Norm Matthews

Thank you too Anna N. Your hot dog buns look good too. Have you ever heard of Moomie's Beautiful Burger Buns? It was a hit at the King Arthur bakers sharing site a few years ago. Your buns remind me of those. OOPS. I didn't read up thread enough to see that you do know about them.

Thank you ElsieD. heidih, just click on the http:// link at the bottom of my post and the recipe will be there. It is from the Farm Journal Homemade Bread book, 1969. PS I used coconut oil instead of vegetable shortening. ps heidih, I baked the bread to 200º internal temp. and it took 15 minutes longer than the recipe stated.

I hadn't made Swedish rye bread in a long long time. I don't know why it's been so long. I really like it. I will be having ham and cheese on rye for dinner tonight.

I thought this would be both a late lunch and late dinner but it was we liked it so much there won't be any left for a late dinner. We'll probably just have a snack later on instead. It's chicken thighs with mushrooms, bacon, shallots and egg noodles. Noodles were cooked in chicken broth and cream with a little fresh dill.

We had tacos tonight.

I love small furry animals. Especially with a good gravy.

Guinevere and I haven't spoken to each other for years.

I got an email from King Arthur this morning with a lot of ideas for things to do with sourdough starter. I decided to try Onion and Bay loaf and headed to the store for some white whole wheat flour. While I was there I went to the meat counter to see what looked good to go with the bread for dinner tonight. They had a chuck roast that was a good size for two people so that decided the rest the meal. We also had a tossed salad and on a whim I picked up a pineapple upside down cake.

Yes, egg shells and egg whites helped clear coffee when it was simmered in water without any thing to keep it separate from the water. "Cowboy" coffee: just throw the grounds into a pot with water then worry about removing the grounds later. Egg and egg shells' ability to remove solids has been long known. Jaques Pepin, in La Technique uses egg whites to clear stock when making consommé.

I heard about it a long time ago, tired it once or twice. I couldn't tell any real difference but I am not very discerning at the differences between differences in the coffees I generally use.

I was surprised to see D'Artagnan products at the local grocery store. Prices weren't as bad as when you have to add on shipping . I got some chorizo and Andouille sausages. I got some duck fat too, but didn't use that today. Since Cassie isn't here, I could get stuff that she doesn't like and she doesn't like chorizo. We also used some homemade mustard, hollandaise, kraut, asparagus, pickles and baked potato.

Shrimp was on sale but the bag was small so I thought I'd add some stuffed clams and jerk pork chops. Turned out to be a little too much for the two of us. Also had rice, an Asian style slaw and roasted brussels sprouts

I had an indoor orange tree back in the 70's. It had oranges about the size of marbles. It was more ornamental than an actual fruit tree.

The southern corner of my house has two large windows that get lots of sun. If it does well inside/outside this year, I will probably think about getting some kind of citrus tree next year.

If it grows up, I will let you know. The neighbor wants to inject it with inject it with Everclear.

A little over 20 years ago I spent a few days on Oahu. One of those days I flew over to Hawaii and took a bus tour. When the bus passed a pineapple field the driver told us that the plant has 4 cycles per season. The first batch of pineapples they produce are the sweetest and most all of those stay in Hawaii while the second crop is a little less sweet and those are mostly exported. The third and fourth crops get canned into pineapple rings and crushed pineapple. I don't know how accurate his information was or if it is still valid after all these years, but that is what he told us. A few days ago Cassie texted me that she saw some pineapple plants for sale here in Kansas City. For outside? I asked. Yes she said. Charlie and Cassie are separated, I am sad to say and she no longer lives with us but I got one just for the heck of it. Pineapple's growing zones are 9 to 11 and our growing zone is 6 so they definitely are not for outside all year around and I doubt they will do well as indoor plants for half the year but it will be fun to see how this one does during our regular growing season.

Crab legs were relatively well priced and we had not had them in a couple years so that is what we had along with some of the garlic sausage from the other day, corn and new potatoes.

I suppose it could double as a duck press too. This one says Laclede Mfg. St. Louis pat. 1897. Without the insert, it is it is nearly identical to the new ones for stuffing sausage, except the new ones are stainless and this one is cast iron.

I went to Bass Pro today to look at sausage stuffers and what I saw was a stainless steel version of a cast iron antique I got decades ago at a yard sale. Because it had a perforated liner, I thought it was an apple cider press but the liner comes out and there are two plates that screw on to the crankshaft. One that fits inside the liner and one larger on that is for ground meat. The problem is that the collet (or whatever it is you call it) is missing. That is the part that fits over the spout and locks the feeder tubes on. I originally bought it for its decorative potential but instead it has been moved from one garage to another as I moved from place to place. The same size stainless one at Bass Pro has all the parts and I trust stainless more than this old thing but still it's fun to realize this thing has more than one purpose.

My son's grandmother made Kimbap (Korean sushi roll) with hot dogs.

Dinner tonight was deviled chicken thighs. We also had some store bought potatoes and cheese that wasn't very good. We also had angel food cake with strawberries and ice cream.

I appreciate what you're saying. I had a iot of busted casing too. I probably threw away as much casing as I used, and clean-up was a chore. Edit, here they are out of the smoker (after 2 hours at 225º)

Well this was a real chore. I made a garlic sausage recipe that I wanted to try and it took almost all day. In fact they are still an hour away to being done and it is 6:30 pm right now. I used a KitchenAid meat grinder and stuffing tube and they are almost like toys compared to a dedicated sausage equipment. I will definitely invest in the proper equipment if i ever think about trying this again. I saved the beef trimmings from the last 3 briskets I smoked and was going to add them to the pork trimmings from the ribs i did the other day but when I went to the freezer to get them, they were gone and the freezer is half full with tamale stuff. I wonder what happened? I got a pork shoulder to round out the meat. The sausage tube was too small for the bigger diameter sausage so it was really hard and time consuming to stuff those casings, especially by myself. Oh well, when I fried up a small batch to taste for seasoning, it tasted really good. Hope the smoking will make them even better. I decided to smoke them instead of just plain cooking like the regular recipe. The recipe is from Anne Burrell.

I smoked two trimmed slabs of pork spare ribs. The first picture is after the first two hours on. I am going to freeze one and we had the other one for dinner.

I had some left over chicken from the Saturday, so made some chicken soup with and had it for lunch today along with some crackers. If I get hungry again before dinner, I'll probably have some of yesterdays Old Chicago Pizza.