OldHobo

Been away from the forum a while. An update in case anybody is interested. Fish in the aquarium and grow-bed planted first of February. Sweet Baby Romaine Lettuce(8) on the far right and Sea of Red cutting lettuce(5) next to it. Surrounding the big pipe in the middle are 5 basil plants. The lettuce in the left rear corner are thinnings, tossed to the side, that took root and grew. In the next picture, Sara and Maybelle provide all the nourishment for the plants. Sara is the shy smaller gold fantail. She mostly defers to Maybelle, the larger, yellow, gold Calico with black markings. Maybelle's name may get changed to A.P. since she seems to show decidedly male tendencies. A better view of the newer plants on the left side of the grow bed including (rear to front) thyme(4), basil(5), cilantro(3), and parsley(2). Spinach and radishes haven't sprouted yet. On the right is a more recent picture of the tank with some live plants and two mystery snails added. Sara and Maybelle are better at providing the fertilizer than actually tending the plants. It's fine they eat them, only fair really, but just out of pure devilment, they tear them up and pull smaller plants out of the gravel by the roots.

Pork n Greens

So much to google...

Buckwheat porridge. Made with whole toasted buckwheat, dried blueberries, and yogurt. Bought a pound of buckwheat groats yesterday. Tempted to throw them away.

Mixed green salad. Smoked sprats pate and french feta on toast.

I don't know if or when I'll get around to scrapple. Thank you, Suzilightening for going to the trouble of messaging the William Woy recipe. I've never really been a big fan of the cooled, sliced and fried polenta/mush/grits so I guess that makes it easier to procrastinate. Maybe someday; maybe an ovine variation of it. But, I was inspired to make grits with pork broth (from split pig feet), fresh chorizo, onion, and poblano peppers that was outstanding, to my jaded tastes at least. Also noticed fresh lamb heart, liver, and kidney in the nearby Mediterranean Grocery that might show up in my pot someday. Maybe stewed in a broth made from fresh whole goats head. Mentioned somewhere recently that I couldn't really see myself cooking a whole hogs head. I can easily picture that goat head looking up at me though.

Pork cutlet, spiraled zucchini, and tomato sauce.

Umm... What's a CSO?

Nice! But mostly felt compelled to share this: Coffee came out my nose when I came to the end of that sentence. It's from ...your dancing child with his Chinese suit., the blog linked at the bottom of liuzhou's posts. If you're not reading it, you're missing out.

Pork cutlet; Acorn squash, mashed in its skin with garlic and cumin.

Never heard of Goetta but like the idea. I make steel cut oats a few times a week and occasionally leave out the fruit and add stuff like sauteed onion, peppers, garlic, and bullion. Didn't know there were actually popular traditional recipes for savory oats. I'll shop tomorrow with this thread in mind. Will definitely pick up pork stock fixins. Maybe neckbones, more likely pig feet. I'll look at organ meat, heart and liver, but will probably use sausage in the first scrapple attempt. In future maybe set aside some braised pork butt for the purpose. I make grits a few times a week and always use Bob's Red Mill corn grits/polenta . Will stick with that even though, judging by the pictures, white corn is more common in the prepared packages. Noticed one of the NYT scrapple recipes recommended using a double boiler. That how I always make grits and it makes a lot of sense. Polenta recipes always stress stirring every few seconds to prevent scorching. With a double boiler, I can get it started and go take a shower. Will start the grits with good stock, the kind that's like hard set jello in the fridge, and precooked meat, expecting it to be done in 45 minutes to an hour.

My reference to jailhouse tamale wasn't intended to have anything to do with the food actually prepared for prisoners in jail or prison kitchens. Honestly, I have no knowledge first or even second-hand on that subject. Rather, I had for while a circle of acquaintances who did have that experience. Actual prison chow never came up, but preparations made by prisoners from hoarded ingredients available from the chow hall or commissary occasionally did. Many of them involved adding hot(ish) water to the individual serving bags of Fritos, Cheetos and the like. This might not have any bearing on the Frito Pie originally mentioned here except to trigger a memory in my own mind. I first came to Memphis to help open a small distribution facility in the 90s. Some sales reps promised lunch for everybody but mysteriously wouldn't say what they were bringing. When I found out it was fried bologna I thought it was a prank. Turned out they brought several dozen fried bologna sandwich lunches from Zinnie's East (now closed). They were so good I went back for more many times.

Sent email address via pm. My understanding is that you can list all the ingredients of a recipe without violating copyright law as long as you don't copy the author's instructions or discussion of it.

Warning: Recipe purists will likely consider this heresy. This thread was inspired by HungryChris' posts in the breakfast thread this morning and yesterday. I haven't had scrapple in 25 years or so during business visits to Allentown, PA. I thought it was okay at the time but probably wouldn't have ordered it were it not for a desire to fit in with locals who insisted I try it. Since then my appreciation for offal has expanded quite a bit. So has my cooking repertoire. I'm looking at this Wiki page and this Food Network recipe. It looks like a fairly simple recipe for polenta or cornmeal grits made with rich pork stock and pork meat (liver and heart?), which has been cooled, sliced and fried. Not sure how readily available pork hearts and liver are. Would substitutions for either or both still be called Scrapple? Is this a commonly made from scratch, homecooked recipe? Not too many of us are likely to make hogshead broth at home but I routinely set aside some of the liquid from braised pork butt and after skimming the cooled fat it seems like this would work. I also make very rich stock/bone broth from pork neck bones. Any reason either of these wouldn't be acceptable Scrapple ingredients? Pretty sure you wouldn't want to call this Scrapple but the idea of substituting finely chopped pork shoulder should be pretty darn good without offending the squeamish among us. Curious what your thoughts are.

As an example of scale, I'm starting with a 20-gallon aquarium. Most aquaponic hobbyists have backyard systems with many hundred to a few thousand gallons. They typically harvest fish as well as vegetables. Much more information is available from more knowledgeable and experienced people at the Backyard Aquaponics Forum.