BilletHead

Yea I thought you might not like the dried chants. Other types are supposed to be better. I have some dried hen of the woods I may try to see what they might be like. I really liked what I did with the dried chants on the whats cooking thread. IT was fine! BilletHead

Well JD I suppose I should come clean, The BilletHead is kind of in the bee business. I say kind of because it will be low key and if we end up with any honey it will be for our consumption. I do not know diddly squat about bees but am slowly learning. I really do not need another hobby but I am not too smart sometimes. Here is what I have stumbled into. The guy across the road has a farm. A hunting farm but some crop ground. He has become a pretty good friend. We share trail cam photos and share stories. He likes to raise and hunt big deer, myself now I really don't care just like to still be able to hunt one way or another. He has food plots and the deer he sees I see on this side of the road and vice versa. Win, win but I hope he gets all the big ones he wants. Now to the bees. One day he drives and stops right in the middle of the road in front of the house, gets out and i see him in white coveralls. As he comes into the yard I ask hey are you going to spray something ? Nope. Protecting yourself from ticks? Nope he says bee hives. Yep in the back of the truck are two hives. He said I am going to put these next to my clover patches. Neat I said. Then he said you know anything about bees? This time I said nope. Well I have a hive or two at home and I get all the honey I want. Do you want to work and mess with these? Yep I said. These are new colonies and may not get any honey this season. So I got a bees for dummies book. When they filled their main hive box and winters box on top of that. I added a queen extruder and a super. They are real gentle and have only had to give them a little smoke to calm them down. I have an old rechargeable weed eater and have keep the areas around the hives mowed. They have been fun to mess with and we will see what happens next. No bee in the ear I hope :). One hive is strong with lots of bees and the other has less. BilletHead

Good looking pie there RPS. I see this sauce making thing going wild now that I have made my own sauce base. Tastes like home grown tomatoes. I know another oxymoron as it should taste like where it came from. Kind of hot outside but wish I could can or bottle some of this sunshine to crack open this winter :). Oh well I will be able to taste the sunshine in some garden form, woods form and even put up garlic from the rural dirt road ditch form, BilletHead

Must be an Italian theme tonight! I swear RPS and I did not collaborate, First of all remember that mountain of tomatoes that was on the table? Well look at them now. Made tomato sauce for the first time, processed it and ready for when we need tomato sauce. So using some of this sauce for today's meal. The BilletHead was in charge and stuffed cubanelles would be done. First step was getting the sauce going. On the burner warming up I added fresh chopped purple basil and oregano right from the garden. A giant dollop of wild roasted garlic. Then I took some dehydrated chanterells, put them in the coffee grinder and gave it a long spin until they had a fine dust like consistory. Added the mushroom powder and a bit of red pepper flakes pitched in the warm sauce. Let this all simmer, While this was getting happy I cooked some sausage. Italian. When done drained the excess fat and then mixed the sauce and sausage together, We are getting to the real assembly part now. Sliced and gutted some cubanelle peppers. Put the halves in a pan and ladled the sauce onto the peppers, then covered in grated Asiago cheese. Then it was off to the smoker. I am salivating as I type this even though I all ready stuffed my face with the finished dish :). Drank a tall one as we ate. Life is good here in BilletHeadVille. BilletHead

Thanks Thomas, I have four feeders out right now like this one and they are all that busy. They will empty that one in a day. That video is four and a half minutes long. I set the camera out and took twenty five minutes of that busyness. Had the tripod out for a couple of days for them to get used to. BilletHead

Don't beat me up too bad people. First time at the you tube thing and my 70's music from way back when I was in high school . Might be in trouble using the music too ? So this may disappear soon. That will teach me not to try that again. Not too cheesy I hope, BilletHead

The ones I dehydrated turn out a bit rubbery when reconstituting for using. Let me know what yours are like Ness please. I pulverize to reuse for thickening and flavor in dishes, BilletHead

Finding mine in mixed hardwood timber. Sandy loamy soil but have found in other soils in other areas before. BilletHead

I go 110 percent safe, What time is dinner and what will we be having Wrench so I can look it up . Pumpkin pie someday? BilletHead

JD, I really wish you would look a bit closer at your mushrooms. All though you are not going to eat these because of the bugs I have never seen chanterells with stems like these you have pictured. Stems look separated from the caps. Gills are really distinguished and have never seen concentric rings on the caps. There is a plethora of information out there on mushroom ID. I reference several times second guessing myself. Would rather be 110 percent positive before tasting one. Just looking out for a fellow forum member, BilletHead

John, The two indigos I found were side bu side in mixed oak/hickory timber. Next to a sandy dry ditch. Like I said my first finds of them. BilletHead

So other things were worked over into more good eats too. After Gavins post on his carnitas I did a batch again out of wild turkey. Loaded up the large pot with many legs, thighs and wings. Seasoned up well with all kinds of spices, threw in some hot chilies and let it simmer all day long until even the biggest toughest turkey legs fell off the bone. When cool it as shredded. Ended up with a gallon bag of meat. Some will hit the skillet to crisp up the edges in goose fat. Squeeze some orange and lime juice onto the meat. Drizzle a bit of honey on it too. Throw it into a warm corn or flour tortilla. Add raw onion and cilantro, fold and eat.......... The rest of the meat will be vacuum sealed and froze for an easy meal later. Then there was the smoking of five pounds of sharp cheddar. One of these sticks was eaten while still warm! Now check out the large mound of tomatoes, Yes it is salsa time . Fire roasted of course. One of the best batches we have thrown together. I do the outside work and the Mrs. the inside. I do the initial taste test and we adjust from there. Did not process but put into freezer jars and put into the freezer. Stays more solid and not so mushy as processed I think. BilletHead

Pretty hot to cook so most was done outside. Saturday it was fish and onion rings. Have I mentioned how much I love this wok? . Then yesterday wild turkey and fried oyster shell and chanterells. We have been missing some fried stuff lately and thought we might need a bit of a lube job. There was corn on the cob consumed too so it wasn't all bad but tasty stuff. BilletHead

We got out and looked some over the weekend. A lot that we found on the downhill slide. Like Slider found and Johnsfolly would like to I found my first indigo milkys. Pretty neat weeping the prettiest color of blue what broken or bruised. Too far gone to salvage, bummer for sure. Some chanterells and oysters good to pick. Bitter boletes and what looks like a early stage of an old man of the woods. Have a black staining polypore in the yard here. Thought about trying it but a friend says the one he tried was pretty tasteless and when cooking it turns an unpleasant black. The orb weavers are out in force spinning webs. Time to carry a stick and sweep it in front as I walk. Seems as though everyone I walk into is hitting me in the head and i have to chase the spider around on my sweaty neck. The black staining polypore. I checked it today and it had doubled in size and the center is getting tough. BilletHead

Way to go John! Finally getting out is half the battle and then catching is icing on the cake, BilletHead

About time

Deja vu ?

I might

You are cracking me up like a tomato Ness. You just need to drive south. You can have one tomato for every ten cucumbers you take too. That is the only stipulation. . BilletHead

l see a tomato intervention coming soon. We might all have to decend on the ness household and do the tomato war like they have in that town in italy BilletHead oge

Sounds like most gardens are doing well. I am having a bunch of tomatoes starting to crack and split. Is this from being too wet? They are good just getting ugly.Billetheadl

Marcus you the Man! BilletHead

Oh Nessssssss hollering for Ness, I am beginning to feel a bit guilty about showing you this. We just got in from picking. Gave them a little wash job before posting. I hope this is not like twisting the knife BilletHead

Why yes If I make it back to your town in the near future I will give you a message. I gave away some this morning. BilletHead

Fish 24/7 This is the first year we have done pickles. They are a refrigerator type. Half sour dills, http://www.mrfood.com/Vegetables/Half-Sour-Dill-Pickles-664 We did a gallon and liked them so much we did another gallon in half gallon jars. We sliced a jalapeno in there too. Easy to do try them, BilletHead