8 hours ago, Darienne said:We've never lived with constant wind but from what I have learned, it is pretty awful. We thought some years ago about moving to Alberta and were warned to make certain that we did not move to somewhere where the wind blew constantly. It is awful to bear.
Love Spanakopita.
The low humidity may be another factor. Right now our hygrometer is showing 14% inside the Princessmobile. I am drinking a lot of water and using a great deal of skin cream.
(Look on the bright side, she says to herself: many RV's carry a warning not to live in them for extended periods because they aren't built to take the buildup in interior moisture. Not a factor here! )
6 hours ago, IowaDee said:If you have ever watched the film, The Homesman, you know what constant wind can do to a person....
I just read the synopsis. Yowza. I hadn't heard of that one. I remember some detective story writer -- Dashiell Hammett? -- writing about the manic and murderous effect of the Santa Ana winds when they start blowing in the L.A. Basin. When I lived there, some scientific studies suggested that there might be something to it: something about the increase in positive ions in the atmosphere. I've not thought about that in a long time. It's probably been debunked.
All this dryness didn't help the spanakopita bites, though. The ones I stored out on the counter are soggy. Still good, and still best with the highest filling-to-pastry ratio. Storing them in a closed container probably didn't help. Sometime around lunchtime I'll fire up the oven and see whether the remainders get crisp again. I'm sure this would be a good use for a Cuisinart Steam Oven, but our CSO is sitting at home.
@Kim Shook, I don't know why I thought I'd need to cook the puffs first. I've used your trick of making and freezing sausage rolls, then baking from frozen, more than once. I'll try that NEXT time around.
Last night I could have cheerfully chowed down on spanakopita bites, but we had other, more decadent plans for dinner. Remember that last ham? It was the star of the evening.
It's funny about this skillet. Until this year, it was the preferred campfire cooking skillet because of its size, and it lived outside once we were set up for the season. My darling's daughter gave him another skillet with about the same bottom area but with squared sides. He prefers that one because he can push stuff up against the sides without pushing it overboard. I generally prefer the rounder edges so I can do "that flippy thing" with the contents, but I rarely need such a large skillet. The other day he was kvetching about how many skillets we have. Did we really need them all, he grumped. If I'd actually thrown one out in a fit of pique, this would have been the one. It's earned its place in the kitchen again.
