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 21 hours ago 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.