Thread: What's Cooking?

Back in the mid 70's there was a shortage of canning lids and my mom was just beside herself. My granny was in the nursing home and mom was telling her about the shortage and granny told her to go out home to the the ranch and she'd find some in the root cellar.

It's a total of 100 miles round trip but mom headed out and sure as hell, there were canning lids in the root cellar-----------5 CASES OF LIDS! There's 12 lids in a box and 24 boxes in a case.

However none were usable as they were so old the rubber was deteriorated but granny knew she had some!

My single butter nut squash plant produced 4 fruits and the total weight was 20 lbs.

https://sharprazorpalace.com/finer-t...ml#post1915638

I canned up 10 lbs to use for pies. Even once they were drained very well the product is wetter than canned pumpkin so I added an extra egg and the squash worked well.





After the pie had cooled to room temp, I put it in the frig to fully firm up. I had a slice last night--not bad, not bad at all

My experience is that butternut squash makes a superior pumpkin pie - better than mosr pumpkins.

T’is that time of season.
Roast on men, roast on.

I may be in the minority here but I don't like things like Macaroni and Cheese made with things like cheddar cheese as it tends to be a bit on the crumbly side and not nice and smooth like I prefer it.

I found a very interesting way to make 'American Style Cheese or Processed Cheese as you may prefer to call it.

The guy who had the excellent video on how to use weight for curing bacon had a video of how it was done. So I was game. However I wanted something 'different' so I used some Colby/Jack that I'd smoked a couple of weeks ago.

(Interesting that this 'American Cheese' was invented by a Canadian named James L. Kraft). It was a way of turning non usable scraps of the block/rounds of cheese into a salable product.

So here's the results of my Smoked American Cheese:



I had a bit of sticking in the bottom corners but all in all it came out looking pretty nice. It has the texture of store bought American cheese but with a very lovely and noticeable smoke aroma and taste. Also I think that I should have used some Saran Wrap or such to cover the tops of the hot cheese as it did form a slight crust on the exposed edge when it cooled in the refrigerator.

My Thanksgiving meal will be with only two of my children and two grand kids and I think I'll use this new cheese to make some potato Au Gratin.

Well I did use the Homemade Smoked American Cheese in my Au Gratin. It was decent but I didn't find it anything to brag about. However my kids and grand kids did have seconds.

I'd used about 4 lbs of russet potatoes for the dish so there was quite a bit to send home and still have some here for me.

While I do have a very nice stainless steel mandolin for slicing vegetables I wasn't looking forward to the task so I decided to play a bit.

I got out the electric slicer I bought earlier this year and Voila! It worked like a charm. Slices were about 1/16" thick and very consistent:



As I sliced I placed the slices in a bucket of cold water and once done I heated a 2 gallon pot to boiling and placed a two hand grab of slices in the water, put the lid on and hit the timer for 1 minute. Then the blanched potatoes were removed and put in another container with running cold tap water.

Grating the cheese was hopeless so I used a cheese slicer to cut off very thin slices and tore them into smaller pieces to layer over the drained cold potatoes. I also lightly salt and peppered the layers. Here's the first layer:



Multiple repeated layers.

Once I ended up with all of the potatoes in and cheese on top I added a quart of heavy whipping cream, covered with heavy duty aluminum foil and placed in the refrigerator overnight. Then still covered into a 425 oven for about an hour and all was bubbling.

I don't know if it was worth all of the work but it was fun.

Sorry but no pictures once it was baked but it did happen.

We all decided to heed the warnings about large gatherings, so instead of the usual
dinner for twenty, our family stayed in our separate homes for the occasion. There's
just 3 of us here, and here's the feast:

10lb turkey, stove-top dressing, cranberry sauce, honey baked sweet potatoes,
mashed potatoes, giblet gravy, steamed broccoli, sourdough cheddar rolls, and
"Italian Dream" for dessert. All good, with tons of left-overs for the freezer.

We had a super spreader Thanks Giving at my house....Let it rip baby..Ain’t nobody telling me how many people I can have at my house. Some of my friends missed out on the holiday with their Family’s...cus the Liberal media has them scared to death. I told my buddy.....you don’t mind going to Home Depot with all them strangers....but won’t have thanks giving with your family.....? You can’t fix stupid

Yup, bad liberal media. If they wouldn't report on the number of sick and dead then there wouldn't be a pandemic.
You truly can't fix stupid.

It’s snowing...so a pot of chili was in order.....

I have never had fresh truffle before.

My wife bought them as a present.

Now I have to figure out what to do with them.