Living Our Dream

Firing Up the Smoker

Bushnell, FL - Events of Wednesday, January 20 to Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Ever since we took the wreath down from our shed after Christmas, we have been thinking the shed looked a little bare. Lots of people here at Blueberry Hill have added decorations to their sheds so we did some searching and found a nice metal sculpture of some tropical-looking branches on Amazon. Last Wednesday, Paul took advantage of the sunny weather to put up the decoration.

New decoration for our shed

Closeup of the new decoration

Thursday was sunny and fairly warm, so Paul fired up the smoker to try out a new recipe for smoked teriyaki pork. We marinated a small, pork sirloin roast overnight in teriyaki sauce then sprinkled it with a little dry barbecue rub before smoking it using hickory.

Smoked teriyaki pork roast

The smoked teriyaki pork was outstanding! It was tender, moist and flavorful. We'll definitely be having that again.

On Friday, a cold front moved in bringing wind and the coldest temperatures of the season. The high on Saturday never made it out of the mid-40s, and the low went all the way down to 29º. Of course, that was still better than the northeast where temperatures were in the teens and there were near-record snowfalls of up to three feet. We snuggled into the 5th wheel and watched movies in front of our electric fireplace all weekend.

The sun came out late on Sunday, and the temperature started warming up again on Monday. It was sunny and in the upper 60s by Tuesday, so we fired up the smoker again to make some honey barbecue chicken wings. Since wings are small, they only take a couple of hours to smoke.

Wings just before they came out of the smoker

Since smoking takes place at low temperatures (220 to 250º), the skin on the wings doesn't get very crispy. Therefore, Paul put the wings on the grill for a few minutes after they were done smoking to crisp them up.

Wings on the grill to crisp up the skin

Margery made honey barbecue sauce by adding honey to our regular sauce recipe. Wow! The wings were great even without the sauce; but with it, they were superb!

Finished product

Well, we finally have some sightseeing planned - if the weather clears in time, that is (more rain moved in Tuesday night). We'll tell you about it in our next post.

 

Colonial Days in The Villages

Bushnell, FL - Events of Friday, January 15 to Tuesday, January 19, 2016

The Tampa RV Supershow started last Wednesday and ran through the weekend. For the first time since we have been spending winters in Florida (beginning with the winter of 2007-2008), we didn't go to the show. In the past, we went to see what was new and to look at accessories; but since we just bought and outfitted a new 5th wheel last year, we didn't feel the need to do any more looking this year. Instead, we just continued in relaxation mode. It's just as well because we usually attended on the first day of the show, and the weather that day was absolutely miserable with cold temperatures, wind and rain.

We got an email coupon from Beef O'Brady's for a free appetizer a while back. We decided to head over to Beef's last Friday to have lupper and to take advantage of the coupon before it expired. We selected pub chips for our appetizer. It is a plate full of house-made potato chips smothered with melted cheese and about half a pound of bacon.

Pub chips

For lupper, Margery had a fried fish basket ($9 for the lunch portion) with onion rings for her side ($1.50 extra), and Paul had a fried shrimp basket with fries ($11). Everything was delish as usual.

Margery with her fried fish basket

Sunday afternoon was cool and breezy, but at least the sun was fairly warm so Paul smoked a couple of burgers for dinner. Smoking burgers takes longer than grilling (45 to 90 minutes depending on the thickness of the burgers and the temperature of the smoker), but it was worth the wait because they were delicious. Paul used mesquite for the first time, and it was great. It's a little stronger and tangier than hickory or other woods, but ground beef has enough flavor of its own to stand up to the stronger flavor of the mesquite.

Friends from the church where Margery used to work back in Pittsburgh who now live in The Villages sent us an email when they saw our last blog post where we said we hadn't yet been to OakWood Grill yet this season. They asked if we wanted to meet at OakWood for lupper, so we headed there on Monday. We all had the rib special with two sides for $13.49 (regularly $14.99).

Baby back ribs with onion rings and cole slaw

Everything was yummy, and we had a great time catching up with old friends.

On Tuesday, we went to the movie theater at Brownwood Paddock Square up on the southern edge of The Villages to see "Star Wars." Coincidentally, Brownwood Paddock Square was also hosting Colonial Days, which is a colonial-themed fair featuring crafts, food and entertainment. The theater is located right along one side of the square where the fair was being held, so we decided head to the movie early so we would have a little time before hand to check out the fair.

There was already a pretty good turnout when we arrived around noon in spite of the fact the show was just opening and in spite of the fact it was very breezy and the high for the day was predicted to be only 55º.

The show was opened by the singing of the National Anthem. Immediately afterward, bagpipers marched into the entertainment area to play.

Bagpipers about to march into the entertainment area

In keeping with the colonial theme, stilt walkers dressed like George and Martha Washington strolled around posing for photos.

Stilt Walkers dressed like George and Martha Washington

The craft booths had names like "Ye Olde Wood Shoppe" and "Ye Olde Pottery." Many of the vendors wore period costumes.

View of some of the craft booths

In the next photo Margery is checking out a basket at the "Ye Olde Basket Shoppe." The basket, which is decorated with little dog bones, would make a good place to keep dog treats.

Margery checking out a basket decorated with little dog bones

The Villages Quilting Guild sponsored a booth featuring an old fashioned quilting bee.

Quilting guild

One of our favorite booths featured roses made from thin shavings of wood. The roses made for a very colorful display.

Wooden roses

There was also a display from Paquette's Farmall Tractor Museum in nearby Leesburg. We have driven past the entrance road to the museum numerous times, but we have never stopped. The display was a good reminder that the museum is something we may want to check out sometime in the future.

Antique Farmall tractor from Paquette's Farmall Museum

We were able to walk around most of the fair before it was time to head to the theater for the movie. We saw all the movies in the original Star Wars Trilogy (Episodes IV, V and VI) when they were first released back in the 1970s and 80s, but we missed the movies in the Prequel Trilogy (Episodes I, II and III) that came out from 1999 to 2005. However, the latest movie (Episode VII) picks up where the original trilogy left off, so we had no problem following the story line without having to rent the three movies we missed. We thought the latest "Star Wars" release was excellent. We give it four thumbs up.

After the movie, we headed back to Blueberry Hill in time for dinner, then settled in for an evening of TV. The weather forecast is predicting a slight warmup from the 55º high on Tuesday, but the highs will still struggle to get out of the 60s for the foreseeable future. Of course, as we have said before, even when the air is cool here in Florida, the sun is warm. Therefore, as long as there isn't a lot of wind, we are hoping to get out to do some sightseeing soon.

 

 

 

 

 

Relaxing in Florida

Bushnell, FL - Events of Thursday, December 31, 2015 to Monday, January 11, 2016

We haven't had much to report since we've been back from our visit to Pittsburgh because we're definitely in relaxation mode. However, we thought we would post a short update just to say we're doing well and to bring everyone up to date.

We celebrated a quiet New Year's Eve in our rig with a movie from Redbox. After the movie, we struggled to stay awake long enough to watch the ball drop in New York City on TV then headed off to bed.

Although we have been relaxing much of the time, we have gone out to eat several times since the first of the year. Our eating out has been to some of the usual places we have written about numerous times before like Beef O'Brady's and Pancho's Villa, so it hasn't been very newsworthy. Surprisingly, we haven't been to OakWood Grill even once since we've been here. That's because we now have our own smoker, and OakWood specializes in smoked meats.

Speaking of our smoker, we fired it up again shortly after we got back to smoke a turkey breast.

Smoked turkey breast

Turkey breast and meatloaf are two of our favorites because, not only are they relatively economical, we really love them for sandwiches. This was our second turkey breast since the one that turned out dry and tough as the result of our disastrous experiment with dry brining. We went back to the traditional wet brining technique on the last two, and they were nice and moist and tender just as they should be.

About a week after we smoked the turkey breast, we smoked some of the shrimp we had in the freezer from our stay last fall in Lower Alabama. Unlike things like turkey breast, pork shoulder and brisket that take hours to smoke, shrimp only take 20 to 30 minutes. They were absolutely yummy.

Smoked shrimp

It was good to spend Christmas in Pittsburgh with family, but it's also good to be back home again. We have been relaxing most of the time since we have been back to recover from the relatively hectic pace of the holidays and to recover from the long, two-day drive back to Florida. Another reason we are spending so much time relaxing is the weather has gotten a good bit cooler and hasn't been very conducive to outdoor activities and sightseeing. The highs in the 80s we enjoyed for the first few days after we returned from Pittsburgh have given way to highs in the 60s and lows in the 40s. We're not complaining (well, maybe we are a little) because highs in the northeast were in the teens and 20s.

Since we have been relaxing so much, we have been spending a lot of time sitting in the theater seating in our 5th wheel. We have been reading, watching TV, surfing the internet and playing with our new iPad. We have a small storage compartment in the center armrest of the theater seating for things like remotes, but the whole area surrounding the theater seating has been getting very cluttered with other things we wanted to keep handy like the phone, the iPad, charging cables, eyeglass cases, pencils, pens, a box of Kleenex, hand lotion - you get the idea. Therefore, we decided we needed some additional storage in the vicinity of the theater seating.

We remembered seeing a variety of small, relatively inexpensive tables at Hobby Lobby, so we headed south to the store in Zephyrhills on Monday. They had lots of tables to choose from, and we were able to find one that was a perfect size and had lots of storage space to keep small items handy but out of sight. It won't interfere with the dining table at all when there are just the two of us, and it probably won't even need to be moved out of the way if we have company for dinner.

New side table with storage

There was more relaxation on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mixed in with a few chores like cutting the grass and recharging our water softener. The cool weather is supposed to continue on into next week, but it's supposed to be sunny much of the time. Even when the air is cool, the sun here in Florida can make it feel very warm, so maybe we'll eventually get out to do something interesting. Stay tuned.