Camping, Princess Style

[Shelby]

3 hours ago, Smithy said:

 

That was the internal meat temperature on my makeshift smoker! 😄 Believe me, I wouldn't be staying here if it was that hot outside!

OH 🤣

 

I even thought your husband must be so happy with it that hot LOL.

 

 

[lindag]

1 hour ago, Kerry Beal said:

Hey 107 is better than Minnesota!

Says you.  I'd do much better with Minnesota's cold.

[rotuts]

107 might be dry ?

 

not sp bad in the shade ? 

 

tall Personal Beverage ?

 

lots of ice ?

 

in the dr9nk of course 

 

not the ground ?

[Smithy]

Trust me, @rotuts: 107F, even as a dry heat, is too hot. I get very cranky and/or tired if I have to do ANYTHING in that temperature range, even though I grew up with it in Central California. My heat tolerance is long gone. But maybe I'm kidding myself about being able any more to cope with Minnesota's winter; I've missed out on it for quite a few years.

 

So, since this all began with a discussion about the meat-smoking experiment, I'll jump out of the blog time sequence and tell about it.

 

I'm a regular reader of and dreamer over Hank Shaw's website, Hunter-Angler-Gardener-Cook. I get his newsletter. I read it, and bookmark recipes, and sometimes (rarely) get around to cooking them. This one caught me eye a while ago: Smoked Venison Backstrap. Look at the cover photo for that recipe! 

 

 

 

Source: Hank Shaw's recipe for Smoked Venison Backstrap, linked above and again here.

 

The backstory:

My daughter-in-law bestowed a backstrap and some other deer meat on us...well, this is embarrassing but it was fall of 2020! It sat in our deep freeze. It made the round trip with us last year. It sat in our deep freeze again this summer, then came along with us on the road. This is no way to treat good meat no matter how rare or common. Indeed it's a way to turn good meat into bad. The difficulty is that my darling looks askance at ANY deer meat, and I have to find the right treatment for it. Given his penchant for pork, sausage and burgers, and my penchant to be very busy much of the summer, I never got around to using it. Guilt, guilt, guilt trip. This fall I packed it along again in the Princessmobile's freezer, and promised myself to do something with it. I decided that the salt cure in this smoked venison recipe might be just the ticket. I thawed it at our last stop, checked for freezer burn (none), measured the salt and rubbed it in. Then I wrapped it again and let it cure in the refrigerator. 

 

"What is that meat?" he kept asking. "Backstrap," I'd say. We had that conversation many times, each time with him looking skeptical. Finally, the day of the cook, I told him the source of the meat. He's good about eating whatever I cook, but I saw him flinch.

 

Next up was working out a smoker. I've never tried smoking over an open fire pit (more on our firepit later) and didn't particularly want to smoke inside the Princessmobile. I set up our little portable barbecue grill, got the coals going, soaked some mesquite chips and added them, then spent the next few hours trying to regulate the temperature. The best method seemed to be the old indirect method: coals and wood ships on one side, meat in a foil pie pan on the other. There wasn't much clearnace, given that the whole grill is maybe 18" across. But I persevered. It was either that or smoke up my wok on the campstove outside.

 

While it was smoking, I worked on the necessaries for tacos. Chopping up tomatoes and lettuce is no big deal, but I also needed to deal with some roasted chiles I'd bought at our last stop. I also wanted to make the quick-pickled red onions to which @liuzhou introduced us some time ago, and that meant breaking out the mandoline. And finding the right vinegar. (The sugar was in another cabinet like this one, and the onion in a basket atop the cabinets. The mixing bowl was also high up, as was a pickling container. I did a lot of step-ladder work for this meal!)

 

 

There were also the tasks of shredding cheese, and later on warming the tortillas and digging out some of our salsa.

 

 

It was all worth it. I thought the salsa overkill, but he liked it.

 

And now you know how 107F was not intolerably hot around here! 

 

 

[rotuts]

@Smithy  

 

wonderful adventures

 

spent a few summers in Arizona 

 

Sabino Canyon

 

6 - 8 YO

 

different metabolic ?

 

then I saw this 

 

'' https://electrek.co/2022/12/03/tesla-semi-electric-motorhome-renders/ ''

 

for the Future

[Smithy]

On 12/4/2022 at 12:53 PM, rotuts said:

@Smithy  

 

wonderful adventures

 

spent a few summers in Arizona 

 

Sabino Canyon

 

6 - 8 YO

 

different metabolic ?

 

then I saw this 

 

'' https://electrek.co/2022/12/03/tesla-semi-electric-motorhome-renders/ ''

 

for the Future

 

We have no doubt that both our metabolisms have changed with the years, and that as children we were much more impervious to temperature swings. He's farther along than I am, and there may be temperamental differences as well.

 

Speaking of getting far along: as we age, managing the Princessmobile becomes more cumbersome. Perhaps by the time a good electric motorhome is available, we'll be ready to downsize. Thanks for that article!

Edited December 7, 2022 by Smithy
spelling (log)

[rotuts]

@Smithy 

 

UpSize

 

when your upgrase

 

it will have various robots .

 

electrical for various activities.

[FauxPas]

1 hour ago, Smithy said:

that meant breaking out the mandoline. And finding the right vinegar. (The sugar was in another cabinet like this one, and the onion in a basket atop the cabinets. The mixing bowl was also high up, as was a pickling container. I did a lot of step-ladder work for this meal!)

 

Things may be stored in various locations, but I am always impressed at how much you seem to be able to store overall. 🙂

 

Your meal looks like a lot of fun and you must feel great about finally making use of that venison gift! 

 

[Shelby]

I'm envious of your chiles.  I'm going to check the hatch Chile sites to see if I can get the frozen ones since it's colder here maybe I can do slower shipping.....

[Smithy]

 This narrative is going to skip around in time like some demented Dr. Who. I'm going to talk about our arrival at camp and a few events here, THEN go back to Llano and parts in between.

 

We arrived on Thanksgiving weekend, expecting to find our old campsite occupied at least through the weekend. Nope. Nobody here.

 

Not only was nobody here, but nobody had been here since we left last spring. We usually have to rebuild our campfire cooking ring. It was still intact. All the wood we had left behind was still there! Our decorative rocks were still there!

 

 

Bit by bit, we got the camp kitchen put out and put to use. Hash, of course, was on the menu that night.

 

 

He hasn't been completely satisfied with his latest efforts. Is the camp stove not getting hot enough? Does the type of potato matter? We only brought russets. He wants to get Yukon Golds at our next shopping trip to see whether the variety is the issue.

 

The weather has been a bit of a surprise, and the the camp stove gave us the biggest surprise the night he cooked hash.

 

 

We've never seen a propane bottle develop a frost layer. Yes, the propane was getting low (he had to finish inside) but still, for the bottle to get that cold and for there to be enough humidity in the desert to get that frost was fascinating.

 

We've picked up a bit of decoration on one of our walks, from someone else's abandoned campsite. 

 

 

We didn't know whether it was functional, but we're inveterate trash-picker-uppers, so it came home with us. That night, it shone on my darling's cooking efforts!

 

We've had beautiful sunsets, as always...

 

...and, often, beautiful sunrises. Then there was yesterday:

 

 

...followed by learning that the refrigerator had quit! 

[Shelby]

3 minutes ago, Smithy said:

 This narrative is going to skip around in time like some demented Dr. Who. I'm going to talk about our arrival at camp and a few events here, THEN go back to Llano and parts in between.

 

We arrived on Thanksgiving weekend, expecting to find our old campsite occupied at least through the weekend. Nope. Nobody here.

 

Not only was nobody here, but nobody had been here since we left last spring. We usually have to rebuild our campfire cooking ring. It was still intact. All the wood we had left behind was still there! Our decorative rocks were still there!

 

 

Bit by bit, we got the camp kitchen put out and put to use. Hash, of course, was on the menu that night.

 

 

He hasn't been completely satisfied with his latest efforts. Is the camp stove not getting hot enough? Does the type of potato matter? We only brought russets. He wants to get Yukon Golds at our next shopping trip to see whether the variety is the issue.

 

The weather has been a bit of a surprise, and the the camp stove gave us the biggest surprise the night he cooked hash.

 

 

We've never seen a propane bottle develop a frost layer. Yes, the propane was getting low (he had to finish inside) but still, for the bottle to get that cold and for there to be enough humidity in the desert to get that frost was fascinating.

 

We've picked up a bit of decoration on one of our walks, from someone else's abandoned campsite. 

 

 

We didn't know whether it was functional, but we're inveterate trash-picker-uppers, so it came home with us. That night, it shone on my darling's cooking efforts!

 

We've had beautiful sunsets, as always...

 

...and, often, beautiful sunrises. Then there was yesterday:

 

 

...followed by learning that the refrigerator had quit! 

OH NO!  Ugh.  And on Thanksgiving weekend to boot.  Bet it was hard to find a repair place????  

 

Is that fog or a haboob?

[blue_dolphin]

15 minutes ago, Smithy said:

..followed by learning that the refrigerator had quit! 

Oh, no!

[Smithy]

8 minutes ago, Shelby said:

OH NO!  Ugh.  And on Thanksgiving weekend to boot.  Bet it was hard to find a repair place????  

 

Is that fog or a haboob?

 

That's fog. (I love it that you know the word 'haboob'!) This was the view out our other window. We couldn't see all the way across the wash! Neither of us remembers seeing fog here before.

 

 

The trouble with boondocking is that it's difficult to get repair people almost any time. At least there now are mobile repair operations; we couldn't find any here 5 years ago. However, most of them are out near the other end of Yuma, roughly 45 miles away, and don't want to come out here. We don't blame them, but of course we didn't want to break camp if we could help it.

 

The good news is that the refrigerator would run as long as the generator was running, so the refrigerator itself still worked. Sort of. We knew we had propane. When we realized what was happening, we kept the generator running long enough to get its temperature back down below 51F, where it had arrived overnight. We (that is, I) called around, finally found someone who would come out...but probably not that day.

 

We started thinking about what might need to be cooked that night. And would all the contents of the freezer thaw before we could get help? Should I drive to town and get ice?

 

Another mobile repairman who specializes in appliances but wouldn't come out saved us. He noted that propane refrigerators, especially in boondocking situations, often develop rust around the burner. He advised me to check the burner and look for rust, and look and listen for sparks. My darling and I removed the heat shielding and took a look...and swept away some dirt...and tried again. The sparker sparked, the propane whooshed, and the whole refrigerator started working again! We cleaned it out a bit more, then waited to see what would happen the next time we used the generator. When the refrigerator is on 110v, the propane shuts off. Would it restart? 

 

So far, it has. Maybe more cleaning needed, but this morning the temperature was back down to 36F. Maybe we'll get some ice made. 🙂

 

We celebrated with leftovers from this pork rib dinner of a few nights ago.

 

 

Oh, and of course we celebrated with wine and beer.

[Margaret Pilgrim]

Eat your hearts out, urban Sub-Zero techs!    Boondock repairmen know how to get stuff done!

[blue_dolphin]

Phew!  I’m very relieved!

[Shelby]

53 minutes ago, Smithy said:

 

That's fog. (I love it that you know the word 'haboob'!) This was the view out our other window. We couldn't see all the way across the wash! Neither of us remembers seeing fog here before.

 

 

The trouble with boondocking is that it's difficult to get repair people almost any time. At least there now are mobile repair operations; we couldn't find any here 5 years ago. However, most of them are out near the other end of Yuma, roughly 45 miles away, and don't want to come out here. We don't blame them, but of course we didn't want to break camp if we could help it.

 

The good news is that the refrigerator would run as long as the generator was running, so the refrigerator itself still worked. Sort of. We knew we had propane. When we realized what was happening, we kept the generator running long enough to get its temperature back down below 51F, where it had arrived overnight. We (that is, I) called around, finally found someone who would come out...but probably not that day.

 

We started thinking about what might need to be cooked that night. And would all the contents of the freezer thaw before we could get help? Should I drive to town and get ice?

 

Another mobile repairman who specializes in appliances but wouldn't come out saved us. He noted that propane refrigerators, especially in boondocking situations, often develop rust around the burner. He advised me to check the burner and look for rust, and look and listen for sparks. My darling and I removed the heat shielding and took a look...and swept away some dirt...and tried again. The sparker sparked, the propane whooshed, and the whole refrigerator started working again! We cleaned it out a bit more, then waited to see what would happen the next time we used the generator. When the refrigerator is on 110v, the propane shuts off. Would it restart? 

 

So far, it has. Maybe more cleaning needed, but this morning the temperature was back down to 36F. Maybe we'll get some ice made. 🙂

 

We celebrated with leftovers from this pork rib dinner of a few nights ago.

 

 

Oh, and of course we celebrated with wine and beer.

I'm relieved too.  That was a very nice guy that told you that tip.

 

I really like the word haboob --I wish Wordle was 6 letters so it would come up 😁

[Smithy]

The refrigerator and freezer have been on the wimpy side for a while -- probably due to increasing dirt and maybe rust -- and seem to be working better now. When I said "now maybe we'll have ice" I wasn't joking.

 

Back on Hash Cooking Day, my darling was doing his prep work in the afternoon, as he usually does: chop the onions, then the potatoes, and pull out the tube steak of his preference. He makes smaller batches than he used to, and one sausage is more than adequate. We're loaded with pairs of delicious Llano Links (I'll show them to you later, when I back up to Llano). He had pulled out a fresh package.

 

"Wait," I said, "we already have an opened package with only 1 sausage in it. Here, I'll get it out for you." I opened the freezer.

 

"Don't touch that!" he said. "I'm using it to stabilize the ice tray!"

 

 

I do hope we'll have ice by tomorrow morning.

[Smithy]

Yesterday was a day to drive to town: drop off garbage, get more water and gasoline, go grocery shopping, pick up some trailer supplies.

 

I know, you've seen the refrigerator and freezer. Why on earth would we need groceries?! But there are consumables (fruit, vegetables, half-and-half for me and Silk for him) that simply must be replenished regularly. We had a list. We almost stuck to it, although one rack of pork ribs made it into our shopping cart.

 

The reason that rack made it into our shopping cart was the success from the last rack. I haven't said much about grocery shopping along our route so far. The last stop in Arizona had been fairly expensive. The groceries in Llano, Texas had been horrendous. ($5 for a small head of lettuce?! We went without.) Prices in Yuma are up in general and sometimes astronomical, but there are bargains to be had.

 

The rack of St. Louis-style ribs was one of them. If you've been following along, you'll know that my darling's favorite protein source is pork. We spotted a bargain a couple of weeks ago and bought it. (We did not buy the pork butt at the top of this collage. I put it in there for price comparison.)

 

 

Then the question was how to cook it in the Princessmobile. None of our heavy covered pans will hold all those ribs without stacking. We thought we wanted to cook it all at once for time and fuel efficiency. Finally, we settled on a pair of cooling racks strung atop a baking sheet, with foil tented over the lot. He likes the syrupy barbecue sauce from the Mesquite Pit Grill in Mineral Wells, TX (another place I haven't shown you yet this trip) and I like the vinegary sauce from Cooper's in Llano. We each got a half-rack, with occasional basting using the sauce of choice. The initial rub was a Cooper's salt-and-pepper combination, since I can't find the coffee-ancho rub I especially like. (The spice rub is probably something else I forgot to pack. I keep discovering lapses and omissions. Our housesitter sends them along if I think it's important enough.)

 

Here's a mid-cook photo, from when I removed the foil to baste again.

 

 

Low and slow it was, for I-don't-remember-how-long, until the ribs seemed done that night. Meanwhile, I made a huge batch of green beans with walnuts and feta. Dinner was good.

 

 

Fast forward a few days, and one night when neither of us felt like cooking we each had another couple of ribs, slow-braised in the oven. They seemed better.

 

Last night, by the time we got back home, unpacked everything, went for our evening walk and enjoyed the scenery...

 

 

 

...we were out of energy and ambition. Leftovers are a good thing. We slow-braised the last 4 ribs, microwaved the vegetables of our choice (beans for me, brussels sprouts for him) and noted that this time the ribs were best of all! As Paula Wolfert said long ago, repeated braising can improve the meat's flavor and tenderness.

 

 

That rack was a bargain in the first place, but by the time we got 3 meals out of it, it was a basement bargain! We're glad we got another yesterday.

 

 

[FauxPas]

6 hours ago, Smithy said:

That rack was a bargain in the first place, but by the time we got 3 meals out of it, it was a basement bargain! We're glad we got another yesterday.

 

 

Definitely an amazing deal for those ribs! And some lovely meals from them. I adore green beans. 

 

Do you ever cook pork ribs in your Instant Pot? That's my standard method for cooking them now, with apple juice instead of water. And since I have two IPs, I can cook a fair amount at once. Then they get brushed with sauce and briefly cooked in the oven or on the grill. 

[Smithy]

1 minute ago, FauxPas said:

 

 

Definitely an amazing deal for those ribs! And some lovely meals from them. I adore green beans. 

 

Do you ever cook pork ribs in your Instant Pot? That's my standard method for cooking them now, with apple juice instead of water. And since I have two IPs, I can cook a fair amount at once. Then they get brushed with sauce and briefly cooked in the oven or on the grill. 

 

I've never tried that! We have a 3-quart IP in the Princessmobile, and electrical power when the generator is running. How long do you do the ribs for? How much apple juice do you use: just brush the ribs with it, or put some in the bottom of the pot?

[FauxPas]

23 minutes ago, Smithy said:

 

I've never tried that! We have a 3-quart IP in the Princessmobile, and electrical power when the generator is running. How long do you do the ribs for? How much apple juice do you use: just brush the ribs with it, or put some in the bottom of the pot?

 

I usually use a 6 qt IP, so don't know how much would fit in the 3 qt. I just put a cup or so of apple juice in the bottom, it's in place of water. I do think it adds a little bit of flavour. I do the ribs on high pressure for about 20 to 25 mins and then let them sit for a bit before I do the release.

 

I've sometimes thought some kind of spicy apple BBQ sauce would be pretty awesome for the next step and I looked at some recipes but have never followed through on that part. 

 

Edited to add: You can still do a dry rub before the ribs go into the IP. I usually just do salt and pepper and maybe some garlic and onion powder. 

Edited December 9, 2022 by FauxPas (log)

[Smithy]

I said I'd start working my way back through our trip to date. Here's a grocery store we'd never tried before, near where we stayed for 2 weeks in Arizona. Rather than going to Fry's as we normally would, we decided to try a Food City grocery store. This is a big store; there are at least 2 in Casa Grande, near where we were staying. For some reason I didn't get any pictures of the produce department, but it was good: a wide selection, pretty good prices. We stocked up on our fruits and vegetables there. (How could I have failed to get pictures!? Sorry!)

 

Their meat department is good too. We didn't need any meat, but that didn't stop us from ogling.

 

 

 

Some of their selections were sold out that day.

 

 

The meat counter had plenty of prepared meats.

 

 

I found this party pack especially tempting, but passed it up.

 

 

As you can see, they cater to the Hispanic crowd.

 

 

Not only were there piñatas for children...

 

 

...there were also adult-style piñatas! Gives a different meaning to throwing a bash!

 

 

Lots of spices, and a selection of chilis.

 

 

I availed myself of some of their hibiscus buds. I love this stuff!

 

[Shelby]

12 minutes ago, Smithy said:

I availed myself of some of their hibiscus buds. I love this stuff!

What do you do with this?

[heidih]

1 hour ago, Shelby said:

What do you do with this?

Not @Smithy but I love it. Makes a tart iced drink. In the Islamds they call it sorrel. Here is a Serious Eats primer. https://www.seriouseats.com/tea-technique-how-to-brew-hibiscus-tea-what-is-jamaica-tea  and generally  https://www.forbes.com/sites/daphneewingchow/2021/12/31/hibiscus-or-sorrel-will-be-the-biggest-flavor-of-2022/?sh=2d4840c75258

[Nancy in Pátzcuaro]

It's ubiquitous here in México. I find it particularly refreshing in hot weather.