Out and About

A few weekends ago we traveled to Austin for a Big Green Egg festival - aka EggFest. The road to Austin goes by a town called Brenham, home of Blue Bell ice cream. Blue Bell is an institution here in Texas and is the ONLY ice cream to have. They do tours of the factory and have a gift shop that offers scoops for $1. We have never done the tour but have been known to take the detour for a scoop! :) My fave - blackberry cobbler ...

The EggFest was on the shores of Lake Travis and we got a great day for it - sunny but not overly humid. MM signed up to be a cook for the day so we were allocated a demonstration egg and went to work! With the help of our neighbors The Cottens, (who also made the trip to Austin for the weekend) we made about 400 tortilla scoops (the scoop filled with mexican style pinto beans, skirt steak and cheese topped with an avocado cream and pickled jalapeno) and chocolate chip-candied bacon cookies. Yes, you read right - CANDIED BACON!! :)
Here's one of the 6 batches of cookies going on. The cookies were such a hit we had to cut them into quarters to make them go around - that made around 340 samples and we had no problems getting rid of them! In fact, we had a line each time a new batch came off the grill!
It was a great day and we'll be sure to sign up to cook again next year.

Oh, and a random shot - our first strawberry of the season :)

Some random shots

So the veggie garden is really starting to take of - I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they all stay strong. Here we have a row of green beans (l) next to a row of fava or broad beans. Onions and tomatoes are in the back ground. I've left space in between to sow a second crop so we have 2 lots and different stages. Well, that's the plan :)

The grapes are no longer sticks! That's a tomato hanging in the background.

A couple of weekends ago we went to the Texas Hill Country. Yes, Texas is so flat they have a desginated "Hill" area. It also happens to be Texas wine country too so we sampled a few of the local wineries. It was not Napa, but a couple of them surprised us. Here I am with the Blue Bonnets (state flower) at one of the wineries.
We were wondering if our gecko would return this summer and here he is! He likes to hang out in the front yard and sun himself on the bench we have on the porch. Of course, this may not be the same one as last year but I like to think it is.
Mmmmm ... pizza

BGE Enhancements

So last weekend it rained so we had some time on our hands for some projects that seemed to be constantly pushed onto the back burner. One of them was building an extension bench to the BGE stand. We had all of the components, just needed to actually make it!

Here it is in the "down" position.

And da-da! In all of it's glory in the "up" position.

As you can see it really enhances the space that MM has to place cutting boards, pots, lids etc. The extension is made from the same wood as the existing table and it was lovingly stained (by me!) so it will weather to be the same colour. The brackets lock in place so there shouldn't be any accidents.

Not bad if I do say so myself :)

Camping - Stephen F Austin State Park

So before it gets hot, humid and the mozzies arrive, we decided to get a bit of camping in. Apparently so did the rest of Houston. It took me 2 days to find a park with availability and even then it had a 2 night minimum! Texans take their camping seriously it turns out!!

So, we packed up the car with our camping gear, bikes and fishing rod and head about an hour's drive south west to the Stephen F Austin State Park. The park is on land granted to Mr Austin, the "Father of Texas", from the Mexican's for the first Anglo colony in Texas. Who knew!?

The camp ground was great. They separate the RV's from the tents and each site has a water tap and fire pit. We put the fire pit to good use:

On the second night we really got that fire going!

It seems MM is a bit of a fire bug ..

The camp ground is bordered on one side by the Brazos River. Victoria might have the 'Mighty Murray' but I think the 'Brazos Beast' has gotten it beat! Usually you can fish here but the river was up on it's banks and moving rather swiftly so the fishing rods stayed in the car. No catfish for us.
We did go for 2 hikes and blew the cob webs of the bikes for a couple of rides. At Stephen F Austin we saw a host of birds - cardinals, woodpeckers, vultures, hawks, wrens, ravens - along with 5 white tailed deer.

On one of the days we also took a side trip to the nearby Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge. We rode our bikes around the center, which include numerous cattle grates which was interesting, until MM got a tyre puncture. Luckily we were close to the car because the tools were were carrying couldn't fix it.

Although we didn't see the Prairie Chicken, we did spot white tailed hawks, ducks, scissor tailed flycatcher and the highlight of the day for me - a crested caracaras. :)

Gardening Texas Style

It's a popular belief that in Texas, everything is bigger. So when I ordered some mulch and soil for some garden maintenance, I ordered the minimum. When the truck pulled up and dumped enough mulch and soil to fill the driveway I was surprised, but then again, I really shouldn't have been!

Here's what 4 yards of mulch looks like. There's 2 yards of soil behind it. I'm smiling because it's the start of the day :)

We needed the soil to help with some low spots in the yard. One side of the house is especially low and when it rains, water tends to pool there. We also have some low spots in a couple of the garden beds and the rest was to top up the vegetable beds.

Water is a big issue here. The soil is clay so the water can't soak into the ground very well. It wouldn't be so bad if we had nice gentle rain that had time to soak in but when it rains here, it really rains. It's not unusual to have 5 inches in a day. Standing water comes with a list of problems, not the least being a breeding ground for mozzies come summer. This is the low side of the yard:
This bed is low in the front and forms it's only little moat when it rains.

This bed is also low at the front:

So with shovels and wheel barrow in hand we started moving the soil.
This is the low side of the yard. You can see where we've spread the soil out on the existing lawn. The grass will grow up through it and hopefully establish itself at the new level. At the front in the rings are 2 peach trees and we have grapes to grow up on the lines. As the soil here is so crap, we've added new soil, mulch and nutrients for the fruit trees and planted them above the natural grade. According to the experts, this will do the trick!
Oops! Found the sprinkler pipe! :)
Vegetable beds are topped up and looking lovely.

And with the soil all distributed, it was time for a break :)

After a lunch break and run to the hardware store for pieces to fix the pipe, it was time to start mulching.

Looking pretty good even if I do say so myself!

One of the peaches is already very happy.

Even the beds at the front got some new refreshing mulch.

And after moving 3 tonnes of mulch and soil, one wheel barrow at a time, we were DONE.

The start of veggie garden season

It's the beginning of the veggie season - one of my fave times of the year! I get to play with dirt and seeds :) This year will hopefully be more successful than last year. Over the winter we have done a lot with the soil in the beds to add nutrients. This year we have also gone with the tomato varieties that are more disease resistant. The heirlooms, although our preferred, suffered with the weather last year and sometimes you just have to work with what you've got!

For the tomatoes we have 'Bush Early Girl - Hybrid', Ferline F1 - Hybrid, Moravi F1 - Hybrid. We're also dabbling a little and trying Tomatillo. It's a cousin of the tomato and used a lot in Mexican cooking. We also have 2 peppers - the trusty Jalapeno that we use in everything and a new one called Aji Dulce. Our Venezuelan neighbours love this pepper but can't find it anywhere in the US so we're going to give it a go. I have not given them any guarantees just in case! The pepper is the size and colour of a habanero (a spicy pepper) but is a lot milder.

Here they are all snug with their heat mats and light.

And here they come! :)

Everything can be cooked on the BGE

I must admit that when MM first showed me the BGE I was sceptical. I thought it was just another grill, just a funny looking expensive one. But who I am to stand in the way of a man and his grill?

Well turns out, the BGE is one the best things we have ever bought. We use it easily 6 days a week come rain or shine. MM is known to frequently be out there in the dark grilling and scaring our neighbours dogs. And when the temperature drops to below zero? No problem, the BGE just keeps him warm :)

At Christmas, MM had a brain wave - why not do the Yorkshire Puddings on it! The puddings require a hot oven (500F) and the egg can easily get to that we decided to put it to the test:

Cast iron skillets are piping hot - in goes the batter! And we wait ...

Wa-la! PERFECTION!

We can now add yorkshires to the long list of what we can cook on the egg! :) And it is a long list - all the usual suspects of burgers, snags, chops etc to pizza, chili, chicken wings and sunday roasts.

My mouth is watering ...