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Camping, Princess Style


Marlene

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To an extent the meaning of  'bless your heart' might also reflect the subject matter. In response to 'I had a tough morning shoveling the driveway' vs 'I really need to stop forgetting to put the lid on the blender after my 3rd frozen marguerita'

 

 

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As a southerner, I can say that "Bless her/his heart" can be meant in a couple of ways.  "Bless YOUR heart" said TO a person never implies criticism.  There is more grey area in "Bless her/his heart".  It CAN mean just that.  Or there can be an implied criticism.  Often, it means "Well, we all know she's dumb as a sack of rocks, but she means well".  My BIL and I said it at exactly the same time last night in a conversation about a family member and that is exactly what we both meant. :D

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Bless me! Isn't language fun and fascinating? ;)

 

22 hours ago, kayb said:

How in the world do you stand to bake when it's that hot inside? My bread-baking drops back to, if not nothing, very little during the summer. Although, of late, I haven't been eating much bread, so it hasn't been very much anyway.

 

Love those shrimp. I still have some from last fall I brought home from Florida. I put them in a container and cover with water and freeze; they last wonderfully!

 

I'm glad to know the shrimp preservation wasn't my imagination.  I'll use that method in the future.

 

I didn't much enjoy baking inside, but wanted that pita and the dough was impatient as well.  I thought about cooking it on the camp stove, but it was just as hot outside as in.  I did use the camp stove later on to steam the potatoes before grilling them. These little fingerling potatoes are perfect for skillet or campfire dishes.

 

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The last of our bacon went to wrapping the cheddar-stuffed shrimp per @ElsieD's recommendation, with a little left over to wrap asparagus for the grill.  

 

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We had eight shrimp.  Four were treated with cheddar and bacon; four were left in the shell and butterflied.  All were grilled over the campfire.  The steamed potatoes were tossed with olive oil and garlic, and grilled in a basket.

 

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I've read about grilling shrimp in the shell and peeling afterward.  It was a tasty nuisance.  Now that I've tried it, I'll stick to shelling them first. Although both treatments were good (the non-bacon shrimp got garlic butter) I think ElsieD's version was the winner. Thank you, Elsie!

 

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The shrimp was overcooked but delicious.  The asparagus was less overcooked and wonderful. 

 

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The wash, blossomless when we arrived, is breaking into shouts of color.  

 

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Nonetheless, we'll be glad to get our darned truck back and clear out to cooler areas.  "They hope tomorrow," they said today.  We think it will be Thursday if we're lucky.

 

Edited to add: as noted in the next post, @Okanagancook deserves the credit for the shrimp recipe.

Edited by Smithy
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Nancy Smith, aka "Smithy"
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"Every day should be filled with something delicious, because life is too short not to spoil yourself. " -- Ling (with permission)
"There comes a time in every project when you have to shoot the engineer and start production." -- author unknown

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14 minutes ago, ElsieD said:

@Smithy. Thanks for the credit on the shrimp dish but that wasn't me who suggested it.  It was Okanagancook.  Looks good, I wish I had thought of it.

 

Whoops!  Sorry, @Okanagancook - credit where credit's due, and I apologize for the mistake.  Anyway, that way of cooking shrimp is a keeper. Many thanks.

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"Every day should be filled with something delicious, because life is too short not to spoil yourself. " -- Ling (with permission)
"There comes a time in every project when you have to shoot the engineer and start production." -- author unknown

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Not to worry.  I stole the idea from a restaurant in Mazatlan!  They are really good but one needs some big shrimp and thin, thin bacon......I happen to have thin bacon in my freezer that I made just for this very purpose.  I think I feel a feast coming on.  Very glad you like them.  Make a nice appetizer too.

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I should have thought of this days ago.  I plead brain addlement from the heat.

 

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A few days ago I remembered that I've had solar cookery on my list of things to try for years, and it dawned on me that we're in the perfect situation. If I'd thought of it sooner I could have collected enough Mylar from the balloons I pick up off the desert floor, but they've all gone out with the trash.  (Ever wonder what happens to those wonderful balloons when you release them?)  I acquired a box from the gas station/convenience store we last visited, and when we got back I went to work on it with a utility knife, foil, tape and clear wrap.

 

After I assembled the 'oven' and before I put anything into it, I measured an interior temperature of 186F.  I was a bit late getting the filled pot into it, and never saw quite such a high temperature after that, but we still had a nicely cooked melange of peppers and onions, touched with oil, by the time I was ready to cook.  We didn't bother with a campfire.  I cooked chorizo over the camp stove and added the pepper mix; I heated tortillas over another burner, and we had burritos.  The photos got lost in the ether.

 

Today I've been at it again.  The same clay pot and glass lid, the same mix of peppers and onions, tossed with oil and salt, went into the solar oven at around 11 a.m. We ran errands.  (Our pickup is fixed, o frabjous day!  We' can move when we wish, calloo, callay!) When we returned in the late afternoon, the pot was quite hot to the touch.  The aroma of cooking peppers is wonderful. The temperature inside the pot was 155F, and it was probably starting to cool.

 

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The vegetables don't look it, but they're soft.  A little touch of fire will crisp their edges nicely.  They'll be added to marinated chicken chunks cooked in a grill basket over a fire, with leftover potatoes and fresh asparagus. Tortillas for wraps again.  I'll try to not lose the photos this time around.

 

This solar cooker is a simple bush-league test of concept, but of course I found a topic on Solar Cooking here on eGullet - after I'd begun on my own.  There are some good designs and comments. I'll be on the watch for a Fresnel lens, and I may try again with a better box design before we get home.

 

 

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"Every day should be filled with something delicious, because life is too short not to spoil yourself. " -- Ling (with permission)
"There comes a time in every project when you have to shoot the engineer and start production." -- author unknown

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Everything was cut into pieces of about the same size ...

 

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and the piece sizes were inconsistent with wrapping it all into tortillas. The tortillas will have to wait for another opportunity.

 

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At the table, we spent a fair amount of time considering the Pointillists' influence on this dinner: eat a bit of this and a bite of that, and get an entirely different picture of the dinner than one might imagine from the individual elements.

 

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At least, that's what I think the conversation was about.

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"Every day should be filled with something delicious, because life is too short not to spoil yourself. " -- Ling (with permission)
"There comes a time in every project when you have to shoot the engineer and start production." -- author unknown

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Yesterday the solar oven proved to be handy for thawing a jar of frozen sauce (herbs, citrus, and a bit of oil).  It went from solid to liquid in under an hour.  Leftover green beans also reheated handily in about 15 minutes, though the only picture is of them in the 'oven'.  

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Lunch, aside from aforesaid green beans, was a salad of chopped cukes, tomatoes, spring onions, parsley and cheese, dressed with a citrus vinaigrette.

 

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Dinner: salmon over the campfire, with the handily-thawed sauce.  I sprinkled half the salmon with corn flake crumbs; it wasn't a good fit, either in taste or texture. More of the salad accompanied it.

 

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Here's some more desert color.  The Desert Five-Spots are beginning to bloom!

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Nancy Smith, aka "Smithy"
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"Every day should be filled with something delicious, because life is too short not to spoil yourself. " -- Ling (with permission)
"There comes a time in every project when you have to shoot the engineer and start production." -- author unknown

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We rode in the heat one day to a campground with a small store, interesting history, and quirky architecture.  One resident has cobbled together a fence from downed wood found along the washes, with occasional junk decorating the top.  I had a bee in my bonnet about getting a Klondike bar before we leave the area for the year.  There arose a terrible dilemma: what flavor of Klondike to pick?  I didn't know they made Rocky Road, Caramel Swirl, Cookies'n'Cream...in the end, we both chose the classic.

 

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The ocatillo are blooming, about a month later than usual.  The blossoms look like birds of paradise perched atop every branch. The hummingbirds love them.

 

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Campfire cooking has been the order of the day, for many days.  Papa's pan has been instrumental in vegetable cookery over the fire.  A grill basket has done yeoman's work for grilling chicken, burgers, or - in this case - pork steaks.

 

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These steaks weren't quite done enough, and it was a shame because they were gorgeous in the package.  A little microwaving took care of the doneness, but didn't help with the texture.

 

The solar 'oven' has been in use for light vegetable cooking, vegetable rewarming and defrosting.  Last time we went to the grocery store I overbought vegetables, and a bunch of collards has been reproaching me from the refrigerator every time I looked in.  The outer leaves were starting to yellow. I knew I wouldn't soon be ambitious enough to do the dolmades described here by @blue_dolphin but couldn't bring myself to throw them away without at least trying to do something with them.  Yesterday the green leaves (stemmed and cut into squares) went into the solar cooker with a touch of water, some onion and oil.  The result:

 

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Okay, it doesn't look pretty but they're nicely wilted and taste reasonably good. I'm not sure I'll get them past my darling without further disguise. Got any suggestions about what to do with them? I can spice them up as in the gingered collards discussed here but that still won't get past the "Eww! Cooked greens!" reflex.  Mix them into a pilaf or an omelet, perhaps? Fry them up with potatoes, my original thought? Or is this a lost cause?

 

In other news: the heat finally broke today and I defrosted the freezer again.  Look at all the space!  

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It would be nice to arrive home with so little to move back into the house, but it will probably just mean more room to load up on shrimp if we make it back to the Gulf Coast. Note, also, that I'm not showing the contents of the refrigerator. :P

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"Every day should be filled with something delicious, because life is too short not to spoil yourself. " -- Ling (with permission)
"There comes a time in every project when you have to shoot the engineer and start production." -- author unknown

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I'm liking this solar oven. Think I'll have to make use of one for defrosting things, particularly; what a great idea!

 

Try the collards in a frittata. Although I'm with your DH; no fan of cooked greens, either.

 

 

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41 minutes ago, Smithy said:

Got any suggestions about what to do with them? I can spice them up as in the gingered collards discussed here but that still won't get past the "Eww! Cooked greens!" reflex.  Mix them into a pilaf or an omelet, perhaps? Fry them up with potatoes, my original thought? Or is this a lost cause?

I like @kayb's the frittata idea.

Going back to my cookbook of the moment :D, I'm in the process of making Grits & Greens with Hot Sauce.  It's kind of a cheesy-grits casserole with greens, served with a brown butter-hot sauce vinaigrette. Vivian recommends topping it with pork rinds and using them to scoop it up like a dip.  I have no pork rinds so I'll be skipping that part!  The recipe appears in this review of the book.

 

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24 minutes ago, blue_dolphin said:

I like @kayb's the frittata idea.

Going back to my cookbook of the moment :D, I'm in the process of making Grits & Greens with Hot Sauce.  It's kind of a cheesy-grits casserole with greens, served with a brown butter-hot sauce vinaigrette. Vivian recommends topping it with pork rinds and using them to scoop it up like a dip.  I have no pork rinds so I'll be skipping that part!  The recipe appears in this review of the book.

 

Read the article -- while the brown butter viniagrette tweaks me, and the grits-and-greens dish could almost make me think about trying turnip greens One More Time, it was the Red Pea and Onion Gravy that has catapulted near the top of my "I have to try this" list. I mean -- damn!

 

And I guess I'm going to have to break down and get the book. 

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15 hours ago, kayb said:

Read the article -- while the brown butter viniagrette tweaks me, and the grits-and-greens dish could almost make me think about trying turnip greens One More Time, it was the Red Pea and Onion Gravy that has catapulted near the top of my "I have to try this" list. I mean -- damn!

 

And I guess I'm going to have to break down and get the book. 

 

It really is a good book, kayb. It's the sort of book that is entertaining to read regardless of whether one cooks from it.  The few recipes I've tried from it have been good.  I'm still having trouble cooking from an ebook and tend to use it less than I might if it were a physical book.

 

Thank you for the frittata recommendation!  It was a good opportunity for a one-pan meal on a night when it was raining(!) and blowing and cool enough for us to appreciate having the oven on. Asparagus, roasted peppers, onions (two types), bacon and the collards, surrounded by eggs, milk and cheese - what wasn't to like?  It was a one-pan meal except for the prep dishes, and we both loved it.  The collards were unobtrusive but added a nice flavor that I could detect because I was looking for it.

 

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We'll have the leftovers sometime today.

 

Edited to add: leftovers for breakfast.  Here's a better photo of the finished product.

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Edited by Smithy
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"Every day should be filled with something delicious, because life is too short not to spoil yourself. " -- Ling (with permission)
"There comes a time in every project when you have to shoot the engineer and start production." -- author unknown

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It was time to move on. We need to start working our way homeward.

 

The unlikely green carpet of the desert has dried to crackling brown, although the bushes and shrubs are still doing well.

 

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Our shoes, once painted mustard yellow with pollen from wading through that greenery,...

 

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...are clean again.  We've done our share of spreading the pollen about on the desert floor.

 

 

Despite my whinging about the heat, we'll miss the quiet of the wash nearby, with its bird song and occasional leaf-rustling breezes. We've had the privilege of seeing a full-blown desert superbloom.  The blossoms we had celebrated are fading, but some new blooms are starting that we'll be sorry to miss.  Honey mesquite, hitherto unnoticed, caught our attention with the sweet perfume of its new blossoms. Maybe it's velvet mesquite.  Anyway, it's almost citrus-sweet, and I never knew that smell before this year.

 

We cooked over the campfire one last night for this location, and divided our time between watching the stars and watching the fire as it burned down.  I think we saw more than a dozen satellites, as well as the ISS, in under an hour.

 

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Then it was a simple dinner.  I gave a nod to the alliteration (for "extra points") in the Challenge: cook your way through your freezer topic, and came up with Bacon, Brats, Brussels Sprouts and Spuds. (The bacon was seasoning the sprouts and spuds, but needed to be listed first for the alliterative connection.)

 

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While I was at it I blistered and softened 3 eggplants over the fire.  The next day I peeled them and stowed the flesh in a little lemon juice.  They're quite soft.  Half has already gone into baba ghanoug thanks to some tahina sauce I'd made the other day; the other half will probably go into an Egyptian salad, but I haven't made up my mind yet.  Sultan's Delight is also a lovely thing, but it's more work and more calories.  

 

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The peeled and softened stuff may not look like much, but it's silky and good, just waiting for other ingredients to make it downright delicious.  This is a wonderful way to use excess cooking heat.

 

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We've moved on eastward, to a commercial campground outside Tucson.  We've traded the quiet and birdsong of the wash for the noise of a freeway; satellite and star watching for neighbors' party lights. It's a bit of a reentry shock.  Still, we had a good view last night of the barest sliver of a new moon:

 

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and, when we were ready to come inside, a dinner of breaded and oven-roasted pork steak with tomato/cucumber salad.

 

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...and Yippee!  We have 110v power without starting the generator!

 

 

Edited by Smithy
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"Every day should be filled with something delicious, because life is too short not to spoil yourself. " -- Ling (with permission)
"There comes a time in every project when you have to shoot the engineer and start production." -- author unknown

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One of the amenities of this KOA campground is Frankie's Chuckwagon Steakhouse.  They're open Wed - Sun from 4 to 8 p.m. during the high season (generally October through April), and they do enough of a land-office business that reservations are strongly recommended, even for folks staying at the campground.  They do outstanding steaks - better than we do them, I think (my darling thinks that's impossible) - and I was determined to eat there as we'd done twice or thrice last year.

 

In front of the restaurant is the realio, trulio Santa Maria grill on which those steaks (and many other meats) are cooked.

 

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This is the real deal, kept in good working order: the grill adjusts up or down as needed to maintain temperature, and lifts high enough to add more wood.

 

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The grill masters keep the fire quite hot, without being able to tell me the temperature at the grate; they faithfully use instant-read thermometers to determine the doneness of the meat. 

 

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They belong to the "flip it frequently" camp of steak grilling, and I may become a convert based on their results.

 

Inside the restaurant there are 9 tables and a rustic atmosphere: plywood walls are branded with local ranch brands - some over 100 years old.  Frankie and Jerry, the original owners of this campground, are friends with the local ranchers and have a strong sense of the area's history. Maybe tonight I'll remember to take interior photos.  

 

The menu includes items other than steaks and burgers:

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Their wine and beer list are limited, but the wine pours are generous.  

 

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The waitress noted that the winery may not be taken for granted (for instance, they weren't serving Vendange wines that night) but that the varieties were all available.  I had a Cupcake Shiraz. Actually, I had two.

 

How often have you been served a "garden fresh salad" of sad, semi-limp iceberg lettuce from a bag, with stale croutons, tasteless tomatoes and too-sweet dressing?  This isn't one of them.  They make their salads fresh every day, starting with whole heads of iceberg.  They make their own salad dressing.  This salad is crunchy, crisp and fresh-tasting, and the ranch dressing is light and creamy, with a slight tang.

 

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My darling had the butterflied shrimp, with cheesy potatoes and a jalapeno cole slaw that has a pleasant kick. This was a half-order of shrimp.  He was glad he hadn't ordered more.

 

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 I had the ribeye, medium rare.  It was perfect. The fries were perfectly crisp and flavorful. I know you've already seen the salad, but it deserves to be included twice...it was that good.

 

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 It was entirely too much food, as we knew it would be.  Half the steak and both rolls came home with us, and we made sandwiches the next day.

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"Every day should be filled with something delicious, because life is too short not to spoil yourself. " -- Ling (with permission)
"There comes a time in every project when you have to shoot the engineer and start production." -- author unknown

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That is so funny.  I was reading the menus and pretending that I was ordering.  You and ordered the same thing right down to the kind of wine (cupcake shiraz just sounds good).  Now I'm hungry for a steak and a good salad.

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We've been taking advantage of this campground hookup to do intensive computer and printer work that needs steady electricity but has nothing to do with food.  Consequently, many of our meals have been microwaved leftovers, or salads made from things I'd cooked in the desert.  The campfire eggplant became baba ghanou and also went into a mixed salad.

 

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Oddly, the elements of the mixed salad are all things that go together in some combination: eggplant, tomatoes, cucumbers, parsley and onions with a dressing; bulgur, tomatoes, parsley, cucumbers and onions with that same dressing. Including both the bulgur and the eggplant seems a bit much.  Still, it's a filling salad.  It's especially filling when accompanied by half a sandwich, tahini, asparagus, baba ghanou and a pickle.  

 

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I think I'm still working on the same jar of pickles we had when we left home.  I'll have to rethink pickle stock before our next trip.

 

At the other end of the usage spectrum: we are almost out of citrus from the ranch visit at Christmas.  

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Woe is me!  Maybe I can find citrus at some farmers' market in Tucson.

 

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"Every day should be filled with something delicious, because life is too short not to spoil yourself. " -- Ling (with permission)
"There comes a time in every project when you have to shoot the engineer and start production." -- author unknown

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We've moved eastward again a whopping 50 miles, closer to Tucson.  Yesterday was a shopping day: stocking up on supplies, finding a hardware store, visiting the Babylon Market to stock up on their specialty items.  We bought a bunch of the Greenland feta (Danish white, really) cheese, labneh by itself and labneh balls in oil, barberries, bulgur, some spices.  Their stock is often different from one visit to the next.  I couldn't find the labneh balls with pepper that I've been enjoying - which jar is almost empty - 

 

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but they had a different brand with a thyme coating.  

 

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I hope we like it as well. It may not have the kick of its predecessor, but we both like zaatar and I've been on my own with the pepper-coated version.

 

We lunched outside, munching on their wonderful gyros.  We bought tabbouli for later. I still think their tabbouli is the best I've ever had.  It has much more parsley than mine and - I suspect this is just as important - much less bulgur. I'm glad I bought more of theirs so I could make a visual comparison.

 

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In keeping with my generally-ill-kept promise to myself not to stock up more than necessary, we stuck to the shopping list...until, that is, we were waiting for our lunch and I began perusing the fresh breads.  Bags of very large, very fresh-smelling, very soft and flexible flatbreads were near the checkout counter.  

 

"What's this bread, please, and what do you do with it?" I asked.

 

"Oh," said the clerk, "that is the bread that we Iraqis use.  It's made fresh every day and brought here."  

 

He is brother to one of the owners, and a former local chef.  He's also a good salesman.  He went on to explain that they use the bread as a base for meals.  One example is to drizzle oil over the bread, spread cooked fava beans (what I know as fool medames) over it, then add - oh, cheese or parsley or scrambled eggs.  He showed me pictures.  He noted that a particular Iraqi herb goes well with the beans.  "And it's good for the digestion, too!"

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Nobody in the store knew what to call it in English.  He opened a container to let me smell.  It had a dry, pleasant, rather cool odor, like eucalyptus without the menthol note.  What was that tantalizing smell?

 

"It smells a bit like mint," I said.  "Na' na?"

 

"Yes," he cried, "mint!  Na' na! Except not really mint." O.o

 

(According to this blog post, it's "wild mint".  Any further information would be appreciated.)

 

I paid an extra $11.40 for my new materials (including 2 cans of cooked fava beans), collected our lunch order, and left with his assurances to please call if I had any questions about how to cook the dishes we'd discussed.

 

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I had questions later, but by the time I called he'd gone home for the day. The resulting dinner was a photographic disaster, and I've destroyed the evidence. :P Breakfast this morning, however, was better: leftover burrito filling wrapped up in this bread, warmed, with labneh and tabbouli.

 

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Waleed told me that the bread can be cut into smaller sizes, sealed in bags and frozen, and I'm sure I'll be doing that with some of it.  As it stales it'll make wonderful fattoush. I'm also looking forward to using it in panini or quesadillas.

 

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Nancy Smith, aka "Smithy"
HosteG Forumsnsmith@egstaff.org

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"Every day should be filled with something delicious, because life is too short not to spoil yourself. " -- Ling (with permission)
"There comes a time in every project when you have to shoot the engineer and start production." -- author unknown

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On 4/2/2017 at 11:27 AM, Smithy said:

In front of the restaurant is the realio, trulio Santa Maria grill on which those steaks (and many other meats) are cooked.

 

20170401_181848.jpg

 

This is the real deal, kept in good working order: the grill adjusts up or down as needed to maintain temperature, and lifts high enough to add more wood.

 

 

Oh my, Nacy. You've taken me on a way-back trip. I lived in Santa Maria as a young adult. I can smell the tri-tip just looking at that photo ...

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Porthos Potwatcher
The Once and Future Cook

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Following up on that Iraqi bread (simply called "khoobz" in the store): it really does freeze and reheat well. After trying to griddle it without drying it, or heat it in the microwave between two plates, I decided to try a tortilla warmer (in the microwave) with a couple of pieces.  Perfect! This has been breakfast several times over since then.

 

20170409_092312.jpg

 

I've been trying various ideas for an easy skillet dinner that can be scaled up or down and that uses a lot of peppers, onions and potatoes, with thoughts toward @Rebel Rose's Soup Kitchen Topic Cookbook Project topic.  If you haven't checked that topic out yet, please do. Below is one of my attempts.  We found it quite edible and filling, but not particularly appealing to look at, and I don't know how large a skillet or pot would be needed to make enough for 10 people.

 

20170409_092452.jpg

 

Back to the drawing board!

 

We've moved on from Tucson, but made it (twice) to the Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum while we were in town.  Their food service group changed last year and the Ironwood Grill has been remodeled, and new items put on the menu.  On our first visit we selected our old standby fave - pepperjack cheeseburger with green chile.  It was excellent, but you've seen it before.  The next time we went to another counter and ordered some of the specialties of the new Agave Grill. The bowls and salads allow for a LOT of flexibility and choices: multiple salsa, beans, corn, meats, greens, onions, pickled jalapeños, and so on.

 

Agave Bowl for me:

 

ASDM Agave Grill Agave Bowl.jpg

 

Taco salad for him.

ASDM Agave Grill Taco Salad.jpg

 

I sneaked a bit of the carnitas on his salad, and the pork was excellent - as was the carne asada on mine.  Actually, all of the food in the bowls was good.  I'd cheerfully eat either of these again.

 

 

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Nancy Smith, aka "Smithy"
HosteG Forumsnsmith@egstaff.org

Follow us on social media! Facebook; instagram.com/egulletx; twitter.com/egullet

"Every day should be filled with something delicious, because life is too short not to spoil yourself. " -- Ling (with permission)
"There comes a time in every project when you have to shoot the engineer and start production." -- author unknown

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I remember the Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum from way too many years ago as a teen.  I was very impressed with the outdoor animal displays and I believe some kind of otter display.  My fading memory may not be accurate.

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On 4/2/2017 at 2:27 PM, Smithy said:

One of the amenities of this KOA campground is Frankie's Chuckwagon Steakhouse.  They're open Wed - Sun from 4 to 8 p.m. during the high season (generally October through April), and they do enough of a land-office business that reservations are strongly recommended, even for folks staying at the campground.  They do outstanding steaks - better than we do them, I think (my darling thinks that's impossible) - and I was determined to eat there as we'd done twice or thrice last year.

 

In front of the restaurant is the realio, trulio Santa Maria grill on which those steaks (and many other meats) are cooked.

 

20170401_181848.jpg

 

This is the real deal, kept in good working order: the grill adjusts up or down as needed to maintain temperature, and lifts high enough to add more wood.

 

20170402_102758.jpg

 

The grill masters keep the fire quite hot, without being able to tell me the temperature at the grate; they faithfully use instant-read thermometers to determine the doneness of the meat. 

 

20170402_103041.jpg

 

They belong to the "flip it frequently" camp of steak grilling, and I may become a convert based on their results.

 

Inside the restaurant there are 9 tables and a rustic atmosphere: plywood walls are branded with local ranch brands - some over 100 years old.  Frankie and Jerry, the original owners of this campground, are friends with the local ranchers and have a strong sense of the area's history. Maybe tonight I'll remember to take interior photos.  

 

The menu includes items other than steaks and burgers:

20170329_185905.jpg

 

Their wine and beer list are limited, but the wine pours are generous.  

 

20170402_110531.jpg

 

The waitress noted that the winery may not be taken for granted (for instance, they weren't serving Vendange wines that night) but that the varieties were all available.  I had a Cupcake Shiraz. Actually, I had two.

 

How often have you been served a "garden fresh salad" of sad, semi-limp iceberg lettuce from a bag, with stale croutons, tasteless tomatoes and too-sweet dressing?  This isn't one of them.  They make their salads fresh every day, starting with whole heads of iceberg.  They make their own salad dressing.  This salad is crunchy, crisp and fresh-tasting, and the ranch dressing is light and creamy, with a slight tang.

 

20170331_080839.jpg

 

My darling had the butterflied shrimp, with cheesy potatoes and a jalapeno cole slaw that has a pleasant kick. This was a half-order of shrimp.  He was glad he hadn't ordered more.

 

20170331_080809.jpg

 

 I had the ribeye, medium rare.  It was perfect. The fries were perfectly crisp and flavorful. I know you've already seen the salad, but it deserves to be included twice...it was that good.

 

20170402_104332.jpg

 

 It was entirely too much food, as we knew it would be.  Half the steak and both rolls came home with us, and we made sandwiches the next day.

 

 

And notably metal cutlery and china.

I despise eating from styrofoam and plastic.

Don't care how trendy it may be.  F that.

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