CaseT
TVWBB Platinum Member
Didn't do anything special over the holiday. We normally don't and with all the madness going on up here with the fires I am glad we didn't. Extremely sad circumstances effecting many people. Close to home my oldest son lives in Lincoln City Oregon and had to evacuate yesterday. Sounds like the winds have shifted and the firefighters were able to make a stop on forward progress towards the town. The fire was less than 1/8 mile from my sons home at one point.
Up in Estacada Oregon my aunt uncle and cousins families have had to evacuate off their tree farm that they have owned since the late 70's. My uncle and Cousin stayed as long as they could. They aren't expecting to have anything to return too.
All across Oregon whole towns have been wiped out. This is the worst fired event in recorded Oregon history.
I feel safe where we are. Defensible space has been preached and practiced here for many decades. For now all outdoor burning in Oregon has been banned. On public lands they have even banned propane and fuel stoves.
Amazingly the last three days have been smoke free-ish here. The winds that have been fueling the fires west of us are also taking the smoke away from town.
This shot is on Labor Day around noon. Later in the day the smoke was super thick and ash was falling.
This shot was Tuesday same time of day.
No Weber cooking. We were garage cooking all weekend as it was too hot indoors to cook.
One night the wife wanted to go Greek and have falafel, tzatziki, and pita bread. Stores haven't had pita bread in ages, even before Covid it was hard to find so I made homemade. Turned out pretty good. Next time I will turn the heat up on the griddle to get a better puff. I will also roll them out thinner. I went with 1/4" probably should've gone with 1/8"-3/16".
We had a package of Trader Joes falafel mix (pretty good) so we didn't make homemade. Sourcing all the ingredients would be too hard right now. I am including the recipe here though for those that are curious.
Here is the Tzatziki recipes that we like to use. My wife combined both of these:
This is the falafel recipe we made last time we made homemade. It was tasty and I'd make it again if we could find the ingredients. Who knew one wouldn't be able to find dried chickpeas...
For the Pita Bread I use Serious eats recipe, but instead of baking I put them on the Blackstone.
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www.seriouseats.com
First off a little taters and turkey bacon on the BS for breakfast burritos. Pretending we are camping by cooking with camp equipment in the garage.
I parboiled the taters on my 1962 425c Coleman camp stove. Normally when camping I'd just throw them on the flat top but I didn't want to wait that long. On low heat these still took around 30 minutes. Made for some fine breakfast burritos.
Sunday we decided that pizza would be nice to have so I pulled out the dutch oven. I've started using a dutch oven liner on top when doing the upside down cooks. It allows me to remove the oven easily to check on the cook. It also acts as a wind break. It was breezy so I added the angle irons I use on my discada burner to help hold thing down. Nice when done too all you have to do is dump the liner into your snuff bucket.
I had a scrap piece of diamond plate so I cut it into three pieces to make a wind screen. Worked great.
I bought my wife a mushroom growing kit from NearbyNaturals. Kind of fun. She's had a couple harvests off it. She put shrooms on her half of the pizza.
Up in Estacada Oregon my aunt uncle and cousins families have had to evacuate off their tree farm that they have owned since the late 70's. My uncle and Cousin stayed as long as they could. They aren't expecting to have anything to return too.
All across Oregon whole towns have been wiped out. This is the worst fired event in recorded Oregon history.
I feel safe where we are. Defensible space has been preached and practiced here for many decades. For now all outdoor burning in Oregon has been banned. On public lands they have even banned propane and fuel stoves.
Amazingly the last three days have been smoke free-ish here. The winds that have been fueling the fires west of us are also taking the smoke away from town.
This shot is on Labor Day around noon. Later in the day the smoke was super thick and ash was falling.
This shot was Tuesday same time of day.
No Weber cooking. We were garage cooking all weekend as it was too hot indoors to cook.
One night the wife wanted to go Greek and have falafel, tzatziki, and pita bread. Stores haven't had pita bread in ages, even before Covid it was hard to find so I made homemade. Turned out pretty good. Next time I will turn the heat up on the griddle to get a better puff. I will also roll them out thinner. I went with 1/4" probably should've gone with 1/8"-3/16".
We had a package of Trader Joes falafel mix (pretty good) so we didn't make homemade. Sourcing all the ingredients would be too hard right now. I am including the recipe here though for those that are curious.
Here is the Tzatziki recipes that we like to use. My wife combined both of these:
This is the falafel recipe we made last time we made homemade. It was tasty and I'd make it again if we could find the ingredients. Who knew one wouldn't be able to find dried chickpeas...
For the Pita Bread I use Serious eats recipe, but instead of baking I put them on the Blackstone.
Homemade Pita Bread
Puffy yeast-raised pita bread, perfect for splitting and filling with your choice of ingredients, is easy to make at home. We take you through the steps to producing airy pockets every time.
First off a little taters and turkey bacon on the BS for breakfast burritos. Pretending we are camping by cooking with camp equipment in the garage.
I parboiled the taters on my 1962 425c Coleman camp stove. Normally when camping I'd just throw them on the flat top but I didn't want to wait that long. On low heat these still took around 30 minutes. Made for some fine breakfast burritos.
Sunday we decided that pizza would be nice to have so I pulled out the dutch oven. I've started using a dutch oven liner on top when doing the upside down cooks. It allows me to remove the oven easily to check on the cook. It also acts as a wind break. It was breezy so I added the angle irons I use on my discada burner to help hold thing down. Nice when done too all you have to do is dump the liner into your snuff bucket.
I had a scrap piece of diamond plate so I cut it into three pieces to make a wind screen. Worked great.
I bought my wife a mushroom growing kit from NearbyNaturals. Kind of fun. She's had a couple harvests off it. She put shrooms on her half of the pizza.
