So here’s some things:

Chocolate Pots-de-Creme

Blue Cheese & Bacon Purple Potatoes

Toddy. They’re better with bourbon, IMO.

Make your own canned bacon.

A place holder:

Maple Milk Eggnog

Ice cream bread.

How to Make Bacon Bourbon and Other Flavorful Spirits

Make your own.

First, Mike’s chili recipe. It is awesome. And has beans, to annoy the purists.

The opening shot, starring yours truly. I was not 100% certain, from the directions, if I had it together right. And given the amount of pressure from a .50, I wasn’t going to take the chance that I did it wrong and have my head anywhere near the part that goes boom.

Pics and a report from Richard, including a nice fireball.

Les Jones: I learned something about using a Surefire light on a 12 gauge

TD tells you like it is.

In other news, I need to stop reading about food early in the morning.

Another recipe for hot wings.

The Girl’s Guide to Guns and Butter is probably my new favorite blog. Nice photos and recipes. I’m going to have to make some Bulgarian Cold Cucumber Soup.

And where else can you learn to butcher a chicken and make hot wings.

Via Breda.

Bacon cups. Though I don’t see how they can hold your bacon bourbon.

I like to make my own salad dressing. I make Hawaiian and imitation Caesar (not real Caesar if there are no anchovies). Real easy to make, generally. The bases of them are either oil and vinegar or mayo and milk/cream.

I also kind of like to make up my own on occasion. The other night, I made this concoction:

1 cup of mayo
1/2 of milk
2 tablespoons of cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon of shallot salt
A few sprigs of fresh dill

Mix ingredients.

It was delicious.

If you’re a redneck like me, odds are you’ve had these while tailgating or from a street vendor in the mountains. But our yankee friends probably haven’t had them. They’re tasty and easy to make. Most folks just do this with salt and water. I like to kick it up a little bit. Assemble ingredients:

From Home Life

Green peanuts, unsalted
Chicken stock or bullion works
Beer
Kosher or sea salt
Creole seasoning

This is a small batch. Usually, over a campfire, do five pounds or so. But it’s hot out (105 currently), so I won’t be starting a fire. And I’m just cooking for the family.

Crack open a beer and have some if you want. Then get another and poor in a large pot. Add peanuts. Add about two cups of chicken stock then fill the pot half way with water. The nuts float so you can’t really cover them completely. Add 1/4 cup of salt and three or so tablespoons of Creole seasoning:

From Home Life

Boil for three hours. Taste the stock mixture occasionally to see if you need to add salt or anything else. And add water or beer as needed. When done, let cool. You’re not eating the shells, though. Just crack open and enjoy.

Now, I must wait for three hours.

Bourbon Bacon Jam

And, via MKS, comes bacon marmalade.

These are delicious. Made some yesterday.

Mmmmmm.

Greg:

Uncle says iced tea should be sweet with lemon. While I don’t mind sweet tea, you can always sweeten it yourself, but you cannot un-sweeten it.

No, you cannot. And you also cannot sweeten iced tea with sugar. It just goes to the bottom of it. It must be sweetened when it’s brewed or not at all.

It is always interesting to check out the regional differences in food and what defines food depending on where you are. LabRat has a look. So does Chris. Being that I live in a different region, I can say, without reservation, that they get quite a bit wrong.

For instance, chili has no beans. Chili with beans is called chili with beans.

Cornbread is cornbread if it has sugar in it or not (I like my cornbread with a bit of sugar but not much – of course, I also put bacon flavor in it). It’s a matter of degree. And it’s cooked in a frying pan in the oven. A johnnycake is cooked on a skillet and it is thin like a pancake.

Barbecue is meat cooked over a fire. The sauce is a regional thing.

Bonus round: Iced tea. Being in the South East, when I order tea, there should be no follow up questions. It comes sweet and with lemon.

Best part of Thanksgiving good: a sammich. One slice of dad’s honey ham. One slice of my turkey. My homemade pickles. Swiss. American. Mayo. Between some of Kevin’s beer bread:

From Home Life

Update: Next time, needs bacon.

Mmmmmm.

Kevin’s Beer Bread. Had some last night with some turkey soup. Very nice.

Politics, religion, and barbecue. No good can come from this.

Coming soon to a restaurant near you. I make these and they’re quite good. And fries need ketchup so I usually mix some sour cream, brown sugar, and honey to dip the fries in.

Makes me hungry.

Someone asked for my pickle recipe, and I answer.

From Home Life

For my pickling spice, I use the following:

2 tablespoons mustard seed
2 tablespoons coriander
2 tablespoons peppercorn
1 broken to bits cinnamon stick

In each jar, I put one to two tablespoons of this concoction depending on jar size. Then I put in a couple cloves of garlic, one cayenne pepper, and 3 to four sprigs of fresh dill. Then, fill the jar with whatever you’re pickling. Pack it as tight as you can. In the pic above, from left to right, are cucumbers, garlic and cayenne peppers (with a few serranos thrown in).

Then, bring to a boil a mixture of 3:1 water to white vinegar ratio. Add kosher salt to taste (about 3 – 6 table spoons). Once it’s boiling, fill jars up with the mixture and put the lid on it. Let them cool and place in the refrigerator. The vinegar and spices will steep the veggies. Will be ready in 3 to 7 days. Keeps for months.

Sort of mood. Junior and I made some pickles, pickled garlic and pickled peppers:

From Home Life

Noms commence in a week or so.

The kids dig watermelon. Trouble is, we can never eat a whole one before it goes bad. So, I started making watermelon popsicles. Fill your blender with watermelon and hit the juice setting. Then strain to get rid of pieces of seed. Place in a popsicle tray overnight and the kids love them.

Also, the latest creation is, and I am not making this up, cucumber popsicles. Our cucumber plants are out of control and, frankly, we can’t go through them all, even giving them to our neighbors. This is a bit more work but is delicious. Put a quarter cup of lime juice and a half cup of sugar in a pan and heat it up. While the sugar is dissolving, seed and peel 3 whole cucumbers. Put them in the blender and add your sugar and lime juice mix and hit the juice setting. Freeze in popsicle trays over night. No need to strain these.

I love them. Tam is becoming a fan. I like to follow my mom’s recipe and smash a couple up. Coat with lime juice (keeps them green). Then add a couple of tomatoes, a diced serrano pepper, garlic, cilantro, onion and a couple dashes of Worcestershire sauce for some guacamole.

Various Barbecue recipes.

Here’s mine.

Three Rivers Cornmeal is still going under but apparently White Lily is the same recipe. Some folks are upset:

I have two bags of Three Rivers cornmeal left. I’m going to bronze them for bookends.

Via Shane.

Three Rivers Corn Meal going under. I use that stuff in my cornbread.