Smithy

If you're expected a linear timeline in this blog, get ready for whiplash. I'm going back to Llano. I mentioned that we thought we'd gotten away without forgetting much. Since then it's come clear that we forgot more than we'd realized, but in Llano I still thought it was only one or two things. A favorite cutting board I found last spring. A lemon juicer from the same shopping expedition. Most of those things I started missing once we opened out can be foregone. Not so for the dish draining pads that were laundered and stowed in the house...and are still there. That's all right, though; it gave me an excuse to go to Charlie's. Charlie's is a terrific place in the middle of downtown, within easy walking distance of our parking / camping site. They have furniture (we bought a mattress there one year) and cooking gear and gifts. I usually end up buying things I didn't know I needed. This time, I had a purpose. I'll get to that in a moment. Here, take a look around first! The window displays have some lovely furniture. I've given up taking umbrage at Christmas decorations out before Thanksgiving. The first sight through the main door is barware and tableware. I specifically needed those drain pads, so gravitated to the kitchen section. I was also looking for silicone cups to serve as "egg bite" cups for my 3-quart Instant Pot. I had to ask for those and the drain pads, but that gave me a good chance to admire the other wares. I particularly loved these tea towels, even though I didn't buy any. My haul was fairly modest, but we had a lot of fun visiting while they helped me find what I needed. During a different visit to town - that took advance planning - I was also able to participate in the Friends of the Llano Library fundraiser. It's this year's crop, just come out. I am SET for Thanksgiving! And Christmas!

I just finished making his breakfast fruit salad - the 2nd I've made since we hit the road. I have mixed feelings about the latest convenience, which we discovered in Iowa. It's getting ridiculously easy to find fruit already cut and/or peeled, then sold in a plastic clamshell. He has always liked the convenience and not particularly cared about the waste and the possibility of contamination from someone else's hands. I wash/rinse wherever possible to deal with the second issue. For the past two batches I've closed my eyes to the first. Buy the fruit, rinse if feasible, then dump it in. Very little cutting is involved. We've even stooped to packaged, peeled mandarin oranges. He thinks they taste just fine(!) and the salad is for him, not me. I didn't notice until the morning an interesting addition to one of the packages. I've never thought about putting lime, much less Tajin seasoning, on pineapple! What's that about?

Steel Reserve. One of his favorites, not mine. I'm looking forward to picking up (and showing you) some of mine when we get to Arizona.

Breakfast this morning. Nothing special, still good. It's cool, windy and overcast today and predicted to be so all day. We'll be moving tomorrow and doing some preliminary packing later today, but right now I have time to talk about yesterday's adventures and revelations. Yesterday was sunny and relatively warm. We took a drive to see the mighty Pecos River where it joins the Rio Grande, upstream of this reservoir. There's a very high bridge across the Pecos that I photographed from below and above, to give you an idea of just how long and high it is. The two bottom photos of this collage are the view looking upstream at the bridge, and downstream from the same vantage point. What I didn't get was a picture of the helpful signs posted on the highway at both ends of the bridge: "NO DIVING FROM BRIDGE" Someone at the highway department must have quite a sense of humor. The shocking part was seeing just how low the water is. We knew of the widespread drought conditions, but seeing the Pecos and the Rio Grande really brought it home. Here's the confluence. This particular picnic area has a nice little walking path with information posted about the plant community and the rivers in question. Ten years ago we both walked it; the plants and path (and we) were all in good condition, the rivers were quite high, and we learned a lot. Now those two rivers are nearly dry, the path is largely neglected and overgrown, and the plants are struggling to survive. Still, the information was good for that part we walked. (I found a Texas persimmon tree - had forgotten that variety. We may have some near camp.) After our walk we drove back toward town to refuel and get more of his favorite beer. On the counter there was a curious set of cute, lathed cups. It seems rather a waste of copper AND pennies, and I don't understand the point, but somebody had a good time making these little crosses. Free for the taking...not even a penny each. Back at camp, it was his turn to cook. We wanted another crack at the Jalapeno and Cheddar sausage from Miiller's and had one left. He gave it almost the simplest possible treatment. After I took this picture he added onion, long enough to soften it. Potato salads rounded out the meal. He prefers Reser's potato salad when he can find it, and particularly likes their Southern Style. We haven't found it since we left home. He settled for a Deviled Egg potato salad from Walmart. I had the last of the potato salad I'd bought at Cooper's in Llano. Until recently there have been few potato salads that I've liked. They're usually sweet, often gloppy. The glop isn't necessarily a deal-breaker for me, but any sweetness is. I know that puts me in the oddball camp, but there it is. Cooper's includes dill pickles and a bit of something red - roasted pepper? Pimento? The salad isn't hot, nor is it sweet. I have a couple of recipes I want to try that look good. When I get around to making them - something I've intended for well over a month - I'll post them in the Potato Salad Cook-off topic begun by our beloved and sorely-missed David Ross. Anyway, here was last night's dinner: We both thought the jalapeno in the sausage was much too hot, and were glad to be finished with this package. We won't buy it again. We have a similar package, with pepper jack rather than cheddar cheese. Assuming those jalapenos are just as hot, I'll have to do something to temper them.

This HAS been a fun writeup! Like many others, I'm impressed with your physical stamina - both for cycling and eating. I didn't know about Doner Kebab, much less its kinship to shawarma, gyros, and the versions Heidi showed in Southern California. Thank you for that!

I didn't know HEB extended south if the border! Leon sounds like dangerous fun. This HEB is in Del Rio.

We didn't get around to trying the rice patties on Superburger night, but I cooked them last night with the brisket poppers from Miiller's. I used large quantities of cumin and oregano, and some oil-packed oven-roasted tomatoes from this summer (hooray, something I remembered to pack!) chopped up and added in. I coated them in Italian-seasoned bread crumbs and fried them in pecan oil, along with the brisket poppers. There's a story to the pecan oil. I bought it several years ago at a hardware store in Deming, NM. It was pretty expensive but seemed nice, supposedly has a high smoke point. I used it for a while, then forgot about it in the garage refrigerator at home. There it sat, silently reproaching me when I noticed it. I kept thinking it must have gone rancid, but couldn't bring myself to throw it away. Finally this fall I decided to try it and either use or toss it. It was still good! I packed it, vowing that until it's been used up I'm not buying more oil. We also have peanut oil and olive oil on board. Unlike the olive oil, the pecan oil stays liquid in the refrigerator. The verdict on dinner was that the brisket poppers were good and the rice patties were good - surprisingly good, in his opinion. He'd been skeptical of the idea in the first place. The flavors of the two items didn't really compliment each other, unfortunately. The poppers had the good semisweet sourness of unripe jalapenos, and the creaminess of cream cheese, and -- alas -- not much brisket although the bacon made up for it. The rice patties were simply savory. I added Danish Smoked Salt to mine and was satisfied. He kept looking for something sweet and hot. Sriracha was too hot and not sweet enough. That led to one of our incessant discussions about how to boost the flavor of sriracha while taming the heat. (We just talk about it. We haven't tried anything yet.) When we were finished, he said, "You know, I think White Wine Worcestershire sauce would be just the thing." I slapped my forehead. "Heidi suggested Worcestorshire too!" I had forgotten to add it. There's still some of the mixture left, so I'll have another chance to try it.

One good thing about my experimental purchases is that my husband and I have different tastes, and he is considerably less picky than I. For instance, he'll eat mayonnaise although he prefers Miracle Whip. If I have any say in the matter, I'll go without the spread if MW is the only choice. If I don't like the Kewpie, he probably will! But I love your point about its paying for itself with the satisfaction of trying it and throwing it away! We're camped at the Amistad Reservoir, in southern Texas, about 25 miles from Del Rio.

We went to town yesterday, mostly for propane but also to stock up on fresh produce and pick up some of the things I'd realized we forgot to pack: chicken broth and parchment paper, for example. Propane was close to a Walmart - not my favorite, but considerably less dangerous to our wallets than H-E-B. We went to H-E-B anyway. This place is immense. It has an extensive (fill in the blank here) section and selection. Just inside the door there was a sales stand for boxed pecan pies. A masked young woman was holding a box, and I stopped to look. "Would you like to buy one? They're delicious!" she said. They did look good. They looked delicious and I said so, but I have plans for pecan pies following a recipe in Acadiana Table, so I passed. I asked whether I could take her picture: the pies and the saleswoman were so charming! She seemed flattered, but said no, and pointed out that photographs in the store weren't allowed. My photographs from the place are fewer than I'd like, because of that admonition, but I took 'em anyway. Surreptitiously. We didn't buy any meat, but that didn't keep us from dallying and admiring the selection and prices. Ditto for their seafood counter. H-E-B has a lot of their own brands. In past years I've bought selections of olive oil, different varietals, there. I'm overstocked on oils, so I didn't visit that section. I bought coffee, but none of this - I'm not a fan of flavored coffees, as a rule. Still, it was fun to see. We bought wine and beer, and some of the aforementioned missing items, and nonfood items. I wish I could show you their selection of pots and pans! But I didn't take any photos in that section. We still had to go to Walmart for a few things, but H-E-B got most of our business. Directly we got home, I realized we have no hydrogen peroxide in our medicine supplies. It went onto a new list.

@AlaMoi, it sounds as though you've solved the problem of taste, but I'll add another suggestion. If the standard canned black olives work, you might consider green ripe olives of the sort canned by Lindsay Naturals (eG-friendly Amazon.com link). I think they have a much nicer flavor than the standard black olives: buttery, decidedly olivey but mild. I haven't tried a taste comparison between these and castelvetranos, but these might be easier to find.

I'm sure your trip is over now, but one of the wonderful things about blogs like this is that latecomers (like me) can still ask questions. That last night's meal looked fabulous. I must try making schnitzel again. Was your MIL sorry she misssed out, after hearing about the excellent meal? You noted that your FIL had excellent red cabbage. How was it prepared? What was special about it? Thanks for bringing us along. I loved the scenery and museum photos as well as the food photos!

"Plop it on a plate"...ha! I need to show you the definition of "plop"! LOL Yours looks grand. My very best plops don't come close.

That may be what happens with me, but I'm getting more nonchalant about buying something and pitching it if I don't like it and can't foist it off on someone else. Why, I even bought a small bottle of Kewpie mayonnaise last week! Haven't opened it yet.

I'm with you on the turkey! In this case, gator toes are jalapenos stuffed with cheese and sausage, then wrapped with bacon to be baked or fried or grilled. I don't think there's a firm rule or recipe for these various stuffed jalapenos. The people assembling them make up a combination of fillings and wrappings, then assign a fanciful name. The Armadillo Eggs I got at a previous stop were very different than those we got from Miiler's.

Since the "armadillo eggs" from last night and the sausage used in my darling's hash the previous night came from Miiller's Smokehouse*, it's time for one of several trips back to Llano to show some of the culinary scene. Llano bills itself, per state legislative decree, as the Deer Capital of Texas. We love it for its barbecue and interesting one-off retail stores, and its river, and its friendly people, and its fine RV park. One of the attractions is Miiller's Smokehouse. They support and promote the local hunting culture, and barbecue. Boy howdy, they do. There's pretty much everything you need to do your own barbecuing. I didn't take photos of the wood chips and fuels, but there are sauces for the meat, and dips and snacks... ...and apparent local specialty drinks. I didn't photograph their wine selections, but it's pretty impressive as well. There are fresh (more or less) fruits and vegetables, not shown here, and a lot of prepared meals, ready to bake or grill or even boil as appropriate. The "David's Creations" section was interesting, but one section - you can't read it here because of photo quality - gave me pause: Where most of the stuffed and wrapped pork loins ran along the lines of $12 or $13, those in one section were labeled $102 or so! I asked. Yes, it was a misprint on the labels. Yes, they were mortified at the mistake. Yes, they were quite grateful that I'd pointed it out! They have a cold chest full of smoked ham and smoked turkey. Beautiful stuff. No room in the Princessmobile, and we still have half a ham from home, but we can drool. Look at the beautiful bronze color of that turkey! Not all their meat is smoked. If we had room, I'd love to have gotten a brisket or pork butt from them. Again, not nearly enough room. Their deli counter is a wonder to behold. They have beautiful cuts of fresh meat, chicken, and (I think) fish although I could be misremembering that. They also have a nice selection of jalapenos and mushrooms, stuffed with various items and ready to grill or bake. I don't seem to have snapped a pic of their entire sausage selection, but they had a very nice selection of sausages, sealed and stored in a refrigerator case. They also had summer sausage hanging out in the main room. They had samples. We were hooked. The was our haul from that visit: *Funny, I only just realized there are two i's in the way they spell their name. I'll probably misspell it from time to time.

The idea of the "eggs" resting in the saucy rice was what I had in mind, but it didn't come out that way (she says, stating the obvious). Tonight's dinner will be Superburgers, fried, and my thought on the rice patties was to fry them in the fat from those burgers. The cumin and oregano in the patties, with tomatoes on the side, might be just the ticket. Thanks for that idea!

Pinto beans for breakfast this morning. I've finished one container, still have another quart to go. Last night's dinner was "Armadillo Eggs" from Miller's Smokehouse in Llano, accompanied by rice and some of the smoked corn my DIL packaged up for us. I tried the boil-in-a-bag method for reheating the corn, using the same pot as the rice, then mixing them together. It was while I was getting to ready to cook the rice that I realized none of the frozen chicken stock I'd made at home seems to have made it into the freezer. Alas, the same seems to be true of the "Better Than Bouillion" -- of which I have 2 jars each of 3 flavors at home -- and the carton of Swanson's Low-Sodium Chicken Broth that I keep as a hurry-up backup! We got away in reasonably good shape without forgetting too much, I thought, but errors and omissions have been making themselves known. I'll have more to say about that later. The upshot of not having any good cooking liquid was that the rice was bland. Neither the smoked corn nor the drippings from the armadillo eggs helped as much as I'd hoped. I'm going to try improving the leftovers by making rice patties and coating them with seasoned bread crumbs, then frying them. Suggestions welcome. The armadillo eggs were an interesting study. We liked them, but they weren't quite what we expected. They were essentially pork meatballs, wrapped around a small cheese center (pepper jack, I think) and then wrapped on the outside with bacon. I expected a jalapeno inside, and there wasn't one. You can see the cheese in the cut meatball in the photo below. There wasn't much cheese there, and the meatballs weren't as spicy as we expected. They were good, but not as good as other versions I've had. One very surprising comment from my darling last night was that he thought they tasted just like standard beef meatballs! To me they were very porky. He claimed not to know what I meant. I've known for some time that he prefers pork to beef. I thought it was for flavor as well as price. He claimed last night that it's price alone, and that he couldn't tell the difference. Sometime during this trip, perhaps more than once, we'll have to try some blind tastings to see whether that's true. I simply don't believe that he would be unable to distinguish a ribeye steak from a pork steak, both cooked on the grill, or a pork roast from a chuck roast cooked the same way. We shall see. Maybe he was trolling!

This morning I was up early THROUGH NO FAULT OF MY OWN (grrr) and when I decided to give up trying to sleep, went outside to see if I could see any meteors. No luck in that department, but I did get a lovely dawn chorus (too bad this platform doesn't support audio) and sunrise. Then I came back inside and consoled myself with toast and hummus. We took a walk after he got up and got going. Our current camping area is near a reservoir that has been struggling to maintain its water level for some years. When we first started camping here, this campground was quite close to the water, to the point of occasional flooding, and was typically filled with fisherfolk. Now, a sea of green has sprung up where there once was water, and the "boat ramp" is a good mile past the campground. People still come down here to the water, but there aren't as many campers. Not that we mind. We like having the place mostly to ourselves. We were a bit miffed to find that the camping fee has gone up 50% since our last visit! It's now $6/night instead of $4, and half of that for holders of a Golden Age passport or its ilk. The dry land has let us see or infer a lot of wildlife. We've seen wild turkeys and deer. We suspect there are javelinas around, though we haven't seen them and we know they aren't bold enough to come raid our coolers the way they would in state parks. (I commented a couple of days ago, when I was very tired, that the jalapenos around here aren't as tame as in the state parks. That got me a funny look.) I have never seen a walking stick in the wild before today. Now I've seen two. We got back and I had a better breakfast, then started assembling photos to show you. Last night he cooked his beloved hash in our outdoor kitchen. He's finally getting the hang of producing very crispy potatoes the way he likes them. When he first started cooking hash over our campfires and complaining about the texture, I had no idea this was his goal. No wonder he was disappointed by pale, soft potatoes! There's still a little left with which he can make hash and eggs for breakfast. He stuck with his fruit and cereal this morning, good lad.

I looked at the recipes for banana catsup, then thought I might like to try some first. It's available on Amazon - that is, the stuff favored by @johnnyd, which I assume is the one @ElsieD and @blue_dolphin prefer. I also note that the prices are all over the place. I'll look around in stores to see if I can find it there first.

"Banana ketchup"? I missed that discussion. Please tell more.

"Leguminati!" Thanks for the video and the new word!

Thanks for the welcome, everyone! First, a couple of answers: He grew up in a hunting family, and hunted with his father until his mid-teens. I'm not sure he ever shot a deer himself although he ate enough venison to develop a distaste for it. (As far as I know, he put away his firearms the first time he killed a gopher in the garden he and his first wife kept.) I don't know whether he actively dislikes venison or simply dislikes the idea. He seems to like what I cook with deer meat, unless I tell him what he's eating. The same thing holds true for lamb. It's a problem, isn't it? Thanksgiving has been just the two of us since we started traveling half the year. Our question will be what to do about Christmas. The cousins who took on the mantle of family social hub from our parents' generation took a break from hosting 2 Christmases ago for personal reasons. Then the pandemic hit, and there was no question about family gatherings for Christmas 2020. Between the pandemic and the personal reasons, I suspect we won't be gathering this year either. Nobody else is in a position to host. We may have had our last big Christmas together. I'm hoping to get my sister out to join us, at least. Thank you for that vote of confidence! Yes, it works sometimes...and then there are times like last night. Remember that ham that I'd said would go mostly for mac 'n' cheese 'n' ham sometime? Yesterday we had one of those "but I thought you said..." moments where I'd been sure he was going to cook hash and he'd been sure I was going to cook the mac 'n' cheese 'n' ham. Neither of us had done any prep work by sundown; each of us was counting on the other. I lost the coin toss. There's nothing intrinsically difficult about macaroni and cheese, I know. Grate the cheese. In this case, chop the ham. Make the bechamel and add the cheese and seasonings. While that's happening, boil the pasta. Drain the pasta, mix 'em all together, and load into a baking dish. Bake until bubbly. Toppings are optional. For that matter, baking is optional. We like it baked until it develops a bit of a crust. So why is it complicated for me? First off, because I never can remember the right proportions of flour to butter to milk for that white sauce. I've written down our "favorite" version and it keeps getting refined as I work out the type of pasta we like best and the right amount of cheese. I finally think I have it the way we like it, but I still have to keep looking it up. The other complication is digging things out. Behold the over-the-counter cupboards! Pasta top left, flour top right, and -- oh, dear -- spices bottom left. That small whitish basket has to come out to get at the containers of sweet and smoked paprika. I thought there was white pepper somewhere in there, but gave up looking for it and settled for a couple of twists from a mixed-peppercorn grinder. At some point while I was rooting around for all this stuff, my darling said "I had no idea this would be so much work for you. I can start chopping potatoes for hash instead." Grr. Brave and unrealistic words, fueled no doubt by beer! Anyway, it all came out well. My latest refinement is to put the mixture into a large, flat baking dish so it all spreads out more. The Corning dishes I used to use produce thick layers. This was better. Incidentally, we do also eat vegetables. I just haven't been bothering to show them because they're typically afternoon snacks. Above, you see celery conveying to me the last of a ranch horseradish dipping sauce from a few stops ago. I'll miss that stuff. Probably need to work out how to make it.

*Bump* It's amazing how elastic the concept of "roomy" is for me. After being on the road and confined for days to only half the Princessmobile, this feels downright palatial. This is the second time we've opened out since leaving home, but we were mostly preoccupied with non-culinary business. Now, my "must-do" list has shortened from a full tablet page to a short "to do" list, already half-cleared. Time is as elastic as space, and it's stretching out again. I'll have time to start writing about the culinary adventures that punctuated our stays so far. Here's an example of a leisurely "to do" item. The Princessmobile isn't riding as smoothly as it used to, or else we're driving over rougher roads. Almost every time I've opened the door I've found items knocked over that have to be cleared before opening the glides. Among the kitchen mayhem, the utensil caddy has come off its base and needs to be repaired. "Spare room" still doesn't apply to our refrigerator or freezer, however. We left home, true to form, with all cold storage jammed. Three factors came into play here: My usual habit of buying things and storing more during the summer than I could reasonably cook, and his thinking they were beyond him, meant a lot had to come out of the household freezers so I can cook them this winter. His usual ritual of making large batches of chili and split pea stew, divvied into containers and frozen for road food or too-tired-to-cook food. These have been life-savers and are a regular part of our trip planning. These first two items would have made for a full but not overstuffed freezer. The overstuffing came when... ...his daughter and her family came for a wood-cutting weekend at home, and she came laden with gifts she hadn't been able to give us earlier in the season. Smoked corn, frozen in vacuum-sealed packets. Freshly caught fish, fileted and frozen into packets to (unwittingly) supplement my backlog of Wild Alaskan fish. Ground beef from their grass-fed beef supplier. Prime venison cuts as well as breakfast sausage. (Don't tell my darling he's eating venison!) The refrigerator is similarly jammed. We actually have emptied a few containers of food. Our road food, including breakfasts, has relied heavily on the half-ham he cooked and sliced before we left. The container of slices is finished, and this is what's left: It will probably become mac 'n' cheese 'n' ham, most of it, but I'm eyeing some of it for a strata or frittata. On long-travel -- 400 miles, give or take -- days I've made sandwiches the previous night because we're on the road by 08:30. My sandwich preferences are more complex; his more pragmatic. Ham (or turkey) and cheese for him, with Miracle Whip and mustard. Ham (or turkey), cheese, lettuce and pickles go onto my sandwiches, with mayonnaise (NOT MW) and mustard. Mine are tastier, I say. His are better for driving without dripping. I don't like those long days. Sometimes I share the driving duties, but for the most part I sit in the passenger seat, read, watch the scenery go by and wish I could stretch. We've talked about getting a motor home when it comes time to replace the Princessmobile. The advantage would be that the non-driver could move around more. Last night was not a long-distance day, but it was a long one anyway, and we were plenty tired...much too tired for any cooking. It was time for chili and beer. Lots of beer. Then bed. Still...here we are, far southwest of that large "H", while our home base is digging out from its first snowstorm of the season. *I* think this map shows Duluth as the center of the country. *He* thinks it proves we were wise to leave when we did.

Question for those of you with more experience: how do you determine which setting to use for a particular mixture? For instance: in the creamy persimmon sorbet that @blue_dolphin did, there's no dairy. Is that what makes the sorbet setting right for that mixture?

I can see why! That set is beautiful. How large are they?