ckreef

Wanted to update this older thread. 2 years into the goldfish pond. It has 1 male, 1 female and 1 juvie. (that's the way goldfish work). Anyway the pond and fish have been growing and kicking it. We now have 2 baby goldfish in the pond (3/4"). I'm sure way more hatched but looks like 2 survived. This is way kewl. As soon as they get bigger I'll try and get a picture.

Fantastic experiment. Did you go two hours with the smoke? Should you have stopped after 1 hour? I'll be interested to hear if it tasted even smokier after sitting overnight.

Looking forward to hearing about these results. A cold smoker is scheduled to arrive at the house on Monday The question will be...... Is it better to cold smoke the blueberries or do a warm smoke so the blueberries start to split open during the smoking phase? I plan on doing at least 2 more batches, maybe I'll try it both ways.

That's what I was thinking Don't forget the Prime NY Strips

Fresh Market is awesome. I just dont go there often for fear it'll drive me to eating at the local soup kitchen - LOL

I should have bought a good bottle. Instead I was drinking low end Malt Liquor/beer - LOL - it was all about the food anyway.

All the Twisted Q's are pretty darn good. Before I send you another care package (coming soon) we'll figure out what Twisted Q's you need

Batch #2. Grilled corn to be used for quick weeknight sizzle corn. Batch #3 will be creamed corn, I just haven't decided on the recipe I want to try yet. Will probably give this idea a go Saturday night.

But I make sloppy look so easy

I try and stay out of Fresh Market. Every time I go in there my wallet cries as I walk out the door - LOL I found a citrus herb grinder at Fresh Market. Pretty good stuff. That, a little of key lime white balsamic and a little butter. The beans were really good. The whole meal just came out perfect. It's a good feeling when you really hit it right all around.

I had to balance the meal out Early morning July 4th we ventured into a high end grocery store. I just couldn't stop myself it all looked so good.

8 shrimp @1.29 lbs. That's a full size dinner plate Now that I have your attention let's get on with dinner. We'll get back to the shrimp in a minute. We started by making 2 small pies for desert. Frozen Rainer cherries from last year and fresh blueberries.  Made a few ABT's and some green beans.  Now back to the shrimp. I pulled the meat out and layed it back on the shell. A quick slit to butterfly it open then stuff it with a crab meat mixture. To round this meal out we have USDA Prime first cut NY strips. There you have it. A fantastic 4th of July meal. 

Rather than comment on the doughs themselves I'll comment on a few of the finer points. For the sauce - my guess is you used a blender of some sorts (maybe an immersion blender) to help chop up the tomatoes. If you're not careful blenders inject a lot of air into the sauce making it more orange than red. With San Marzano tomatoes I hand crush them and try to remove the inner "stem" part and any extra seeds if possible. I then chop them with a knife. After chopped I'll very gently use an immersion blender on low but it's really easy to do it too much. I'll strain them for a few minutes to remove excess water and finally add a little salt and sugar. The first really sticky dough - check out this this tutorial. It features a high hydration (sticky) dough. Even if you use a different recipe the techniques for shaping the balls and stretching into a round pie should held you. Sticking to cling wrap - a simple trick is to lightly spray the tops of your balls with a cooking spray. That tiny amount of oil won't hurt anything and the cling wrap won't stick. The top skin - as you've figured out the top skin is from the ball starting to dry out. The easiest way to combat this is with the cooking spray/cling wrap as mentioned above. Having said all the above still good looking pies and I'm sure they were tasty.

Awesome cook. I've done rabbit a few times but never rotisserie. I've even made traditional Brunswick Stew with rabbit. Nice to see someone else doing a rabbit cook. Unfortunately the butcher where I've bought rabbit in the past has gone out of business. Bummer

My next batch I'll show the fresh picked picture. Not sure why I didn't do it this time other than I was just being lazy with the picture taking.

Haven't even tasted it yet but it looked so good and fresh I'm sure it's the bomb.

Yea we got a couple more than 2 dozen. I really think they just fill a brown grocery sack full and call it a dozen regardless. They were selling full (one dozen) bags so fast the girl filling them really didn't have much time to count.

@amusedtodeath made me do this Where I work in South GA there are thousands of acres of GA sweet corn. Almost as far as the eye can see in some spots. I know GA is for peaches but the reality is peanuts are the number one crop. Peaches and sweet corn is right behind peanuts. Anyway the local fruit/vegetable stand goes out in the morning and picks fresh sweet corn straight out of the field. Me and Mrs skreef shucked it that afternoon. Some of the best looking corn I've ever bought. Blanched it for 3 minutes. 6 ears at a time. After it cooled we stripped it. This is an awesome kitchen tool. A one trick poney but does it's one trick really well and fast. This is a half sheet cake pan fairly full. We put this in the freezer overnight. After the kernels were frozen we vacuum sealed them 3+ cups to the bag. I have 2 more versions I want to make. 1) Instead of blanching I'm going to grill the cobs before stripping them. Then we can have almost instant sizzle corn anytime we want it (my favorite corn). 2) Homemade creamed corn. I'll have to do some research before doing this. I've made homemade cream corn before but never for freezing. Stay tuned more to come over the next week or two.

Unfortunately I don't have all that. There are more scientific explanations on the internet that give actual pH levels. I'm just winging it the red neck way - LOL - and hopefully nobody ends up in the hospital - LOL x 2

To expand on this a little....... Botulism dies at water canning temperature (212*) as long as there is a high enough acid level. With lower acid levels, to kill botulism requires the higher pressure canning Temps. Blueberries naturally have a high enough acid level so no lemon juice is needed when making jam. I didn't get this recipe off the internet it is straight out of my head. I did read a few articles about canning homemade bbq sauce. Since there are other ingredients in the recipe not just blueberries I figured better safe than sorry and added some acid (lemon juice) to the recipe. If you make a small batch, keep it refrigerated and consume it in a relatively short period of time you should be able to safely eliminate the lemon juice from the recipe. Since I'm canning it and passing it out I didn't want to take any chances.

The reason why lemon juice is used in canning (and general storage purposes) is the acid content. The extra acid helps to kill the nasties (botulism etc...) when properly heated, rolling boil. Acid content is the reason why you can water bath fruits but should pressure can meats. Bottled "Real Lemon" has a known acid level. Fresh squeezed lemons can vary in their acid content so using fresh squeezed you might not get the extra acid you're looking for.

If you do a little tweaking let me know what you did. I do think an hour or so cold smoking the blueberries would make it taste even better. I'll know for sure about this before too long. My original smoking session wasn't enough to make a real difference.

Here you go. Of course what you do to the blueberries (smoke or not) is up to you. Not radically different from my original recipe.

The portions are for refrigerator sauce. Double the amounts if you are going to can it. 2 1/2 cups fresh Blueberries crushed with a potato masher. 1/2 cup water Bring the above to a full rolling boil then add the following: 1/2 cup ketchup 1/3 cup brown sugar 1/4 cup apple cider vinegar 2 Tbsp yellow mustard 1 Tbsp Sriracha sauce 1/2 Tbsp "Real Lemon" from the bottle (not fresh squeezed) 1/2 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce 1/2 tsp sea salt 1/2 tsp ground black pepper (or fresh ground crack berries ) Return to a full rolling boil. For refrigerator use reduce heat and simmer to desired consistency. For canning go straight to a 10 minute water bath. Approximately 6 regular jelly jars and maybe one small jelly jar. A simple recipe that tastes good. Use it as a finishing or dipping sauce.

Reduced sugar Blueberry jam. Not perfect but better than last year.