Camping, Princess Style

[Shelby]

I’d do the almond crust. Pecans with lemons sounds delicious 

 

sigh I just got up from a long nap I meant pecans lol

Edited Saturday at 06:55 PM by Shelby (log)

[FauxPas]

 

@Smithy, I'm with @Shelby, I think the almond  (oops 😁) pecan crust sounds lovely. 🙂

 

I love a bit of nutty flavour in crusts, I think it would be nice with the lemon bars. 

[ElsieD]

I think they all look good.  Personally i'd make the ones with pecans, assuming no nut allergies.

[Smithy]

Today felt like a molasses day, and not in a good way. I can't blame the weather. It was pleasant: not too cool, not too warm; I left the windows open all day and was rewarded with nice breezes. I can't blame the conveniences of being here: water, sewer hookup, electricity. I'm using them all in abundance, in ways that I wouldn't if I were boondocking. Why, with all these greens I'm washing, you'd think I was living somewhere with plenty of water!

 

 

Grump factor 1: I can partly blame wading through the latest batch of mail, and starting to sort through my tax records. I had plenty of time to work on them today, and plenty of pleasant news in the mail. The taxes aren't likely to be terrible, but they're about my least favorite thing in the world to work on. I am prone to throwing "tax related" things loosely into a folder, willy-nilly. Eventually it all has to be sorted. Do I change my ways and impose some sort of order as I go? Well, I haven't yet. 

 

Grump factor 2: the night before last I realized I'd run myself out of coffee, and had only half a cup yesterday morning. So yesterday after doing laundry, I made a trip to the grocery store for coffee; the salad greens you see above; the ingredients I'll need for the Aji de Gallina, now that the Aji Amarilla paste has finally arrived; and pet supplies that ran the ticket up past reasonable. Then, today, I realized that I'd need to go to the grocery store AGAIN in order to make those lemon bars. It doesn't matter which recipe I choose; I'll need sugar and butter. So, another trip to the grocery store.

 

I wanted a small bag of sugar, and was rewarded with the "easy pour" boxes that they're discontinuing. Okay, 4 lbs is more than I'd wanted to buy, but I shouldn't need to get any more this trip. 

 

 

I hadn't been pleased with my attempt at pulverizing sugar enough to powder it, so I gave in and bought powdered sugar. I had these choices:

 

 

and then spotted this smaller bag of powdered sugar that doesn't contain cornstarch.

 

 

It, er, has tapioca starch instead. I'll be interested to see how it behaves. 

 

Gratitude check: I should not allow those grump factors above get me down. I'm grateful for leisure and health to do this sort of things, and money enough to do them although I'm hardly rich. But I've really had to struggle to feel gratitude today.

 

Gratuitous desert tracks, that I enjoyed spotting. Wouldn't this make a nice embroidery pattern?

 

 

And finally, I'm grateful for leftovers...or planned-overs, as Anna N would have called them. I got home from the grocery store with too little time or energy to cook. I still have a bit of this panade left over after tonight, and I have the ingredients already prepped for another entire batch.

 

 

When exactly I'll get around to making the enchiladas, or aji de gallina, or bacon-wrapped asparagus before the asparagus goes off, is anyone's guess. But tomorrow, by golly, I'll be making those lemon bars!

Edited Sunday at 04:45 AM by Smithy
Minor word adjustments (log)

[Maison Rustique]

@Smithy, I keep wondering how you get your mail whilst you are on the road like this. I'm sure there are important things that need to be seen sooner rather than later. I hope that isn't nosy. I'm just curious on the off-chance that I ever take an extended trip of some sort.

[Smithy]

2 hours ago, Maison Rustique said:

@Smithy, I keep wondering how you get your mail whilst you are on the road like this. I'm sure there are important things that need to be seen sooner rather than later. I hope that isn't nosy. I'm just curious on the off-chance that I ever take an extended trip of some sort.

 

The best has been when we had a house-sitter who paid enough attention to the mail to suspect when something important had come in. These days, it's a neighbor who kindly collects the mail and boxes it all securely. When there's a full box, or when I ask because I'm expecting something important, she sends it along.

 

Most postal areas offer General Delivery, in which mail can be sent to them and they'll hold it for pickup. You have to go online to look at services offered for a particular Post Office, or else do a search on General Delivery to see who offers it in your area. That only officially works for 30 days out of any given year, though. Once we began staying in one spot longer, we rented a Post Office box. It's an excellent service, and IMO a bargain.

 

Over the years we've also had the box of mail, or packages, sent to friends or family where we planned to visit. There have been occasions when that meant staying longer than anyone had intended until said package arrived, but I don't think we've ever worn out our welcome. 🙂

The Aji Amarilla paste that just arrived would have been problematic if I'd camping someplace with a 7-day limit!

[FauxPas]

12 hours ago, Smithy said:

I wanted a small bag of sugar, and was rewarded with the "easy pour" boxes that they're discontinuing. Okay, 4 lbs is more than I'd wanted to buy, but I shouldn't need to get any more this trip. 

 

... and you're sure you don't have any sugar in the "belly of the beast"?  😄😄😄

[Smithy]

1 hour ago, FauxPas said:

 

... and you're sure you don't have any sugar in the "belly of the beast"?  😄😄😄

 

Only one small jar's worth, no doubt set aside in case I get tea-drinking company. I did check! 🤣

 

 

[Smithy]

I fear this particular recipe will be more trouble than it's worth, given the equipment (and room) I have. So far, here's the cleanup debris from making the crust. The recipe is for a 9x13 pan, and the 9x9 Corningware baking dish I bought last week is the biggest thing I have. I probably should have scaled it down, or found a second pan for a smaller batch.

 

 

An additional issue is that my handheld wand blender isn't really good for creaming butter and sugar. It ground my toasted pecans nicely, and it's about to whisk the eggs for my lemon curd. I have no doubts about its ability to handle that job. However, it's woefully inadequate for mixing the dough. I tried the chopper blade and the whisk. Below, you see what I had to work with for patting into the pan, and you see the baked crust. That crust was pretty puffy. I used a flat spatula to compress it a bit, based on comments that the crust as written tended to develop holes and leak the filling down to the bottom.

 

 

Assuming I keep traveling like this, I'll make a point of packing my handheld mixer. Sure, I could buy another -- but there's one sitting at home. I'll just avoid recipes that need it for the remainder of the trip.

 

More updates later! 

[Smithy]

It's now in the oven. I see, now that it's too late, that I was supposed to not only grease the pan (which I did) but also put down a piece of parchment to use as a sling to lift it later! Ah well, it'll be an adventure. One instruction the recipe doesn't include but I did anyway was to strain the custard as I poured it atop the crust. In general, I don't like the texture of lemon zest. Maybe if I used a finer grater I wouldn't mind, but my microplane leaves detectable strips. The batter tastes good, though.

 

 

On to my next batch of cleanup! Look at the garbage bag!

 

 

(Okay, the watermelon rinds are from lunch, and the water bottles are to keep from dehydrating.)

 

 

[Smithy]

Well, it looks okay -- paler than I'd expected. When I make lemon curd or a lemon meringue pie the filling is brighter yellow. The proof will be in the pudding, though!

 

 

Most of the little divots are from my poking to see if it was firm enough to remove from the oven. The one in the upper right is self-made. I'll be curious to see what happened there.

[ElsieD]

For a minute there is thought Marco Polo had decided to check things out.

[liuzhou]

16 hours ago, Maison Rustique said:

I keep wondering how you get your mail whilst you are on the road like this.

 

What is mail? You still have that? I haven't had anything through the mail for about 25 years.

[Maison Rustique]

6 hours ago, liuzhou said:

 

What is mail? You still have that? I haven't had anything through the mail for about 25 years.

 

@liuzhou, if you can believe it, the life insurance company we had (I am now done with them except for some tax info they owe me), would only use snail mail for any correspondence. They wouldn't provide info via phone or email and do not have a customer website. I spent the better of 7 months making daily or semi-weekly phone calls to them and racing out to my mailbox looking for info. I asked them when they were going to move into the current century. Also, my husband's credit card companies mostly want to correspond via mail. Crazy, considering these are major banks.

[liuzhou]

35 minutes ago, Maison Rustique said:

 

@liuzhou, if you can believe it, the life insurance company we had (I am now done with them except for some tax info they owe me), would only use snail mail for any correspondence. They wouldn't provide info via phone or email and do not have a customer website. I spent the better of 7 months making daily or semi-weekly phone calls to them and racing out to my mailbox looking for info. I asked them when they were going to move into the current century. Also, my husband's credit card companies mostly want to correspond via mail. Crazy, considering these are major banks.

 

 

I can believe it. I'm currently in dispute with the British Government's Pensions office, because they point-blank refuse to accept any communication from me In China by any means other than mail. Mail is almost extinct here and none of their letters have ever arrived. So, they stopped paying my pension because I didn't reply to a letter that never arrived. Fortunately, it's not my only income but they don't know that.

I get the impression they hope I've died to save them a quid or two.

I must say the staff I have managed to communicate with by expensive phone calls seem to agree with me how ridiculous it is but are powerless.

 

Most post offices here have closed or converted to post office banks, only offering banking services. Everything is delivered by private courier companies. Must be that communism!

 

/endrant

 

 

Edited 17 hours ago by liuzhou (log)

[chromedome]

It's funny, the things that linger on.

 

Here in Canada, for example, the use of personal cheques essentially died in the 90s, with the advent of debit cards, except for the older half of the Boomer demographic and the dwindling number of our parents. The only reason I even have a chequebook anymore is because my former insurance company (note the adjective) would not accept payments in any other format, and my former landlord required his year's rent in the form of post-dated cheques (that was a decade ago, and I still have the remainder of that book of cheques). Yet they remain widely used in the US. 

 

On the flip side, that rapid and near-universal adoption of debit cards (especially now that debit and credit are tap-and-go) means that we've been slower to adopt phone-based wallets relative to many other countries. It's not uncommon here, but is nowhere close to supplanting the actual cards in universality. For me it's a no-brainer because my card is always in my wallet, which in turn is always in my pocket, whereas my phone is wherever I last set it down. Also, having written so much about online/digital security, the less of my life is on my phone the better I like it ("Okay, Boomer..."). You might accurately guess from that "...wherever I last set it down" comment that in my case, this is based less in paranoia than learned experience.

For another example of decidedly old-school tech, the fax still lingers on here at medical offices. It's used for sending prescriptions from doctors to pharmacies, and prescription requests from pharmacies to doctors (ie, if a prescription is running out and has no refills, they'll fax the doctor for you to have a refill prescription written and returned). I believe they're also still used for sending requisitions from doctors to labs for bloodwork and imaging, though email and the province's new-and-improved digital portal are slowly taking over on that front. I don't know if it's the same in Ontario or if we're just that much of a backwater, though @Kerry Beal could probably enlighten us on that score.

[Smithy]

On 3/8/2025 at 12:54 PM, FrogPrincesse said:

Nice to see Bread & Cie make an appearance! They are one of the reasons I have “survived” all these years in the US .

 

I don’t know if you are familiar with their history. They celebrated the 30th year of the bakery last year. There are more bakery options these days, but they were bread pioneers in San Diego, for sure.

 

I am sharing here if you would like to learn more!

 

https://breadandcie.com/about-us/an-interview-with-our-founder/

 

 

 

I'm going back a bit here.

 

My best friend, who lives in San Diego, just got back from a trip so I told her about the bread I'd bought and your comments about that bakery. She's delighted that their stuff is in a nearby grocery store, but wonders if you have recommendations on the "more bakery options these days". 

[Kerry Beal]

8 hours ago, chromedome said:

It's funny, the things that linger on.

 

Here in Canada, for example, the use of personal cheques essentially died in the 90s, with the advent of debit cards, except for the older half of the Boomer demographic and the dwindling number of our parents. The only reason I even have a chequebook anymore is because my former insurance company (note the adjective) would not accept payments in any other format, and my former landlord required his year's rent in the form of post-dated cheques (that was a decade ago, and I still have the remainder of that book of cheques). Yet they remain widely used in the US. 

 

On the flip side, that rapid and near-universal adoption of debit cards (especially now that debit and credit are tap-and-go) means that we've been slower to adopt phone-based wallets relative to many other countries. It's not uncommon here, but is nowhere close to supplanting the actual cards in universality. For me it's a no-brainer because my card is always in my wallet, which in turn is always in my pocket, whereas my phone is wherever I last set it down. Also, having written so much about online/digital security, the less of my life is on my phone the better I like it ("Okay, Boomer..."). You might accurately guess from that "...wherever I last set it down" comment that in my case, this is based less in paranoia than learned experience.

For another example of decidedly old-school tech, the fax still lingers on here at medical offices. It's used for sending prescriptions from doctors to pharmacies, and prescription requests from pharmacies to doctors (ie, if a prescription is running out and has no refills, they'll fax the doctor for you to have a refill prescription written and returned). I believe they're also still used for sending requisitions from doctors to labs for bloodwork and imaging, though email and the province's new-and-improved digital portal are slowly taking over on that front. I don't know if it's the same in Ontario or if we're just that much of a backwater, though @Kerry Beal could probably enlighten us on that score.

It is the same in Ontario - everything is faxed - supposedly the only secure way (until you send a fax with personal information to a random number) - now we receive faxes in our office through the computer - but not sure if that's the case at the pharmacies or specialists offices. 

[FrogPrincesse]

1 hour ago, Smithy said:

 

I'm going back a bit here.

 

My best friend, who lives in San Diego, just got back from a trip so I told her about the bread I'd bought and your comments about that bakery. She's delighted that their stuff is in a nearby grocery store, but wonders if you have recommendations on the "more bakery options these days". 

Sure! There is Wayfarer in Birdrock (limited opening hours and frequent lines, but their baguettes are really nice). Con Pane in Point Loma is also quite good. Unfortunately my favorite bakery, Wildwood Flour on Garnet avenue, shut down at the end of last year after their landlord significantly increased their rent.

 

See discussion here:

 

[Smithy]

Thanks, @FrogPrincesse. I've passed your information along.

 

So the lemon bars were more of a success than I'd expected, but I learned a number of lessons on what not to do next time. First, the summary: the flavor of both the crust and the lemon filling / topping were good. I took the extra step of straining the custard before setting it in to bake, so I didn't have the lemon zest interfering with the smooth custard texture. 

 

The custard was a bit bubbly, and not the bright yellow I'd have expected: it was more of a dirty daffodil color. I don't know why, but those bubbles probably had something to do with it. Did I overwhisk the filling? I dunno. So between that color and the extra-thick crust, which incidentally was a bit too brown around the edge, the entire assembly didn't look very promising when it came out of the oven.

 

 

This morning when I pulled it from the refrigerator the custard had cracked! I pressed down on it with a spatula to try to mend those cracks, and saw that the yellow became more intense. That's why I suspect I'd simply aerated the thing too much in the first place.

 

With that very firm and very thick crust, I worried that I really would need the parchment sling that I overlooked, in order to get the stuff out of the pan in one piece. I worked all around the edge with a knife, and then started cutting portions in order to get it out of the pan in serving-sized pieces. This is where the Quality Control taste tests began, of course.

 

 

The lemon layer didn't adhere very well to the pecan crust layer, as you can see in the lower left of the photo above. Still. That lemon filling is quite lemony and delicious. The pecan crust is pretty good too.

 

This was one of several desserts at a potluck party I attended today. I came back with only a few pieces left. I'll have some, but as with my previous desserts try to foist most of it off on my landlords and neighbors.

 

 

And in case you need a refresher, this was a NYTimes recipe for Lemon Bars with Pecan Crust, by Lisa Donovan.