Wow!! April already Dinners.

Bugster2 wrote:How the heck did you manage to peel those eggs? Every time I try to peel soft-boiled eggs the shell sticks to the white tearing it up. Plus, they are hot to hold.

Barbara101 wrote:


fried cabbages and sausage.

NormM wrote:Well this was a real chore.  I made a garlic sausage recipe that I wanted to try and it took almost all day. In fact they are still an hour away to being done and it is 6pm right now.  I used a KitchenAid meat grinder and stuffing tube and they are almost like toys compared to a dedicated sausage machine. I will definitely invest in the proper equipment if i ever think about trying this again.

I saved the beef trimmings from the last 3 briskets I smoked and was going to add them to the pork trimmings from the ribs i did the other day but when I went to the freezer to get them, they were gone and the freezer is half full with tamale stuff. I got a pork shoulder to round out the meat. The sausage tube was too small for the bigger diameter sausage so it was really hard and time consuming to stuff those casings.  Oh well, when I fried up a small batch to taste for seasoning, it tasted really good. Hope the smoking will make them even better. I decided to smoke them instead of just plain cooking like the regular recipe.  The recipe is from Anne Burrell.

NormM wrote:Jimmy, I went to Cabela's to get the casings and took a look at the equipment they had there.  Charlie thinks I should just go to one of the mom & pop sausages places around here and just buy what I want and not mess with all the bother.

It's great if you can find the right sausage flavor / texture / spices at a butcher shop, but still, there is nothing so great, as making your own sausage.

Tina ( when she worked ) made hundreds of pounds of Italian sausage weekly at the stores she worked in, and they had the seasonings for the sausage, already mixed in bags for like 100 lbs at a time. The hot and the plain. She would grind the meat, then in the mixer hopper to add the seasonings, and then she had to load the stuffer cylinder, and the electric gear drive, would press the plunger rod like on a cookie press. ... A PITA.....because there was a lot of cleaning to be done to clean and sanitize the machines. Now, the sausage in most supermarkets, don't even make their own sausage.

Some stores still do their own, and Tina gets the casings packed in a container with the speed load rings all ready cleaned and ready to slip on the sausage tube. The butcher just marks the container special / with a tag pork and the price.
Like $1.78 . Three slips of casing will do approx. 36 feet.

I have to start making my own again.

Bugster2 wrote:
Beth, I cooked and peeled soft boiled eggs just the same way as you. PITA! I switched to an egg poacher which does basically the same thing without the shell.

bethk wrote:I ran into one our neighbors this afternoon and invited her to supper.  She's a widow, 84, and a hoot 'n a half to talk to ~ such a joy to be around!  She was tickled pink to be invited for supper even though I warned her I was trying out new recipes.

First recipe was from All Recipes site for 'Rusty Chicken Thighs'...the pic showed bone-in, skin-on thighs and after I saw the rest of the ingredients & decided it sounded good, I printed it out.  Turns out the 'recipe' calls for boneless, skinless thighs.  Well, guess what?  It was DELICIOUS with my bone-in, skin-on thighs.  SO THERE!  Second new recipe was for a Broccoli Cranberry Almond salad from Cooking Light magazine.  It was tasty and, supposedly, lower in calories than the old fashioned Broccoli salad.  It did sub some Greek yogurt for part of the mayo and was a lighter dressing, used a tablespoon of honey instead of sugar.  It's a keeper.  The final new recipe was one another of the neighbors posted on Facebook for a Pina Colada dump cake - pineapple and coconut.  Not a success as far as I'm concerned, but was eaten by all of us and the rest got passed out to others in the neighborhood so it's all gone from MY kitchen.  LOL  Green peas and boxed Rice-a-Roni Pilaf completed our meal....

Forgot to take a pic until after we were done eating so I just shoved all the serving dishes together and thought that would have to do.....



I think my oven is baking too hot again....thought it was fixed the last time I used it.  I think it's an intermitant problem.

NormM wrote:St. Louis is over 200 miles from here. The last time I was there, Charlie was about 3 or 4 and we went to the Zoo.  We ate at a restaurant that was at the top of a tall building that rotated and they had the snootiest patrons I have ever met.