Slow Cooker Mac N Cheese

This is my 4th attempt to use the slow cooker to make mac-n-cheese from scratch that looks like the Kraft box kind.  Every attempt before produced a baked casserole looking version and the kids thought it too dry.  The last one looked good at 1-1/2 hours but I made the mistake of keeping the pasta in the pot and that caused all the sauce to soak into the macaroni, leaving it dry tasting. 

This time I'm taking the pasta out immediately after it's cooked!

Gourmet Burgers

Who says you can't have gourmet burgers in a tiny shelter?  We live it up sometime with our hamburger press, a few splashes of beer, organic pasture-raised ground beef, blue cheese, garlic, onion and Old Bay seasoning. Sometimes it feels like we're vacationing and really we're just hanging out on a regular Sunday.

 

Conquering Cooking

When Michael and I were designing our bus, we decided that the need for an oven was low.  Of course, our visions of staying in the bus did not include living in it 24-7 for months at a time.

Luckily we have our grill that acts like an oven. It took some getting-used-to.  Because of the smaller volume, following directions from a package usually meant overcooking your food.  I had to lower the temperature because the heat source is so much closer to the food than regular ovens that package instructions have in mind.  My first quiche was certainly edible - in the middle.  The crust was crispy, on the verge of being burnt.  With a lower temp, and longer cook time, I'm able to slow down the crisping of the crust while the eggs have time to de-raw themselves.

Cooking with a wok on the grill has actually been a dream!  The intense temperature gets the stir fried ingredients just right!  I did have a mishap recently though when the ambient temperature dropped to a frosty 30s.  When I dispensed the stir fry sauce into the wok to coat the vegetables, I banged the glass container onto the hot wok a little too hard.  The cold of the air must have made the glass so brittle because it broke!  Onto the food!  Glass shards mixed in with the delicious food!  The sun was setting and I was ready to cry at the waste!  Luckily I had not put the noodles and chicken in the wok and was able to make a new, albeit strange, concoction of Chinese food that was seasoned this time with Spanish spices (because it was the only sauce I had left in the pantry)!  

The blandest, but edible, stir fry

In other culinary pursuits, I've gotten the hang of Mac-n-Cheese, rice and vegetables!  I used to rely solely on a rice cooker to make the rice we would eat, but now I've gotten so adept at making it old-school style - in a pot!  Adding an extra dab of water seems to help, but it has to be watched closely lest the water boil too fast and spill over into the burner.  

I used to try to recycle our propane bottles by trying to refill them with the propane from the 20-gallon tanks, but this proved to be more trouble than it was worth.  No matter what I tried, the little bottles would only refill 1/4 their capacity so I found myself refilling so much.  The little cans are only $2 and last so long that I just buy a new one now.

Another dish I like to make is stew!  In a cast iron pot and simmering slowing in our oven/grill, it always turns out delicious!  I only seem to want to make it when the weather turns colder than usual.  Nowadays it's pretty darn cold everyday so there is no change in weather to spark an inspiration to do stew.  But you know what?  NOW is the time for more stew on more days!    I'll have to revisit it.

Baking on the Grill

When we were designing the bus, I asked a friend whose family had a bus conversion when they were growing up if they used their oven often.  She said her mother used it only twice in all the travels they did and that prompted me to not include it in our bus conversion.

But we're not just traveling in our bus - we are living  in it full-time now!  As the days wore on in the summer, I found that I missed dishes that could use an oven.  Like my beloved fish sticks, baked salmon, cookies, and most importantly, birthday cakes!   

On a trip to Williams-Sonoma, I looked for a good loaf pan that could withstand the ferocity of a grill's heat.  While I found a thick, double-layered metal pan without the non-stick coating, Michael and the kids sampled a pumpkin bread that the store was handing out.  Now I had to buy the pan and the bread mix!  Unfortunately, I only tried out both items recently.  Results were mixed.

The kids are excited to help me frost the bread.

What the ...

I'm still getting used to baking in a grill.  In general, I find that the small space of the grill intensifies the heat at the edges of the pan and moderately heats the food in the middle.  If I had a bigger oven, there would be a more even distribution of the heat.  So when I popped out the loaf, I had to cut off the charred pieces around the edges.  I didn't have to, but I wanted the eating experience to be enjoyable.  

The kids had a great time spreading the frosting.  They put it on too thinly at first, but were excited when I told them to glob on more frosting so as to not tear at the bread.  Max is just like his mother when she was little - sampling the frosting first.  

Wok at the Campground

We got an accessory to our grill -  a wok!  Michael was most excited to use it.  He loves Asian noodles a lot so he was eager to cook lunch one afternoon!

It was delicious!  Camping food doesn't have to be just boiled water and dried food crumbles.  It can be just like home!

In addition to carefully caring for our cast iron skillet, wok and grates, we got wooden spatulas and tongs!  There is a lot of work to cooking this way, but I feel like we're preparing heirlooms for our kids.  When we croak we can give them lovingly-seasoned cookware!

Cooking with Control

I showed my friend Kerry the raging fire I made for stew and she got some great advice from her husband Brett.  I don't need to have so many coals on fire with the dutch oven.  The way the lid is shaped, I can put coal briquettes on top too to more evenly distribute the heat!

This will make the bag of charcoal last much longer!

Feeding Camp Kids

Back in early July, I only had to cook for Michael and me, and it was easy because we could eat anything and usually preferred eating outside.  We've since gotten tired of eating out at the same places and also need to start getting back into the budget of a typical month of groceries.  This is a difficult task at a campground!  Add a couple of kids, and it's initially harder!  Take out a refrigerator and that spells multiple trips to the market within a week.  

I was used to going to the commissary every Monday.  Once the kids got here, I realized, I have to go every other day because our cooler only holds 1 half-gallon of milk in addition to the other perishable foods like cream cheese, string cheese, beer, wine, deli meat, green smoothies, apples, strawberries and eggs.  

Speaking of eggs, we have to get the small, half-dozen size because of our lack of space!  We have to get the butter and cream cheese in plastic tubs instead of the foil/paper wrappers.  Ziploc bags have become such a staple now that we have to protect anything have used that needs to be put in the cooler.  Why the ziploc bag?  Because any packaging inside the cooler has to withstand the constant water submersion!  

So far I get ice as often as I go to the market.  Why don't I just get a lot of ice in one visit, you ask.  I asked that of myself once and then found out that there wasn't enough space for that much ice and for all our food.  

The kids don't mind going to commissary so much, though.  They get to ride the shopping carts that mimic cars and they have more chances to ask me for treats!  

The logistics of getting food has taken some getting used to, but I've managed to feed the kids nutritious meals.  They get their grains and fruits and dairy and protein everyday.   Vegetables are another story.  They take more energy to make and sometimes I'm just plain lazy.  I have a stove burner that I attach to propane bottles and it is convenient to fire up, but again ........ I'm lazy sometimes.  Fruits just take a knife and - boom!  ... the kids pop them all in their mouth.  Vegetables, who knows if they'll eat it after all that effort.  

I have put in more effort to making meals by buying a cast iron dutch oven!  My first - and only - dish so far was a beef stew.  It came out delicious!!!  But I soon found out in a cast iron book that I'm not supposed to make tomato-based dishes in it because the acidity of the tomatoes affects the iron.  

Another thing to consider with all these eating is the washing of the dishes.  I already felt I was roughin' it in Florida when I didn't use the dishwasher.  Now I walk to the laundry room and use their utility sink!  I do the rinsing of the grime at the water faucet next to our bus because we don't have our plumbing hooked up yet - and because there is no garbage disposal at the laundry sink.  There are a lot more steps when you're camping and trying to run the household chores.

The kids don't mind - of course.  And that's worth all this effort.  They're enjoying themselves and we're saving a lot of money while we get to enjoy the outdoors!

Christmas Meal 2013

The adjective "foolproof" in a recipe's title does not mean that I, Gigi, will create a delicious entree.  This year, I tried to follow a recipe entitled "Foolproof Rib Roast."  Next time I need to look for an entree that claims it is "Gigiproof."

In my excitement, I didn't follow the very first rule of letting the meat sit at room temperature for one hour.  So although the meat looked great after 1 hour of roasting at 375* and resting in a turned-off oven for 3 more hours ...

I duct-taped the handle to the stovetop to Gigi-proof the oven
from accidental, unintentional opening.

Looking good so far.  It also smelled so delicious!

The roast came out too rare!

Even Michael thought it was too rare

So I popped the hunk o' meat back into the oven for 40 minutes more.  I had left the slices flayed open to get the heat deeper inside.  It worked up to a point.

You can go as rare as you want because this slice has
everything from medium rare to well-done!

  

Luckily, the other dishes I made turned out stellar!!  For a side dish, I baked sweet potato mash in halved orange "cups" and topped it with a sweet pecan crust.

Easy orange cups!   Half an orange after chopping
off 1/4" of each end and scoop out pulp.

Looks good and well-cooked through and through.

I had known that the kids would not want any beef so I made lo mein from a recipe.  They always love it when we get Chinese food and I wanted to be able to make it for them at home and at a smaller quantity.  While stir-frying, I had a revelation that I could make agedashi tofu with the ingredients I have.   

I surprised myself at how delicious the noodles came out.  The sauce consisted of oyster sauce, soy sauce, brown sugar and honey.  It was so good that if I hadn't made it myself I might have suspected there was MSG in it.  It was addictingly delicious!  But guess who disagreed with me.  My kids for whom I made these new dishes!!  They didn't like it and asked for chicken nuggets instead.  I didn't mind so much because I got to polish off the noodles they didn't eat which was all of it.  

I feasted well this Christmas!

Should There Be a Santa?

Simone wavers between believing and not believing in Santa.  When she asks me if I believe in him, I say that he might but that I've never seen him.  I try to be delicate about it because I'd like to keep the window of his possible existence open.  If an adult told asked me the same question, I'd give them a "No Way!" right off the bat.  But with my own children, I want them to decide for themselves if Santa is real or not.  Santa never gives them presents, but they do think that Santa drops off the gifts that Mommy and Daddy and relatives have given them.



Ever the pondering soul, Simone devised a way to test if Santa is real or not.  Here was our recent conversation:

(Simone) "Let's makes some cookies for Santa on Christmas Eve and leave them out for him to eat.  If they're gone, we know that Santa is real.  If they're still there, then Santa is not real."
(Me) "But what if cockroaches eat the cookies and you mistakenly believe Santa is real?"
(S) "Then we'll leave a sign out that says, 'These cookies are for Santa and not for cockroaches!'"
(M) "But cockroaches can't read."
(S) "Yes they can!  If they can eat, they can read! Duh!"

I don't get her logic, but I suggested that we put a glass cover over the cookies, so Santa can see them and pick up the cover that will be too heavy for bugs to lift.  This, however, isn't my dilemma.  Should I eat some cookies to keep the magic alive for the kids?  I don't want to because, as an adult, I don't like the whole mythos of Santa anyway!   However, as a child, I DID love the idea of Santa.  When I discovered he isn't real, I still liked to pretend he was real because it meant I got an extra gift from him!  I've thought about just not touching them and leaving the decision up to Michael.  When he gets up in the middle of the night, he munches on food before returning to bed.

Family and friends, what would you do in this case?

I Could Eat a Horse

Remember all that hoopla at the beginning of the year over the "scandal" that some ground meat in Ireland was mixed with horse meat?    I agree that the meat should warn customers that the meat contains something other than beef, but am I grossed out that I might be eating horse?  Not at all!  If it tastes delicious, I will eat it!  Besides, I was reading Simone and Max some history narratives that described our hunter-gatherer ancestors' diets which included horse meat!  It's not that foreign for humans to do it.

Maybe I'd stay away from horse organs - raw or cooked.

There had been shocking news that Ikea's meatballs contained horse and I saw people on Facebook aghast at the notion.  I thought to myself, "Hmmm, I like those meatballs - I guess I already know I like horse."  But sadly, Ikea pulled that item from their menu.  But happily I found out that our Tampa Ikea left it on their menu!

Guess how it tasted?  As delicious as ever!!!

On a recent trip to a Colombian restaurant, I was enticed by one dish that boasted of slow roasted meat.  I ordered it despite the entree's title was "Bistec de Caballo."  The Filipino Bistec is deeeeelicious and savory, but the Spanish word for horse concerned me - for just a split second.  

This meat was so good that I forgot to take a picture once the dish arrived.

I thought to take a picture only after I had already eaten 75% of it.  The meat is under the untouched egg.   It didn't taste foreign and I figured that the word horse is put in the title to emphasize the portion of the food rather than the ingredient.  

I think the world was grossed out by horse meat because it's been 10,000 years since it was the norm.  And because it's strange to dig into something that we have historically referred to as our transportation / pet / coworker on the farm.  This makes me wonder about having dog.  Maybe I'd enjoy it!

Gluten Makes Me Smile

I'm not going to lie:  gluten makes me smile.

In February, Michael suggested we go on a raw diet.  I complied but found it difficult to come up with new recipes.  This healthy kick however inspired me to give more healthy treats and entrees to our kids.  I made raw pizza, but it was too healthy for us in that, as Michael put it, "the crust makes me want to puke."  We were losing weight in that we didn't want to eat our raw / vegetarian cuisine.   I thought that a medium between decadent and raw would be a great kind of pizza crust for us.  Gluten-free baking seemed like it might be our new lifestyle!

Well, it lasted for a short while in that even gluten-free crust was not savory to either Michael or the kids.  So on my pantry shelf sat mason jars of exotic flours and powders - garbanzo and flava bean flour, egg replacer, xanthum gum, etc.

This past week we visited a friend about 1 hour away and I wanted to bring her something that the kids and I made.  Not having enough flour for cookies, I looked to my ingredients and decided to make her something semi-healthy.  Gluten-free muffins with chocolate chips!

I messed them up when I pulled them out 2/3rds of the way to insert the chips on top.  This caused the middle to not be fully cooked.  But after a taste test, Michael assured me that it wouldn't have mattered because the tasted awful.  I was not offended; I was in agreement!  And in this batch I had snuck in some regular flour to offset the strange slightly-bitter taste that the unusual ingredients had.

This was the moment I swore off gluten-free baking and cooking.  I think the key is just to not eat a lot whether it be Raw, Vegetarian, Carnivore, or Glutenless cuisine.