I Like Big Buns and I Cannot Lie….

Posted on December 14, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

Hamburger buns that is.

Homemade hamburger buns.

Big homemade hamburger buns.

I’m still trying to get away from buying bread at the store. If I can make it at home then I know what’s in it, it’s cheaper, and it tastes better. So I just did a Google search and found this recipe on So Very Blessed.

Here’s what I did:

Put all these ingredients in the bread machine in the order you are supposed to.

1 cup of warm milk
3tbs vegetable oil
1 egg
3 1/2 cups white flour
1tbs sugar
1tsp salt
2tsp yeast

Set your machine for the “dough cycle”. After about 2hrs, whenever it’s finished, take the dough ball out and divide it into 6 – LARGE – (or 8 if you want smaller buns) equal parts. Shape into a bun. (Make a round ball and kind of pat it down a little.) Put these on a greased baking sheet, cover with a towel and let them sit for almost an hour. They will puff up a little.

After the hour, brush them with an egg wash (1 egg white with 2tbs water) and sprinkle with sesame seeds. You don’t HAVE to do this, but I like it. You could do minced onion on top if you wanted, I think it’d be delicious, but I would wait to do the egg wash and onion until just a few minutes before they are finished because the onion will burn if you leave it in too long, then you have ruined buns!

Stick these puppies in a 400 degree oven (or a 375 degree convection microwave oven) for about 12 minutes. Keep an eye on them so they don’t get too dark.

I suggest letting them cool completely before slicing. We had chicken salad on these last night for dinner and tonight I’m grilling burgers for them. (delicious 1/2 turkey, 1/2 hot Italian sausage burgers… yum!)

For lunch yesterday, during the terrible Bengals game, we had those bagels I made the other day with some leftover chili I thawed out for lunch. (perfect for the rainy day we had here in Texas) Allen thought they were delicious, and he claims to not be a bagel fan! (He had two!) I’ll have to make them again soon!

Daily bread (and homemade bagels)!

Posted on December 12, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

BREAD

So I have still been searching for a recipe that makes really good sandwich bread. Even though Allen likes most of them, some more than others, I haven’t really found one fit for a pb&j… (And I love pb&j sammies!) But I stumbled across one 2 days ago. I can’t believe one simple step made such a world of difference!

a text from my boo yesterday at lunchtime

Here’s the recipe I used from food.com:

1 cup of hot water
2tsp yeast
3tbs sugar
1/4 cup olive oil
1tsp salt
3 cups white flour (not bread flour)

The trick is to put the hot water, yeast and sugar in the bread pan and let it sit for about 10 minutes. The yeast will foam a little. Then you add the remaining ingredients, set the machine to basic cycle with rapid crust. So. Delicious.

BAGELS

Also, I tried my hand at homemade bagels yesterday! I made them my version of Everything Bagels… I found the recipe on King Arthur Flour’s site (here). I cut the recipe in half since Allen isn’t a huge fan of bagels… Here’s my version and it made 4 normal size bagels.

1/2 tbs yeast
2 cups bread flour
1 tsp salt
1/2 tbs brown sugar
3/4 cup lukewarm water

Put all that in the bread machine and set it for bagel dough. Once it’s finished, cut the dough into 4 equal parts and shape into smooth, round balls. (Or try your best at smooth and round) Then place them on a baking sheet, lined with parchment paper, lightly greased, cover with plastic wrap and let them sit for about a half hour.

During the half hour, mix together in a large, wide pan:

64oz. water
2tbs brown sugar
1tbs sugar

Bring all that to a boil then reduce it to a simmer. Preheat the oven to 425 (or convection oven to 400). Then poke a hole through the center of the doughball and twirl around your pointer finger until the hole is about 2″ in diameter. (Mine look perfect, right?)

Put the bagels into the water bath. Cook, simmering, for 2 minutes on one side then flip them over and cook for another minute.

Take them out and place them back on the parchment lined baking tray. Sprinkle with seasoning if desired… (It’ll stick better if you brush the tops of the bagels with an egg wash first – 1 egg white mixed with 2 tbs water)

My “everything” seasoning mix…

Bake them in the oven for 15 minutes, flip them over, bake 10 minutes more. Then if you still want them a little darker in color, flip them back over, right side up for about 5 minutes. Cool completely on a wire rack before slicing.

I couldn’t wait to try one this morning for breakfast. I flip flopped back and forth between topping it with avocado and crushed red pepper, or making a bacon, egg & cheese sandwich with it. I decided on the avocado, thinking maybe chicken salad would be delicious on it for dinner, then thought I should also do half with traditional cream cheese also.

Yum! They are chewy and crunchy (after toasting) and they have that bagel flavor. The only thing I might change is my “everything” seasoning. I think it’s a little too salty. I want to hurry and eat these so I can make another batch!

Cooking Thanksgiving Dinner in an RV

Posted on November 25, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

This will be my first year making Thanksgiving dinner in a camper! Last year we got a few days to go home to see family. We were in Oklahoma City at Abe’s RV Park, so it wasn’t too far to Cincinnati… The year before Allen was in India working and I was staying at my mom’s house.

I’ve made Easter dinner (I attempted to cook a very large ham in my slow cooker…All I’ll say about that is: At least we had fun!… And I burnt my finger really bad! And, yes, I made those bunny ears and forced Allen to put them on. That’s it. That’s all I’m saying.)

I’ve also made St. Patrick’s Day dinner, Shepard’s pie to be precise…

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We made fast friends with the neighbors and didn’t eat until REALLY late! This was at Poche Plantation in Convent, Louisiana…

And I cook dinner almost every day in our RV. So I’m no rookie in the kitchen. But Thanksgiving is always more challenging no matter how much space you have! To top things off, I’m not THE best at time management. For example, I make a lot of Rachael Ray’s recipes, her 30-minute meals, and they typically take me around 90 minutes!!! No lie, ask Allen, usually he’s starving by the time dinner is ready. I can’t help it, I’m just slow… But perfection takes time. Right??

Anyhow, in a camper, space is limited, as is counter space, and cooking space.

Luckily for me, I have the advantage of a new fifth wheel with far more space than the travel trailer we had prior to this. My stove has 3 burners whereas the average stove in a “normal” home has 4. My oven is small. And this one is slightly larger than the oven in our travel trailer was. My saving grace (I think) will be the convection microwave. I absolutely love the thing! I mostly use the conventional oven for storage now because the convection microwave just cooks so much better. Our fridge is huge compared to the one we had in the travel trailer also, so that helps a ton!

I was willing to cook for all the guys on the crew, provided they had some opinions or ideas on what they wanted and where we could all eat. Three of them are staying in the motel a block away and one is next door in the campground. But they are men, and nobody would speak up and say what they wanted to do. So it’s just me and Allen (and Charlie), which makes everything a little easier for me!

We went shopping today and got everything we needed. (I also got a new coat because my old one stopped zipping and we can’t have a non-zipping coat in “Little Canada”!

I measured my convection microwave from top to bottom and decided I could fit 7″ of turkey in there without shoving and squishing! So I was armed with my tape measure… But then we spotted a roasting oven for $25. Boom. Sold!

Now (hopefully) I will have a super delicious, juicy, flavorful turkey and have room for other stuff in the convection oven and maybe, just maybe, fingers crossed, I can get by without using the “real oven”, because that thing just stresses me out! Always has.

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Thanksgiving is for food and football… And family… And friends… But definitely not for stress!

So my TENTATIVE plan is to have a turkey in the roasting oven (unstuffed because I don’t want to risk that… ); a small ham, green bean casserole, and stuffing in the convection oven; then gravy, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce (for me only-Allen’s not a fan) on the stove, with deviled eggs (strictly for me also) and cheesecake in the fridge and freezer, respectively. And let’s not forget the mimosas in the morning…

Followed by Wild Turkey later in the day!

Image: Donald M. Jones

Not that kind of wild turkey…

This kind!

Yum! It’s kind of a tradition of mine that I started when I was in college in San Francisco with no mom to cook for me and no cooking abilities of my own!

I currently have the 15lb turkey Allen insisted we get in a bucket of cold water in the garage where it stays pretty cold (like, we’ve been keeping our beer back there cold, it has one vent and we are using it as a mudroom cold, Charlie shivers upon entering cold… So I think it’ll be okay until Thursday).

I want to make the green bean casserole tomorrow and toss it in the fridge so it’ll just need warming. I don’t want to do the stuffing ahead of time because I love the smell of the trio of onions, celery and garlic all simmering on Thanksgiving morning, so I’ll wait to do that. Then I’ll just have mashed potatoes and gravy and cranberry sauce to make (super easy-just cranberries, some water, sugar, lemon juice and salt and pepper makes it delicious!)

I’m pretty excited! I think my planning (albeit tentative) is going to help things go smoothly… Wish me luck! On the plus side, Allen’s pretty used to waiting for hours to eat, so it should be fine!

Are we becoming “NoDaks”???

Posted on November 8, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

Lyle, the engineer on the tallest broadcast tower in America told Allen and the guys yesterday that they were going to turn into true NoDaks before we get out of here. Yikes! I think he means that they are going to somehow adapt to the crazy cold and windy weather that all the locals keep describing as “nice”. That’s not the term I would use!!

Yesterday I met the maintenance man for Hillsboro Campground and Motel. He moved his camper down to the insulated water spicket section. Everyone is kind of huddling together now the temps are dropping below freezing. I didn’t catch this gentleman’s name so I’ll just refer to him as Lyle #2 for now. Lyle #2 works on the beet farm then does maintenance type things for the motel and campground. He’s done this for 5 years. He’s 71. He got his first motorcycle in 2010 (a Harley that he quickly swapped for a Honda that wants to be a crotch rocket that he now loves, even has the jacket to prove it.) He had a travel trailer for thirty years until recently he traded that for a 27′ fifth wheel. He misses the travel trailer.

Lyle #2 said that he put all the “new” spots in back in September and did them all in less than 2 weeks because they had 71 campers here for the beet farm! I can’t imagine that many campers in this park! But I could see it being nice in the summer.
But the rush to get the spots built explains the super soft gravel and mud. (And also the catty-wompus way the electric and water hookups are in the middle of the yards) Lyle #2 said these 71 units were mostly class A’s with retired folks, this group is called a “Camp Force”, and they left here October 15 to head to Amazon to work for Christmas. Then they go out to California to work another farm, come back this way for potatoes then the beets again. But Lyle #2 isn’t sure if they will all be back next year because the beet farm didn’t pay the premium price and some of them didn’t even make their expenses.

I found my conversation with Lyle #2 to be very interesting. I’d never heard of a “Camp Force” before. I’ve heard of full time RVers going to work for Amazon but not necessarily traveling as a group and going from farm to farm for the different harvests. Anyhow, Lyle #2 was on his way to shut the water off in the “old” section of the park so I headed back inside with Charlie to thaw out our hands and paws! We have not become No-Daks quite yet!

I AM really starting to like this town. I had a feeling I would before we got here. Wednesday, Allen got off early because of nasty weather, so we went over to Granny’s (the local watering hole) to see if we could find somewhere to watch the Thursday Night Football game. We wanted to avoid driving all the way to Grand Forks (35miles) in snowy weather if at all possible. Jackie is the bartender at Granny’s most of the time and she was very friendly. They have free popcorn too! But their TV’s are kind of small so we wanted to check out Reno’s also (the local sports bar). Jackie described it as a little more modern.

Reno’s was a lot newer yet not as cozy. But still, Reno was very friendly and said he would definitely have the game on for us. They also have a full menu (mostly fried appetizers and burgers) and we need to eat when we drink!

So we headed back to Reno’s Thursday night and watched the Bengals go 8-0 for the first time in history!

A local guy bought us some shots. Jackie showed up to chat a bit. I made a plan to take Charlie to Granny’s for the 8am Happy Hour Saturday morning (didn’t happen!) (and yes, 8-9am is Happy Hour for all the guys that work at the beet plant) and I also got the OKAY to have mail sent to Reno’s. (The campground is kind of weird for mail and they just have a box on the street that nobody checks regularly). So it turned out to be a great night. Allen was sufficiently late to work Friday while re-evaluating his life choices and Charlie woke up with her Bengals shirt half on/half off… Just goes to show our first major outing in town was a fun one!

We also stopped by Olsen Hardware, NAPA, and the lumber store looking for one of those boot brush cleaner thingies that you put outside… No luck… Our garage is seriously a mud room now! I got to run into Uniquely Yours Craft Boutique while Allen picked up an adapter for our air pump. We couldn’t reach the dually tire valves without it. I found some wooded salt and pepper shakers that I think are super cute! I was looking for metal ones, but no luck there.

Allen is working today (Sunday) as well as yesterday since they had that weather day. But the next day off we are going to go into Grand Forks to Walmart and stock up on some food. Dale’s Food Pride (local grocery) is almost as expensive as San Francisco and I’m over that! But I guess they can charge whatever they want since they are the only place around.

Yesterday I made my first loaf of Pumpernickel Rye Bread and I think it came out really good. I do want to get some caraway though to add and I think that would boost the flavor a bit more. I’ll wait to get Allen’s opinion before I post the recipe. But if I do it will be here, along with the Hillbilly Chili and Chili Bread I’m making today! Perfect for a chilly football Sunday… Cheers!

***Pumpernickel Rye Bread recipe

Fantastic Chili Bread!

Posted on October 16, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

I think I want this bread with a big bowl of chili for my last meal! It is SO good!

I made this chili bread yesterday with my Hillbilly Chili for dinner and Allen and I ate almost the whole loaf! We didn’t even bother to take the kneading paddle out, we just tore off chunks at a time…

I found the recipe on this website. It’s full of recipes for the bread machine. I’ve tried a few of them, and most work out, while some are complete failures (i.e.: Lemonade Bread!)

I was a little worried because it doesn’t call for any sugar, but beer has sugar in it… I modified the recipe a little bit to fit what I had available… Here’s what I did:

3/4 cup + 2 tbs Budweiser (any beer would probably work, I actually think a darker hoppier beer would probably be delicious) *I used warm, room temp beer.
1 tsp instant chicken bouillon (or, 1 cube crushed up very finely)
1/4 tsp ground cayenne
1/4 tsp hot chili oil (I usually find this in the Asian section with sesame oil)
1 tbs olive oil
1/8 tsp ground cumin (I eyeballed this because I don’t have a measuring spoon that tiny)
1 1/2 tsp onion powder
1 tsp chili powder
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/4 cups bread flour
2 tsp yeast

This makes a 1lb loaf. I set my machine to the french bread setting and a medium crust color. The basic/white bread setting would probably work also.

It’s perfect to munch on by itself, it’s spicy and delicious, but even better dipped in chili. If you’re in the market to try a new chili recipe, mine is pretty fantastic! You can find that recipe here. It would actually probably be good served with gumbo too… Maybe I’ll put that on the list for next week!

I’ve been compiling my favorite bread recipes in one spot, if you want to check them out and maybe try one this weekend.

Happy Friday!

Blowing this joint!!!

Posted on October 15, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

Goodbye California! Well, we still have 7 days and a wake up! (As my brother would say…) We are getting Charlie out of the parking lot and heading for greener pastures!

The tentative plan a few days ago included leaving here, driving to South Dakota to change our domicile, get a new mailing address, register vehicles, etc. then head on to Dallas for the next job.

But, plans changed as they usually do and the next job is in North Dakota now! So our little stop in South Dakota isn’t really out of the way at all!

I’m excited, I’ve never been to the Dakotas and I’ve never been that far north period. I’m hoping for Allen’s sake if nothing else that we don’t get snow while we are there, but it’ll be an adventure nonetheless.

We have Texas and California now. Allen says we should have New Mexico and Arizona but I say we only count the states that all three of us (Allen, Charlie and I) stay in THIS camper.. And since what I say goes (most of the time-sshhh!) they are not on the map yet!

I love traveling and I get a little hard to deal with (I think) when we sit somewhere for longer than a month or two. I just get antsy and want to get on with it already. And I can’t wait to add to our map!

The tower they are going to be working on was the tallest structure in the world when it was built in 1963. It’s now the 4th tallest structure in the world (after some buildings in Tokyo), THE tallest in the Western Hemisphere and the tallest radio mast in the world. Pretty cool…

The KVLY-TV mast is in Blanchard, ND (almost exactly halfway between Fargo and Grand Forks). Blanchard has a population of 26. Yep. Small town. And I thought Convent, Louisiana was tiny! (Population 711, right on the Mississippi River)

The closest RV park is in Hillsboro and that’s a little bigger, population 1,603 in the 2010 census. It’s 1 square mile. There is a family restaurant, a Burger King, a Subway, gas station, grocery store, bakery, and a florist and I think there MAY be 1-3 bars but I can’t really decide if they are still open. From what I gather online, the RV park is also the town laundry mat and a fried chicken place. It should be interesting!

I’m pretty sure I can walk everywhere in less than 15 minutes (if I don’t let Charlie stop and smell ALL of the roses!)

I know this isnt Charlie and these aren’t roses but I couldn’t resist the adorableness!

I’m super excited to be getting out of the city and out into the country. I get to where I need open spaces after being in a city for too long. I’m excited Charlie will have some grass! And Allen will be glad to get back to real tower work (not just painting and piddling).

Today is full of typical San Francisco fogginess so I’m making my hillbilly chili for dinner and trying out this new recipe for Chili Bread that I found… I’ll let you know if it comes out delicious!

I also made these pillow covers for our friend Brandi back in Kentucky and mailed them to her this week… Her boyfriend went and installed a 50AMP outlet for us so we can stay in their yard during the holidays. Talk about some awesome friends!

And I made these for us… I’m loving the teal and brown combo…

If you would like to see one of many tutorials on the web, this one by me, you can check out this link or this one!

For now I will leave you with some cuteness… Charlie and her parking lot pals… Cheers!

Cisco the friendly husky pup.

Cisco gets bored and tears things up… For instance, his bed.

Duke and Daisy being lazy

The BEST clam chowder EVER and Super Yummy Chocolate Zucchini Bread

Posted on October 7, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

Not together of course. That wouldn’t be so delicious. But separately=yum!

Side note: if you WANT to try chocolate covered clams, here’s a random recipe!

Saturday Allen and I met my friend Dave for dinner at The Old Clam House. Dave and I went to the Academy of Art together about…. Oh, we’ll just say 7 years ago… And he lives in the city now.

**Disclaimer: I took none of the pictures of The Old Clam House, just borrowed them from Google.

He could not have picked a better place! The Old Clam House is the oldest restaurant in San Francisco. It started in 1861. If you’re ever hungry in the city I highly recommend it! We started with drinks of course. They have their own beer, brewed by Anchor Steam, so I had that. It was really good, a little lighter than Allen’s Lagunitas. It’s called Old Clam House Milwaukee Steam.

Then we had a sizzling iron platter of shrimp and mussels with butter to dip in. Dave hates that the place switched owners and they no longer serve sourdough bread, but they make this soda bread in a cast iron pot type thing that was really good (I wish I could make bread like that!)

Next came the, I think, world’s best clam chowder. Oh my goodness. I want a bowl for breakfast as I’m writing this. Fantastic.

Then I finally got to try cioppino! I’ve always wanted to but I was always a little iffy about it. It was really good! Allen liked it too. I was a TINY bit surprised he liked everything as much as I did.

Thank you Dave for a wonderful dinner! If you’re up for it, check out some of Dave’s paintings!

Now for the Chocolate Zucchini Bread….

I did take this photo!

I found the recipe here: With The Grains

I modified it a little to fit what I had and cut it in half. I love it! The closest way I can think to describe it is it’s kinda like a chocolate muffin. It’s not too sweet. But it doesn’t taste like zucchini at all. I’ll definitely make it again. Here’s the version I made:

1 1/2 cups zucchini, shredded
1 cup whole wheat flour (I sifted mine)
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp cinnamon
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 large eggs
1/4 cup melted unsalted butter
1/4 cup plain 2% Greek yogurt
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 or convection oven to 325.
Place the shredded zucchini on paper towels to absorb some of the moisture while you mix everything else.
Whisk together in a large bowl: the flour, cocoa, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, and salt
Whisk in a medium bowl: eggs, butter, yogurt, sugar, and vanilla
Pour wet into dry and stir together. (It will be thicker than cake mix, almost like a really wet bread dough)
Fold in zucchini.
Pour/spoon into a parchment lined 9×5 loaf pan and top with chocolate chips.
Bake 45-55 minutes, or 60 minutes in the convection oven. (I rotated mine once)
Place on a wire rack to cool.
Enjoy! And don’t forget to share with the neighbors 🙂

Almost an ENTIRE week of bad dinners!

Posted on October 3, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

Occasionally, well, more than occasionally, I get on a kick where I want to try lots of new recipes. I go off of what’s on sale at the store then Google things to make. I use a lot of Rachael Ray recipes (I too am a garlic fanatic!) but I also get them from all over the web. I usually jot them down on scraps of notebook paper then when it comes time to make them I have to go searching for the little scribbled recipe.

This past week there was a sale on bone-in skin-on chicken thighs. I hardly ever cook with bone-in chicken, but I thought what the heck, it’s on sale! Here was my menu:

Chicken Thighs with Smoky Roasted Peppers
Salmon with Peanut Noodles and Veggies
Steak with Rosemary Garlic Mashed Potatoes and Sautéed Zucchini
Grilled Sweet and Sticky Chicken Thighs with Asparagus (Allen eventually vetoed the sweet and sticky part and insisted on just regular barbecue sauce-he claimed he was starving from barely eating all week!)
Bacony Egg Noodles with Green Beans

Allen joked on Thursday night that I was 0 for 4 for the week. But I pulled a win out on Friday with the Bacony Egg Noodles! I knew he would like bacon. And I didn’t think everything else was THAT bad…

But tonight we are meeting a guy I went to school with for dinner at The Old Clam House. So that should be delicious and I won’t have to cook it! First we have to take Charlie to get a much needed mani-pedi and go grocery shopping. Since tomorrow will be tied up with football! Go Bengals! Who Dey!

This New Fad: “Cold-Brewed Coffee”

Posted on September 19, 2015 by Rachel Gillen

When the weather is warm, there is nothing better than a big glass, or cup in my case, of iced coffee in the morning, or afternoon for that matter!

And the weather was SUPER warm last week in San Francisco! Like, abnormally hot, record-breaking, school closing heat… And being parked in an asphalt parking lot doesn’t help matters…

I saw a how-to for cold brewed coffee on a blog I follow. Then that same evening I saw a Starbucks commercial for cold brewed coffee, so I knew I had to try it. I was a little worried it wouldn’t be strong enough for my liking, but followed the instructions nonetheless (something I do very rarely).

It was super simple to make, the hardest part was remembering to do it the night before so it was ready in the morning!

I don’t have a coffee grinder. I’m not a coffee connoisseur. I drink Folgers Classic Roast on a daily basis, and enjoy a Caramel Macchiato from Starbucks on occasion. I also don’t own cheesecloth. But, the owner of the blog said it should be fine if I used a coffee filter in place of cheesecloth. (Here’s a link to the original post from Italian Home Kitchen ) And here’s what I did:

I put 5 big spoonfuls of coffee into the largest cup I had, which turned out to be a bartender mixing thing and actually that worked out pretty well. Then I filled it up with cold water. I put the lid on it. Then I went to bed. And slept.
When I woke up the next morning I got my mesh strainer out, along with a coffee filter, some wax paper, scissors, and a giant Starbucks cup. (I hang onto decent plastic cups-it saves us having to buy them, and since we don’t travel around with glass, why not?)
I put the strainer over the empty cup, cut a hole in the middle of the wax paper, and put the coffee filter in the open spot. Then I began the painfully slow process of straining the coffee from the coffee grounds. It was about as slow as a drip coffee maker, but when you have to stand there and watch, it feels like waiting for a pot of water to boil, or watching paint dry. Ok, maybe it’s not that bad. But I was anxious to try this new cold brewed coffee!