A quick cold weather dish for New England

In this episode we are taking a small bamboo steamer basket along with my titanium wok, and heading into the backwoods on the URAL. We set up beside an overgrown former logging road and cook the food in Chardonnay white wine. The lemon-dill yogurt sauce is easy to make. 1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt 1/2 small lemon 1 tsps of dried dill 1 small head of chopped parsley Simply stir the ingredients together and store in the refrigerator in a sealed container until ready to use. Res

I’m revisiting my Valtcan titanium pressure cooker and now using a new titanium cutting board. Today’s recipe is an old favorite of mine ; potato soup. This is a Fall favorite of mine when the air gets a chill and the leaves start to change color. It’s really a quick and easy recipe on those chilly days when I’m out exploring with my dog. So why use titanium ? It’s lightweight, and has no micro pores that would harbor bacteria. It’s doesn’t have any coatings that would contam

I have an old antique camping cookstove that runs on alcohol. I’ve had it for years, and I recently started carrying it around in the trunk of my URAL motorcycle. It’s not very heavy, but it is just a bit large for backpacking. But it’s perfect for tooling around the woods on my motorcycle. The really neat thing is being able to adjust the flame higher or lower without a simmer ring like on most modern alcohol stoves. I misspoke in the video by saying it’s self pressurizing w

I recently picked up a new to me titanium wok. Why ? Because I happen to like stir fry meals, and I like having them when I’m out in the backwoods with my dog. I gave the wok a test run at home first, then packed it on my haversack and off we went. This thing’s pretty awesome and it incredibly lightweight. It weighs maybe a pound or so and I ample enough size for two people. As light as it is, I might just have to replace my sheet iron pans with it. I’m going to get in some

There’s a few different ways to set up a tarp to camp under. This is my particular configuration. It’s a bit different than what most people do, but I explain why I do it this way. This canvas tarp was made by Bushcraft Spain, and is sold by Self Reliance Outfitters. Filmed with an Insta 360X5 camera, there’s a little distortion around the edges. But the information is still clear enough to understand.

I don’t always eat all vegetarian meals, but I did for an entire year for health reasons. I was eating like a trash panda, and at my age — well — that’s not good for you. After a year of eating vegetarian dishes, I slowly added small amounts of meat back into my diet and kept it balanced out with vegetables. Every once in a while I will dive into a vegetarian dish to give my stomach a little break. And I have to be honest, the food’s not bad at all. Falafels start off with

I mentioned yesterday that I was making Jewelweed salve and my neighbor got stung. Today he was cleaning out the nest and has a few more stings. He said they itched like crazy. So I scrounged around and yard at the edge of the woods in a weedy looking area. I found a variety of beneficial things growing out there. Lamb’s Qurters, Golenrod, Foxtail Millet, Sunflowers…even some tall Mullein. But what I found today that was really helpful was some musk mallow. Musk Mallow is a

This is an old outdoorsman’s trick. I usually make my jewel weed salve in August each year. Jewelweed can be found pretty much in most areas with moist soil in partial shade. I make a year’s supply at a time. Jewelweed grows in bushes about 3 feet or more high and ironically it can be found growing close to poison ivy bushes. The little orange flowers bloom in late July through August and into early September sometimes. If you touch the flowers, they often pop and shoot the

A video of showing the way to operate a URAL motorcycle. The reverse lever, the two wheel drive, and some of the features found on my 2007 model Gear Up.

I took my dog out on a kayak trip recently and carried all our gear on my Russian made URAL motorcycle. Made in Siberia in 2007, the URAL is a 750cc twin cylinder boxer style engine motorcycle with a sidecar and 2WD. Ordinarily I ride Harley Davidson motorcycles, but they don’t seem to do well in the woods. Of course they offer the Pan American adventure bikes, but I don’t really see being able to haul my service dog, a kayak and camping gear on one of those bikes. The URAL f

A simple bucksaw made for camping.

A southern tradition of making the most smooth tasting brewed tea.

It’s no secret that I spend more time in the woods lately than I used to. Why not ? I’m retired now, so why not make the best of it instead of sitting around the house and staring at the walls ? I’m into eating better food these days and I can’t afford restaurant prices — so I cook my own. Today’s recipe is an experiment. I don’t have an actual recipe for this, so I decided to just “wing it.” The prep time for this dish is about 30 minutes, and about 20 minutes on the grill.

Me and my service dog went for a long ride yesterday. Today was a serious picnic ride to a local park a few towns over. I’m no chef, but I can cook decent food. Today’s menu was Pad Thai — or at least my version of it. I did all the prep work at home before we packed up for the trip. I pre sliced the bell peppers…red, yellow, and green. I used shredded carrots and long slices of vidalia onions too. I added minced garlic — about a full tablespoon. I don’t care much for kale an

I got up early this morning and packed up my springer Harley. I put the dog in her new box, then made a stop to gas up the Harley. Today we’re doing a “Mountains to the Sea” ride in Maine. We rolled from Sabattus to Rangley, to just north of Camden, then back to Sabattus. According to Map Quest this is a brief description…. “This 260-mile loop across central and western Maine takes you from the rolling lakes region to the western mountains and out to the midcoast. The entire

Obviously you have seen the pictures of Ryland, my service dog, riding in the pair of sidecar motorcycles that I have. We ride a 1998 Harley Electra Glide with a Champion Escort sidecar. She absolutely loves that thing. And — we have a 2007 Russian URAL with a sidecar and 2WD. We use it for winter riding in the snow. However, I have a 3rd motorcycle that has only two wheels. It started out as a 2002 Night Train, but it’s had a lot of modifications over the years. It’s been c

Here’s a little something that I had to learn about being in Maine these last 20+ years. Rugosa Roses. These plants are generally not found in North Carolina where I grew up, but they sure are all over coastal Maine. Believe it or not, these roses are considered an invasive species. They came to North America from Japan about 1845 or so. The Rugosa rose grows in dense bushes about 4 - 6 feet tall and are very dense. They were first used to control soil erosion along the sandy

A strange natural phenomenon occurs in summer when it’s hot out in the backwoods. Trees like oak and popular trees release a gas naturally called isoprene. This gas combines with humidity in the air and oxidizes. This forms a natural barrier to heat and sunlight to produce a type of ozone at the ground level to protect the plants from excessive sunlight that might interfere with photosynthesis. Maine is mostly comprised of coniferous trees and is generally cooler, so we don’t

Summer is here, along with warmer nights. One of the things to learn about woods lore is that you can actually tell the temperature in the backwoods by paying attention to the insects and a couple of amphibians that live out there. The first to pay attention to is the cicada. These insects live underground as a lymph, but emerge to become adults about every 13 to 17 years. These insects “sing” at daytime temperatures starting at 72 - 75*F. They drop off at 95*F and above.