smitty55

So dinner last night turned out great.The more I use the sous vide the more I like it. A quick sear in the cast iron and the meat was excellent. As for the puffball this was the first time I tried it this way. Mixed some parm in my smoked bread crumbs, dipped the pieces in egg wash, then the bread crumbs and fried in smokin' hot bacon grease. Without doubt the best puffball I have ever eaten in over 40 years, nice and crispy on the outside and just right inside. Wifey said it was the best meal she's had in a long time. My new go to for sure.

I can only comment on the one suit I've owned, it's an Arctic Armor bib pants and jacket made by IDI Gear. For me it's been great, very warm, windproof and waterproof and made with Insultex. I've never had to check it out thankfully, but apparently it will float up to 700lbs. There are plenty of videos showing it's use. It's quite light, very flexible in the coldest weather and reinforced in all the right spots. If I ever have to replace it I would buy the same product without thought. https://www.idigear.com/arctic-armor-cold-weather-gear

Funny how things work out sometime. Yesterday I was rummaging in the freezer to find some venison as I had a hankering for jerky. I found two packs of loin and to my surprise found a vacuum bag with some beef tenderloin trim in it. Great, gives me an excuse to pull out the sous vide. So I coated the meat in spice rub, put it in a vacuum bag and added 2 huge crushed cloves of garlic and three sprigs of fresh cut rosemary and a wack of Worcestershire sauce then sealed the bag. Right on, now lets see what we have for mushrooms. Oh crap, they don't look to good, damn. A while later wifey goes out for a walk and when she comes back she's all excited and tells me there's 3 puffballs on one of our neighbour's lawn. WooHoo I didn't get any last year. Well I had to wait till he got home before I went over and when I went over there was only one left. Turns out someone had stopped and stolen two of them from his lawn without even asking, but I got lucky and he said I could grab the last one as he wasn't really into them, perfect. So I decided to take a slow tour around the country block and see if I could spot some more. Found one but it was too late, turning yellow. Then about a mile from home I'm touring by another place and I see two small ones on their property, so I go to the door and ask him if he used them. No problem he says go grab them. Right on, now I have three, one small one, one medium and the big one I first got, all in good shape too. I know my buddy up the road really likes them so I drop off the medium one for him and then drop off the small one to a new young couple who recently built across the road and had never tried them. it was too late for today but I sure am looking forward to dinner tomorrow, so is wifey. I will cut 3/4" slabs, dip them in an egg wash and then a mix of my smoked bread crumbs and fresh grated parm before frying up in a very hot cast iron pan with bacon grease. I'm drooling just thinking about it. Like who needs restaurants, not that you could find this dish anyway. Here's a pic of it, just under 5lbs. That's a bushel basket to give you an idea of size. It's in the fridge now. I might even dehydrate some of it if there's enough left over, you can leave chunks whole or powder it to use as a flavouring and thickener for stews. Plus I know where there's one still in the ground, I'll check on it daily to see if its still growing.

Sure is, I love my pickles. Seeing as you have experience with the green tomato pickles I have some questions for you if you don't mind. I've looked through a lot of different recipes and I'm noticing a lot of differing methods. Do you used cider vinegar or white, I see both used and I'm thinking to go half and half. I'm used to salting vegetables overnight for most of my pickle recipes to draw moisture out but some I saw didn't call for that. I did up 5 lb of tomatoes today and 2 large onions. Did three layers of tomato/onion and added 2tbs of pickling salt to the first two layers and 3 tbs to the top one. I'll give them a good rinse or two with cold water and drain them well. Do you do that with yours? Some recipes I see just do a cold pack and then process for like 15 minutes. Another brings the vegetables in the pickling liquid just to a boil and then hot packs the jar, adds the boiling liquid and then processes, that's what I'm thinking of doing. Other recipes call for the veggies to cook for up to a half hour before canning, I'm worried they would get too soft cooking for that long and then processing. What's your method, and do they stay firm? I also came across an old family recipe for green tomato pickle that really caught my eye, it uses turmeric and curry as the main spices, sounds intriguing as I make a sweet curry pickle that is really good. I still have 8 plants at the community garden so if I have enough green ones left I'm going to try this one too, you may want to consider it if you have some left as well. It's more of a relish so the 20 minute total cook time makes sense. https://www.meatandtravel.com/retro-green-tomato-pickles/ Cheers

Strange, I thought I had replied to you Doug already. Maybe I forgot to hit submit lol. Here's the recipe I used, I liked the fact that the peppers stayed in the jar unlike others that used normal jelly procedures that just used the juice. Haven't tried them yet but will be soon, I found another recipe to make a cracker spread using sharp cheddar, chopped roasted pecans, green onions and the jelly, it sounds real good. https://inspiredbycharm.com/red-pepper-jelly/

So I generally do a fair amount of preserving each year, I like to try different things the odd time as well. This year for the first time I tried dilly beans, red pepper jelly and whipped together a salsa from my home tomatoes for the first time in a long while. Didn't really follow a recipe and the salsa turned out fantastic. Also did up some dilled carrots, lots of tomato sauce as usual and also a batch of Chili Sauce that I make year round and have been eating since I was a kid at home when we would seal the jars with wax. Got just over 50 jars so far and next on the list is the green tomato pickles which I'll cut up today and salt overnight. Lot's of fun and way better than anything store bought for sure.

I planted dill many years ago and since then I get tons of volunteers each year. Had about 80 plants that came up in one bed this year that I let go. Had way too much for my dilled carrots and dilly beans so I now have a huge amount of seed that I saved before pulling the plants. Still have lots of new ones starting again.

I've got lots of green tomatoes left and have been contemplating trying some pickles with them for the first time. Seeing your pics just made up my mind. Been checking out lots of recipes on line and having all the ingredients on hand I'm going to try these ones, likely mix vinegars, add some turmeric to the first one and hot peppers to the dill one. https://www.therusticelk.com/pickled-green-tomatoes/

Great report, thanks so much for sharing.

You could try looking back in this thread for the video, it was posted already. As was already posted as well is that a big boat like that doesn't need to be going very fast to kill someone. Did you even read all the posts here before making all these assumptions?

Wow, you must know Kevin quite well to make that assumption. So according to you the people in the boat that was hit didn't even see the driver? I think not, they would certainly have said something if he was driving. Plus the video clearly shows that the boat certainly wasn't ripping around, don't know why you assume that too.

What I find the most alarming is that even though the stargazers had no lights on in their boat they must have heard and seen the other boat nearby and yet none of them had the common sense to at least turn on some lights or shine a flashlight at the other boat to let them know there was a boat anchored. Something still doesn't add up.

Your jerky seems to be working out real well, right on. It could be the pic but is that shine from an oily outer layer still? You mentioned going pure grind next. I like that screen too, was that ctc you said? Looks reusable.

That's a pretty good bend. It will be hard to try and straighten that shaft with that cover in the way, let alone the chances of getting it perfectly straight to line up with the bearings. I would think you'd be able to buy a replacement part, but the thing you also need to consider is the potential internal damage done to the bearings themselves and the associated support structure. I would suggest removing the bearings and simply giving them a physical test to see if they rotate easily and nice and smooth, not bumpy at all. Bearings can be found for sure, might cost as much to ship them if you bought them on their own. If I was ordering a handle shaft assy I'd definitely order a set of bearings at the same time, just because. Lastly, while your doing that, make sure you take a real good look at the support frames on each side for cracks. Clean them real good and use magnification to inspect if you can. No use buying the other parts if the frame is shot, right? At least it was you that stepped on it and not someone else hehe... Good luck

What I did find interesting in that article was that they stressed using only bottled lemon juice, not fresh squeezed. I figure it must have to do with the ph consistency.

Looks good, I can my own tomatoes as well using my heirloom indeterminates. So much flavour that jumps out at you even when opening the jars. I'm curious as to what you use to lower the ph below 4.6 to ensure safe canning? Tomatoes used to be considered high acid but not anymore so I don't take a chance. I used to use lemon but don't care for the taste in my tomato sauce. Since I started to use citric acid I've never looked back. The small amount needed doesn't affect the taste at all, it's only 1/4tsp for pints and 1/2tsp for qts. Here's a good article for anyone who wants to can them. https://foodsafety.wisc.edu/assets/preservation/UWEX_addacidtomatoes.pdf Cheers

Independent Grocer has pork loin pieces on sale for $2.29 this week, a great deal. Cheaper than picnic shoulders which are also on sale. Pieces are anywhere from $2-$4 each. I picked up 5 the other day and I figure on grabbing up more for sure. I got him to double wrap a few of them for the freezer but the next ones I'll vacuum seal. These will be so versatile, I've actually got a pound coated with spice rub frying up right now which will get ground up with relish and mayo added for a pork sandwich spread, one of my favorites.

https://www.yummly.com/recipes/ground-beef-jerky?prm-v1=1 That looks like a good rig. I only tried it a couple of times. The dehydrator I bought came with the kit and a couple of mixes. I'm sure they must use some sort of binding agent that results in some proper jerky texture, which makes sense for ground but I didn't notice any on the few recipes I checked. Thing is when it comes out of the tube it's not very stiff so you basically can't handle it until its somewhat dried. So the smoker is a great idea but I'm thinking you may have to make your strips on a different surface and put those on the racks in the smoker. Your other option would be to dehydrate them like 80% until starting to stiffen up well and then just finish them in the smoker for the true flavour. Off topic a tad but I've done lots of regular jerky in a dehydrator for decades now and I have always used liquid smoke for sure, even though I've had a smoker there was two brands that were good and one I didn't care for so much. Marinating for at least a day makes a big difference in overall flavour. I remember those good old days too when I could get nice thick full round steaks on sale at great prices and freeze them for my use any time of the year and a few big batches in the fall where I would do up a weeks worth for the four of us at deer camp each year. Great out ice fishing too. Recipe wise, the one best addition you can improve any recipe with is the addition of lots of fresh garlic, not powdered. I grow my own. When you chew on a piece of that jerky the real garlic flavour stands out just right. Cheers

Sounds like 2 against 1. I would have got right into his grill.

I'm sitting there watching overdrive late afternoon and this brand new looking bright red Ford 4x4 comes up the driveway. Then I remembered I recently saw one at my neighbour's just up the road and sure enough I see Jim getting getting out carrying something. He's been up there in a new gig with Ford now for at least six months and just recently got his new truck, it took that long. So I go out front and meet him and he hands me this sealed 8x12 tray full of small bottles. It's truffle oil he tells me. 91 single serving size. I kind of know what it is and I love mushrooms but I've never tried it before. Been doing some research and now I'm really looking forward to using it as a finishing oil. Anyone here ever use it much? Any experiences, advice, recipes and thoughts are more than welcome. This is the exact product. Glass bottles even. https://www.terrefrancescane.com/gb/single-portion-dressings/129-terrefrancescane-italian-white-truffle-dressing-12ml.html?search_query=White+truffle+dressing&results=3

Hey no prob Brian, wait till you try it with the smoked bread crumbs, that takes it up another notch. It's not quite as crispy after freezing and it doesn't take much of a reheat but like you said nice and moist and tender, doesn't even need a knife. I may even try a quick smoke on the meat next time to go with the bread crumbs.

Right on, good to see that Big Chief getting a good workout.

You could try the Ottawa Municipal Campground, less than ten minutes from Shirley's Bay. http://www.ottawaevents.ca/ottawa-municipal-campground/

My understanding from an old bud that was an OMC tech was that marine engines were made to much tighter specs and used heavier duty components than the equivalent automotive engine.

My old 28lb mk always shows battery power when I turn it off, don't the newer ones have that function as well?