Saturday Humor

The Lawn Mower

A preacher was making his rounds on a bicycle, when he came upon a little boy trying to sell a lawn mower. 'How much do you want for the mower?' asked the preacher.

'I just want enough money to go out and buy me a bicycle,' said the little boy. 

After a moment of consideration, the preacher asked, will you take my bike in trade for it?'

The little boy asked if he could try it out first, and, after riding the bike around a little while, said, 'Mister, you've got yourself a deal.'

The preacher took the mower and began to crank it. He pulled on the rope a few times with no response from the mower.

The preacher called the little boy over and said, 'I can't get this mower to start.'

The little boy said, 'That's because you have to cuss at it to get it started.'

The preacher said, I can't cuss. It's been so long since I became a Christian that I don't even remember how to cuss.'

The little boy looked at him happily and said,

'You just keep pulling on that rope. It'll come back to ya.

On a semi-funny note, I learned yestreday that I'm almost one of those old folks who can fall victim to marketing.  There is a commercial running pretty often that talks about the financial collapse of American and says you need to go to www.endofamerica3.com to learn how to save yourself.  Since I already have some concerns in this area (not to the Chicken Little state yet), I decided to have a look and by the time it was over I was ready to buy - afterall, it's only $49.50 and it's refundable for up to 4 months. 

Before I hit the subscribe button and went to get my credit card, I decided to do a quick web search and glad I did.  Here are a couple of articles I found interesting - link1 & link 2.  Of couse I'd never heard of Porter Stansberry or know if he's trying to scam me or if the other article writers are real or just have an axe to grind, but I do know I'am keeping my $49.50.  Getting old is h#(%, but getting old and stupid is even worse - at least I didn't trade for the lawn mower.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago: It's Garden Time In Tenneessee

Two years ago:  Nothing

Larry

Breakfast Pork Fried Rice Ala Larry

Not only am I a novice Asian cook, I’m even a novice Asian food eater and although I always enjoy it, it’s only a once a month or less meal for me.  Since most Asian dishes include rice, when we eat it out, I nearly always get fried rice if it’s an option.  Also a dish I usually see on Asian menus is pork fried rice and I just happened to have some leftover steamed rice from Asian Night and some pulled pork from BBQ day so I decided to have it for breakfast.

I found the following ingredients list for basic fried rice:

1 - 2 green onions, as desired

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon salt

Pepper to taste

4 tablespoons oil for stir-frying, or as needed

4 cups cold cooked rice

1 - 2 tablespoons light soy sauce or oyster sauce, as desired

Note the existence of rice and eggs in the dish.  The recipes I found for pork fried were less eggy than I made, but this is the breakfast addition, so my ingredients were:

1 tbsp bacon grease

2 cups steamed rice
1 cup pulled pork
2 green onion, sliced and divided
1 tbsp Sriracha hot sauce

4 eggs

1 tbsp cream

S&P to taste

I forgot to add the planned two slices of pepper jack cheese in a small dice, but I have enough left for another meal and perhaps I'll remember it then. 

I washed and chopped the green onion and added the white part with the rice to a skillet with the hot grease and when the rice began to brown a little, I added the pork.

I cooked until the rice had the color I wanted, then stirred in the Sriracha and cooked a few more minutes - about 15 minutes total over medium heat.  I assumed the pork had enough flavor, so I added no other Asian type, or other, sauces.

While it was cooking, I beat the eggs and cream frothy along with a pinch of my pork rub and the green onion tops.  I made a well in the center of the rice mix and poured in the eggs.

As it started to cook I began stirring it into the rice mixture.

When it was fully incorporated and the eggs were done, I served it.

I’m not sure I could pass off my pork and rice scramble as pork fried rice but it was very good whatever it’s called.

When I told Bev of my plan prior to starting, she unenthusiastically said she'd eat a little of it, then took a bite and said this is really good.  As she was going back for seconds she said I really like fried rice and yours is really good - so I guess she liked it.

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago:  Alex’s Supper Menu

Two years ago: Baked Potato Filled With Egg, Cheese, And Bacon

Larry

01/14/2012 meal date

German Night At The Ranch

As it turns out, one of my BBQ customers has a German background and makes his own kraut, a quart of which he gave me back in the fall.  I hate it took me so long to try it, but we finally got to it recently.  It’s common to cook pork with kraut and in this area it’s often country style ribs, which are really just sliced up pork butt, but I wanted to use some pork loin from the freezer.

Since the pork loin is so lean, it would become very dry if I used the same cooking process as with the ribs and I do not like dry meat, pork or otherwise.  So after thawing, I cut the loin into 1” chunks, added it to a pan with oil and browned a little then covered it with the kraut – I had a probe thermometer in one of the pieces and cooked it to 140*.  I considered brining the meat, but thought the cooking in the salty kraut would suffice.

I don’t know of a meal more German than pork, kraut, and potatoes, so Bev made some potato cakes from leftover mashed potatoes – adding some chopped chives and chopped crispy bacon – all we needed was some sausage, spargel (white asparagus), and good bread.  We also had some spicy brown mustard on the side.

As it turned out, the un-brined loin did not work well in this application as it needed more flavor and it didn’t provide much flavor to the kraut either - I also should have trimmed off the fat as it didn't cook long enough to render and add any flavor to the dish.  So I ended up making a very average dish out of some good ingredients - some of the better homemade kraut I’ve eaten.  As you can see this was more of a what not to do post.  Fortunately, the potato cakes made up for it as they were delicious. 

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago: Ye Olde Steakhouse For Breakfast

Two years ago: Dogs & Fries – Finally Pretty Weather

Larry

01/09/2012 meal date

Soup Beans And Cornbread

This title can mean different things depending upon where you live or were raised.  Since I grew up in the North, about 75 miles south of Pittsburgh, soup beans were white (navy in our house) and for my East Tennessee wife they were brown (pintos) and our cornbread was yellow while hers was white.  So the other day when Bev said she wanted beans, I was sure it meant pintos, but after a look in the pantry, she surprisingly decided on a mix of navy and great northern beans (we didn't have enough pintos and we're still trying to reduce our inventory in the pantry).

For me, regular cornbread is only good hot out of the oven smothered in butter or beans, but Mary’s recipe, from One Perfect Bite, for bacon and onion cornbread muffins sounded like it would be even good leftover, so it was the choice for this meal.

After an hour soak, we put the beans on about noon with some smoked ham hocks and minced garlic that had been cooking in water for the same hour, and let them cook until 6pm.  Bev made the cornbread using the inspiration from Mary’s recipe but used what we had on hand so her recipe became the following (remember, she’s the real cook in this family and pancakes is as close as I get to baking):

Ingredients:

6 thick slices of Benton’s smoked bacon, already cooked and crumbled

½ cup finely chopped onion

1 2/3 cup White Lily Cornmeal Mix

1 teaspoon baking powder (for additional raising)

2 large eggs

½ stick salted butter, melted and cooled

1¼ cups plain Greek yogurt (used due to not enough sour cream)

¼ sour cream

¼ cup milk 

Directions:

1) Melt 1 tbsp of bacon grease in a skillet, add onions, and cook over moderately low heat until softened and translucent (or leave 1 tbsp of grease in skillet if bacon is freshly fried).

2) Sift cornmeal, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl.

3) In another bowl whisk together eggs, butter, yogurt, sour cream, and milk, stir in the bacon, onion and the cornmeal mixture, and beat batter well. Divide batter among 12 well-buttered standard muffin cups and bake muffins in middle of a preheated 425-degree F oven for 20 minutes, or until they are golden.  Rather than well-buttered, Bev used bacon grease in the muffin tin wells.

4) Turn the muffins out onto a rack and let them cool. Yield: 12 muffins (Ours made 18 smaller muffins). 

Bev added no addition salt since she used salted butter and pretty salty country style bacon.

First of all, the beans were very good, but the highlight was the muffins, which were delicious.

The first 12 were made as described above and the final 6 had shredded pepper jack cheese added to them.

My meal of three muffins topped with beans and chopped green onion was outstanding.

But the last muffins with the cheese in them were to die for.  After Beverly, my buddy Joe and I ate our fill and sent some home with Joe for his wife, the muffins were gone and one of the things I wanted to find out was if they were still good the next day.  Oh well, guess we’ll just have to make another batch.

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago: Chicken Chow Mein

Two years ago: Tomato Soup & Grilled Cheese

Larry

01/12/2012 meal date

Man Does Not Live By Eggs Alone

Sometimes, potatoes are required.  I’ve said this before, but when I was a kid, one of my favorite lunchtime meals was fried potatoes and onions, where the raw ingredients went into the skillet together and by the time the potatoes were done, the onions were well caramelized.  To this day, I rarely allow an opportunity go by to use these ingredients, like this meal for example.

For Christmas dinner, Bev had made twice baked potatoes, but had baked two that did not get made up and I discovered four green onions languishing in the same fridge drawer.  I cut the potatoes into large cubes, so they’d stay together, diced the onions, and added the potatoes and onion bottoms to a hot pan.  When they were about done, I added most of the onion tops and cooked until they were soft.

It the meantime, I cooked two over-easy eggs and topped the potatoes with them, along with a few raw green onion tops.

I’d tell you it was delicious, but you already knew that.  I'm going to have to be careful or this blog will morph into one of just breakfasts meals from leftovers. 

David Made Me Do It

There is a dish out there called eggs in purgatory that is basically eggs cooked in tomato sauce and served over pasta, mashed potatoes, etc. (photo from the web).

One site I looked at it says “If you have never paired up eggs and tomato sauce, you do not know what you are missing!”

If you read my Greek Pasta post on Jan 8, there was this comment from good friend Dave - “Larry, I must admit that your latest breakfast creation is beyond imagination! What's next... a couple of eggs over spaghetti and meatballs ?......”  Here it is Dave – leftover homemade pasta and meatballs (all chopped some) in a dish with an egg in a well.

Although it did add a little creaminess, this was probably a waste of an egg as the other flavors pretty well overwhelmed it – but you never know till you try.

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago:  Scrambled Eggs And Kielbasa

Two years ago: It’s Stir Fry Night At Almost Heaven South

Larry

01/04/2012 & 01/08/2012 meal dates

Pork Butt How-To

Pork butt, pork butt, how do I smoke thee, let me count the ways.  All you have to do is read a couple of BBQ forums or blogs to discover that many folks win competitions cooking it a number of different ways.  I’ll first discuss some of the decisions to be made then the method that has delivered good results for me and is predicated on maintaining as much of the natural juices as possible.

You start with how much if any of the fat cap to leave on the roast and move on to whether or not to brine, marinate, or inject.  Then you decide on the rub formulation and is it applied 8 hours early, just prior to cooking or somewhere in between and how much do you use – and you haven’t yet begun to cook it.

Next to decide is the heat source – wood or charcoal or a combination – or you may be using an electric, gas, or pellet smoker - then what temperature to cook it at.  Ready for the smoker, okay, will it be fat cap up or down, will it be cooked bare the entire time or wrapped in foil or put in a pan at some point.  Will it be basted during the cook and with what, and will you capture the juices.  Finally, at what point will you take it off the cooker, and after removing, what do you do with it?

Oddly enough there are many correct answers to these questions and I’ve seen many different ones just on the blogs and forums I read – the answers are often determined by the type of smoker being used - remember, a smoker is just an oven with a smoky environment.  So what follows is how I do it for myself and my customers. 

First, I buy whatever breed of pork is in the package I get on sale at the local market and it’s nearly always Excel from Cargill Meat Solutions – I’m pretty sure I can’t tell the difference between Berkshire, some other shire, or whatever the local 4-H'ers raise.  I usually load up on sale day and freeze them, always using the oldest ones first thereafter. 

I remove and thaw them in the fridge for a couple of days and around 2pm on the day prior to BBQ day, I remove from the fridge, unwrap, and rinse them .  Then I remove all but about an 1/8” of the fat cap, score the fat in a diamond pattern and apply my rub, which is a 75/25 mixture of Billy Bones Original and XXX Cherry. 

After the rub application, I put it fat side down into a foil pan, where it will stay until done – I leave a little fat to provide some heat protection for the early part of the cook.  Then I cover with plastic wrap and leave it set on the kitchen counter for about 6 hours (don’t tell the food police I do this) and I know some successful competitors also do this.

At the 7- 8pm cooking time, I add a remote probe thermometer (ThermoWorks or Polder), put it into the smoker at 225* and don’t bother it until next morning.  My smoker is a Stumps vertical box-type in which I use all natural charcoal briquettes with some fist sized hardwood chunks (usually oak or hickory) dispursed throughout.  I use a DigiQ controller, which maintains a accurate and even cooking temperature.

When I get up, it will usually be in the 165* internal range with the pan about half full of juice, which I dump into a bowl for later use. 

Whenever it reaches about 170* and has the deep mahogany color I’m looking for, I cover it tightly with foil and cook to around 200*- 205* using the probe-goes-in-like-warm-butter test or looseness of the bone to determine final doneness. 

After removing from the smoker, I again dump the juice, recover with the foil and put into a cooler for an hour or two, then remove, uncover, and allow it to cool to pulling temperature (just cool enough to handle).

When pulling, we flip it and remove any remaining fat cap and break it apart to cool some more.

While pulling, I remove as much of the remaining fat in the meat as possible, then I return the saved and de-fatted juices from the pan to the meat along with some sop (1 tbsp/ meat lb. of secret blend of vinegar, lemon juice, and salt) and mix everything together. 

I find that collecting the rub infused juices and returning them to the meat provides as much flavor as I need which is why I don't inject, while the sop provides a slight tang and needed salt.  I add no sauce at this point and rarely add it to a sandwich.  This is the finished product.

I have no idea how mine would stack up against the product the professional competitors turn out, but I’ve yet to get any I like better from a BBQ restaurant and my customers seem well pleased.

Interestingly, we only occasionally use it for a BBQ sandwich, but rather use it mostly in other dishes – burritos for example.

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago: Hodgepodge Sandwich

Two years ago: Pasta Alfredo With A Twist - Twice

Larry

Asian Night At Almost Heaven South

Friends Kathy and Ashley (mother/daughter) came down recently so Ashley could cook us an Asian meal and give as some pointers - while in college, one of her good friends was a young man from Japan who gave her some lessons.  Tonight’s meal was Japanese Curry, which I didn’t know existed and this is the recipe she used:

3 chicken breasts, bite sized pieces
4 large carrots, diced
4 medium red potatoes,peeled diced
2 large onions, diced
2  celery ribs, small dice
1 sweet pepper, green and colored
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 head broccoli, cut into small florets
Chicken juices from sauteing
Water, to cover vegetables
1 large pkg Golden Curry

She started by getting everything prepped.

And began the cooking with the chicken in oil and added S&P to taste.

Remove the chicken and add the potatoes and carrots and season with S&P.  When they begin to soften, add the remaining veggies.

Then the chicken juice and water, chicken, and Japanese Golden Curry.  Simmer at least 1/2 hour - more cooking makes it better.

Add the broccoli about 10 minutes prior to serving.  This is Ashley hard at work – I’m not big on going out for dinner as I hate to leave home in the evening, but I could get into this idea of someone coming here to cook for us.

She served it over plain white rice which Bev cooked in her rice cooker successfully for the first time – and sided it with grilled romaine dressed with bottled Caesar and grated parmesan.  This is my plate (first helping).

Ashley advised it can be made with beef or pork, vegetarian, or one of her favorites - canned tuna.

I’ve never been a big fan of curry – considering it okay but never something I go out of my way to eat, but I have to say, I really liked this dish.  When it comes to menu selection, I still don’t think curry dishes will be able to compete against the things I really like, but I’ll at least read and consider your curry recipes now, maybe even try one – I’m expecting one “I told you so.”

All photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

One year ago: Spanish Omelet Ala Mika

Two years ago:  First BBQ Day Of The New Decade

Larry

Meal date 01/04/2012