Lancer09

Well....... I THINK we are going to make it through. Just checked the little'uns and they seem to be looking good. Actually have some more leaf growth in a few of them from just today. I think this is just going to end up just being an "early" repotting. Hopefully moving the 4 ish inches of stem into the plugs will lead to some real good root growth. I've got some pods of shallots, carrots, and beans I think I want to get out, but dang if I don't want to have to cover them back up this weekend. Dang weather.

I was able to keep some of the roots of all of them intact, with minimal or no damage to the stems so i think I have a chance. Got them in the greenhouse to get the good sun and warmth of outside, but with the door not zipped all the way down so I can keep some air flowing through there. I may mix up a real weak fert solution to see if I can stimulate some root growth to take over more room in each of the plugs. Biggest problem now is I don't know which of the four kinds of tomatoes are in each plug now.

Tragedy struck yesterday. I've got a small greenhouse I've been putting the seedlings in to get good sun. While I was removing them last night to bring the trays inside part of it pulled apart and my 16 plug tray of tomatoes fell, slid across a bar and pulled all 16 tomato seedlings out of their plugs. I decided to take the plugs, split them in half and put the seedlings back in with the whole stem in the dirt now. I'm sure there will be some shock, but if they can get roots set this just turned into an early re-potting for better roots, which is hopefully what happens. We'll see!

Called the "D'Monaco" or something like that. It's a hotel and has a bar that is open to the public. Seem to be doing well because whatever is getting built right across the street looks like it may be part of the same thing.

I ordered seeds from a few different places, unfortunately some of them still haven't shipped so while I'd like to really get more going of the ones I have I fear I'm going to be a little late, just may have to get them in the ground late. Looks like I'll be doing more of the krims, carbons and pantano's. than I planned but even then I think I'm pushing it. I am doing a lot of shallots this year so I'm excited to see how those turn out. With how many I use cooking I hope they store ok. The french zebrune variety I bought are supposed to dry well and store for a long time.

We are ramping up the garden operation this year. We have some kind of pea in the ground right now. some lettuce outside in a planter, and in the raised beds I tried some greens from seed instead. I read a deal about "High Intensity Gardening" basically just planting super thick in rows and only ever taking leaves and not full heads so all the plants have a chance to thrive. I've got a row of Arugula, Black seeded simpson, romaine, butter crunch, and rainbow swiss chard. Then we've got brussels sprouts, broccoli, and cauliflower with seedlings in a small staked greenhouse in the back yard, and they seem to be doing quite well in there. Doing a lot more from seed this year than last, but quite a bit will be plants from a mix of lowes, home depot, and walmart. Walmart carries Burpee plants up here and they did great for us last year, and the burpee seeds we've got popped up pretty quick compared to some others so far. From Bakers Creek seeds we picked up: Tomatoes (Jersey Giants, black krim, ananas noire, carbon, pantano romanesco's, and a verde tomatillo) Peppers: Cubanells, habanda's (taste like a habanero without the heat), some purple pepper, a red and a green bell pepper also got a bunch of shallots started Rest of the tomatoes are going to be : some sort of greek paste style tomato, a "bumblebee cherry" tomato (neat little yellow with black shoulders), san marzano's, mexican ruffled tomatoes, 5 or 6 pink brandywines, cherokee purples, a pineapple striped heirloom, some mexican golden beefsteak tomato (no idea what it actually is) probably another yellow like a golden jubilee. I'll also grab some early girls, better boys, and big boys from our HS ag class that starts them in the town I work for. I'll throw in a few other small cherry or grape tomatoes as well. I may do a green one as well like a green giant or the green zebras, I'd like to try making some green ketchup, anyone tried this? I've got the materials but I'm building a small extra raised bed for the herbs so they aren't in the same beds as everything else. My aunt and uncle have set some space aside for me for most of the tomatoes, since I'm probably going to have in the neighbor hood of 3 to 4 dozen tomato plants this year. SO that's how this garden season is going to go.

Dang! He was in KC last Tuesday and I ended up not being able to make it because of my wife's grandfather passing. I'm jelly.

been busy cooking round these parts. Wifes birthday is on V-day so instead of going out We always just make something fancier than the usual. This year we did coq au vine. Was pretty darn good. and made enough I've had some for lunch for a few days as well. Really starting to get into the groove on the sous vide. Have been getting some real good results on steaks especially doing a double sear. Season, sear, bag, cook and then searing again. took some relatively cheap cuts of steaks the other day and did a mix of garlic, salt and pepper, chili powder and ground coffee, seared and bagged with some smashed garlic cloves and in the bath for a few hours at 125. seared again and served with some bakers and asparagus, now that's a tasty meal. A few people who were supposed to join us couldn't make it so we had the steaks all cooked and just haven't hit them with the second sear so I've been using them for other things. They are cooked and sealed already so it's just heating them up. Sliced steak and egg sandwiches the other day for breakfast made for a nice treat. Especially with a slice of good swiss and a healthy slathering of Kewpie Mayo.

Anytime you are up in kansas city and not taking all your time with that Ness guy, just let me know and itlle be on the table!

For lunch i knocked out some white winr braised leeks that i finished with some leftover mushroom rice. Delicious. Got some small filets seared and into bags for the sous vide. Got some time, butter and garlic and rosemary in there now. Few hours at 125 and theyll be ready for another sear. Doing roasted bell peppers and zuchini spears on thr side. Cant wait for dinner!

Adobo was delish.

I love a good tartare. Carpaccio is delicious. Live sushi, poke, pretty much boils down to raw food being delicious. I browned a small pork shoulder and three small chicken breasts in 1 inch cubes, made a sauce, and am 16 hours into a 24 hour sous vide chicken and pork adobo.

Holy smokes! I never thought of doing a wellington with venison... i will be giving that a try.

With the duck and venison where overcooking it is tantamount to sin unlike beef you won't need to worry about the skinny end being overcooked and the fat end of a tenderloin being under done. I really really like cooking with it, it's just a new thing I haven't got down yet quite as well as I had searing then finishing in the oven but It'll get there. My wife isn't sold on it yet. I found some 72 hour short rib recipes that look awesome. Will try that at some point soon too. Just need to find some good thick chunky short ribs or osso buco shanks.

I don't think I got the skillet hot enough either. I thought with legs I'd give the broiler a go first but without having skin covering the entirety of the leg I didn't want to over cook the exposed meat so I switched to the gas top. That prime rib sounds good... Real good. I think Next thing I'm going to do next is try and sear BEFORE cooking with the sous vide. I've read of a few people trying that so when it's done it's set and good to go. I think with cooking after I've cooked some of the juices out and it's still not as moist as it could be. I think a venison loin, or duck breast is going to be next. I also found a bomb recipe for some 24 hour chicken and pork belly adobo that I may give a try to. Cooked WITH the sauce/glaze and veggies in the bag so that it all melds together during the 24 hours of cooking.

I really need to put a thermometer to the water and see. I feel like mine may be running a bit hot just based on the steaks AI did a while back. I see a ton of stuff saying 135 should be medium rare but they definitely weren't. If I'm running a bit hot I may need to re-calibrate if I can.

Legs were good, Underwhelmed with the rice but it was tasty. I do think for the Sous Vide I'm going to stick bigger, flatter cuts of meat like the breast for chicken. Was kinda hard to get good sear on the legs after I cooked them. May also try a sear first next time then put a glaze of sorts in with the chicken. I was also a little surprised about the temp of chicken. I cooked for a few hours at 165 to get it "hot enough" I don't think i quite needed to go that hot. I think 158-160 would have been plenty hot enough for those legs.

Prepped dinner for last night this evening. Little worried how it's going to turn out but I think it'll be pretty good. Chicken legs are vac sealed with some green onion, shallot, chili powder, paprika, lime zest, lime juice, garlic, S&P, EVOO, and then a splash of Agave Nectar and Tequila. Shooting for a nice Margarita Lime chicken leg and some cilantro rice. Hopping into the sous vide for 2 hours or so at 165 this evening while I have a work meeting and should be ready to sear up the skin when I get back! Here it goes!

Did a few sirloins in the new sousvide I got for Christmas Sealed them with a few paper thin slices of onion on each side, garlic, butter and rosemary. heavily S&P'd We had a busy day so they were on for 9 hours at 135. Was very interesting. Very close to Med well or well done but still pretty tender. Texture was more of a roast than a steak though unfortunatley. I think that had to do with the time. Flavor though.... beyond amazing. you could taste everything that was in the bag. Onion, garlic and rosemary at the very end. Next time I think i'll drop the temp down to 122 or 123 for 3 hours or so before the sear.

Whelp, we got our four off the ice from yesterday which is pretty surprising actually. That pond has had a pair of bald eagles circling overhead for the last week, thought they would have grabbed at least one of them. 4 more gadwalls. 2 drakes and 2 hens.

I've liked all of them I have cooked so far.. Except for the one I tried roasting whole. I overcooked the breast trying to get crispy skin that I never really achieved. I've mostly been hitting them with salt and pepper and thyme. Scoring and searing the skin til crispy then a few seconds on the meat side and eating rare. May do a batch of jerky next.

It must be the vegetation. It's pretty mossy and has a lot of hydrilla as well. Too muddy to have much in the way of invertebrate life. They have all tasted pretty dang good so far this season. Closing in 20 gadwall for the season there, Mallards are the next most shot, with 3, and a mixed bag after that. Been using a canoe for retrieval most of the time and telling myself what a good boy I am when I go pick em up. Ice was completely covering the pond. Too thin to walk on. Too thick to take out and break our way through. Still only 13 out but the sun has got the top layer starting to melt a bit. Hopefully with it getting to the 30's tomorrow we can go grab them.

This last weekends cold weather definitely gave us some fresh birds. Saturday even though it was cold we picked up a few. I think it was 3 birds for three of us so not great, but Sunday it was on! Hunted til 9 with a pair of other guys and by that time we had whacked 5 gadwalls and a pair of hooded merg hens. I don't know what it is about the pond i'm hunting but it's gadwall heaven. The nice thing about the pond I hunt, is that it is about a mile and a half from my office. I can get a nice hunt in and get two hours in til 9, and be clocked in at work by 9:15. Today was not the case. Pond was open last night, but cold, when I parked the car this morning.... 0... when we quit at 8:30... 5 degrees. Talk about cold and frozen clear across. Strong enough to walk on near the bank but would break/crack the further out we got. We ended up stomping a whole the size of 2 or 2 and a half cars or so out there and shot a few ducks this morning. I used some Christmas BP giftcards and grabbed a lucky duck spinner. With a little open water and some motion we had a few passes of ducks and picked up 4. Probably our best shooting day so far. I shot 2 birds on 4 shots, and another guy shot 2 birds on 5 shots.. Third shooter went o for 6. Unfortunately right now the closest bird is 40 yards out on the ice after it finally skidded to a stop, a couple others are closer to 60 yards out. You guys usually wait for it to thaw? Other option is go get a fishing rod with a snagging hook and try to bring them in. One budy has a little pontoon pelican boat that we may use and try to break out way out to them. All options are on the table at this point.. Until then we've just got 4 birds out in the outdoor freezer!

It's bee an off and on season around here in the KC area. Either just a few ducks or a whole lot. had a few good hunts back in november then it shut down basically until This weekend. Went from 1 to 2 birds for our group to 7 that three of us shot Christmas eve. Popped 4 this morning as well before we all just got too dang cold. Might have to give a Tablerock hunt a shot to extend teh season even just a little.

This is just turning into my seasons diary. Nailed my first double today on a group of 4 gadwalls that came in together. Really hoping that the cold weather tomorrow makes a big push of birds for hunting Saturday. Anyone got any tips on roasting a whole duck for Christmas this year? From what I saw over on Hank Shaw's blog I should fly the legs and wings first before the whole thing goes in the oven so that I don't have to over cook the breast to get the legs and wings done. I figure I'll be just Winging the plucking, cleaning and roasting of it.