spring flowers and good food

[fredk]

Here there are different levels of Spam; from the downright awful you wouldn't feed to your dog to the quite tasty stuff. All come in tins. The awful kind has loads of jelliefied fats but the nice stuff has minimal fat. I mostly avoid eating it as it reminds me of taking a packed sandwiches lunch to primary school

This may be a measure of how it is disliked here; In the 1970s we had a national strike for 3 months. Everything became near impossible to buy due to shortages. But not spam. The shops always had plenty of stock of that! 

[toxo]

13 minutes ago, fredk said:

Here there are different levels of Spam; from the downright awful you wouldn't feed to your dog to the quite tasty stuff. All come in tins. The awful kind has loads of jelliefied fats but the nice stuff has minimal fat. I mostly avoid eating it as it reminds me of taking a packed sandwiches lunch to primary school

This may be a measure of how it is disliked here; In the 1970s we had a national strike for 3 months. Everything became near impossible to buy due to shortages. But not spam. The shops always had plenty of stock of that! 

Whilst I can take or leave spam as is, I'm quite partial to a spam fritter.

[chuck123wapati]

On 8/17/2025 at 10:33 PM, Handstitched said:

@chuck123wapati you've convinced me, i'll give the ol bunky bbq a rebuild .

Our spam comes in a nicely formed lump out of a tin and can be sliced, just like corned beef in a tin , full of fat and God knows what else, a vegos  worst nightmare, that and black pudding, ha! But they taste great 👍 

HS

heck yea you have a nice summer coming up to enjoy some good eats.

Dont get me going on that corned beef, I love me some hash, and eggs for breakfast.  I usually corn a couple of elk roasts every year if I have enough but they don't last long lol. We have one on St. Patrick's day. I've gotta start wrenching on the burb, summer is about over, and the mornings are getting brisk. The hummingbirds are starting to thin out last week we had about a dozen at the feeders now we only have one or two. They were eating over a pint of nectar every day its crazy how much they eat getting ready for thier adventure.

[Handstitched]

I think I have spoken about this before, but I have 2 lumps of rump in the freezer that's been there for 5 -6 years or more, freezer burnt  to buggery , they were part of a huge slab of 'cheap ' meat that i cut up, I'm thinking of cooking one up this weekend..........very very slowly , or I could get lazy and not bother 🤔,  we'll see . Every  time I open the freezer,  they're  looking at me  and I  think, " I must do something with those", hate wasting food.

HS

[Handstitched]

That's it, I've committed. One of the ' lumps' is thawing out as I type. Its around 2kg .  I'll cook it s-l-o-w-l-y on Saturday. It will either be nice juicy and tender , or I'll be able sole my shoes with it . I'll let you know how it goes at the weekend. Thankfully  I can freeze the cooked meat if I have a lot left over, soups etc.

HS

[Handstitched]

That lump of beef was......ok , hardly restaurant  quality. Quite tough in fact.   I'll do a slow  cook curry on monday  with the leftovers . 

I will never buy a "discount " lump of beef ever again 😒  thing is, I have one more  lump to use up in the freezer .

Lesson learnt. 

HS

[chuck123wapati]

On 8/23/2025 at 3:49 AM, Handstitched said:

That lump of beef was......ok , hardly restaurant  quality. Quite tough in fact.   I'll do a slow  cook curry on monday  with the leftovers . 

I will never buy a "discount " lump of beef ever again 😒  thing is, I have one more  lump to use up in the freezer .

Lesson learnt. 

HS

Second time is a charm LOL. If you ever get large lumps of fresh meat, age them them about a week in the fridge before freezing them, it helps a bunch. A favorite cut of cheap beef we like is the London broil, its basically just a really thick chuck steak and usually are tough as nails. To actually enjoy eating them I sprinkle them with Accent, meat tenderizer, then use a fork to tenderize them working the accent into the meat. A good sprinkling of salt and pepper then broil them about 7 minutes to the side,  and let them set for about 5 minutes before cutting. they come out medium rare but the real secret is slicing it super thin at an angle across the grain of the meat. so you would cut the steak at about a 45 degree angle. 

I went fishing yesterday at the world-famous Miracle Mile, its about an hour's drive. This time of year its about five miles long lol the lake is way down. we caught a few fish and they are going into some brine today for smoking its still a bit warm but if i start early in the morning it may work out. Here are a few pics of the place, San Pedro Mountains. ever hear of the San Pedro mummy? the mile from the bridge doesn't look very spectacular, wild rocky mountain bighorn ewe, we had to stop to let them cross the road lol.

[chuck123wapati]

My new burner!!! works well the first pic is at 1 psi the third is at 10 How hot is yellow hot? really hot about 2000 F. I could only go about 12 psi before the flue wasnt large enough. i can get it hotter lol 

And yea the welding sucks  

[Handstitched]

My little bbq . It's not very big, but it works just fine,  and big enough for me and dad. I got a 2 ring gas  burner  for my wood fired brazier so I can at least have a barby,  while my ol' bunky is being  restored.  

HS

[chuck123wapati]

On 9/3/2025 at 6:50 AM, Handstitched said:

My little bbq . It's not very big, but it works just fine,  and big enough for me and dad. I got a 2 ring gas  burner  for my wood fired brazier so I can at least have a barby,  while my ol' bunky is being  restored.  

HS

just the right size for two !! Dang that looks good. All ive been cooking is mud lol, but that is kinda fun too. 

I've been wrenchin on the Burb, getting it ready for the hunt and winter. It was missing and running like crap so i decided to give her a tune-up. The plugs were pretty worn so i replaced them but he darn distributor cap i dont think was ever replaced lol. The rotor button was completely worn down and the terminals had big gobs of carbon burnt to them.  So i figured it solved the problem, it ran better but still was not right so i rebuilt the throttle body next and found a vacuum port completely plugged with mud and someone had tried to set the idle by drilling out the idle screw, which is factory sealed, that throws off the ECM which controls air gas mix and was the biggest problem with the way she ran and the hardest to find as that shouldnt happen.  Adjusted that back to the original reset the downshift cable which was also set to short and not allowing full throtle or proper shifting. I also threw on a new muffler, when i cut it off i found the one on it was to small it had just been shoved inside the exhaust pipe and welded on 2 1/2" muffler on a 3" exhaust so it had too much back pressure. Damn thing runs like new now.  My son bought this thing used then traded it to us It was running well then, or so i thought, so i just drove it for a few years lol. Now for the hard stuff, My daughter gave us another burb, same year so I'm switching out the radiator supports, then fixing the other burb for my son to drive as well as having an unlifted unmodded truck for the road and town driving. The days are getting short and the mornings brisk It won't be long until snow flies here.

 

Take care my friend!!

Chuck