smitty55

So I noticed last weekend that IG had pork hocks on sales for $1.69 lb. I've always seen those smoked pork hocks but at 8 to $10 each I never tried them. Well I bought 7 of them and presently have them brining in 2 gallon ziplocks in the downstairs fridge until the weekend. Researching recipes sure does seem to give a lot of leeway. One says to brine for 7-10 days, another for like 3-5 days. One also mentions soaking them once or twice in clean water after brining to remove the excess salt, drying them well and then further drying them for an hour in the smoker before adding wood chips to improve smoke adhesion. One recipe had them hanging off the racks instead of sitting on theme. Then of course there's a myriad of recipes to use them in after they reach 150, often involving a minimum hour boil to finish the cooking and get maximum flavour extraction from the bones and fat. Now my old baked beans recipe actually call for smoked pork hocks so that will happen, but at this time I'm not sure exactly what I will do with the rest, although I'm really leaning toward trying this slow cooker soup. https://thesaltypot.com/incredible-slow-cooker-smoked-pork-hock-soup-peas/ This looks good too. https://www.gastrosenses.com/blog/smoked-ham-hock-with-roasted-potatoes/ So any comments and recommendations are more than welcome as this will be a first for me. I'm thinking I should have bought more at this price as apparently they freeze quite well. Cheers

When I first moved out here from the city 20+ years ago I learned about a local farmer who sold fresh asparagus each spring, it was young ,fresh and so good. On top of that they made a cream of asparagus soup concentrate that they put in styrofoam cups and froze. You mixed it 1:1 with milk and it was real good. it was the honour system, you would just go to the fridge in their garage and leave the money. It worked great for years until some low life decided to steal the money and that was the end of it. Well I managed to talk Bernie into sharing his recipe with me. So over the years it's kind of been forgotten about. Then I saw asparagus on sale this week and set the wife to task to find the recipe. Well she did find it so I went and bought two bunches which worked out just right for a double batch of the concentrate. She made it yesterday, it's not complicated at all. We used an immersion blender in the pot at first once it had cooled down some and then added the roux, mixed in in well and then finished it all in the blender. Well let me tell you I had forgotten just how good this soup was, I had it last night and for lunch today. We put 8 containers of it in the freezer too. Well needless to say I'm going out to buy more asparagus today and we're going to do another double batch at least. This one is going to get some leeks tossed in for good measure as well. Well I did a search for Bernie's on my pc today and actually found it in a word doc so I figured I'd share it with you folks. Here's a c/p. Definitely recommend. Bernie’s Cream of Asparagus Soup 1-1/4 lbs. of fresh asparagus 2 tsp. (generous) chicken soup base (we used two chicken bouillon cubes) 1 cup chopped onions 2 cups water For the roux: mix flour and butter and lightly cook to improve flavour. 1/4 - 1/3 cup butter (more is better) 1/3-cup flour Milk or Cream Salt & pepper Cut tips from asparagus, chop, and set aside. Cut spears into about 1” pieces. Place asparagus pieces, onions, water, and chicken soup base into a pot – boil until tender, about 12 minutes. In the meantime make Roux of butter and flour. Place cooked asparagus mix into a blender and puree, add Roux, blend again until smooth. Divide into containers, add chopped asparagus tips on top, and freeze. To serve use equal parts of Asparagus Soup Base and milk, or cream, heat and serve adding salt and pepper to taste. Hints: We found that plastic blender containers are more likely to break than glass with the intensive heat. I used 10 ounce Styrofoam cups with plastic caps for storage and a convenient serving for two. The above recipe makes about 5 Styrofoam cups of frozen base, enough for 10 servings.

Doug the leeks are basically the first thing to green up in the bush. Head out for a tour in early May and you should be able to spot them if they are there. These ones have been up for a while in this pic.

Went out for my final pick of leeks today. This cold weather was a blessing, I could actually cover up well to keep the skitters at bay. Turns out I almost didn't even need any bug spray, this cold snap knocked then right down and I couldn't even hear the buzzing. Unlike the other days during the hot muggy weather when the skitters were crazy. I went out during that as the leaves were really starting to turn yellow fast. The bugs were so thick I decided to put on my mesh bug jacket, man those things trap in your heat so much it was literally like being in a sauna wrapped in plastic. I managed to last an hour and got 7-8 pounds. Next day my daughter came over for a pick. She was all sprayed down but only lasted maybe fifteen minutes before the skitters drove her out of the bush. Today I went to a different spot and about 30% of the plants were still green. In maybe 1 1/2 hour I got just under 8 lbs. I never use a shovel and always do my best to only pick the bulb and leave the rhizome and roots in the ground. Going to make up 5lbs of ramp butter and going to pickle up a few jars with a new recipe to try. I got a good 10 lbs of fiddleheads this season too so I'm happy with my spring foraging this year.

That was a good laugh Dave. I've seen that one before and I think it was about hockey then as well.

I make a lot of real good soups over the course of a year but at this time of year there's one very special soup that is at the top of the list. It's called Wild Country Cream Soup, apparently the recipe came from an old Harrowsmith magazine however I couldn't find any reference to it on google at all or their archives. It's a quite rich cream soup with fiddleheads and leeks(ramps) as the stars along with mushrooms and green onion supporting. The flavour is really amazing as one would expect with a full cup of chopped wild garlic in it, along with a little zing from cayenne. Even better that I can go out beside the house and pick the leeks like I did this afternoon. The owner of the property where I do my main picking requests a batch each year. Pic doesn't really do it justice, when chilled the soup if quite solid, when hot it's still thick and creamy, even a small bowl goes a long way. Cheers

It's been heavy with black flies for the last week or so around here but this heat wave has knocked them down pretty good but now all of a sudden the mosquitoes have shown up so not near as bad, they hardly leave a mark.

Heya Todd. Bad enough you can't get to Kipawa at all, even worse is the forum getting hacked. Know any experts on forum admin, I'm sure Greg would love some help. Cheers

That works real good and you can even change flavours.

I have both of them but haven't watched yet. Good to hear.

A neighbour buddy of mine has been guiding for well over 30 years and he swears the best batter comes from Brodie xxx self rising flour. For breading he uses Zatarains Fish Fri blends, they're a 125 year old company from New Orleans. I saw him post a pic of it just recently. Whenever I'm over at the Walleye Lounge there's often a box on the counter. Not in this case though, Jim had the place spruced up real good for the tv crew. This was 7 years back, there's been solid improvements to the seating and other changes since then. This used to be used as a real garage, complete with a hoist mounted in the loft at one time. It's a huge log structure, more than double garage wide and with a high peak and large loft. It matches the even more impressive log home. I can't recall exactly what that floor cost him but I think it was up towards 20G, it's real nice. With apologies for the side track

I'd say a little behind this year. Mine are up maybe 10" or so. I've just been munching on stems so far, they're so mild when the plant is young. Fiddleheads however seem to be still dormant, I checked today in a sunnier spot and nothing started yet. Here's some pics from a few days back, one right beside the house and the other on a hill behind the house.

Came across this very interesting article linked on another forum. As usual the incompetent liberals haven't really thought this gun ban very well with their attempt at bypassing legislation by using an OIC. A real good read even though it's a year old and still mentions the election. https://www.canadiangunnutz.com/forum/showthread.php/1876479-A-must-Read-A-real-good-insight-that-was-forwarded-to-us-SHARE-WITH-EVERYONE!!!! Also if anyone here is affected by this here's a link to the proper form 68A to apply for a judicial review. http://ontariocourtforms.on.ca/en/rules-of-civil-procedure-forms/ Cheers

Then again sometimes there no rhyme or reason for where they pop up. In this case on a gravel pad where I park my quad a couple of years back, go figure.

South facing slopes are always the first to produce, once they slow down there move to north facing areas.

Now that bread sure does look good.

That's kind of what I figured but after looking it up they do show some longer stools

My guess would be muskrat, they eat mostly vegetation.

Well on today's menu was my Puttanesca recipe. Wifey even has it down pretty good now, so she made it while I was out today. So that was a great excuse to make another loaf of bread. Changed it up a bit this time, used a full tsp of yeast instead of 1/4, bumped the salt up to 1 1/2 tsp and added 1 tbs of olive oil to the batter. I would say the bread was a bit softer with the oil, had more flavour with the extra salt and rose faster with the extra yeast. Wifey seemed to think she could smell it more as well while it was baking. And of course the Puttanesca was excellent, we had it with garlic shrimp this time and she kept going on about what a fabulous meal it was, who needs restaurants. For anyone interested that recipe is on pg 132. Cheers

Way to go. This is how I helped myself stay quit. Once I had a week behind me I just told myself I know I can do it again because I already did it. Same after two weeks, then a month, and so forth. Then I started adding up the pounds of tobacco that I hadn't put through my lungs and the coin I hadn't spent and I felt even better. Worked for me. Good luck.

Well my daughter gave a a turkey carcass from the weekend as she can't be bothered to make stock and soup. She has it figured out now, get Dad to do it all and then get soup for nothing. But that's OK, I ended up with 4 qts of soup. So that was a perfect excuse to break in my new dutch oven to bake some artisan bread. Talk about easy. No proofing of yeast, just a 2 minute mix of the ingredients including using hot water. Only a 3-5 hour rise to double in size, a quick fold over and shaping by hand and on a sheet of parchment paper and place in bowl while oven and pot is warming to 450°. Remove dutch oven, place paper and dough in pot with lid on and in oven for 30 minutes. Remove lid and bake further for 10-15 min to crisp up crust. Turned out fantastic, nice crispy crust and nice and soft inside with a texture similar to Sourdough. All for less than 5 minutes of time. . I can see it now being a regular occurrence in out kitchen.

Interesting, all I've ever used is milk almost to the top of the layers. Scalloped potatoes are always in a creamy sauce for me. Lot's of onions and black pepper along with flour and butter between each layer. Sometimes I'll add cheese or bacon.

So someone on line mentioned about dutch ovens on sale at CTC for great prices. It wasn't in the flyer but when I went online they have some great deals on Paderno cookware. Sure enough their 6.5 qt dutch oven regular price $339 is on sale for $99 and the 5 qt. is on as well for $80. Needless to say I phoned up my local store and had them hold one for me. https://www.canadiantire.ca/en/pdp/paderno-dutch-oven-red-6-5-qt-1423479p.html#srp On a side note, that store in CP is as of 6pm now going to be closed for anything but online ordering so you may want to check your store. Cheers

Max usb current is .5A for USb2.0 giving a max 2.5W output. USB3 rises to 900mA max so 4.5W Cheers

Actual recommendations are 2 tbs per quart. I used to use lemon juice but didn't care for the taste in my tomato sauce so I switched to citric acid. I/2 tsp per quart and zero flavour change.