tekobo

You are wreaking havoc with my appetite here!

Super looking pizza Mac. @SSgt93, mostaccioli are new to me. They look lovely.

When I was 16 I left Nigeria to visit a friend who lived in Kenya. I found it difficult to get my head around the fact that she said I was to bring socks and warm clothing. Cold? In Africa? I learned that lesson the hard way. You seem to be having similar difficulty with my current predicament. You have racoons. We don't and I don't think I have ever seen one in real life. What we do have are foxes (not interested in corn), pigeons (only interested in shredding my brassicas or pooing on them from on high if I put a cage around them - either way the pigeons win) and Fred the cat (mostly interested in cuddles). Oh yes, and rats. The rats are the ones that get the corn. My allotment neighbours seem to have successfully protected theirs with old socks. I don't have any old socks so I have ordered some cheap green socks in the hope that they will blend in. Will report on success or lack thereof.

I am still awaiting your missive regarding our bets for the upcoming season. I thought I might offer to get you a tablecloth in the event that I was to lose but given I am not planning to lose, relying on your daughter's kindness is your best bet.

Ireland? Madagascar? More like a very hungry monkfish.

Phew!

Yes, involving friends made the whole endeavour much easier. My friend and her son were staying over and they did a really good job of making the guacamole, old style, in the mortar and her son was super efficient with rolling the tortillas for cooking. We bought the tablecloth when we were last in Italy and it was just right for this meal. We had planned to cut it into a round to use on our outdoor table but it is so cheery that we have abandoned that plan and will use it indoors to cheer us up as winter draws in.

A by-product of last week's sausage fest was loin of pork that I couldn't bring myself to mince to make sausages. We split it in two - one half for further aging and one half for bacon. I used my new molasses cure and left it in a vacuum bag for 8 days. Cold smoked yesterday using maple pellets. I just love the warming grate in the 23 for this application. I am amazed at how much bacon you can get out of just one half of a pig loin. Much happiness to follow.

Thanks Steve. Looking forward to trying out the press when it finally arrives. The feedback on Amazon was that they sometimes don't get the tortillas thin enough and you have to put discs in and rotate the tortillas to get them flat. Will see how that works out. The consistency of the dough was great and it didn't stick to the rolling pin at all. Of course. Fly Eagles Fly. You bake a lot. I can see why. Working with dough is so pleasurable. Thanks Paul. Will try this next time. It was so easy to make up the dough following your instructions. And lovely and warm to knead with the wet cornflour. Cut and pasted from a different post by @tony b: @tekobo you are much more adventurous than you give yourself credit for! You rock, gurl! And thanks Tony, for keeping the faith.

It was the best sort of lunch. Guests arrived at about 1pm, all gone by 5pm and all followed by a three and a half hour snooze. Nice. Tortillas first. My guess is members of your family might not have thought the tortillas were up to their standard Paul but, for a first go, our guests were very appreciative. The tortilla press did not arrive on time so we did it the old fashioned way - rolling pin and child labour. I heated up a Chinese dish to super hot in the microwave and stored the initial batch of tortillas in there. After the first rush we made them to order. About 10s one side and say 50 the other seemed to do it. Re-heated the black beans On to the brisket. The KKs held steady at 150C for the whole cook. I don't use any of those blowy devices to manage the fire because the KKs are just sooo reliable in my non-windy back garden conditions. Nice to have two KKs to do this but I guess a 32 or 42 would have done this cook in one go. Now, the recipe called for wrapping the dishes in foil. I did not do that, thinking the KKs would preserve moisture. Not so, sauce predictably evaporated leaving tasty bark. Friend did the shredding Whacked up the 21 to cook the sopressa. It's a Venetian sausage that you slice, cook on both sides and then finish with splash of red wine and vinegar. Everyone declared them delicious. Yum And yum Thanks @PVPAUL and @Braai-Q!

Good luck! I hope you have a wonderful day.

I am basing today's lunch around recipes from two fellow KK'ers. First I am making tortilla's according to @PVPAUL's family recipe and second, using @Braai-Q's recommendation for Mexican style brisket. Tortilla recipe here: Brisket recipe here: https://www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk/recipes/mexican-style-barbecued-beef-brisket-with-quick-pickled-onions/ A girlfriend and I made up the tortilla balls. Double the recipe meant 36 tortillas at 71g each. Yay! It was such fun and the dough felt really good. Now sitting here with damp cloth and cover over them. Will be proving for about two hours before we eat. I tried out my two cooking implements. I didn't get the clay comal hot enough - was being too cautious - will do better when we come to cook for the meal. I did 10s one side and then 1 minute each side. Thinking I should follow Paul's instructions with 10s one side and 1 minute other side so that you get a soft inside to roll. I am sooooo looking forward to lunch. We tried black beans in the first tortilla and it tasted great. I ordered a tortilla press yesterday in the hope that it would arrive in time today. No worries if it doesn't, rolling with a pin seems to work just fine. In fact, I am betting that the Amazon delivery man will arrive just as we finish rolling the last tortilla. What's on the menu? Black beans, brisket and sopressa. To be wrapped in lettuce leaves (low carb friends) or tortillas (everyone once they have seen them!) and topped with pickled cucumbers or pickled red onions and guacamole. Did I say I was looking forward to lunch??

Thanks Mac. I thought that cooking in the skin on the KK would be hard to beat. I have never tried steaming corn. Will try it with my next batch. If the critters on the allotment leave me any. I just read about putting socks or empty pop bottles over the top of the corn once pollinated. Going to try that even though it looks ridiculous!

Wow. @Mcjudsten that looks awesome. Between your pics and Dennis' it is clear that the 42 is a very flexible machine. Hmmmmm...

P.S. She's getting married in the morning, ding dong the bells are going to chime?

Our local fruit and veg man supplies restaurants and always has super fresh produce. I have asked him about sweet peaches and he is going to taste and compare what's available at the market to ensure that I get the sweetest possible. May end up with nectarines if they are what he deems best. Will see how they perform in this syrup.

Both the corn and the bread look lovely Mac. How did you cook the corn? On the KK or in IDK?

If you can afford it and want it, I would recommend going for the BB42. You don't want to regret not having tried it and, as @SSgt93 said, you can manage the configuration to save charcoal. Buying a KK is not about being sensible, follow your heart.

There are not many desserts to beat a no nonsense apple pie with cream or vanilla ice cream. That looks yummy @Tyrus.

Wise choice. Less wise choice would be to go with my fantasy of having every size KK, each in a different "favourite" colour way. Not yet but very high on must cook list. It is a bit like making bread or pasta. If you do it regularly it is no big deal and you just get on with it. With a new thing like making tortillas I am afraid to fail and keep putting it off. Soon, very soon.

That's great @PVPAUL. Did you choose a different colour and/or tile style? I guess the advantage of having them in different locations is that you don't have to match. What fun!

Thanks @ckreef. You reminded me to get on to our fruit and veg man to see whether he can source some tasty peaches. I remember a road trip with family friends in California when i was 15. We bought a box of peaches from a roadside stall and proceeded to eat them raw, in omelettes and everything else besides. They were soooo delicious. I have not eaten peaches as good since. Letting nostalgia cloud things may mean that I can't bring myself to make this sauce. Having said that, there must be some good peaches to be had from Italy and places like that. Let the sourcing mission commence!

@Basher that looks like fun! How long before you will be able to do a taste test? Days, weeks?

Thanks! I guess a gasket change will come one day. I just didn't want to be hastening it by a factor of, say, 5. Looking forward to experimenting with bread again. I may end up back in the IDK but it will be good to see what the KK brings to game.

Ha ha. I used to be one of the (lay) IT administrators for our Unix system in the office back in the day. Main memory is the fact that, in spite of all the fancy checks we were taught, switching off and on again seemed to fix most things. The Husband is indeed a good person to have as a friend but never did Unix. Your post tells me I might, or might not, have problems with my current bread endeavour. We put the sourdough wholemeal loaves into the fridge yesterday afternoon. I got them out this morning to warm up and have only now, 24 hours from first putting the loaves in the fridge, put one into the KK to bake. I hope that is not too long a gap. Slight bubble on the top of one of the proven loaves. Oh well, we will see. It's a public holiday here so we have had time to do some research. The aluminium discs that @Syzygies recommended don't ship to the UK (not surprising, given their weight) and I cannot easily find similar in the UK. I then remembered that I had been considering getting a baking steel for thin crust pizzas. If a baking steel could double up as thermal mass for baking bread that could work well. So, more questions. Would I end up warping such a steel by repeatedly heating and quenching it in this application? Would two steel discs placed on top of each other in a baking tin work ok and not bounce or get excited if water got in between them? I ask the second question because I could buy two steels from these folk to make up the weight: https://pizzasteel.com/pages/shop. Alternative is to get a custom circular big baking steel from these folk when I come to the US later this year: https://shop.bakingsteel.com/collections/steels/products/the-big. Or I could try cooking pizza on an aluminium shop disc if I order one to be delivered to my brother in Texas. Lovely hot day here in the UK. Off to check on my loaf!