Fireplace at Sundown

It's hard to complete projects when you spend a week teaching in town.  I'm so impressed with Alan's abilities.  He's working really hard on the deck and we're getting closer to finishing the whole project.

Alan has almost completed the pergola.  In our excitement we hauled the small fireplace and the deck furniture up on the deck.

 Sipping wine in front of the fire at sundown in January is a wonderful experience.  It was a little chilly, but we are wearing only light jackets in mid-January.

Thanksgiving at The Ranch with The Big Green Egg

The back deck is not finished, and the wind is strong from the south.  We've decided to set up our Thanksgiving dinner on the front porch to get us out of the wind.  Maechelle won't be joining us this year, but Christy and Dilish along with Amanda and Clark will join Alan, Jack, Stephanie, Marissa, and me for dinner around 1:00.

The Big Green Egg is an important part of our dinner plan.  Even though I'm cooking a meal for this many people without a traditional stove, I think my plan will work.

The Big Green Egg will cook the turkey, baked potatoes (while the turkey is cooking) and two pies.  I'll cook the pies ahead.

The Camp Chef will cook the green bean casserole in the dutch oven.

The Microwave will cook the pumpkin cake and the stuffing.

The multicooker will cook the gravy.

The Turkey:
We cooked the turkey like you cook "beer chicken."  We bought a 24 oz can of beer.  Alan had to work to get it into the holder, but he did.   Working together, we coated the outside of the turkey with beer can chicken seasonings (you can buy this pre-mixed or make your own).

We put a lot of charcoal with soaked apple smoking chips in the BGE and preheated it to 375.  I wanted to cook the turkey low and slow.  Once the charcoal was started and the fire was going,  we set the plate setter in the egg with the legs up, and set the grill rack on top.  When the BGE was at 375, we set the turkey on the rack.  I planned to cook the 14lb bird for 3 1/2 to 4 hours.  After two hours, I put the baked potatoes on in a circle around the turkey.  The turkey was done at 3 1/2 hours.   I checked by piercing the thigh the way the chef on the BGE DVD demonstrates.

The Apple Pie:
We actually baked the pie on the BGE the night before Thanksgiving.  I used an oil pastry the way I would do it if I was baking in a regular oven.  Steph and Marissa helped.  I use Granny Smith apples in my pies and add Turbinado sugar (about 1/8 to 1/4 c), a little flour (2 T), and a little cinnamon to the sliced apples.

This is not a "true" lattice because we use oil pastry.  We just  placed stripes of dough on each other without weaving.

I set the plate setter with legs down and put the pizza stone on top.  I also used a baking rack to prevent the pan from touching the hot stone.  I cooked the pie at 400 as suggested on the livefire blog.  Just as the blog suggests, I watched the pie and at about 45 mins it looked done (bubbling center, brown crust).

Broccoli salad and jellied cranberries (I cooked ahead on the Camp Chef)

 This was a wonderful tasting pumpkin cake I cooked in the Microwave.  With whipped cream on top it looks better.

Here's the link to the pumpkin cake recipe.

The Big Green Egg for Our Outdoor Kitchen

I emailed Joe Rider at Stone Age for a recommendation about our outdoor kitchen.  I love his products and needed the name of an installer/mason out in our area.  He gave me a recommendation, but after talking with the installer, I was not confident that we could meet our timeline or our budget.

Alan mentioned that he wanted to take a look at a Big Green Egg especially since our friend Matt Marcacci at The Hill told Alan how much he loved his egg.

We discovered that not only was the egg a smoker (which is all we had intended), it was basically a wood fire oven and more.

This thing makes the best wood fire pizza you have ever tasted!

We bought our egg at Everything Barbecue in Oklahoma City.  The salesmen were very helpful and we ended up buying the Extra Large egg with the cart.  We also bought the baking stone and the rack extender so that I can bake two pies at once.

The salesman didn't realize he talked us out of buying the Weber grill station that Alan was in love with.  We realized we didn't need it.  The egg would do almost everything we needed except boil water or provide a gas grill option.

If you plan to drive off with your egg the way we did, be sure to have PLENTY of strong backs around.  It is very heavy.  Also, be careful about storing your baking stone.  Ours was left tilting against something and ended up falling over and breaking.

The Big Green Egg uses hardwood charcoal and special lighter fluid or an electric starter.  You don't want to use Kingsford or lighter fluid in it since that will taint your food.

They sell a starter at the egg store, but we bought an inexpensive one from Walmart that works just fine.

With the egg as our wood fire oven, our plans for the outdoor kitchen have changed.  We have decided to wait until we build a bigger home to do the stone work which keeps the budget more appropriate for the cabin.

We've decided to cover the corner of the deck for the kitchen which is slowed the construction while we look for plans.

Roughing It

We were so excited about our new land that we couldn't wait to stay here.  We decided to camp out for awhile since we had no real plans of building a house here.

The only buildings on the property at this time are a concrete block pump house in serious need of repair and an old shed that was missing a door.  Both are painted barn red.

Obviously there are no facilities, and the closest town is 8 miles away.  After quite a bit of research, I figured out how to make a camping toilet.

We put the camping toilet in the old shed, installed a makeshift door with an old shower curtain, and set a lantern inside. (I really like my Coleman LED because it is bright and battery operated.)

 Since it was winter, I wasn't too worried about snakes or what could be hiding under the broken floor of the shed.

The kids were a little nervous about the whole arrangement, but they were very inexperienced with camping. I wish it wasn't true, I wish I had taken them before now, but I'm resolved to make up for lost time.

The camping toilet relies on composting concepts. I purchased biodegradable bags, a bucket, and a snap on seat. I filled up dried leaves and grass in another bucket at first. After alot more research, I'm thinking about switching to coconut fiber which is found in Kitty's Crumble Cat Litter.  It seems to be better for composting and for odor.

These are the other pieces I used for the camping toilet:

1. A 5 gallon bucket I bought from Lowes.
2. Bucket Toilet Seat Accessory
3. Biodegradable 33 Gallon Black Trash Bags
4. Biodegradable Toilet Paper
5. Hand sanitizer and paper towels (there is also wash water at the hose)

You'll want to double line the bucket and tie the bags loosely in a side knot (like cleaning staff do with waste basket liners) to keep the bag out of the way. Be sure to leave enough slack at the top so that you can easily pull the bag out and tie it off without a lot of mess.

It took the teenagers a little while to get comfortable with the concept, but when you have to go...

We figured the investment in a truck tent would allow Alan and me to camp on our own in the future. We bought a Sportz Truck Tent III for Compact Short Bed Trucks (for Toyota Hilux and Tacoma Models) for our Tacoma.  If you do this, you'll want to get the bed from them with cutouts for the wheel wells.  It is very comfortable.

Our Experiments with a Firepit Lead to Great Family NIghts

We've been working in the back yard removing the former owner's landscaping attempts that seemed out of place. We were left with a large pile of curved pavers.

My daughters have been asking to have an outdoor fire to roast marshmallows so in a moment of creativity we began to build a fire pit with the pavers.

That night we built a fire and enjoyed a little family time outside. It was wonderful, just like camping without the drive, packing, and sleeping in a tent.

The next week, we held our weekly family civics lesson around the fire pit while roasting hot dogs (health food store of course) and marshmallows.

It was a great night and even the 17 year old son who was denied the opportunity to hang out with his friends that night admitted that he had fun.

If you are thinking about trying this, here's a link about building fires that I found
Building safe fires