A big day with lots of activities kept me moving. I am so exhausted. Despite the rain, the weather is breaking, which is helping us with being upbeat. Share our day with us.
Fritz and I drove through downtown Millville to check out the sights this morning. We love this old Ivory Soap sign.
We were blessed with two boxes of wonderfully rich books to add to our classroom library. I have been busy adding the titles to our online card catalog.
Lunch at Michael’s Pizza was a bit disappointing today. The new guy wasn’t there; his pizza is good. The normal guy cooked this . . . it was spotty, but still better than Joe’s. No meat today . . .
Today the students made Irish Potatoes. They will teach a class of kindergarten students next week how to make these. This went extremely well. The students did a great job!
Michael Dooling presented to the students today. He is a children’s book author and illustrator. He put on a fabulous assembly. The students were amazed at his craft . . . as was I. He painted a boy with the help of a couple students. That is Dooling’s wife with him.
Dooling posed for a photograph after I snapped the shots with the students.
Beetle danced this evening. The studio has closed-circuit television so we can watch her lesson. My tiny dancer did a great job with tap and ballet tonight.
Beetle and I attended the Fairy Tale Ball tonight. Beetle was all about drawing early on. She is so talented. Her first drawing was an abstract, as she explained to me.
Beetle playing Skittles. I helped out with the Skittles game . . . it was the precursor to bowling. Beetle enjoyed playing, as did every other child. It’s tough setting pins by hand on one’s knees.
Beetle made a fairy princess hat and then modeled it. She had so much fun this evening. From the moment she woke up, Beetle expressed eagerness to return to the Fairy Tale Ball. I am happy that all lived up to her expectations.
Finally, on the way home, we stopped by McDonald’s for a Shamrock Shake. Such a glorious evening should be punctuated with a treat. And there’s nothing like a Shamrock Shake.
It appears Gypsy Smokehouse is out of business. I am not surprised, but it is sad. Their Southern Pride smoker is for sale . . . Michelle Malkin advertises an open thread, yet registration to her site has been closed for years . . . Racial discrimination in pricing of Barbies or inventory control? . . . Excellent videos on how to break down a chuck roll . . . How did my watch become three days out of date? . . . Driving through Buena the other day I saw a few children playing on the front lawn of a house. Three of them were kicking a ball while a fourth was taking a leak by the tree . . . Gert has the pet frog in the classroom, yet I am the one who buys the crickets each week . . . There is something about March. The weather is breaking and two days until the clocks change. This is when I used to see lots of Grateful Dead shows . . . According to YouTube, because I watched JB’s Smoked Chicken and Ribs video, it has recommended I watch Tiger Woods’ presser. What is the connection? . . . RIP Merlin Olsen . . . I watched my first baseball game earlier this week. Bring on the regular season . . . hankering for paella . . . big day tomorrow and I am wondering how I am going to procure food, not only when, but what since it will be a meatless Friday . . . Facebook is where different groups of friends should never meet . . . Hey, any locals want to get together for a friendly BBQ cookoff sometime? It would be a fun excuse for a party . . .
To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, a time to reap that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
I finally got around to making fajitas tonight. It’s been a long time coming.
It was sometime in the late 1980s that I was first turned onto fajitas. Yes, the sizzle of the platter totally awed me. My then girlfriend and I really raved about them. As a gift for some holiday, she gave me a Lodge fajita platter and a cookbook. It was apparent I needed to grill the meat for authentic fajitas. Back then, that wasn’t an option.
For the last 20 years, every time I dined on fajitas, I was reminded of the sizzle platter I had in the cabinet. Guilt came with each bite, but I never got to it.
Over the years I have done a pretty good job of discarding items that I don’t use. Somehow the sizzle platter never made the cut. I think I knew I could use it some day. That day was today.
On Friday I went to the butcher for a steak. In the mood for something different in addition to my T-Bone, I was fairly certain I was going to pick up a pork loin, which is something I’ve been looking at doing of late. When I got there, I had a hankering for fajitas. I asked for skirt steak, but they were out. Grrr . . . I opted for a 2-lb. flank.
Fajitas are something I marvel at whenever my online buddies post their photographs. I love expanding my culinary book and this was one of the meals that I had on the To-Do list.
This afternoon I placed the flank in a plastic bag with some Italian dressing and then placed in the refrigerator for a couple hours.
First I put on some red onions and yellow and orange Holland peppers that were sprinkled with oil, Kosher salt, and freshly ground pepper. Toward the end of their time, I added a little more lump to guarantee a 500° grill. Also, I put in some mesquite. I am at the end of my bag, so it was far more like chips than chunks, but I didn’t need much. I salted and peppered the flank steak and then placed directly over the coals. I had read somewhere that three minutes per side would result in a good medium-rare. I did so, pulled the steak, tented it, and then placed the sizzle platter on the grill to heat up. I also began heating some refried beans.
After several minutes, I began slicing the steak. I like my steak rarer than most, but this was even too rare for me. It actually answered a question I had as there wasn’t as much char on the outside as I had expected. Back onto the grill it went for a few more minutes.
I also heated some tortillas on the grill, just to warm them up. Next time I may make my own.
Over the years I have wondered how the fajitas in Chili’s and other places came out so sizzling. I searched and didn’t find much. One thing I did find was someone who said drizzling Worcestershire sauce on the platter would spike the sizzle. I had my bottle ready.
Once the flank was ready, I began assembling the sizzle platter. Things were sizzling right along. No help was needed. Ah, I love the sound.
We served this with sour cream, salsa, and Mexican cheese. Awesome! I love the char taste that is in my mouth right now. It is heavenly.
These were surprisingly easy to make. This is what I call a timing meal in that a lot of little things need to come together at the same time. I will be better at that next time. This is too easy to make and too tasty not to have in the rotation. Awesome!
And thank you, Dana. I really appreciate the gift . . . even if I didn’t get to using it for a couple decades.
Late this afternoon I dismantled my grills. Despite accepting that the gunk on the inside is good, I was feeling things were a bit messy. With a pleasant day at hand, why not a little spring cleaning?
It was messy. The number of times I washed up is numerous. In the end, however, I have cleaned things up well. Yes, I left the gunk on the inside of the smoker. Gunk = good. For the kettles, I scraped down some of the residue. All shine nicely on the outside now. Yeah!
I have collected a few new things of late. There is now a grill mat beneath the Performer. The poor grill looked outcast among his brothers without a rug to sit on. Now it’s happy too. I also have brand spanking new covers for each of these grills. Looking sharp!
In a run to Lowes some time ago, I picked up some charcoal holders. Performers come with them, but my used one did not. I broke them out. I use two charcoal grates since I burn lump. Because of that, the holders were higher than they normally would be. But even had I removed the second grate, I still think the charcoal would have been too close. I’ve read others having similar experiences. I have moved the holders to the OTG to use with the rotisserie. I think things will work much better there.
Even so, once the lump was hot, I put on several cooking grates to burn off some stuff. I had picked up a lava rock type thing that cleaned up my hinged grate very well. The others I burned off. Once completed, I began dinner.
I had read of cooking whole onions that are cored. Adding a beef bouillon cube and a tablespoon of butter makes for something that is described as onion soup. I wrapped this in foil and added it to the Performer. A little while later I sliced a sweet potato. I used some vegetable oil and then Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper.
As they were finishing up, I added some fresh lump. This was part of my issue with dinner tonight. It took a bit longer for the grill to get back up to temp for the T-Bone. I probably rushed it. With the change in height of the coals to begin with, I had coals way too hot for my steak. After four minutes, which is my usual flip time, I had some char on the sirloin side. Grrr . . . I moved the steak to indirect for four more minutes. I then placed it back on the fire for a minute before taking it off to rest.
It was not as pretty as my T-Bones usually are. The charred area was overcooked, but that was only a couple bitefuls. The rest, I am happy to report, was perfect. The sweet potatoes were just wonderful. The onion wasn’t quite what I had hoped for. It was fine, but it was not particularly onion-soupy to me. I think I will return to slices next time, as I usually do.
I opened a bottle of Cabernet to accompany this fine meal. Life is good.
