigerator before going to town, and it's congealed. Instead I'm using the Double-Sesame Dressing I made back here. It's actually pretty good on this salad, better than I remember it being. I still keep forgetting to put ginger into it. Guess what? The Hispanic grocery store in the nearest town doesn't have rice flour! The clerk thought it was a strange request. I don't expect us to be visiting any larger towns during this stay, although they have larger grocery stores. We did our best to stock up on everything before breaking camp so that we wouldn't have to drive much while we're here. So...good ol' Amazon and their lockers to the rescue! My package of Bob's Red Mill White Rice Flour (eG-friendly Amazon.com link) should arrive Friday.

I look forward to reading your tasting notes!