Whatcha Cooking today?

[worth1]

We have the MASECA TAMAL here that is made for tamales.
It has pictures of tamales on it.

[Sue_CT]

Apple Dutch Baby pancake for lunch.

[worth1]

Some kinds chicken thighs.
Probably roasted.

[JRinPA]

Made some deer tallow a couple times the last few days, and have been using the crackling for biscuits.

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[Uncle_Feist]

Lordy, @JRinPA I just can't do deer fat and haven't ever heard of anyone else do it besides you either. Kudos

[worth1]

I've never seen enough fat on a deer to do anything with.
Now a fat ole winter racoon is a different story.

[JRinPA]

Texas deer...what do they taste like, sage? Here it is corn beans and all the nuts. Plus people's hedges. I expect it works better further north, more fat on a winter deer.

Try rendering some into tallow. I wanted to try making pemmican, after I saw what was happening with the 15psi scrapple. I'd get the fat back that way as tallow. There was a few years of just throwing that away or trying to give it to winter birds. But after looking into pemmican it led to directly rendering the fat as tallow. The tallow doesn't taste like the fat fried on a sloppily cut deer stake. It still coats the mouth some, but not badly.

I certainly didn't grow up eating and cleaning deer the way I do now.

[JRinPA]

I think I'm gonna gain 20 lb in reverse hibernation this month, that is the problem every year but this might be worse.

Anyway I meant to say above, the fat is where the flavor is...so they say. I can certainly take a spoon of rendered tallow and just eat it. It does taste good. If it didn't taste good, I wouldn't have done it a second time. So it depends what the deer is eating, as well as enough of it.

[worth1]

Texas deer taste like Texas chili.

[worth1]

It's going to be a new one and no idea how it will turn out.
Chicken thighs and rice cooked covered in the oven on 350F covered.
One cup basmati rice and a little over 2 cups water.
Chili powder spread on everything.

[JRinPA]

Scrapple making
All bones from one doe except the head and one shoulder that got roasted. The canner was packed full when raw. 15psi for an hour. Picked into meat, tallow, bare bones, and the juice (one quart of water was added to cook). Meat and juice will go for scrapple, tallow is re-melting in the crock pot for proper rendering, and the bones will go for bone meal. Time to pick one deer worth, 1-1/2 episodes of Northern Exposure.
Making all this stuff takes a lot of time but really multiplies the yield.

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I still throwing away the feet and the head. Hopefully next year I am not further driven to make souse...

[Uncle_Feist]

@JRinPA why is there no option to react to your posts?

[worth1]

The rice cooked in the oven was a big success.
Unbelievably better than cooking on the stove top.
Heat from all directions you just can't go wrong.
Not gummy or sticky or anything.
Fully cooked too.
Basically braised rice.

[pepperhead212]

I made a batch of pasta, using 2 lbs of creminis I had, and I found a recipe for it in an Instant Pot cookbook. It uses an onion, some garlic, and some white miso, and I changed the herb to fresh rosemary - something I always like with mushrooms. Stirring the pasta after initially cooking it 3 minutes, it absorbed much of the liquid the mushrooms gave off, and the starch gave it a coating, along with the miso. It went well with those medium shells I cooked in it.
Pasta dish with 2 lbs of creminis, white miso, and rosemary, made in the Instant Pot. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Finished pasta dish, after stirring in the parsley and grated Romano. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

[bower]

I'm back on bulk cooking duty the past two days.
On Friday, made a large pizza with home sauce and frozen maters and something called 'prosciutto salami' - I like it, not too salty. Froze three portions.
Yesterday I roasted two bulk packs of chicken. Full legs got lime chipotle basil garlic and some parsnip, thighs got savory garlic balsamic and some snack peppers. Had a lime chipotle leg for supper and it was nice and tangy. Froze 8 portions of chicken, and made two pots of rice with the drippings - about a cup of drippings in each pan plus one water and a cup of basmati on the stovetop. Freezing the rice in a flat sheet so it's easier to thaw for making fried rice dishes.
Cooking rice in the drippings has worked really well for me. A little oily but that's no problem in fried rice, full of chickeny goodness and spice, and so much tastier than starting from plain.
I got the bag of limes on special and although they're rock hard I doubt they will last... I need more recipes with lime! So tasty.

[worth1]

I've got my corned beef point I made in the oven 350F hot braising in the enameled cast iron Dutch oven with water and half a bottle of pickling spice.
Probably about .75 ounces and a half handful of green cardamom pods busted up.
Also some more whole allspice and black pepper busted up as well.
Not screwing around here with the spices.

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[worth1]

I also have some sort of broccoli cauliflower cheese thing going on in a pie plate baking in the oven.
I have no idea what I'm doing but it seems to be working out fine.
Just following some basic rules.
It's setting up and now it has panko bread crumbs on top covered with foil and back in the oven.
The broccoli and cauliflower were steamed with water then added easy melt cheese and cream cheese with a little of the water and melted with lid on from residual heat.
Added a little corn starch one egg yolk and one egg beaten and mixed in after it had cooled off a little and in the pie plate it went to cook.
Black pepper too.
All the scraps from the cauliflower and broccoli went in with the corned beef.

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[worth1]

In my personal opinion better than BBQ.
100% of the brisket that came from our home grown beef brisket was corned beef or oven roast.
Don't know what else to say.

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[JRinPA]

@uncle_feist I have the "reactions" disabled for my posts and I don't see them for others either. I guess I am old school internet.

So Fri nite I finished the scrapple and two pints of tallow from the separated fat/tallow.

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The pressure cooked tallow chunks were re-rendered and poured into pint jars. Basically just cleaning it up for storage, to remove crackling.

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Meanwhile the meat and juice had been recombined, food processed, had some water added and heated. Salt, Pepper, Allspice, apple cider vinegar added. Heated until it spits, then thickeners added (oatmeal, corn meal, flour) and stirred quickly. This is the heavy work...stir or burn! No time for a pic there... It sets up fast and then gets quickly poured to plastic loaf pans. Outside overnight to cool.

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15-16 lb of scrapple from one decent sized doe. But very meaty scrapple.

[bower]

@worth1 I bet that green cardamom tastes amazing in a corned beef.
Honestly the pickled beef we have here is just salt. No spices. It's good for flavoring pea soup or boiled vegetables.