Smithy

How right you are. We are reluctant, rather than loyal, Walmart shoppers but find them quite necessary for some items and in some places. Since I want to spend as little time in there as possible it really chafes for me to have to wander, looking for something. They seem to have multiple models, or else some places are slow to adopt the changes. There is at least 1 Walmart Superstore in Yuma that is an outlier from the others. I avoid it.

I have suspected something like this, but didn't know it until now. Thanks for that. Good to see you back, Porthos. I know you've been busy; thanks for dropping in!

"Hit" vs. "Spew" are inspired choices for the ends of the food-quality spectrum.

That looks delightful, @Annie_H. I used to make pita often, falafel rarely. It's been quite a while since I made either. I think I'll have to change that.

Good morning! Last night's dinner was a success, but you'll have to wait. It's a beautiful day, and I think we'll be away touring. I can tell about yesterday (and the evening before) now, while the collages are fresh in my phone. Yesterday was another dust storm day. It was bad here. It was much, much worse elsewhere. It follows naturally that we had committed to dumping the holding tanks and refilling the water yesterday. The entire process, from getting the Princessmobile ready to move, to driving to the dump station and water station, then returning and resettling the Princessmobile, takes about 4 hours. In this: It is not fun to stand outside in this. Our consolation was sandwiches made from the previous night's dinner. (Are you following this timeline?) It was a boneless pork shoulder roast. You've seen how he cooks it. You know that there is only One. True. Way. To. Cook. Pork. Roast (in his opinion) so I won't belabor the process. Still, it was a fine dinner and he was justifiably proud of the way it came out. The reward was that yesterday morning, when we had to pack up enough to move, and go take care of chores, then return and set back up again in unpleasant conditions, we could have pork sandwiches. The slices you see at lower right above are already atop my sandwich half. He won't allow lettuce on his. Here they are, done just as we like them: His: whole wheat bread, Miracle Whip, horseradish mustard. Nothing else. Mine: sourdough bread, mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, lotta lettuce. If pickles had been handy I might have added them. Each of us declared the sandwiches to be perfection. The sandwiches were large and rich enough that half served as breakfast and the other half was lunch. We had vegetables at dinner. 🙂

Welcome! Are you a commercial fisherman, or do you do it for your own fun only? I stayed near Venice once and loved the Gulf, but don't remember much about the fish that were available. What's a standard catch, and how do you like to cook it?

This is my biggest issue - storage of that much oil, and coming up with yet more storage space for filtered oil. We bought a jug of peanut oil and it's been taking up space under the sink for at least a season, very slowly being used. When it came time for the Wings Cook-Off I used a lot of the bottle's contents for deep frying. Then I had to deal with it. It's a nuisance to filter, and I've nowhere to store it until next use except in the original bottle. Finally I mixed what was left of the unused oil with my darling's vegetable oil - it just filled his quart container, and he'll never notice - and put the filtered oil into the original gallon jug. The paper towels and other cleanup materials went into a campfire. If we had a bear or raccoon problem around here we'd have learned about it then, because the cleanup was in the morning and the fire that evening. Thanks to all for the suggestions on the tots. I shall persevere, and try frying them in more than a tablespoon or two of oil as I did last time. That won't happen tonight, though: (a) we're out of 'em and (b) I have other plans for dinner.

Come to think of it, that's what I did with a package of mixed vegetables (cauliflower, broccoli, carrot) a week or two ago, because I was looking for something easy. We were both quite happy with the result from steam, a bit of butter and some curry powder. I just didn't remember that I'd "borrowed" the technique from somewhere else. A friend in college used to say "Originality is concealing your source." 😄

I certainly understand your dislike of the bony fish and desire to avoid it! Still, I wonder: could you have used that waste to make fish broth before tossing the remains into the compost? You're such a creative cook that I can imagine fish broth featuring in some of your dishes.

Oh, thank you for that! I'd forgotten his little explanation of it...and I miss him too. That quote is a good (and funny) reminder.

We've seen the sun rise from behind the mountains for the last time this spring. It's getting warmer, but still windy (and windy...and windy...) and yesterday was a fully-scheduled day with a late finish. We opted for a quick and easy dinner: pre-breaded fish, Tater Tots, and planned-over green beans. I decided to follow @Dave the Cook' advice. Clearly, I'm inept at shallow frying. The tots disintegrated. Mind you, they were good - but might as well have been hash browns from the outset. I'll be pleased to try shallow-frying them again with further guidance, but since we finished that package I think the next effort will be shredded potatoes for hash browns. It was also the last of the Van de Kamp's beer-battered filets. They were good. The green beans from a couple of nights ago are also still good. Did y'all spot the algorithm error in the recipe scaler? I thought it funny, but since the shirts are also funny I don't know which joke prompted the laughs.

I wish I had access to an Egyptian restaurant! That bosbossa (sp?) looks good. So does the chicken.

I'd like to say I shall never again put buttermilk rather than half-and-half in my coffee, but it was my husband who made that foul mistake when he kindly poured some for me. Too bad it was the last of the coffee for the day.

@sartoric, I think of shatta as the Egyptian (or perhaps more broadly Arabic) chili pepper. What is it in this case?

My DIL has a Vitamix and I've gotten to play with it a bit. I rather envy her the appliance, but like you I find the jar very inconvenient to clean. I would like it much better if it had a screw-off base like my (admittedly not high-powered) Oster blender. Fortunately for me, it's not my problem...it's hers!

I think it will be interesting to compare parboiling, as in ElsieD's preparation, with the precooking in 300F oil that the Buttermilk & Bourbon recipe uses. If the results are the same, I'd much rather go with water...but, as Dave and Heidi just mentioned, maybe neither step is important.

A few posts ago I promised to show you a new-to-me green bean recipe my friend and I tried in San Diego. Last night I cooked that dish, but there was so much kitchen chaos that my only photo is of dinner. Not that it's a difficult recipe, but it has a technique that I think is a real winner. For the recipe and full description of the steps, go to Green Bean Salad with Toasted Almonds & Feta on the Cookie + Kate website. The new step to me is something Kate says she "borrowed" from America's Test Kitchen: steam the beans in a covered skillet with a little water, and when they're nearly tender then lift the lid and cook off the water. I can tell you from a near-disaster that this is no time to be distracted! Once the water boils off the beans can burn quickly. I had to remove the beans and clean the skillet it to get the char off before adding the dressing. Anyway, the basic steps are: toast the nuts in a dry skillet, then remove them to a small dish add the beans and water (and a bit of salt) to the skillet, cover and steam until nearly tender, then remove the lid and cook the water off meanwhile, mix up a vinaigrette when the bean water is cooked off, add the vinaigrette, nuts and some feta, and toss garnish with more feta, lemon zest and some basil (I didn't have any), then serve. The recipe scaler has a hilarious algorithm error. I told Kate about it in my comments; she thanked me and may get around to correcting it. I immortalized it for your amusement in case she does. The green beans were a hit last night, and so were the pork steaks. (His shirt says "I'm not arguing I'm just explaining why I'm right". We got them for each other!)

I'd never have thought of boiling the wings first. I may have to try that. @ElsieD's wings look delicious!

Thanks for that information. What internal temperature would you use in this case?

Look at that sun move north! Unfortunately, the wind is still howling. It lulled briefly yesterday evening - enough that my darling said "we could have cooked over a campfire!" By then I had made other plans for dinner. Sometime in the night the wind came up again - unusual for nighttime - and despite the furnace it was cold. Well, cold by our standards. 50F outside right now, with the wind chill making it more like 40F. I know, I won't get much sympathy. I didn't get around to doing the green beans yesterday as I'd planned, but I did try out a recipe that @Ann_T has shown to great advantage on the Dinner topic: Parmesan Crusted Halibut, as posted on her web site. I am not as good a cook as Ann_T. The recipe looks so easy. Set up 3 bowls: one with flour, one with egg wash, one with a mixture of shredded parmesan, panko and lemon zest. Dredge, dip, then coat each filet. Pan-fry until one side develops a good golden brown crust, then flip the filets and put the pan into a 450F oven until the fish centers are "pearly white and opaque". My first issue was oven space. We also wanted Tater Tots, and they bake at the same 450F. The oven has only 1 rack, but I thought I could make the baking sheet of Tots and the pan of fish share that rack. I was mistaken. I had given the Tots a head start by 15 or 20 minutes, but still had to stack them atop the skillet while the fish finished cooking in the oven. (Doesn't the fish look beautiful after the initial flip?) The problem with this method was that I had no easy way to check the fish without disturbing the tots. The recipe doesn't give a time estimate for how long the fish will take to arrive at that "pearly white and opaque" stage. I can tell you now that it's well under 10 minutes. Pretty, isn't it? Travesty of travesties, the fish was terribly overcooked. Hard, flavorless meat. Halibut isn't among my fish favorites anyway, but what little flavor it had was certainly cooked out because of my ineptitude. There ensued at the table a long, circular dissection of the dish. My darling was, and still is today, convinced that the fish filets were too thick for this method. I couldn't get him to acknowledge that a thinner filet would have been even more overcooked! To be honest, I think for him it's more about the coating than the fish itself. The coating itself is fabulous, and the method is easy. I will try this again, probably with thinner filets, almost certainly with different fish. (I think - and hope - we're out of halibut now.) I think with a thinner fish I'll just pan-fry it on both sides and forget the oven. Then I'll have the oven available for tots, or better still for Ann_T's oven fries. I also think I'll try that coating on chicken. Parmesan-crusted chicken, anyone? I think that will be excellent.

Here was the procedure for the cukes, per my friend: Peel 2 medium to large cucumbers. Slice them very thinly (I think it was the smallest slot on my mandoline; basically, you want the slices so thin they're flexible and almost transparent.) Put them into a bowl. Whisk about 1/2 tsp salt and 1/2 tsp sugar into about 1/2 cup vinegar. The friend who taught my friend this recipe used white wine vinegar, but we didn't have any. I don't remember whether we used rice vinegar, white vinegar, red wine vinegar or a mixture, but we decided later that the vinegar type probably doesn't matter. At any rate, it needs to be enough to cover the cucumbers, but just barely. Pour the mixture over the cuke slices and let them marinade for at least an hour. You want them to collapse and "wilt" somewhat in the marinade. Drain the cukes and squeeze the excess moisture out. Make little golf ball-sized mounds, squeezing with your fingers to shape them and drain out a bit more moisture. Place on a plate. Garnish with something of a contrasting color: I said sumac, but actually hers was so dark she used a little sprinkling of ground red pepper flakes instead.

Yes, I'll definitely do the cukes again when it gets warmer! I will say, however, that we were glad to have a large kitchen, plenty of counter space, and three of us working on dinner. He handled the couscous and rice, she handled the chicken and the cukes, I did the green beans - and we were barely ready when company arrived. The cukes can be done up to a day in advance, I think. I'll get clarification on that point.

On my way out of San Diego I found a Ralph's grocery and a World Market. I was on the hunt for Berbere spice from World Market, having discovered that the blends are not all created equal. They were out. There were MASSIVE gaps in their supplies! Ralph's grocery store claimed online that they carried the Greenland feta cheese we like. We're nearly out. Unfortunately, that must be another Ralph's in San Diego. This one didn't have it. Still, it's an impressive store and I took a few pictures to give y'all a glimpse of yet another very nice grocery store. Their cheese selection is in a special area set off by itself, and the selection is massive. I didn't photograph the deli section, which was just as large, but some of their snack sausages were near the cheeses. I confess: I'd never thought of mac 'n' cheese as being a shredded cheese mix worth buying. I still don't. The produce area is gorgeous. This is just a very small sample: Finally, for @rotuts, here's their olive bar. Keep in mind this is Southern California, in an area where masks are requested required although shopowners have given up enforcing it. They seem to have decided that some folks are okay with serving their own and others want it already packaged. Still...no Greenland feta cheese. I bought a sandwich for the road (roasted chicken, lettuce on a very nutty whole grain bread) and hit the road.

Backing up a little bit: while I was in San Diego my best friend and I cooked some fine meals and thoroughly enjoyed our visiting. For one dinner party we had a chicken tagine made more or less according to a recipe in Elizabeth Bard's charming Lunch in Paris: a Love Story, with Recipes (eG-friendly Amazon.com link), and served over couscous or rice depending on each guest's taste. The side dishes were a smashingly good green bean dish, and very thinly sliced cucumbers that had been marinated in vinegar for a few hours then drained, squeezed and shaped into little cones garnished with sumac. I'm cooking that green bean dish tonight, so I'll tell more about it in another post. Here's the recipe, as a placeholder: Green Bean Salad with Toasted Almonds and Feta. The need for the cucumbers to be thinly sliced sparked an email discussion about whether I had a mandoline that I could bring along, and was it really a mandoline or a madeleine? I'm afraid my email answer led to umbrage being taken, but we had some laughs about it later. We spent a lot of time discussing the virtues of various mandolines; if she buys one she'll want one that can also julienne. I came very near to pulling the trigger to buy one that would do that (mine is a cheapo adjustable slicer) and now, of course, all my online adverts are for mandolines! We had one rather strange lunch in which she pulled out a package from the freezer that must have been left behind by their housesitter while they were away for the holidays. Don't you love all the warning labels? We cooked it per directions, split it up, and decided that it needed crunch. Sunflower seeds did the trick. The best we could say about this was that it was innocuous. Not bad, but not something either of us would seek out. At least we got it out of the freezer!

Given the weather most of you are experiencing, I probably won't get much sympathy when I say that it was 45F last night and we're in the second day of a wind storm. Two nights ago a cold front went through and the trailer started rocking as the wind blew. This was yesterday's sunrise, and later on the same mountain range that disappeared due to blowing dust. We went to town despite the weather. It was Old Farts Discount Day at Fry's groceries, and boy did we save money! (Translation: that 10% discount justifies far too much spending.) There were gaps in the grocery aisles, but overall the place was well stocked and we got what we needed. I didn't take any photos inside the store this time. Seen on the way out of town: the vanished hills to the north (in the top picture) and part of a mural I keep wanting to show you. Maybe this way I'll remember to show you the whole thing. Seen between town and our campsite: the hard-working picking crews, out in that wind and dust, harvesting our winter crops. I think this one was cabbage, but it could have been cauliflower, broccoli, lettuce, or several other row crops that are steadily planted, tended and harvested in what seems like astonishingly short times. Think of these people whenever you're eating fresh produce that, like me, you didn't grow yourself.