Tag Archives: rancho life in Mexico

Experimental Cooking Without An Oven

Long-delayed post, I know.

I do it all the time – nearly every day. I have  been without an oven for over 6 YEARS. It’s a difficult situation for a person who really enjoys baking.

Disclaimer – this is not intended to be a cooking blog. But in my everyday musings and archiving of events, it’s bound to happen, no?

Lately there are many online recipes featuring roasted vegetables, and they look so lovely (and so easy!) that they have a clear appeal. I was tempted by a roasted cauliflower recipe, and I decided to prepare a slow cooker version. I was fully aware of the differences and limitations of slow cooker cooking, but hopeful that I might end up with an edible and possibly deliciously satisfactory outcome. I was hoping!

This photo was my goal. I began with a lovely cauliflower purchased in a nearby town at a Thursday visit from a traveling vegetable vendor. You can check out the recipe at this pleasant site: http://karacarrero.com/how-to-eat-make-roasted-cauliflower-recipe/. I liked the idea of the butter and flavorings mixture, which would make a beautifully browned top in an oven. I used some room temperature butter, rubbing it onto the cauliflower, and then sprinkled all the exposed areas with a Penzey’s spice mixture called Mural of Flavor. You’re not yet acquainted with Penzey’s, you say? Check them out online. They have many scattered locations, as well as an inspiring business ethic. 

I had trimmed the stem end on the cauliflower and set it in the bottom of the slow cooker with a little water (about 1/2 c). I cooked it for about 3 1/2 hours on high, and checked it when we were ready to eat. It was ready too. It was not browned, just as you would expect from slow cooking.

But it was delicious. Let me know if you try it.

So Much To Relate! Harvesting and Planting!

Here’s the condensed version.

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We harvested our wheat. There was concomitant drama: parts of some of the fields weren’t mature and the grain elevator owner asked us to wait four days, causing several days of stress and worry:   Would it rain? Would the wind knock it all down? Skimming over the days of stress and wonder, it all turned out fine. We didn’t have a magnificent harvest, but it turned out to be quite respectable after four long days of hot and dusty harvesting.

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We had had to delay our planting dates because of other, more pressing personal and human problems, but that’s a story for another day.

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As immediately after the wheat harvest as we could, we began our corn planting, hiring a nephew to drive the tractor, using our brand-new planter-seeder. IMG_3328

Torn between planting an established and famous strain of hybrid corn seed, and a brand new type, we ended up using mostly Cimarron, an expensive seed we bought from a new dealer, the daughter of a local friend. Until we ran out. That caused us to scramble to order more, with delays and not-exactly-the-truth finessing by the dealer. We ended up ordering a new hybrid from a trusted dealer who even delivered the seed and loaded it into our pickup so that we could rush out to the last two fields to finish the planting before the rains came.

IMG_3365Planting usually results in long, long days, even though the work isn’t too taxing. The guys that are hired for loading have lots of waiting before they move into action, loading the canisters of the seeder with seed and fertilizer. Often one worker helps the other load bags weighing up to 100 pounds onto his shoulder, whereupon he walks to the tractor carrying it, and dumps the contents of the bag into its canister.IMG_3364

There are minimum half-hour waiting times. There were some unexpected problems (aren’t there always?). Some parts – nuts and bolts things – got lost, and we found out to our chagrin how much the tractor company charges for replacements. Since they weren’t available anyway, at least not locally, we made substitutes.

And the cycle starts over – instead of hoping that it won’t rain and ruin the crop or the planting, now we’re hopefully watching the skies for clouds to coax the baby corn plants out of the ground.