My mother who in every member of her family’s opinion made the absolute best fried chicken and I say that with my wife of 34 1/2 years sitting right here beside me. Mom would not buy a Tyson chicken even if they were on sale. No one ever questioned her but she’s been gone nearly 3 years and no one in our family will go against her beliefs. Odd how traditions continue.
Boy do I miss seeing that big old cast iron skillet on the stove with pieces of chicken all nestled together the exact same way every time she cooked chicken. No matter how hard she tried and showed everyone how she cooked it no one has done it like her.
Sorry for the rant… things like that mean so much more as you get older.

While we’re on the jowl bacon kick my uncle was a stickler for Jowl Bacon & cabbage for his New Years Day dinner. It has always been promoted as a traditional New Years Day meal. The area groceries promoted it as such by placing special prices on jowl. My uncle would buy every piece of jowl on the shelf Of a local store and we had a feast.
I never knew how or why pork became a New Years Day meal but a recent search on the internet provided one very interesting theory.
It goes something like this. Chicken & Turkey scratch backwards but a hog uses his snout to root going forward. That’s the way you should start the New Year “going forward” interesting to say the least. Good enough reason for me to enjoy a nice jowl bacon & cabbage meal with family & friends.

Well gentlemen I got half of it right. I do put my plate in the same way each time… but they share the same knife. I plan to fix that issue soon!

tarp
Are you thinking what I’m thinking. Jonathan’s “him” might be a “her”? I noticed that when I first read the post and notice the April date along with the large belly but I didn’t want to dig him on such a nice fish.

PapaSop said in Valentine's Day:

LOL on southern Canada. -18 tonight’s forecast. Us smart singles are having steak and lobster. Oh yeah, and a nice bourbon.

HIJACK ALERT! Does anyone but me see anything wrong with PapaSop’s post?
He’s planning on a nice bourbon tonight. Bourbon is synonymous with Kentucky and Kentucky is pure Big Blue.
PapaSop is from the other team…The wrong side of the tracks.

PapaSop said in And there shall be WAR!:

Fat_Bob
Only a matter of time. You as well… Surrender to the Orange side! Hmm. Something familiar about that.

Sounds like some vote counting after the polls closed

I do some trapping when pelts are prime. I always get 2-3 people a year with skunks who have taken up residency around their residence. Skunks are pretty easy to deal with and pretty calm unless a dog is around. My 1st warning if I’m going to trap around a residential building put your dog up or you’re not going to like the results, both to your dog and your neighborhood.
Skunk essence has value but every time I extract some, even though I wear gloves it will permeate them and also be in your clothes. My wife can tell I’ve been working with one as soon as I hit the door.

Austin

I’ll take a look at the tips a little later as I’m in the deer blind now. Trying to get a little more meat to can and make more sausage.
I found the lowest setting on our oven 180° to be higher than 180° so I propped the door open. I was able to maintain a pretty consistent temperature reading on my thermometer. I knew that most recipes call for a much lower cooking temp but at this time I don’t have a smoker. Hopefully that will come.
Thanks for you guidance.

Mulberrylane

I seem to have a problem going off topic but many prayers are headed your way.

We make sauerkraut and can’t imagine why anyone would not give it a try. We’ve tried both the old stone crock method and canning in individual jars. They are both good however everyone in our family seemed to prefer the crock method. That being said this years kraut didn’t turn out very well with our crock. One year, after our kraut fermented we froze half and canned half. There wasn’t any noticeable difference so we pretty much opted to go with canning. Mainly because living in a rural area if a major storm comes through you’re not as high priority as the larger metro areas. We’ve experienced a couple close calls with freezers. Those old jars that have been passed down from generation to generation don’t care about electricity.
Good Stuff!

Jonathan, I think they need a nice BLUE border on them. Keep the other team color away from this project… way too easy to sabotage!

I have 2 meat mixers with 5 fingers on each one. I do take things very literal and went watching the Walton videos Jonathan comments that good protein extraction is necessary thus I really work the mix hard. As stated above I only have my hands but I only make small batches. I usually aim for 10#. Can you over mix meat? If so what are the results?

PapaSop said in Hanging a deer:

Gilley
Sounds good. Haven’t noticed much shrinkage or drying out after two or three days hanging. I have seen a few deer hanging a week or longer around this area. Not sure what the benefit is in that when it’s below freezing.

I did read once about pulling the hide down a bit. Putting a baseball on the outside and wrapping the hide around it and tying with a rope, then attaching to your vehicles hitch and pulling the hide off. Never tried it though. Perhaps it was someone’s to many beers after hunting.

I guess things are done differently every where we go. Most around here hang their deer as long as possible. To some that’s only till they break camp. Those who can hang them much longer usually do. We usually will go as long as the weather will reasonably give Us or we get together to get everything put up. Some of my friends who have access to walk in coolers hang their deer 8-10 days. In most cases around here the skin is left on.

More info on why and the benefits are found here.

https://www.uscooler.com/blog/aging-best-deer-meat/

I have witnessed using a golf ball to pull a hide off. No one was drinking and it takes some setting up but it works very well.

https://youtu.be/H43d6fv_sE8

Thanks to all that have responded.

BobbyMac
I see you still keep your priorities straight. Always got a fishing pole or two within reach.

smokinbubba
Sorry I didn’t mean to skip over you. I had to get clearances from Team Blue Police in order to have direct communications with a team orange. Just a jokin I wanted to cover 1 subject at a time. I’m seriously thinking of trying the sous vide method of finishing off my sausage. I might look it up on YouTube first and give a homemade rig a go first if not too complicated. Thanks for the info.

PapaSop Great Job! Sure makes my turkey look bad. However with my leftover turkey, and some ham I’ve got the basic fixens for a great HotBrown!

Tex_77

Tex that’s without a doubt the best looking Blue Hat I’ve ever seen and the sausage is not bad either.

Just funnin with ya. What a spread… Great Job!

Joel bacon fried up is excellent with a big pot of brown beans! One of my all time favorites.

For obvious reasons being from The Bluegrass State and home of the Big Blue its a natural choice. That other color reminds me of UK’s long time rival 1 state to the south. I can’t get myself to say their name, there will be no defection here. True Blue!

Jonathon
My family always called it souse but the ones that take the pig heads in this group call it head cheese. When I’ve seen it already made it looked to be the same so I’m assuming it is.