Wont be using a Weber anytime soon but still have to eat!

[CaseT]

Use of open flame has been banned in my neck of the woods until the forest fires subside. So the charcoal will have to wait. Which fine the stores don't have charcoal anyways which is nuts because I saw people posting mountains of it in the Midwest, and east.

So now its hot and smokey so its making cooking even more challenging. Too hot to cook indoors to smokey to cook outdoors! BlackStone in the garage it is!

Just a breakfast cook. Made homemade English muffins. Then cooked up some home cured bacon for egg muffin sandwees.

Here's how I make my Bacon:

Bacon Season has arrived

Well at least for me as I cold smoke all my bacon. Been in the 20's and lower at night and 40's during the day. Perfect for cold smoking bacon. Costco had bellies on sale so I grabbed a couple. Back on the 17th I started the curing process. As I normally do I used Digging Dog Farms...

tvwbb.com

I used the following recipe. One thing I'd do differently is I'd add 1/2 cup less milk. In my opinion the dough was too loose. We usually do not have milk in house so we use NFDM. I usually add it dry to teh dry ingredients and add the water needed when I mix in the wet ingredients.

Old-Fashioned, No-Knead English Muffins Recipe

You don't need the Muffin Man to enjoy delicious English muffins at your next weekend brunch. This recipe uses an overnight rise to get perfectly puffed muffins every time.

www.seriouseats.com

This is the recipe I have used in the past and it has 1/2 cup less milk. The dough is not as loose and easier to work with and the muffins hold their shape better. My wife did like the addition of the wheat from serious eats recipe. So next go around I'll make a hybrid of these two.

BA’s Best English Muffins

The dough will seem fairly wet when shaping into rounds, but the high hydration is key to forming those trademark nooks and crannies. This is part of BA's Best, a collection of our essential recipes.

www.bonappetit.com

Used my little one egger to make a perfect muffin size egg.

We have two of them so I capped it for sunny side up.

 

[MikeLucky]

Oh, very nice. That would break my heart to not be able to use charcoal. Sorry to hear that. Sounds like it's time for a Genesis find/restore or a nicely priced Q on the secondary market. lol

Oh, and they are probably actively prohibiting sales of charcoal there, which is why you don't see it in the stores. That's just a guess, though.

 

[Richard Garcia]

I retired to Costa Rica many years ago however I was born and Raised in San Jose, CA in which the Bay Area is now full of smoke from the California Wildfires. Stay Safe and hope things improve very soon!

 

[Cliff Bartlett]

Looks delicious Case. I haven't heard or read anything about charcoal being banned here, but I've just backed off on my own. There's so much worry and suffering going on right now it just doesn't feel right to light a grill or smoker. We have the same sky as you. Our air quality hovered around 200 PM all day yesterday. I see Bend is topping 300 PM this morning. Our daughter lives in Eugene and they were around 650 PM yesterday. I read that the NFL considers anything exceeding 200 PM as too hazardous to play. Kinda puts these particulate matter readings into perspective. Hang in there with the garage cooks.

 

[Timothy F. Lewis]

Case, be careful and safe out there! My sister is in Portland and they have “Go bags” ready after being told that may be necessary.
The meal looks fantastic!

 

[CaseT]

Looks delicious Case. I haven't heard or read anything about charcoal being banned here, but I've just backed off on my own. There's so much worry and suffering going on right now it just doesn't feel right to light a grill or smoker. We have the same sky as you. Our air quality hovered around 200 PM all day yesterday. I see Bend is topping 300 PM this morning. Our daughter lives in Eugene and they were around 650 PM yesterday. I read that the NFL considers anything exceeding 200 PM as too hazardous to play. Kinda puts these particulate matter readings into perspective. Hang in there with the garage cooks.

State and federal lands banned charcoal use end of June here. We still could use it in town up until last week when our town announced no outdoor fire pits, charcoal, etc. State and Federal lands last week banned propane and fuel stoves too.

All weekend we hovered in the high 500's- mid 600's. Here at my work right now we are 382. Where my house is 4 miles away its at 244.

We sat inside all weekend going bat $h!t crazy! We're outdoor people so this kills us!

 

[J Grotz]

All weekend we hovered in the high 500's- mid 600's. Here at my work right now we are 382. Where my house is 4 miles away its at 244.

And the pandemic makes it damn near impossible to find any N95s. The LA Times actually recommended duct taping a square furnace filter to a box fan to clean the air in homes. I assumed they meant one of those filtrete 1500 models.

 

[Rich Dahl]

Man that has to be rough Case. We've been under no charcoal since late April, but at least we have two gassers and one is NG so I don't have to worry about tanks going empty. Just something about cooking with gas all the time just doesn't seem right, but with heat at least it outside and better than nothing.
We have some smoke from the California fires but it's not too bad.
Hope it all works out for you and your family.
Try to stay safe and hopefully this too will pass.

 

[Cliff Bartlett]

And the pandemic makes it damn near impossible to find any N95s. The LA Times actually recommended duct taping a square furnace filter to a box fan to clean the air in homes. I assumed they meant one of those filtrete 1500 models.

I'm using two Filtrete 2500's. That's their Smart Filter. I replaced them at the end of June and my Filtrete App began sending me alerts last week that both were down to 16% life left. Spent a couple of hours yesterday and finally found replacements on line.

 

[Brad Olson]

Nice job of adapting, Case. Hopefully this will all be over soon.

Is it possible that stores have been prohibited from selling charcoal? Because if it's available you know there are people who'd ignore the ban...

 

[CaseT]

Nice job of adapting, Case. Hopefully this will all be over soon.

Is it possible that stores have been prohibited from selling charcoal? Because if it's available you know there are people who'd ignore the ban...

We've had very little charcoal here since COVID started. They get a few bags in and its gone. I'm not worried I have enough to keep the 14 going for several months. Weird because we have a Kingsford plant in Springfield Oregon.

Along the lines of people ignoring the bans, we camp every fourth of July to get our dogs away from the noise. There was fire ban and fireworks are always prohibited in the forests here. There were people with campfires, and people shooting off fireworks. SO yeah everyone is entitiled now and they dont give a crap about other people. Don't even get me started on the trash in the woods. Can't tell you how many bags of of others peoples garbage we've hauled out of places we like to camp.

 

[CaseT]

I'm using two Filtrete 2500's. That's their Smart Filter. I replaced them at the end of June and my Filtrete App began sending me alerts last week that both were down to 16% life left. Spent a couple of hours yesterday and finally found replacements on line.

Yeah we don't have forced air at our house, which actually is a godsend during fire season. We keep things buttoned up and run our humidifier and ceiling fans. So inside our house is pleasant.

 

[JimK]

Great looking meal, Case! Hopefully, you're back to some good old fashioned grilling soon.

If you're into sourdough, here's an English Muffin recipe I've used a few times with success. Similar to yours, no oven required.

Sourdough English Muffins

 

[CaseT]

Great looking meal, Case! Hopefully, you're back to some good old fashioned grilling soon.

If you're into sourdough, here's an English Muffin recipe I've used a few times with success. Similar to yours, no oven required.

Sourdough English Muffins

Yep all in time. We go they this every year just not a full closure in town.
I have made that exact sourdough recipe. It’s good. With flour shortages here I can’t justify feeding the starter. Let ours go back in March.

 

[Brian Thomas]

State and federal lands banned charcoal use end of June here. We still could use it in town up until last week when our town announced no outdoor fire pits, charcoal, etc. State and Federal lands last week banned propane and fuel stoves too.

All weekend we hovered in the high 500's- mid 600's. Here at my work right now we are 382. Where my house is 4 miles away its at 244.

We sat inside all weekend going bat $h!t crazy! We're outdoor people so this kills us!

At least the National Forests and BLM lands up there are still open, right? That's not the case down here in CA. All 18 National Forests in CA are now closed due to the extreme fire activity. I work for the Forest Service and I can't recall that ever happening before. There have been instances where a few forests (mostly in So CA) have been closed due to fire danger, but never all of them.

 

[John K BBQ]

My heart goes out to all of you who are impacted by the wildfires. Hang in there! Better times are coming.

 

[JimK]

Yep all in time. We go they this every year just not a full closure in town.
I have made that exact sourdough recipe. It’s good. With flour shortages here I can’t justify feeding the starter. Let ours go back in March.

Hopefully, your supply chain is back in short order, along with your weather.

 

[CaseT]

At least the National Forests and BLM lands up there are still open, right? That's not the case down here in CA. All 18 National Forests in CA are now closed due to the extreme fire activity. I work for the Forest Service and I can't recall that ever happening before. There have been instances where a few forests (mostly in So CA) have been closed due to fire danger, but never all of them.

Oregon’s state forests are closed and some of the federal forests are shut along with recreation sites. They did announce that they were going to shut down federal lands but haven’t as of yet. They did add more fire restrictions. A good portion of the state isn’t on fire and there’s plenty of land out there to recreate on. Hopefully those that are follow the rules and microwave all their food, lol!