Smithy

My Ninja CREAMi traveled around with us in the Princessmobile for 6 months and wasn't used even once. I've learned something about what not to bring along on a winter trip, even to warmer climes. Today I brought it back into the house, plugged it into an electrical outlet, and was greeted by a mid-frequency (multiple of 60 HZ?) hum accompanied by the power light flashing on and then off. Once. No amount of button-pushing would turn the power back on. I unplugged the unit and plugged it back in. Same result. I installed the pint of persimmon custard that's traveled all of the desert southwest with us, made sure everything was properly aligned and ready to go, and plugged the unit in again. Same result. It sounds a bit like a motor trying to turn, maybe? But nothing is moving. I tilted the unit, checked for broken parts, tried wiggling things and even tried minor shaking and slapping. No change. Any ideas? Is it possible that jostling in the trailer moved something out of alignment? Am I missing a step? (I can find the recipe booklet but not the Quick Start Guide.) Does something need to be oiled? What would you recommend for troubleshooting?

Please do! and take us along again!

My parents had a cabinet like that for the same reason in their peninsula. It's been some years now, but as I recall it held things that would be needed only in the dining room, which that cabinet faced. Maybe holiday linens? At any rate, it was an excellent solution to the blind-corner / wasted space dilemma.

Gorgeous! Good choices all around. I / we / especially applaud the 12" overhang to accommodate a couple of stools. I didn't think we had the room (and still think I was right) but I do wish we had more of an overhang on our kitchen island so that visitors could sit on the stools and face the cook. Your place will be light, airy and spacious. How lovely for you!

Thank you for reminding me of these simple uses for the air fryer and for some more good ways to cook potatoes. We've been traveling for 6 months and the air fryer has sat unused at home for all that time. Meanwhile, we came home with a surfeit of potatoes, and they're sprouting almost faster than we can use them. I think tonight it will be air fryer time!

I tried the same recipe tonight, and am amused at the difference in our results! Shelby's Brussels sprouts still look so green and fresh, although tender. Mine, which also cooked for 2 minutes, were a bit more...soft...well, mushy. They weren't as pale as my bottom photo suggests, but neither were they as green as Shelby's. Still, the flavor of those Brussels sprouts is great. I'm not always crazy about the combination of honey and mustard; it seems too often they fight for dominance. Here, they harmonized beautifully and enhanced the sprouts. The sprouts had to share plates with the last of some barbecued beef brisket from Texas, and we thought they might get lost in the shuffle. Nope. They held their own. Definitely a keeper recipe.

I must say, the produce boxes from Misfits look so good that I'm tempted to sign up. I think I'd rather support our local farmers' markets and independent grocers, however, when we're in town to take advantage of them.

In the first picture, top center right:

It's been years since I visited Florida, or the Gulf. This virtual visit is making me remember what I've been missing, both in terms of scenery and food. Thank you! And oh, that Bloody Mary is truly inspired!

I forgot that @Shelby had just finished doing this dish! In any case, I offered my husband a choice among several recipes I want to try in the near future, and the Chicken Piperade was his preference. I planned for the "Even easier" option, but this time I had a full-sized Instant Pot. We were out and about earlier today, so I picked up a package of boneless and skiness chicken thighs. Here's the setup and the initial cooking stage: We were a bit alarmed at first at the apparent amount of sauce compared to solids (see upper left of collage below). After stirring it all together, I realized that it was all pretty well balanced for sauce vs. solids (see upper right of collage below). The served dinner bowls are in the bottom half of the collage below. The flavors are wonderful, and this recipe is a keeper. We have three changes we'll make next time: cut the chicken into bite-sized chunks, so that some of every ingredient gets into the same spoonful; add a bit more pasta: 8 ounces, instead of 6? pressure cook it for less time (yes, even though the chicken got pressure-cooked only once). I confess that I set the timer for 6 minutes of pressure-cooking instead of the prescribed 5 minutes, because I simply couldn't believe that 5 minutes would be enough when the original recipe calls for 10. I was wrong: 5 minutes would have been enough. If we cut the chicken into bite-sized pieces beforehand, I think that 4 minutes -- or maybe only 3 -- will be appropriate. I'm sure everyone's preferences are different, but part of the fun of topics like this is comparing notes. We have the luxury of talking to the recipe's originator!

Thermoworks makes great timers: easy to use, loud if you need them to be. Their Timestick is small and lanyard-capable but will also fit in a pocket. The Extra Big and Loud Timer weinoo notes above may not be as conveniently sized but is adjustable. This page shows their current offerings.

The problem I have with that is that I want to delay leaving until the last possible moment...you know, after the leaves fall off the trees here, after I've finished personal business, after Election Day...and by then the Autumn has already progressed far to the South. My parents did it one year, but weren't bloggers. Maybe you should take the challenge and do it?! 😁 Here's what we had tonight. I've never tried using the corkscrews or elbows for this dish, but it's what we had. They worked out well. He says the elbows were the only thing they ever used in the Egyptian desert, so I guess we're getting closer to (his) tradition. I had a protracted telephone call with a long-lost friend who called while the pasta was cooking. I thought the pasta would end up overcooked. If it did, we couldn't tell it tonight. At any rate, we won't care whether the leftover pasta was overcooked!

Central California (the Central Valley, that is) has just such a climate. The citrus ranchers use mitigation practices (wind machines, irrigation) but there are always a few dicey days or weeks during the winter when the crops are at risk. What does the seaweed solution do for the garlic cloves?

Actually, he could never get his Bedouin guides to eat the stuff although they'd eat any two of the components together. Here's one discussion about it. But I like your assumptions! 😄

They certainly seem to be happy. The dog is happy wherever he goes, as long as he's with us and able to run. He is utterly entranced by the remnant snow piles and the water in the woods. The cats figure out in short order where their favorite household places are (same as before we left) and plop down. I think everyone is happy to have more room. I know I am. I have actual room to sit on the floor and stretch! Of course, the animals don't have to deal with the issues of rebooting a household after a winter gone. THEY don't have issues with stairs, whereas we're feeling the 3-floor household in our leg muscles and, alas, knees. We also came home to some plumbing surprises, but bit by bit they're getting resolved. I think my darling will be more or less happy once the hot tub is warmed up, now that it's been repaired. That's a first-world problem, for sure! Back to food: tonight it will be our favorite "Bedouin-style" tuna noodle hot dish. In a few days when I catch my breath I look forward to trying out recipes in the 6-quart Instant Pot and seeing how they work when done in full size. See y'all in that topic!

Those eggplants / aubergines look beautiful! But what was done with them? Did I miss that in your pictures above? I'm always looking for other good things to do with eggplant fruit. Like you, I love the flavor.

Time to wrap up this installment. We made it safely through Des Moines and the Minneapolis/St. Paul complexes, and everywhere in between. (Metroplexes worry me the most, but there's plenty craziness and bad driving even in the open areas.) Weather forecasts to the contrary, we stayed ahead of the rain. We spent the night in a Walmart parking lot north of Minneapolis, an hour or two south of home. We arrived midafternoon, and briefly considered pressing on to home, but wisely decided against it. There's a principle in aviation that applies to many, many other situations (probably most): if you keep going until you're tired, you'll make dicey decisions if something goes wrong. The pithier version is: "quit while you're ahead". We did. Then we collapsed. Walmart had a couple things we needed, but food wasn't one of them and none of their deli offerings looked interesting. We used the oven and a single baking sheet for fish and Tater Tots, knowing full well that the Tots would be better shallow fried. We took the easy way out. Truth to tell, we were too tired to care. Good thing we hadn't pressed on. This morning, the rain had caught up to us. So had the cold. These were the views the rest of the way home. (Yes, those are whitecaps. 39F. Northeast winds off Lake Superior, 30 knots gusting to 40.) We left the Princessmobile with a friend who has plenty of pavement and electricity, unloaded a few essentials including our four-footed family, and came home. No, the snow and ice aren't completely gone yet. This is the view out our north-facing window. We probably could have gotten the Princessmobile all the way home, but the road is soft and we'll give it some time to dry out. The weather forecasters are promising a few dry days ahead. They aren't promising warmer temperatures, but one can't have everything. We'd have stayed farther south if it weren't for pressing business here. We didn't pack any food from the Princessmobile, so I made the 5-mile trip to the nearest grocery store and deli. Their fried chicken is the best in town. Can't say I was impressed with the broccoli salad or potato salad I added to the mix, but they were filling. My darling was happy with microwaved corn. We'll go back to unload some foods from the Princessmobile tomorrow. Thanks for coming along, folks.

It doesn't look that way in the cover photo. It did for me, but I never got it to brown and crisp up in the first place. Perhaps @JAZ will weigh in on its texture.

I want to encourage anyone who likes chicken and smoky flavors to try the Basque-Inspired Chicken (Chicken Piperade). This photo collage is from when I wrote about it here. What made me try this recipe first was the book's cover: how delicious that looks! Well, as you can see...mine didn't come out with the same look. It still tasted very, very good. There are a few reasons it didn't come out looking right, I think, mostly related to my not scaling the recipe down properly for a 3-quart IP. You'll note that the skin is not beautifully browned as it had been on the book cover, and there's more sauce. I also wondered why it was necessary to brown the skin, then pressure cook the chicken, then add more ingredients and pressure cook it all again. Janet told me in an emailed answer was that it was done that way to satisfy the food stylists but that it's easier to pick boneless skinless chicken thighs, load everything into the pot at once, and cook it all together! That's written up as the "Even easier" version at the end of the recipe. Next time I have the opportunity, I'm going to try it that way. I recommend this recipe. Do the "even easier" version.

We certainly do!

How difficult will it be to replace that flooring? Ours is still good, but the carpet gives me pause sometimes. Increased fire danger is right. We've seen the trends for the last few years, and it isn't looking good. I haven't commented much this trip on low water levels, but we were all the way into central Iowa before the rivers started looking proper for spring. If you should decide that "east" includes northern Minnesota, let me know!

Bogle runs a bit more expensive in Minnesota, but I do like their wines...especially their Merlot. i'll have to try their Zinfandel.

No. We bread them in a mix of his own devising, then bake them in the oven. 425F for 25 minutes.

@blue_dolphin and @ElsieD, ain't that the truth! One of the Minnesota gags is that we have 2 seasons: "winter" and "4th of July". Another version goes "9 months of winter and 3 months of tough sledding". Still, I miss mountains and rather envy @Nancy in Pátzcuaro's sessions in the Rockies. Against all practicality, and due simply to desire, we went into town yesterday and visited the Fareway grocery store we'd discovered on our way south last fall. He was jonesing for pork steaks. I wanted to stock up on that great Buffalo Cheddar cheese I bought last fall. So here it is, one last grocery store tour for the trip. I didn't take as many pictures as last fall. This first collage is a combination of a fun candy toy I didn't buy and a "huh??" moment in the pet supplies area. Most of our attention (and money) was on the meat counter. As last fall, the selection was amazing and the staff were wonderful. If we lived in Osceola, this would be our grocery store. The guys are knowledgeable, friendly and funny: a great sales combination. On top of the counter they had a sign with the riddle of the week: "The more you take, the more you leave behind". I had to ask. Can you guess the answer? Meat counter selections: they're really into wrapping things with bacon! We bought the pork steaks he'd wanted, then I chose some Iowa pork chops: according to the meat counter gentleman, one of his fondest childhood memories because his grandmother always cooked them when the family visited. We went away, but while my darling was contemplating snacks I went back for their version of an armadillo egg. It's a pepper stuffed with cream cheese, wrapped in ground pork, and the entirety wrapped in bacon. It's in the freezer now. We'll have an armadillo egg taste test sometime this summer. We also bought these monster cookies at his behest. He tried to promise me to secrecy, but I wasn't having any of that! If you're going to sin, sin with a whole heart. Seen on the way back to the Princessmobile: Last night, the last night we'll have the Princessmobile plugged into shore power before we get home, it was dinner and a movie. The pork steaks were accompanied by broccoli (me), cole slaw and toast (him) and beverages of our choice. Lovely to watch a movie again. It's an old favorite, especially suited for our location.

Signs seen along the way as we've headed north can be entertaining. Here's Iowa's public safety notice along Interstate 35: The next frame indicated 85 traffic deaths this year. Whether that's the statewide total period, or the number attributable to cell phone misuse we don't know. Back in Topeka, I think, we spotted a great sign that I wasn't able to photograph in time: (Incidentally, we figured out that going around Kansas City and through Topeka is the way to go.)