Park n' Drive: Possum Kingdom State Park

 Know before you go - a park drive thru video.

Possum Kingdom State Park

We were in Site #11 30a/W

A Long, Grateful Weekend

You CAN do Thanksgiving Dinner in A Camper!

It might seem crazy, or perhaps just intimidating (because it's hard enough in a house with a full sized kitchen to pull this off) but yes, you CAN do Thanksgiving dinner in a camper: the whole thing, with all the trimmings! And I'm here to show you how!

RDB and I were camping this Thanksgiving and I wanted to prepare a traditional meal for us, but I don't have a great history with cooking full turkeys, and, camper kitchens are notorious for being small, so I knew this was going to be ambitious, but, with a little prep - and a lot of planning - I believed it was possible!  My proposed menu for the day:

Everything-but-the-Bagel Deviled Eggs 

Smoked Bone-in Split Turkey Breast with Mushroom and Shallot Gravy

Butter and Heavy Cream Cauliflower Mash

Asparagus with Balsamic and Olive Oil

OceanSpray Canned Cranberry Sauce

Whipped Cheesecake Pumpkin Pie

Tackling the biggest hurdle first, let's talk turkey.  There's no way RDB and I could eat a a whole turkey, so on the few occasions we do want to roast one, we go for a bone-in split turkey breast. For the longest time, I didn't even know an option like this existed!  It's about 3-4lbs of breast meat, skin on, with ribs still attached.  Just about the right size for two people with a little for leftovers. 

I dress my turkey with an onion, an orange, rosemary and thyme, LOTS of butter, broth (or stock concentrate) and salt and pepper. All the above went into a vacuum bag in prep for our camping trip, but if I'm cooking at home, I'll fill whatever pan I'm roasting in with a tasty pale ale, and into the oven it goes. This time, I'm skipping adding the liquids for sake of my cooking method for the camping trip: sous vide. 

This is how I'll manage to do a full Thanksgiving dinner in our camper: using the sous vide cooking method. If you're not familiar with it, sous vide, which is a French term for “under vacuum,” refers to the process of vacuum-sealing food in a bag, then cooking it to a very precise temperature in a water bath.   I purchased an immersion cooker several months ago and really love the simplicity of it: bag and seal what you're cooking, raise the water to the temp you need, and cook for a prescribed period of time. Done!

The turkey needed the most time underwater, about 6 hrs at 150*.  After that, we put it on the pellet smoker at 400* for an additional hour or so to give it a nice mesquite smoked flavor and crisp up the skin.  The first time I sous vide a turkey breast it was still pink inside; it was fully cooked, pasteurized actually, but it was a bit off putting (so it went into the oven to roast out the pinkness!) You'll also notice that sous vide cooking results in an odd visual appearance for most meats, so food is often finished off with time under a broiler or a quick sear in a hot cast iron pan to give it that 'done' appearance. 

Spoiler alert: it was sooooo worth it!

Ok, with the turkey relaxing in the ‘spa’ and cooking, we enjoyed a few mimosas and then got the half-buzzed crazy idea that it wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without deviled eggs  (My Lil Sis was always sure that we’d have a dozen or two for Thanksgiving at Dad’s every year).  So, using our rice cooker and the steamer basket, I whipped up a quick set of deviled eggs. We even had one that had a double yolk (hello, good luck omen!).  My personal tip: use Everything but the Bagel seasoning instead of paprika- the extra flavors it imparts are super tasty! Needless to say, they didn’t last long! 

When the turkey came out of the jacuzzi and went out for a smoke, I got to work on the sides.  A little prep at home made this so much easier to accomplish, too; I cut the cauliflower into one inch slices so that it would be a uniform size in the vacuum saver bag. The water temp goes up to 175* and the cauliflower slices stayed in the 'spa' for an hour to cook and soften.  After that, I pureed them in my food processor with a ridiculous amount of heavy whipping cream and butter, added a bit of salt and pepper to taste and that one's done. (Yes, I have a small food processor in the camper.  Come on now, if I'm #extra enough have an immersion cooker, is it really that much of a reach to think I'd have a food processor and electric mixer, too? We're way beyond our PB&J days here, folks!)

The cauliflower mash went into a pre-heated oven to stay warm (Light the oven, let it come up to about 300*, then turn it off.  You don't need the heat to cook, just to keep things warm as everything else is finished up; also, be sure to keep the door closed, to keep as much of that heat in as possible.) I used the cooking liquid from the turkey, along with some chicken stock and heavy whipping cream, a little rice flour for the roux, to make gravy.  It may seem a bit odd to have the orange in with the turkey while it cooks, but I found that little bit of citrus flavor really adds a nice zing to both the bird and the sauce. 

The asparagus was last, only needing about 8 minutes in the bath with the temp brought down just a bit to 165*. I used another method for bagging the spears - rather than vacuum sealing, you can use a gallon sized ziplock bag, put your ingredients in and then submerge the bag in water all the way up to the ziptop, pushing out the air, and seal.  Balsamic vinegar and oil/avocado oil, and a little salt and pepper are the only seasonings the asparagus needs. 

And, for nostalgia sake, canned jellied cranberry sauce makes this meal complete. Did you know they put the label on upside down on purpose? I attempted, and was incredibly pleased with, a homemade keto jellied cranberry last year, but with all the effort and a chill time that requires an overnight in the fridge, I decided to splurge on the OG*  version from a can. (*original good)

All that talk of cranberry sauce and I forgot to plate it before the picture!

We’ll, there you have it. A full (keto-friendly, mostly) Thanksgiving dinner with all the trimmings, cooked in our camper this year.  But, of course, it wouldn't be Thanksgiving without dessert, so I made our favorite version of whipped cheesecake pumpkin pie. It's hard to go back to a traditional pumpkin pie after having this one, its so easy and tastes so good!

I hope that you had a splendid feast for your Turkey Day, and that you and yours stay healthy, find joy, and have all the fullness you can handle this holiday season!

Turkey Trip #1: A Long, Grateful Weekend

I'm so thankful for Thanksgiving week!  We almost didn't get a chance to enjoy this trip - as RDB was bringing the camper back from having it serviced (repacked the bearings, work on the water leaks... again) the front quarter panel finally ripped.  I say finally - because we knew there was a crack in it and have been waiting on the part to come in from the manufacturer.  Sadly, the part didn't come in before the wind caught it and tore it further.  Thankfully, RDB was able to bandaid it in such a way that we could still travel out for this week.

We left out Wednesday afternoon, making our way to Possum Kingdom State Park for the holiday weekend.  We planned out route to take us past the Buccees in Temple so we could stop for fuel and barbecue brisket for dinner.  Y'all - it was a madhouse!!  Like, it's busy enough on a regular weekend, but the day before a holiday was just craziness!  Trying to get two pumps at the same time (for the length of our rig) was a challenge.  I jumped out of the truck and grabbed my orange road flag to secure one when a car drove away and (thank goodness for the kindness of strangers) the other car in the lane waited until RDB was in position behind him before he drove away.  Next time? I'm grabbing my reflective, collapsable cones to hold the spot.

We arrived to the park late Wednesday night and set up, ready for our own personal Thanksgiving in the park the next morning.

Keeping in theme with gratitude and and giving, I made up thank you gift bags of chocolate for the rangers in the parks we'll visit over this trip.  They were so well received last year,  I couldn't help but do it again!

We started the day off with celebratory mimosas, fixed a fav appetizer of deviled eggs, and I took on the challenge of fixing a full Thanksgiving dinner.  I wrote a post about the adventures of cooking this in our camper, you can read that here. It was really enjoyable, both to cook and to eat in the afternoon.  We shared a few thoughts on what we were thankful for this year (we do this ever night before we go to bed, too, but this made the day that much more special). 

Yea, there was a nap in there somewhere. RDB was sneaky and grabbed a few pictures of me as Sleeping Beauty. 

Friday morning Big Bro D and his fiancee, A, (from here on called D&A on the blog), drove up to spend the weekend with us, bringing his boat along so we could enjoy Possum Kingdom Lake. And enjoy we did! As soon as they got her, we took the boat over to the ramp and launched.

There's a rock formation and cove along the edge of the lake called Hell's Gate. Big Bro knew about it from his lake map atlas, I knew about it from the Geocaching app (there's a cache on Devil's Island that can only be accessed by boat... or by someone willing to cliff dive and swim over, if you're brave enough!).  We puttered around checking out the rock ledges and the amazing homes all along the shoreline. 

Couldn't be out on a beautiful lake in a beautiful boat and not to a bit of fishing.  I was loving the 22* halo that surrounded the late afternoon sun while everyone set up poles to fish.  Too bad the fish didn't cooperate!

As the sun started to set, we took both vehicles and the boat into the neighboring town to refuel, and had dinner out at a local Mexican place. 

Saturday morning we woke to rain.  And Saturday afternoon it continued to rain.  And Saturday evening, guess what? More rain. "This rain really puts a damper on things," Big Bro said at one point.  We smoked steaks for lunch and I made a new roasted veggie side dish, and enjoyed the cupcakes and pumpkin pie we brought from home and enjoyed afternoon Bloody Marias (I forgot to bring the vodka, but had plenty of tequila!).   

We watched our favorite movie (yes, again, for the 14th time! D&A hadn't seen it before!) and then put in Dr Strange We played several rounds of Yatzhee (Big Bro won those) and Rumicub (I was champ) and RDB kicked all our butts on MarioKart It's pretty nice to have the space in the camper to spread out and watch movies when the weather doesn't cooperate. 

She makes the drinks a bit, um, dicey. ;-)

Sunday morning the weather cleared and we were back on the boat again, trolling for fish and hanging out having a great time.. 

D&A had a long drive home, so after a lunch of leftover smoked steak and eggs with toast, they packed up and headed out.  It was so great to have them stay for the weekend - plenty of room in the camper for all their stuff, and a comfortable night's sleep, so he said.  

RDB and I slowly packed up camp - stopping for a few to set up our camp chairs, share a Grandma Beer, and enjoy the view from the back of our site.  We could easily come back to this campground and stay for a week - between the water activities, the geocaching (which we didn't have a chance to do) and the nearby town (I saw a county courthouse, didn't have a chance to get pictures) there would be plenty here to keep us for a week.  

And besides, you just can't beat that view.

We were at Possum Kingdom State Park, Spanish Oaks loop, Site #10 50a/W (the pad is skinny, but 70' long, so plenty of space for us and the truck.) We reserved Site #10 for Big Bro's boat and truck - at only 38' it was a tight fit, but it was really nice to have it right across the way and within sight the whole time. BTW - the flies here were ridiculous, I'm sitting at the kitchen table in the camper one day after that park and I've been killing flies that stowed away in our camper all morning - rather annoying! (One literally just mocked me by landing on my laptop screen just now)

For more camping pics, go here.

Park n' Drive: Galveston State Park

Know before you go - a park drive thru video.

Galveston State Park

We've been here 

(before the beachside section was closed off):

Happy as a Clam at High Tide

(Posting this one on Nov 12th - 

in honor of our Choose Your Own Adventure

wedding anniversary trip to Galveston this year.)

Park n' Drive: Village Creek State Park

Know before you go - a park drive thru video.

Village Creek State Park

We haven't stayed here yet, but I've done a Park (P)Review.

Park n' Drive: Sea Rim State Park

 Know before you you go - a park drive thru video. 

Sea Rim State Park

We were in Site #12, 50a/W.

The One in Which We Researched

The One in Which We Researched

We left out for Sea Rim State Park Friday evening and made it into the park long after dark (yes, it's only 2 hrs from home, but ... traffic, Houston traffic).  I called the park office to make sure we had the gate code, but I should have asked a little about the drive in - we were following the GPS, and at one point we turned right directly into the Valero refinery.  No, we didn't make a wrong turn, yes, the public road goes under the pipes and beside all the equipment.  It made both RDB and I pause. Welcome to camping on the Gulf Coast of Texas.

Coming in after dark meant we had to ward off an insane amount of bugs - it reminded us of one of our very first coastal camping trips: The Battle of San Mosquito. Thankfully, I learned from that one and had Repel brand deet wipes easily accessible in the basement of our camper.  RBD and I wiped our arms and hats and pants legs down with those and were left mostly alone... 

Our camper on the right, the Gulf of Mexico on the left.

The lady at the front desk warned us that the closest gas station and grocery store would be 20 miles away, and she was right - this park is wonderfully secluded. It's also surprisingly small; only twelve camping sites (plus, for those brave enough, unlimited beach camping). We stocked up on a few staples, but still ended up driving into town Saturday and had lunch at the Neches River Wheelhouse before driving up to Village Creek State Park to get a video for our Park-n-Drive series. 

Both Sea Rim and Village Creek are smaller parks in the state park system.  Not sure that we'll be able to take the current 5th wheel over to Village Creek, though I could see myself coming back over and car camping there someday.

For this weekend, though, we were really enjoying hanging out and relaxing in the view of our site.  Just across the marshes on the horizon is the Gulf of Mexico and the sound of the waves all afternoon along with the breeze coming off the shore was enough to make you never want to leave!

Saturday night, relaxing, drinking a few beers, watching all the various bird life, I looked up from the book I was reading to see a flock of cranes flying overhead.  Pink cranes.  PINK?!  Wait, flamingoes!? 

Not my picture (I wasn't fast enough between having my head in a book and not having my phone in my hands), but I did a quick Google search of 'pink south Texas crane' and found that they were most likely Roseate Spoonbills.  Add that to the red-winged black birds that have been pecking around our site all day and this place has just become my favorite for sake of the birds!  I could stay here all week!

Until the rain comes, that is. 

Not a hurricane approaching (we wouldn't be that adventurous) but a thunderstorm bad enough, with winds strong enough (+30 mph gusts), that we were both a little nervous and researching at what speed winds will knock over a stationary camper.  (100mph, in case you're wondering).  We stayed in for the night and watched our favorite movie - seemed fitting, as he faced the fear of a windstorm, too - and eventually made our way to bed (after watching all the beach tent campers pack up and head out amidst the torrential downpour, bless them!). 

It was a rough night's sleep (#postHARVEYanxiety) but a beautiful day when we woke Sunday morning.

I fixed Bloody Marias (hubby says I'm a good bartender) as Rich continued conversations with a friend on Facebook (decent internet at this site, surprisingly).  After a crockpot soup lunch, we went for a walk on the beach.  Diesel, still not a huge fan of the water and waves, was at least willing to play a little bit and dig in the sand when we encouraged him.

I was impressed with number of intact shells on the beach - but then, with it being as far out in the sticks as it is, there's not really anyone beach combing early in the mornings.

All too soon, as it usually is, we were packing up to make the trip back home. We really liked this site - secluded, beachfront without the sand at your doorstep, and lots of bird to watch.  I sure hope we come back.

We were in site #12 at Sea Rim State Park, 50a and water, perhaps the BEST view of the Gulf and very close access to the walkway over to the beach. No camp host here, but the front gate is attended till 6:30pm and we were left completely to ourselves - no disruption from any other other campers that were in and out of the park this weekend. 

For more camping photos, go here.