What's cookin' boys?

[Sidekick]

We did Christmas a couple weekends ago.

Fish fry tonight and lasagna tomorrow.

Up to 40 degrees F in the garage. Good place to park the fish for a while.

View attachment 144841

All my fish fry comes from Doug's . My wife only bakes it .

 

[RCW]

All my fish fry comes from Doug's . My wife only bakes it .

Doug’s Fish Fry is REALLY GOOD!

They renovated/built/opened their place in Cortland when I worked for the Health Department there. Was probably 35 years ago or so.

Got to meet Doug himself. Drank PBR beer while sanding sheet rock spackle….good guy.

Been to the original location in Skaneateles a few times. Eat in the park at the north end of the lake. Beautiful spot.

We catch their Doug’s Fish Fry ToGo venues locally when we can. As good as at their home locations.

They do a great job.

The Cortland location is really busy all the time. Picked up some takeout for my folks last summer at 11:30AM. Before I left there was a line out the door.

 

[RCW]

Cannoli Cheesecake.

For anyone with Italian heritage or background, it really does pass as a cannoli……

 

[RCW]

Didn’t get any pictures of the fried haddock done, but was really great.

Had gotten a 10# box of fillets from Maine’s as we often do.

Vacuum sealed the rest of the box in 3 bags for the freezer.

Really like the small FoodSaver Sealer. Works great for small jobs. Takes 11” rolls. Have a large Weston Pro 3500 that takes 15” rolls, but the little one is handy in a kitchen cabinet.



These 100-150’ rolls of seal bags with a cutter are really handy also. I’ve gotten some that are heavier gauge, but any decent vac seal material works pretty good in my opinion…..don’t need to spend the extra $$$ for the real heavy duty stuff.

 

[Sidekick]

Didn’t get any pictures of the fried haddock done, but was really great.

Had gotten a 10# box of fillets from Maine’s as we often do.

Vacuum sealed the rest of the box in 3 bags for the freezer.

Really like the small FoodSaver Sealer. Works great for small jobs. Takes 11” rolls. Have a large Weston Pro 3500 that takes 15” rolls, but the little one is handy in a kitchen cabinet.

View attachment 144876

These 100-150’ rolls of seal bags with a cutter are really handy also. I’ve gotten some that are heavier gauge, but any decent vac seal material works pretty good in my opinion…..don’t need to spend the extra $$$ for the real heavy duty stuff.

We wore a couple foodsavers out. Now using chamber sealers that can run 50 bags in a row without resting and also let us freeze soups and sauces.

 

[RCW]

We wore a couple foodsavers out. Now using chamber sealers that can run 50 bags in a row without resting and also let us freeze soups and sauces.

I looked at chamber units before I bought our big Weston unit.

I’ve had a couple instances where I’ve wanted to look at them again for purposes like you mentioned.

 

[RCW]

Something we’ve done for many years New Year’s Eve. Fried seafood.

Shrimp and scallops breaded and ready to go. Will fry them out in the garage on a propane burner.

Butterflied shrimp look cool, but I prefer them just deveined and breaded. I think they cook better that way. My opinion, and I’ve fried a few thousand pounds of them



Scallop prices have been crazy this year. A pound gets us by, but holy smokes…..

 

[RCW]

Something we’ve done for many years New Year’s Eve. Fried seafood.

Shrimp and scallops breaded and ready to go. Will fry them out in the garage on a propane burner.

Butterflied shrimp look cool, but I prefer them just deveined and breaded. I think they cook better that way. My opinion, and I’ve fried a few thousand pounds of them

View attachment 145208

Scallop prices have been crazy this year. A pound gets us by, but holy smokes…..
View attachment 145209

Just an FYI for folks interested:

I prefer Black Tiger shrimp, but most are fine.

I consider 16/20 shrimp a good “all purpose” size. 16-20 pieces per pound. Can often get them at discount “loss leader price of $6-7/#.

21/24 are kind of small except for pasta dishes, some cocktail, etc.

Bigger shrimp are sometimes better, but have a premium price. Biggest I’ve done are U-8’s (<8/#). Big and great on the grill, but were $25/#.

For scallops, try to stick with 10-20 sea scallops. Can do a lot of different things with them. The ones I breaded are 15-25’s to save $10/#.

 

[Sidekick]

Just an FYI for folks interested:

I prefer Black Tiger shrimp, but most are fine.

I consider 16/20 shrimp a good “all purpose” size. 16-20 pieces per pound. Can often get them at discount “loss leader price of $6-7/#.

21/24 are kind of small except for pasta dishes, some cocktail, etc.

Bigger shrimp are sometimes better, but have a premium price. Biggest I’ve done are U-8’s (<8/#). Big and great on the grill, but were $25/#.

For scallops, try to stick with 10-20 sea scallops. Can do a lot of different things with them. The ones I breaded are 15-25’s to save $10/#.

Not sure if you have a Costco near you but we get the jumbo dry scallops and really big shrimp frozen in bags. Scallops have been about $35 for 2 pounds and shrimp 30 bucks for 3 pounds. Much better quality then Wegmans seafood at 1/2 the price. I think Costco looses money on their seafood but it draws customers. Right before Christmas they were loaded up with octopus this year.
We no longer use the foodsaver. The chamber sealers do everything better and faster. We also freeze bags of water to use in coolers. Great for sending company home with leftovers. Bags are also good for sous Vide type cooking that we are looking into only being 3 mill thick. Leftover gravy freezes great in small bags for when you need a little gravy .

 

[RCW]

We don’t have a Costco anywhere nearby.

We do have a Maine’s Food and Party Warehouse an hour away, but not the same.

Maines was one of the major restaurant supply wholesalers in the northeast. I bought from them a lot when I was in the business.

Changed a few years ago when part of the company was sold.

We get some good stuff there, but not always economical. Love the place still. You can get stuff there that you can’t always get at a grocery store.

We got the Weston Pro-3500 sealer several years ago. It’s great but is a large appliance that is kept outside in a cabinet. Bring it in for big projects. Takes 15” bags.



I keep the Food Saver inside where it’s handy for small items

 

[Sidekick]

We don’t have a Costco anywhere nearby.

We do have a Maine’s Food and Party Warehouse an hour away, but not the same.

Maines was one of the major restaurant supply wholesalers in the northeast. I bought from them a lot when I was in the business.

Changed a few years ago when part of the company was sold.

We get some good stuff there, but not always economical. Love the place still. You can get stuff there that you can’t always get at a grocery store.

We got the Weston Pro-3500 sealer several years ago. It’s great but is a large appliance that is kept outside in a cabinet. Bring it in for big projects. Takes 15” bags.

View attachment 145219

I keep the Food Saver inside where it’s handy for small items

We started freezing all our sauce when the price of canning lids went through the roof. Chamber sealer makes it easy

We also make a lot of pork cube steaks for the blackstone. We buy cheap loins and slice them. Chamber sealing meat pushes the blood and juices in preserving it better unlike the foodsaver types that pull the juices from the meat changing the flavor and texture. Meat stays better and lasts longer in the freezer.

Every 2 weeks we buy a couple pounds of wild caught, never frozen cod at Costco for 9.99 a pound and it is amazing. Leftovers make awesome fish tacos.

 

[RCW]

Best shrimp in scallops I fried today…….


The couple shrimp tails at 11:00 on the pan were the Cook’s prerogative to check his product…..

Scallops were about medium-medium rare which is what we shoot for.

 

[Magicman]

Two Prime filet' mignons resting.


Filet', smashed potatoes, blackeye peas, & cornbread.


And topped off with berry medley cobbler & ice cream.

It's gonna be a very good year.

 

[chim]

I'm not much of a cook, but #2 Son coached me on the Weber. Stopped at Costco today for a whisker over 3# of filet mignon. It was between 1-1/2" and 2" thick. Some olive oil and salt before doing them for 7 minutes on each side over hot coals. Sweet Pea picked up on Mommy & Daddy's chatter and shrieked "Meat on the gweel! Meat on the gweel!". It's fun to see a little kid get excited over something other than candy We ate a couple pieces at the table and sliced the rest for sandwiches and snacking.

 

[RCW]

I'm not much of a cook, but #2 Son coached me on the Weber. Stopped at Costco today for a whisker over 3# of filet mignon. It was between 1-1/2" and 2" thick. Some olive oil and salt before doing them for 7 minutes on each side over hot coals. Sweet Pea picked up on Mommy & Daddy's chatter and shrieked "Meat on the gweel! Meat on the gweel!". It's fun to see a little kid get excited over something other than candy We ate a couple pieces at the table and sliced the rest for sandwiches and snacking.

I think you did great!!

 

[RCW]

27 degrees is common for us this time of year, but it’s been pretty windy.



That’s the kind of weather for beef stew, minestrone soup and biscuits.

The Mrs. made some great biscuits to go along with the stew, and she’ll use the minestrone for her lunches this week.

I’ve made almost a million (literally) biscuits in my day. These are really good.



Minestrone



Beef stew, but still needs the cut green beans. Stew has to have cut green beans…..

 

[BBFarmer]

A whole mess of breakfast tacos......and quite a mess it was.

 

[Magicman]

Bean/Taco Soup simmering.


And served with Yellow Cornbread and Tostitos !! Very Good on this Cold Day.

 

[BBFarmer]

View attachment 145668
Bean/Taco Soup simmering.

View attachment 145669
And served with Yellow Cornbread and Tostitos !! Very Good on this Cold Day.

Looks delicious

Go figure it was like damn near 80 yesterday, wasn't it? Gotta love mississippi weather.

I swear, Today I thought I saw a couple of flurries just before lunch here in Raymond. Wouldn't be so bad if the wind would calm down a bit though.

Hell, I still have green patches in the yard lol.

 

[Magicman]

Yup, 74° here yesterday and I finally saw 34° today before it started falling again.

This was the first time that we had ever had Bean (Taco) Soup and it went very well with this glaciated weather.

My next sawmilling customer asked me yesterday "when I would get to him"? I told him that my "git-up-go" will be busted this week. Ain't doing nuttin but keeping another log in the fireplace insert.