the Youngest Snowbird:

Hamilton-Beach Slow Cooker for $26

After five years, we finally gave up on our old slow cooker.

Food had bubbled over the sides and baked into it, making the inside impossible to clean, even with steel wool. 

My Fella scrubbed out the pot and lid (both in great condition) and we donated them to charity. It's still a good pot for casseroles, but too heavy for us to haul around in JohnnyDisco.

Here's the new slow cooker we found at The Kitchen Collection in the Foley Tanger Outlet Mall: a Hamilton-Beach 6 quart 'Stay Or Go' - $24 USD, $26 with taxes.

We put it to work right away making a roast and I was surprised at how much roomier a 6 quart pot was compared to our old 4 quart one. The 2 extra quarts mean double the amount of veggies. 

The roast cooked very evenly and I love that the new pot is low and wide, compared to our former slow cooker that was tall and skinny.  

And it's called a Stay or Go 'cause it has this nifty safety feature - small metal clips on the sides of the pot that you can close if you wanna roast something, then pack it up and haul it around the block to a friends house.

2 enthusiastic Paws Up for the Stay or Go slow cooker.

Outside of food and a few items of clothing, we haven't bought much since we've been in Alabama, although consumer goods here (like most of the USA) are priced much cheaper than Canada. This cooker in BC would be about $40, plus tax.

On the downside, light or reduced fat foods are very hard to find in Southern Alabama.You really have to hunt for low fat Pringles, lite cheese, etc.

I basically had to knock someone over yesterday to get that last can of low fat sour cream Pringles. Good thing the kid was so short or he would've taken me down.  And it was super immature of him to kick me in the shins.

Where Do Cacahuates Come From?

Cacahuate (ca - ca - WA - tay) is the Spanish word for peanut.

And I still can't get over the fact that they grow underground.  We saw the evidence yesterday afternoon in this peanut crop near our Alabama RV resort.

I've been walking about 7k every day on the country roads surrounding our RV park and I pass several peanut fields along the way.  The crop below was all bushy green plants a few days ago, but now it looks like this:

A peanut harvester plucked all the peanut plants out of the ground and left them to dry in the Alabama sun.

Peanut tidbits:

• a healthy peanut plant will yield 35 to 50 peanuts
• it takes 540 peanuts to make a 12 ounce jar of peanut butter
• there are enough peanuts in one acre to make 30,000 pb sandwiches
• Marcellus Edson of Montreal was the first person to patent peanut butter in 1884
• 2 peanut farmers were elected US president; Thomas Jefferson & Jimmy Carter
• peanuts have more protein, niacin, folate and phytosterols than any other nut
• your kid will probably eat 1,500 pb & j sandwiches by age 18

Cost of Driving from BC to Southern Alabama

Details on the trip south so far:

Took us 9 overnight stops to get here - Tuesday, October 18th to Thursday, October 27th.  4 nights were spent at RV parks, 5 were spent boondocking:

• Oct 18th    Coulee Playland - Electric City, Washington  $18 
• Oct 19th    Coulee Playland - Electric City, Washington  $18 
• Oct 20th    Stinkers fuel station - Caldwell, Idaho  FREE
• Oct 21st    Cabelas sports store - Salt Lake City, Utah  FREE
• Oct 22nd    OK RV Park - Moab, Utah  $18 (Passport America park)
• Oct 23rd    Santa Ana Casino - Albuquerque, New Mexico  FREE
• Oct 24th    rest stop off I-40 east - Chillicothe, Texas  FREE
• Oct 25th    Fernbrook RV Park - Longview, Texas  $16.50 (PA park)
• Oct 26th    rest stop off I-10 east - Breaux Bridge, Louisiana  FREE

Total cost for RV parks over 9 nights = $72 (CAD)

We made 8 stops to refuel JohnnyDisco along the way, including the initial fuel-up in BC before we left. Gas ranged from $3.07 per gallon (in NW New Mexico) to $4.05 (Washinton state).

Total cost for gas, from BC to Alabama = $1710 (CAD)

We filled up our propane tank once = $27.50 (CAD)

Groceries, booze, RV supplies, electronics, gifts = $628 (CAD)

Gulf Coast RV park for November (full hook-ups, 50 amp) = $430 (CAD)

We're way under budget for RV parks (compared to last year) and on budget for gas and groceries.

In the next few days I'll write up a quick post about the RV park we chose, Peanut Park. That's not the real name - I call it that because Southern Alabama is peanut growing country and our park is surrounded by peanut crops. You probably already knew this but I had no idea that peanuts grew underground.

And folks down here boil peanuts in salt water and eat them as a snack. We bought some from a roadside stand a few days ago and they're pretty good.  

We also picked up a pound of pink-eye purple hull peas (cost me $1) and made them with steaks last night. I chopped off the ends, put a little butter and salt on them and cooked them like string beans. The pods were too chewy to eat - apparently you're supposed to shell them first.  Oops.  But the peas were really good and we'll be getting more from the roadside farmer.

Messing up new recipes is one of my fave things about traveling somewhere new   :)

Slow Cooker Pot Roast

My Fella organized and repacked the outside RV bins this morning so I thought I better do something useful too. Hello, slow cooker pot roast.

Ingredients:

• 4 pound roast
• 4 big potatoes, cut in chunks
•  8   6 thick carrots, cut in chunks
• 3 garlic cloves
• small white onion, chopped
• one can condensed mushroom soup
• beef boullion cube
• 2 cups of water
• steak spice
• ground pepper
• garlic salt
• couple shakes of paprika

Combine steak spice, garlic salt, pepper and paprika onto one big dinner plate. Roll thawed roast around in the spices til it's completely covered.  After the roast is coated, I like to get nekkid and roll around in what's left of the spices. But that's another blog post.

Cube the potatoes into one inch pieces.  Layer two inches of potatoes at the bottom of your slow cooker.

After plopping the roast on top of the potatoes, surround it with carrot chunks also cut about an inch thick. I keep the carrots and potatoes big so they don't get too mushy during the loooong cooking process.  

Initially, I planned on using 8 carrots, but I munched thru two of them while chopping.  Cooking makes me hungry.

Cube your final potato and chop the white onion, or as it's known around these parts, My Arch Nemesis.  Can't stand chopping onions - they make me cry faster than seeing the TSX drop 400 points.

Here's a sexy shot I like to call Onion Eyeballs and Really Huge Pores.

After chopping the Evil Onion, layer it around the roast and add the final cubed potato and the garlic cloves.  

Nuke the beef cube in 2 cups of water and pour that in the slow cooker along with a can of condensed mushroom soup. Here's what the whole goopy mess should look like.

Cook for 9 ish hours on low.

When it's done DON'T TURN OFF THE CROCK POT.  After scooping out the roast and veggies, you should have enough liquid at the bottom to make a little gravy.  Just add some flour to the warm pot, stir it up with the juice and crank the slow cooker up to high for half an hour or however long it takes to thicken the gravy.

Then mix the whole mess together and get it in yer belly.

Note to Santa:  Only joking about wanting onion goggles for Christmas... I just really wanted to use the phrase 'onion goggles' on the blog, but I don't actually want any for myself.  I repeat DO NOT GET ME ONION GOGGLES FOR CHRISTMAS!"

Slow Cooker Spag & Balls

Been on a bit of tear with the slow cooker lately.

Ever since Mexico Brenda goaded me into making my own homemade refried beans I've been re-inspired to experiment with our slow cooker.  Thanks for that Brenda - your beans are in the mail  :)

I made another batch of black refried beans yesterday and today I'm trying out spaghetti and meatballs in the slow cooker.  

I found a few different recipes online and there's really nothing to it.

Ingredients

• a few handfuls of whole wheat spaghetti broken in thirds
• 26 ounce jar of your fave spaghetti sauce
• 24 frozen cooked meatballs
• a pinch of dried oregano and a clove of fresh garlic so you don't feel like a loser for not making your own spag sauce 
• 1 and a quarter cups of water (I substituted the water for a can of organic tomato sauce that I had to use up)

Combine the meatballs, sauce and water in your slow cooker and cook on low for about 6 hours. Mix in the handfuls of dry spaghetti and cook for another 45 minutes.  If you like really soft noodles, put the spaghetti in about halfway thru the process instead of at the end.

This is my first attempt at spag & balls in the slow cooker so we'll see how it goes.

Homemade Frijoles Refritos

A few days ago I was whining about the price of refried beans here in Canada.  

After some of you threw out the challenge to make my own refried beans, I found this super simple recipe online at AllRecipes.com:  

• 1 onion, peeled and halved
• 3 cups dry pinto beans, rinsed
• 1/2 fresh jalapeno pepper, seeded and chopped
• 2 tablespoons minced garlic
• 5 teaspoons salt **
• 1 3/4 teaspoons fresh ground black pepper
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cumin, optional
• 9 cups water

** Only change I made was using 2 teaspoons of salt instead of 5.  And we only had 2 cups of pinto beans so I threw a cup of red kidney beans into the mix.  Next time I'll do a black bean/pinto bean combo and maybe add some chili powder.

Just toss everything into your crockpot for 9 hours, then smush up the beans with a potato masher and you've got a huge batch of yummy refried beans.  

Much healthier than the canned variety at a quarter of the price.

Thanks to Brenda in Mexico who told me to get off my lazy butt and make my own damn beans.  Although she said it in a much sweeter way   :)