Wild Grape Wine Time

These are some of the wild grapes I gathered earlier this summer. I've made several batches of jelly and saved enough juice to make a batch of wine.. :)

I make it the same way as the sandhill plum wine... well ANY fruit wine. lol

I put 4 cups of sugar into a one gallon glass jug, add one package of yeast... swish around to stir a bit...

add 4 cups of fruit juice... swish around again to stir a bit...



fill the jug the rest of the way with water... swish again....




Top with a balloon and wait for 3 weeks...

I have about one week left before bottling this batch.

Just strain through cheesecloth or even a coffee filter, then bottle.

Should keep me warm this winter. lol

Pulled Pork Pie

I have been enjoying my smoked pork stash from the Battle of the Butts
in sandwiches, rellenos and wrapped in hot tortillas..

It was time to try a pie.
Actually I was being lazy and didn't feel like cooking.. this is an easy meal to throw together.
Smoking it in the Memphis Pro made it even that much easier on me. :)

I lined my cast iron skillet with sliced potatoes, then seasoned them with salt...




filled with pulled pork and minced onions...





drizzled with a hot spicy Q sauce....



topped with shredded cheese....




Added anothe layer of sliced potatoes, sprinkled with Harley's dry rub....


dotted the top with butter and into the Pro with hickory...





I let the pie smoke for about an hour, checked for tenderness in the potatoes....



It was pretty tasty! I added more hot Q sauce to the top before eating...

One thing I would do is add more butter to the top...the butter covered potatoes were tender, the others dried out a bit. Over all I liked it. :)

Catfish on the Campfire

While kicked back in my fishin' chair listening to some music, enjoying the fresh air and view.... I decided to check my bait. It had been awhile since I had a bite and decided the fish had probably stripped my line clean.

Bringing the line in, I noticed something attached to the hook...




I brought in the smallest catfish I had ever seen....

My first thought was Oh how cute! My second thought was ....oh great, I'll never hear the end of this.

This was worse than catching my usual stick. lol

Luckily I caught bigger fish so I could participate in the Saturday night campfire fish fry. :)




the nuggets...





fries....



building a large bed of hot coals....




heating the oil....




two pots of fish frying and one pot of fries....














It was soooooo tasty. :)

By the way...I did throw Nemo back. :)

Simply Marvelous BBQ

I've been meaning to post this link for some time now. Talented smoking friend Steph from Simply Marvelous BBQ has a great line of dry rubs and marinades that you should try if you get the chance.
He also operates a very successful catering business out of Ventura California...
If you're in the area, please look him up. :)

I fell in love with his cherry and pecan dry rubs.. those are the only two I've tried so far.
The cherry rub is fantastic on beef but my favorite use for it is on venison and dove ... it's just sooo good. :)
The pecan rub was great on some Pecan Smoked Potato Smied Catfish too!

I hear raves reviews about his Marvelous Season All. Hope to try that soon...

Just wanted to give people a heads up on Stephs stuff... I meant to mention this when his cherry and pecan rubs became available online but forgot to!

Steak-n-Eggs over the fire...

This was actually my last meal while camping.. ribeyes, hash browns and fresh eggs for breakfast before heading home.

I lit my fire.. burned the wood down a bit, then set my grate on top..leaving enough room to poke the logs and hot coals when needed..



started my skillet of hashbrowns...




added a skillet with butter for the eggs and threw on a couple of seasoned steaks...








basted the eggs with the hot melted butter in the skillet to cook the tops...








It was a quick breakfast to make... and it was oh so tasty. :)

Made it home....

Had a really nice, relaxing weekend....
even caught a few fish. :)

Going Camping....

I'm almost all packed.. ready to head out for a few days of quiet relaxation... and maybe I'll catch a few fish. :)
Hope everyone has a nice weekend!

Fried Green Tomatoes

I love these things. :)

Vine ripened tomatoes are sooo good but sometimes I have to pick a few green ones out of the garden for frying.

I slice and season the green tomatoes with salt and pepper.
Make an egg/milk bath.
Place a cup or so of regular flour out onto the table
Combine 1/2 cup of cornmeal and 1/2 cup of flour with 1/2 tsp of garlic powder in a bowl.
Then make a nice pile of panko bread crumbs

I dredge the seasoned sliced tomatoes in flour

dip in the egg wash

then into the cornmeal/flour/garlic mix

and lastly into the panko bread crumbs.

I like LOTs of panko for crunchy fried green tomatoes.. so it worked out better for me when I mixed the panko and the cornmeal/flour mixture together... I poured some of the flour mixture out onto the panko and mixed it up before smooshing onto the tomatoes. :)

Then fried in bacon drippings.. or oil until nice and crispy and brown.





season again with salt if needed..



served with my smoked jalapeno cornbread stuffed chops and garden goodies.

Not sure if it's legal to have two kinds of tomatoes on one plate but I didn't mind at all at the time. :)

the Jalapeno Stuffed Pork Chops

It Feels Great!!

lol .... My cell phone quit working over a week ago... and I'm not sure if I'm going to replace it. :)
This is the second Blackberry Curve that's quit on me in two months... That might be a sign...

It feels kinda good!! :)

Breakfast on the Woodburner

I had a bit of smoked ham and a few ears of grilled corn..so I decided to make corncakes for breakfast.
I make these while camping and love how they taste when cooked outside. :)

I added the cut corn, ham and onions to my corncake batter...
For the corncakes, I use...
1 cup of flour
1/4 cup of cornmeal
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp of salt
1 tsp of sugar
1 egg
About 1 cup of milk or more if needed for a thinner batter
1 cup of corn
Chopped green onion



stopped by the coop to gather a few fresh eggs...




heated my oil on the horizontal wood burner...



fried my corncakes till golden brown...














The wind picked up and it started raining...




I stood out in the rain and fried my eggs anyway...





It was soooo tasty.. lol Maybe I was just hungry. I think everything tastes good when cooked outside. :)

I now have a cold... from standing in the rain.. but it was worth it. :)