Texas RV Trip - The Hill Country

Remember the leftover shrimp from Mamacita's the other day, it was now time to put them to use.  We've been trying to minimize cooking and the resulting clean-up and two days later, Bev advised she could whip me up a shrimp/egg dish in the microwave just as good as from a pan and I said "go for it." She chopped up the leftover shrimp, onions, and chiles, nuked them a little at a time and fluffed and put them on a thick flour tortilla.

She was right, I couldn't tell it wasn't pan cooked , but it needed some move flavor so I added some chipotle hot sauce, which did the trick.

After our oil disaster the other day, we had a crankcase full of nice, new oil, but an old, dirty filter which I wanted to have changed.  I checked a couple of places about doing it and swapped emails from the previous owner about doing it myself, which he said was pretty easy.  I had the filter, went and bought a filter wrench and in 30 minutes it was done and hopefully okay - I'm no longer taking anything for granted on this trip.

After I cleaned up, we headed off for a drive through hill country and supper in Johnson City - birthplace of Lyndon Johnson.  The hill country is a very hilly area that runs from Austin, down to San Antonio then about 200 miles to the West.  It's mostly ranch land but from what I've seen of it, it would take a lot of acres per animal to provide enough food, unless they ate cactus, cedar looking bushes and scrubbly trees - it is sandy and rocky.

When we were here before we ate at the Hill Country Cupboard and had memorable chicken fried steak, so I wanted to try it again.  It's about 40 miles from the campground to Johnson City which is a short hop by Texas standards - it's farther than that just to drive across the Dallas/Ft. Worth area.  This is it from the outside and the menu pasted on a brown paper bag.

We decided to try their onion rings which have the same batter as the chicken fried steak and they were very crispy and pretty good.

The special for the day was the steak with mashed potatoes and green beans, which we both ordered.

As is too often the case, it wasn't nearly as good as I remembered (Chris from Nibble Me This called this"nostalgia inflation" on his blog the other day) or it has changed since the last time - it was too bland.  Oh well, at least we can whip up a pretty good version at home and season it the way we like it.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago:  A Day To Be Thankful – The Day After

Two years ago:  Hot Tamales For Dinner

Larry