This project started in earnest May 18 when the excavator showed up. By June 3, I had no more indoor kitchen. I currently do all my cooking on the back deck, where I have a grill and a propane stove I normally use for canning. We also have a microwave, but right now that is covered up with plastic to spare it from the drywall dust. The last thing I baked in my junky old electric oven that had one bad burner, an unreadable temperature display, and about 75% of the time was about 50 degrees off was some cookies for my construction crew. After spending my last 18 months of work from home without seeing my coworkers, it's good to have new people to chat up. We have the same 3 guys here most every day: Grant, Beau and Brett, who probably know more about my personal life than any office mate I had at Ford, since they see me in my native habitat all day, every day. They have literally seen "all my dirty laundry", for example. Also, when a guy has to empty out your linen closet so he can tear it out, it seems oddly personal. Or cart your toilet to a dumpster. On many other days, they are joined by Ted the plumber and Scott and Connor, the electricians. Usually they roll in before 8 am, when I am headed out to the back porch to scratch up some breakfast.
Luckily for me, the kindhearted souls at Driftless Provisions sent me some of their wonderful sausage to try out. Today, I wanted something spicy, and thought to make my famous lakehouse breakfast special, which is a frittata. It's hard to finish it off without an oven, however. So I went with hash instead.
Chorizo Hash
2 oz link Driftless Chorizo (or any other kind of Spanish chorizo)
1/2 cup diced onion
1 cup diced potato (1/4 inch diced)
1/4 cup water
Salt and pepper
6 eggs, beaten
Slice chorizo in half, lengthwise, and remove casing. Dice in 1/4 inch pieces. In a cast iron frying pan, fry until slightly browned. Add onion and saute until soft, about 5 minutes. Add potato and water and cover pan and cook until potatoes are tender, about 5 minutes. Remove cover and stir and cook until pan is dry. Add eggs and cook while gently stirring until cooked through.
Cooking on the outdoor canning kitchen stove can be a challenge. It has 2 burners, a high/low and high/high burner. Unless I am boiling water, I try to use the high/low burner. Even so, it's pretty hard to modulate the temp for gentle cooking; there are temperature knobs which adjust the propane but it's pretty much just "on" and "off". And just like in chemistry class with your Bunsen burner, you need to modify the oxygen intake to make sure it doesn't burn orange. Lastly, if it's a windy day, it can be tough to keep it lit. Luckily for me, today's winds were mild. Breakfast!
