I have been remiss in posting. We made a trip to South Beach State Park, near Newport, OR in the beginning of August. Actually, we left on July 31st, so we were camping on July 1st and 31st. I like that. We stayed at South beach for three nights and had some interesting experiences.
The local mountain huckleberry bushes were heavy with fruit. Right in our own campsite, we were able to get enough berries for a huckleberry crisp and some delicious huckleberry bread. That might not be so noteworthy, were it not for the fact that we have no oven in Blue Suede! But the old blogger dug deep into the recesses of his memory (which is usually not too reliable) and dredged up the recollection of baking brownies aboard a boat that had only a two burner cook top.
A couple of years ago, I picked up a pressure cooker at a garage sale or thrift shop or somewhere and tucked it away in the kitchen. Jill was not too keen on the idea of a pressure cooker and worried that we'd blow ourselves to kingdom come. Nevertheless, when we packed for the cross country trip, I threw in the pressure cooker "just in case" we wanted to try baking.
While Jill was off flying to the SF bay area for her niece's graduation, I was left behind to get into trouble, at which I am quite adept. During those few days, I baked some passable biscuits*. Were they a bit dark on the bottom? I admit it, but nevertheless, they were recognizable as biscuits and actually even edible.
When Jill returned from her gallivanting, I baked her some biscuits, which she liked, and then she baked some cookies, which we both liked. The big problem was that the bottoms browned too much, but we were both hopeful that we could actually bake on board Blue Suede.
Fast forward to South Beach. When we harvested the huckleberries, we were prepared. Prior to the trip, we purchased a small, round cake pan at the Dollar Tree. By turning it upside down on top of the insert in the bottom of the pressure cooker, we were able to lift the baking items enough to alleviate the excessive browning on the bottom. And voila, a delicious huckleberry crisp and perfectly browned batter bread chock full of huckleberries! To say we were pleased and not a little proud would be to understate the facts!
Now for the bad news. On our cross country trip, I generally made sure we had the fresh water tank about 1/3 to 1/2 full, in case we needed to use the bathroom along the way. Just before we headed for South Beach, I was inspecting the under side of the trailer and discovered that the support for the water tank was broken.
By all appearances, the support consisted of a piece of (probably) particle board wrapped in a plastic material for weatherproofing and supported by two metal straps. The board was split lengthwise across the whole length of the tank, and the straps were bowed. My first impulse was to pull it all down and repair it myself. Then I remembered that the trailer is under warranty, and I was concerned about voiding the warranty.
I called the dealer, thinking, "This is such an easy repair it shouldn't take them long." And indeed the service manager looked at the problem and said it would take about a week. Well, that was three and a half weeks ago, but we finally got the call yesterday that Blue Suede is ready to go. So, today we will bring her home and begin planning our next outing.
* DISCLAIMER. When baking in a pressure cooker, it is important to remove the rubber gasket that makes a seal between the pot and the lid and to forgo the use of the pressure regulator weight. In other words, the pressure cooker becomes nothing more than a large covered pot, and no pressure is allowed to build up inside. In fact, any large, heavy, covered pot (e.g., a Dutch oven) could be used instead.
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