Brewing 2 batches at once! It's been pretty easy so far, but things might get a little dicey when it comes time to cool the wort and put it in fermenters. Sure smells awesome in the kitchen, though.
American wheat on the left, and nut brown ale on the right.
W00t!
Cut up a pack of bacon. Brown the bacon. Remove the bacon. Make a roux with the bacon grease. Add 6-8 medium potatoes, cubed up and peeled. Add bacon back. Add salt and pepper to taste. Cook until potatoes are tender. Serve over rice or white bread. Enjoy!
That's all it takes to make a mulligan stew. It's a campfire meal, but on cold days like this, it goes great in the home, too.
And, yeah, I voted today, and yeah it is more important than dinner, but given our options at the polls, this is WAY more satisfying.
Happy voting, everyone. No more campaign ads tomorrow.
The Boy-o and I went riding with my brother and a longtime friend of his, J.C.
We had a great time, and Boy-o got to ride on 2 different four-wheelers. I'm paying for it today, with a sore back and legs, but it sure was fun! In the picture, you see J.C. with 2 of the 3 atvs we brought. The local riding trail is 28 miles long, and has mud holes, rock climbing hills, banked turns, long straightaways and jumps galore. It took us the better part of 4 hours to finish. We were all dusty, exausted, and happy when done.
Can't wait till next time!
Yesterday, while getting ready for the halloween party, I started to get grumpy. Between not eating lunch, not having any time to relax, and putting up decorations, I started to get grumpy. My wife is a sweetheart, and didn't call me out when I started to get snappy. She's one in a million, and I'm lucky to have her. At one point I was trying to calm down while looking through all the decorations in the garage. I found the Red Rider BB gun my brother dropped off for the zombie-themed target shoot. 5 minutes later, the leaves on the ground were quaking in fear, and I was feeling MUCH more relaxed.
Later, my other brother brought a CO2 powered daisy BB pistol. My GAWD, THAT WAS FUN! So fun, in fact, that i horse-traded a paintball gun for the little BB pistol.
It's been years since I shot a BB gun, much less owned one. I have gone through 2 CO2 cartridges this morning. I must say, this is some of the most lighthearted fun I've had shooting in a long, long time.
I'm really enjoying shooting BBs again.
Our coffee stout is ready....
And delicious.
I should have been doing this years ago.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dX_1B0w7Hzc&feature=youtube_gdata_player
I found this highly amusing. Definitely good for a chuckle!
Well, when the pork shoulder is finished, you slice it up, and serve it. This is definitely the easiest step, and the most fun, as you can taste the treat you have been preparing all day. I decided to throw in a few pounds of fingerling potatoes and carrots about an hour before the pork was done, for a side dish.
In the picture, you can see the potatoes and carrots on one side of the dish, and the pork roast, sliced, on the other. The au jus was drizzled over everything. It turned out.
C.B. Morrison was a dear friend, and a mentor to me during my late teens and early twenties. We shared a lot of interests, but first and foremost among them was a love of good food. I worked in, and later managed the barbecue restaurant he owned, and have kept a few select recipes from those days that I still use regularly.
The area I grew up in is known as the cane river, and the creole influence can readily be seen in the food there. One such creole inspired dish was a favorite of C.B.'s, and we cooked one every week for the Friday Buffet. His sister is still a dear friend of mine, and she asked me to cook this dish... the Cane River Pork Shoulder. Now, a pork shoulder is the front leg of a pig, from the shoulder to the ankle. It is a large piece of pork, about 20 pounds, give or take. You can buy a pork butt (the top half of the pork shoulder, not actually the butt. Pig butt is called a ham, but I digress) and half the ingredients to only feed 8-10 people, or buy a half-butt, and quarter the recipe for 4-6 people. I am cooking a half-butt today, so if cooking a whole butt, double this recipe, or quadruple it for a whole shoulder. This recipe was originally designed to be smoked on a pit, but I have found you can cook it in a roasting pan or in the oven with good results.
1 half-butt
1/2 large yellow onion, minced
1/2 clove garlic, minced
4 teaspoons Tony's Creole Seasoning
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce
Mix onion, garlic, Tony's, and Worcestershire sauce in a bowl. Coat onion/garlic mix thoroughly with the Tony's and Worcestershire.
Using a sharp knife, cut holes throughout the pork. Stuff the holes with the seasoning mix. Whatever mix is left over, pack onto the outside of the pork. If using a half butt, place in a dutch oven and put in the oven at 350 degrees for an hour, uncovered (if using a whole butt or shoulder, throw it on a pit at 350 degrees, or place it in a roaster at 350 degrees. Remember, for a roaster to work properly, it needs to have the lid in place, so put a small rack inside the roaster to keep the meat from sitting in it's own juice, so it doesn't fall slap apart. Trust me, it will be plenty tender.)
After an hour, place the lid on the dutch oven. If using a pit, transfer the pork into a disposable aluminum pan, to help preserve the au jus.
Cook for approximately 4 more hours for a half-butt. A whole butt may require as much as 7 hours more, but after 4 hours on a pit, I would cover with aluminum foil. A shoulder could require as much as 12 hours. Also, if on pit, cover after 4 hours. And REGULATE your temp, keeping it between 300 and 350 degrees!
After about the 2nd hour for a half butt, or the 4th hour for a whole butt or shoulder, check the pork every hour. Put a fork in a thick part, and pull to one side gently. When the fork requires almost no resistance to separate the meat, it should be about done. Uncover the pork, and cook for an additional half hour, to crisp the meat. Remove from the fire, and let sit for a half hour. Slice, and serve with the au-jus.
This is a labor intensive piece of cooking, but once you taste it, you will understand why I love this recipe. It's a labor of love, and you can taste it in the finished product.
In the above pics, you can see me stuffing the pork butt. When it is all done, I will post more pics of the finished product.
We brewed a stout a few weeks ago. Turns out, stouts bubble pretty fiercely in the first 24 hours. At about 2am the night we brewed, there was a weird fizzing sound coming from the corner of the room. Apparently the foam decided it needed to leave the confines of the carboy, and did so through our airlock. I made a heftier impromptu airlock out of a length of tubing and a glass of water, and only put the regular airlock back on the next day, after the foaming stopped. At that point, i realised that this was a perfect example of how meth fires start: rednecks getting in over their head in chemistry. Lucky for me, if things go bad, at the worst, I lose a batch of beer.... not my house.
However, things went well, and last weekend, we transferred the coffee stout to the secondary.
Looks good, no?
