Not go overboard?

The morning that we decided to stay in Pitts, I made a little breakfast for us all - since Sat is D&B’s only day off together. And by little … fresh sliced tomatoes with salt, bacon strips, breakfast sausage links, French bread with fried cheese, scrambled eggs, fried stuffed peppers with melted mozzarella, orange juice, coffee, carrot cake.

Hence, I was told to go a little easy on dinner. So, when we left for the butcher store - I let Dave pick out the meat. delightfully, we left with 12 pounds of double cut pork roast, several chicken breasts, button mushrooms, and fresh frosted raisin bread. Then we simply had to visit Joseph P. King’s Farm to chek out some fresh edibles. Excellent selection, great little farm, nice family.

So we bought a bunch. Well … pints, not bunches, but you get the idea.

And, Dave recently had an apple tree fall in his backyard … so it would have been improper of me to not take out a hatchet and make smoking chips out of the branches. And with a little help from some soaked mesquite chips, we had enough to smoke for about 7 hours with. And it was thick, sweet, and flavorful smoke indeed.

The roast was rubbed with a cajun seasoning medley, topped with thick slices of sweet onion, and three apple halves speared on the top, with wedges of garlic loves pierced into the top and sides. Left to smoke for 6 hours. When I cut into it before plating the meal, it was like cutting into a melon. Juicy. Tender. Beautiful.

The chicken was marinated in Octoberfest beer, salt, pepper, and minimal spices, then smoked for an hour. Over a pound of btton mushrooms were brushed with butter, salt and pepper, and smoked for an hour. Basically, they were little brown bombs of smoke juice. If there had been any more left, I am sure that they would have gotten even more intense the next day. An entire full grill of zucchini that smoked for over half an hour, and a huge cast iron skillet full of cornbread with fresh butter.

Oh yeah, and I made a vat of roasted red pepper, tomato, ancho chili soup - that simmered for four hours - served with a sprinkle of mozzarella. And maybe we also had a dozen sweet corn with melted butter and salt. And blueberry pie. And apples. And orange Kool-aid and Octoberfest and Heineken.

… so maybe I didn’t ‘take it easy’ with dinner. But really. Do you think they complained?

Violet is the definitely the cutest baby in the state of PA … probably the whole east coast … possibly the country. We took lots of pictures. And of Omar too. Because you have to love a teddy ear disguised as a rottweiler.

And so. Back on the road! Tents folded and dry and packed with fervor!