Our kind of Mexican food

Connie had a treatment this past Friday.  We put a window air conditioner in their "in laws" loft which worked spectacularly!  Was nice to sleep in temperatures under, um, 80 something?

We had a great weekend in with Bethany and Kingsley while James was out of town, but we were wiped out afterwards.

Today, had to take the truck into Spitzer's for a recall and to have a TPMS changed.  Took awhile and they gave us a brand new 2018 Chevy Silverado as a loaner.  Well played, Spitzer's.  Well played.

Tonight, we made another in the long line of Mexican dishes that are only based in Mexican food.  Spend any time around Connie and I, and you'll know:  nothing spicy, nothing "hot".  Don't ask.  But, there are a great amount of Mexican dishes that we can leave out the "hot and spicy" items and make them Southwest (Ohio) dishes.  Tonight, I made Chicken Kinda Enchilladas.  Here's the recipe that it's based on.

I grilled two chicken breasts, then used my brand new Cave Tools meat shredders.  They were a little overkill, but shredding the chicken was the perfect call.

Connie and Sloopy waited patiently while I cooked. 

In a medium bowl, I mixed a can of Campbell's Cream of Chicken soup with a ½ cup of sour cream.  I pulled out 1 cup of that and put it with the shredded chicken, ½ cup of CoJack cheese and a healthy sprinkling of Fajita seasoning.  I mixed that all together and spooned it equally into 5 tortillas.  Roll the tortillas together, kind of tightly, then I put them in my greased stainless steel 8x8 pan.  (Love that thing).

I added just a splash of milk to the remaining soup/sour cream mixture, just enough to thin it a little.  I poured, spread that over the 5 tortillas.

I put that in my Brinkmann Table Top grill on indirect heat at about 375 degrees, turning it every 8 minutes for 40 minutes.  (Really love this grill, not sure how I'm going to replace it when it eventually leaves us.)

Really happy with the way they turned out.  Served with a little sour cream to dip.  Yummy.

If you're going to cook all day, you need a base

I've got a pretty big smoking project today, and two of the three recipes call for bacon.

Here's the link to the Smoked Meat Loaf.

Here's the link to the smoked tomato and onion salad dressing.

Here's the link to the smoked Mac N Cheese.

If you're going to cook bacon, you've got to eat bacon.

My Brinkmann grill has a little griddle that goes in place of one of the grates.  So I used it for the bacon we're going to have for breakfast, and that leaves room for the stainless steel pan where I'm going to cook the bacon we're going to cook with.

Since I'm just cooking and crumbling the cooking bacon, I'm stealing a tip from a friend at our old boat club (shout out Sally White!) who used to cut the bacon into pieces, then pan fry it.

After the first round of bacon (Connie's round) is done, I added the best fundraiser item I ever bought (Shout out, Maddie Porter!)  It's a little round mabobbie that holds the egg after you break it.  Smash the egg yolk, let it fry and boom you've got an egg McSims.

After that's all cooked (finished product is below), it's time to make my sammie.  

Cut my home made bread in a diagonal, add the egg:

Add the bacon:

Often I'll add cheese and an onion, too.  But, I've got WAY too much to do today!

Time is flying.....

Hard to believe we've been at the Sea Breeze RV Resort almost a month!  In another month, we'll be heading to our first rally in Kerrville, TX.

Last year, we had a Winter Texan golf membership at the Northshore Country Club.  It was a good deal, $400 for the two of us to golf unlimited with a cart, range balls for a month.  We knew, to make it work, we'd have to play all the time.  And we did.

That probably made us seem a little unsociable to the regulars here.  When we weren't at the golf course, we were working at the business and didn't really have time to get out and mingle.
This year, we didn't opt for the golf membership and we've been "getting out" quite a bit more.  Everyone remembered us from last year because of the truck, but they didn't really "know us".  We've made a concerted effort to change that.  This isn't really a place that has a lot of organized events, rather a lot of organized events done by the guests.

We've enjoyed our time "across the pond" with Mike & Baxter, Kristi & Justin, Ed & Loretta, Judy & Gary, Frenchie and Nina, Bob & Jane and Paulette & Bill.  The other night, Mike and Justin outdid themselves smoking brisket, ribs and sausage.  Man, was it good.

After a teaser into the 70's, we're stuck back in the 50's for another week.  Could be worse.  We know.

Anything you can cook, I can cook on the Grill!

Ok, I know we have been hitting it hard with the food and recipes.  Can you tell we like to eat?

Anyway, it has been soooo hot here in Oklahoma that we have not wanted to cook inside the RV.  That just adds to the heat and makes the A/C run harder.  But, we still need to eat.

We recently purchased a new grill so we would be able to have a thermostat and more consistent cooking temps.  The thermostat also enables us to use the grill just like an oven.

Tonight, we needed to use up some leftover chicken (from the Beer Can Chicken previously cooked).  We decided to go with one of our favorites - Bisquick Impossible Pie recipes.  All we needed to do was adapt the recipe for the grill.  Lower the cooking temp to 350 degrees for 1 hour (indirect heat) instead of 400 for 30 minutes.

Worked out great and the RV was able to maintain a comfortable temperature inside.  Outside was showing 102 degrees.

Hot, hot, hot!

Enjoy a Safe and Happy 4th of July!