Monday, May 16, 2011

Outside the Box

You might could call me a connoisseur of potato salad. To be honest, if I was on death row, part of my last meal would be Momma's blue ribbon potato salad. At every event we go to my love for the spud is known and I am always asked by the person who dared to make it, "Well, how was it"?
So over the years I have been given the chore of making the potato salad mostly due to nobody wants to hear me say theirs is a little to dry, they added to much mustard, way to much celery or what ever the case may be. It's not that I am being rude or even volunteer the criticism, they just ask me and I just tell them. I have backed off on the rude thing the past couple of years because we have a friend that does enough of that for us all.
At yesterdays family gathering I was given the chore to bring the potato salad (no way) and decided to alter the family recipe a little. As a matter of fact, I went outside the box and changed it altogether. Instead of using all of Momma's secret ingredients, I made a sour cream based salad. It was like a baked potato salad. It was an explosion in your mouth.I plan to stick with this one for a while.
I don't know if anybody liked it or not but I can tell you this, I did.

We also tried something a little different on the salsa. I found this salsa recipe on www.countryliving.com/cooking/ and was not for sure if it would go over but let me tell you what, you sure didn't want to get any of this on your forehead because if you did your tongue would beat the heck out of your head to get to it.
It was a Pico De Gayo base replacing the tomatoes with watermelon. A watermelon salsa, go figure. Holy crap it was good and a major hit with everyone.
I don't care what you say, that's living right there.

With the incubator project out of the way, I can now start on my outdoor kitchen. I drew the outline on the ground with paint just make sure I placed everything where I want it to be. I don't want to shoot myself in the foot on this and get half way through the build and decide I don't like it or it's in the wrong place.
This little build will take a while because this is where the magic will all happen during cooking and everything has to be just right. I am a little OCD like that.
The kitchen will have a fire pit, bread/pizza oven, dutch oven cooking are, prep station and serving station. It will have gas attachments where needed that will run the fire starters and the burners for the deep fry area. This will be redneck heaven right here.

 I got the new incubator in the house and fired up. Within no time it hit 99 1/2 degrees and is holding. The on and off cycle is 30 seconds each. The plan was to run it for a few days to make sure everything works but my patience already ran out and I put a try of eggs in just now.
I just don't know what the humidity will be right now but I think everything will be fine.
I need to get some red lights because these are just to bright.







 

2 comments:

  1. Mmm ...sour cream in potato salad, adds a special smoothness, don't you think?

    You are just way too busy, Redneck. I will work all day and think I've accomplished a lot, then I come in and read your blog and think ...dang! He puts me to shame!

    I am seriously impressed by the incubator you're building. When you get it all tweaked to your liking, you ought to put out a few flyers and build them custom for folks. You could charge way less than what the retailers are charging and still cover all your costs and make a nifty profit. Hey, first I say you're way too busy, then I encourage you to start a whole new sideline!

    : )

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  2. WWRWH, So far I love the new recipe.
    Believe me when I say I would rather be at the creek bank with a fishing pole in my hand but, yes there is always a but, I need this for a release. The more I do and harder I work here at the mini farm, the more relaxed I am. Kinda strange hu?
    Don't worry about adding new stuff on me. It is probably in the plan somewhere anyway. After the general store is done and my work shop is done and all the picnic areas and the rest of the list is done, the plan is to do just that. Build stuff like incubators, solar ovens, rabbit hutches, nesting boxes, chicken tractors and the list goes on and on. We will display them when the Mini Farm is open and see what happens.
    Thanks for the ideas.

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