Shelby

Duck hunters are back. Awesome sunrise this morning. A mix of blue wing and green wing Closer look. The blue wing are the ones that are here first. The green migrate in later.

To us (and most other people around here) teal is the "creme de la creme" of ducks. Very mild in flavor and tender. Other duck such as mallards, wood ducks etc. are much stronger tasting. Some can be almost "muddy". And, they are tougher. I'm sure you could confit it but I think you'd prefer it just done on a raging hot skillet. I SV'd some the other day just to try it...it was super good. Like a nice rare steak. The bad thing about both doves and teal is that they really just don't freeze well. The meat is so tender that it gets freezer burned no matter how well you wrap it. We do freeze them--wrapped in Saran and then vac. packed-- but we prefer to try to eat them as we get them. Which, at this time will be a challenge considering how many doves are in my fridge right now.

I knew I liked you and yours Ok, gotta get a move on. Rabbit to thaw out and eggs to devil. Be back in a bit.

Awwww! Yes. The coma and the snoring are something Ridge and Chum definitely have in common. She loves hunting with Ronnie. In fact, during hunting season I think I cease to exist in her world. She follows Ronnie everywhere.

Thanks, everyone, for reading along. And, good morning! I'm slowly moving around. I feel like I should start cooking already for tonight. I wish it wasn't too early for wine lol. I walked into the kitchen and found this zillion lb. bag of jalapeños from my brother-in-law His neighbor planted like 40 jalapeño plants so he is sharing with half the county lol. I guess I'll pickle and can some. Maybe some jalapeño jelly? Any other ideas? In retaliation I stuffed his car with zucchini. He will never learn that he should lock his doors.

So, Ronnie smoked the last of the trout that my Mom and Mike gave us (thanks guys ) in the cold smoker I then deboned them to make a dip. Picking out trout bones is NOT my favorite task. I made a smoked trout/cream cheese dip with scallions, dill, lemon, pepper, etc. etc. to serve with crackers Dinner tonight Tomatoes and zucchini --zuke was marinated in fresh lemon juice and salt. It's simple, but it's SO good. Zucchini casserole. Good stuff. Eggs, Ritz crackers, onions. A true Kansas dish. Sous Vide pork tenderloin Plated--our hunter took great pains to make this pretty My guys are cleaning up the dishes. Bless them.

I have not tried to do that. In fact, I'm interested to see if anyone else has. I'll have to google.

Damn dish fairy always skips me, too. Thank you!!! More dove pictures from this morning just came in Today's sunrise The patch Chum with some serious bird feathers in her mouth. Blech lol. The pile for today The migratory doves have started coming through. As you can see, they have more fat and are bigger and also a lot tougher. Those are the ones you want to bake low and slow or maybe try sous vide. I can't wait to try them SV and see what we think. This is a smaller and more tender local bird After that they went and scouted the water holes for duck hunting tomorrow. Looks like they should have a good hunt. Tired girl on the way home

LOL now you've spilled my secret! Happy Friday, everyone! I didn't do the dishes last night. I hate it when I do that. So that's what's up right now. The great hunters went dove hunting again so we'll see what they bring home today. I was secretly hoping they would fish, but oh well. I'll be slowly getting things together for tonight. Be back later

I'm finishing a glass of wine while I do this. I started out so organized and ahead of schedule on cooking and then, well, I dunno what happened but I ended up rushing around as usual lol. So, yesterday Ronnie was giving me grief about some eggplant that I hadn't picked yet. I planted two plants because I love eggplant in my spaghetti sauce. Well, due to lack of tomatoes, no sauce has been made this year (thank goodness for all of the sauce I froze last year). Anyway, I thought, well, ok FINE. You'll eat eggplant tomorrow by God lol. (He is not too much of an eggplant fan). So I planned and Italian feast for this evening. Feast may be too strong of a word lol. For appetizers I put out some oysters from Pike Place Fish Market that I had ordered. Some fresh and the others were smoked. I peeled and salted two of the eggplant (eggplants?) Then soaked some of them in buttermilk and dredged in seasoned flour. The other half I didn't soak and simply dredged them in flour. I wanted to see which I liked best. Then I fried them. Turned out I liked both kinds. Finished eggplant parm Pizza dough rising I made two pizzas. They will hopefully eat up the LARGE amount of leftovers for lunch the next two or three days. Pizzas were pepperoni, black olive, onion, hatch chile and mushroom. OH and I also had a huge pot of spag. sauce with venison meatballs to put over zoodles. It was our friends first introduction to zoodles. I think he's hooked now Plated (yeah it all looks the same lol) I'm off to sleep. More dove hunting tomorrow...I think duck will be Saturday.

The guys just stopped in for lunch (yeah, I really jinxed myself lol) . I didn't take pictures because it was just leftovers from last night. They brought my camera back with some pictures Sunrise in Kansas is always something to see They call the place they hunt "they marijuana patch". Because, well, it's a huge patch of marijuana. Not the good stuff or anything. You wouldn't want to smoke it lol. I have no idea how it got there. Birds? Love this picture. Here is Chum retrieving a dove And the aftermath I taught 'em well. They kept the livers and hearts for me Love eating them.

Today's gardenage I have a LOT of okra. A LOT of okra. I am 5' tall. The plants are taller than me. A lot taller than me. I can't reach to pick some of it.

Beautiful! I think you'll be fine. They wouldn't have sealed at all if there was oil or something on there

LOL Yes, I remember that post. Specifically I remember the water in the styrofoam cups. I want some of that onion.

Thank you, Smithy Hopefully I will do better about taking pictures of everything today. I get scatter-brained with even just one extra person around. Salsa was made from tomatoes from the garden. I've been hoarding them to make sure we had some for this visit. It's so easy I don't want to tell you lol. Simply chopped up 'maters, fresh cilantro, chopped up onions, chopped up jalapeños, salt, garlic, cumin and a squirt of fresh lime juice. I don't like to make it too far ahead of time because it tastes best when it hasn't been in the fridge...but I let it sit on the counter a bit for the flavors to meld. The hatch went into the filling and the sauce for the top. It used up quite a bit of my stash...I need to order more next year because I use them so much. I really don't think he would care if I didn't clean as much. Trust me, by the time he leaves there will be the usual suspects of cat hair tumbleweeds rolling around. I think Saturday will be "game" night. As in, eating a lot of game. I have a rabbit in the freezer that he wants me to fry up and then pressure cook. Among other things. Hmmm....good idea about the custard. I think I'm like you. I don't really crave the flavor of the chick. broth with pumpkin. YES, the raccoons definitely drag the pumpkins off. But they only take a few bites and then leave the poor half-eaten carcass laying in the yard. Sigh. Thanks, Anna I'm off to a slow start this morning. Guys got up at 5:30, ate their breakfast sandwiches (I really need to come up with something different to make them but the sandwiches are so easy for me) and left to go dove and teal hunting. I stay up in our bedroom so that I don't scare our guest with my just-out-of-bed look lol. Also, I like to corral my cats in there with me. My poor boys hate it when someone besides us is here. Freaks them out. Anyway, I finally went back to sleep for a bit. Now, I up drinking iced coffee. Hopefully it gives me a little jump-start.

Hi Suzi my friend I just love hearing about your bird adventures and your mom. God, I'm tired. It's weird how much just one extra person does me in....don't get me wrong, I love him to death. I guess I'm just getting older. I really am not sure what we're going to see in the next few days. I've given the instructions that they are to take pictures. And, while we're at it, they are already excited about blogging during deer season So, this afternoon I made bread to make breakfast sandwiches out of (damn if I didn't already screw up and forgot to take pics of the finished sandwiches). You've seen them in years past. Toasted bread, cheese, egg and ham this time. I'll take pics tomorrow. Anyway, here's the bread which you've seen before ( and damn again I LOVE MY STEAM OVEN) To back up, here's the small pickage from today in the garden Now fast forward..... Salsa---Before I knew it they had eaten this mostly all up with some tortilla chips. It smelled good.... And black beans and rice (both made in the instant pot) and hatch chile pork enchiladas. All got rave reviews. But, I think they were so tired they would have eaten anything and been happy lol. I'm now listening to 80's music and cleaning up. With another glass of wine. I'll see ya'll in the morning thanks for reading

Yes, I have a lot of okra this summer. I think I have canned 12 pints of pickled okra so far?

So, I jinxed myself. They wanted lunch lol. Smoked and SV'd turkey breast on homemade bread with a coveted tomato from the garden. My pickles and okra. And a bag of chips. Yep. Super fancy.

Steak night

So, I spent yesterday scrubbing the house. My house is clean but I use our guest for motivation to actually move the heavy furniture and clean underneath lol. Since it's close enough, I put out all of the fall/Halloween decor. Ronnie picked all of the pumpkins that were ready. Have a few more out there that are green yet. I made a lot of pumpkin soup last year out of our pumpkins. It's still in the freezer. Sigh. I need to eat it, I guess. Maybe I'll try to make pumpkin butter.....or maybe I'll just chuck them out in the pumpkin patch and let them grow next year lol. I made a couple loaves of white sandwich bread day before yesterday in case they pop in for lunches. They usually don't but I like to be prepared like the boy scouts. Just got these eggs out of the Instant Pot. One exploded. Cooks treat. I'll make deviled eggs at some point and also put some on a salad. I need to make more come to think of it. And, I did a pork roast in the slow cooker a couple days ago. Tons of Hatch chiles and onions in there. I'm going to make enchiladas for tonight. I have some Rancho Gordo black beans soaking, too. So, that catches us up to right now. I'm getting ready to go pick the garden and do some last minute cleaning stuff. I'll be back in a bit

Good morning! I decided to add a little more crazy to this week and do a blog. As you guys know (or some of you know), we have a friend that comes at least once a year and stays with us. He's a very good guest--along with hunting he usually helps Ronnie with some of the more major difficult chores around here. Last year he even hung storm windows on every window in the house. Not a small task. Anyway, he arrives this morning and will be here until Sunday afternoon. I'm going to send a camera along with them with strict instructions to snap photos of their adventures going after birds. It's dove and teal (duck) season now. And, there might be some river fishing thrown in, too. There will be a lot of cooking going on. So, since I'm alone in the kitchen putzing around, I figure I'll take you guys along with me . PS: Our guest will be returning the first week of December for deer season (and goose etc.) so maybe we will lock this blog until then and open it back up. I've promised for years to post pictures of cutting up deer. Maybe this will be the year I get it done lol.

What was done if two or more men or two or more women were dining together? Everyone gets a menu with a price? I do think I would feel a little swept off of my feet if I were taken to a restaurant like that....or maybe not. I think I would still scan the menu and try not to pick something too expensive (if this was when I was dating....now, if my husband took me? all bets are off, I'm going for the works lol).

Well, it looks good!

Needed something quick and easy. Hotdog night. I was so tired that I think I forgot the ketchup lol. I hope you and your husband feel better soon, TFTC!

Hot wings