Hello Jon,
Things are great here. My family is well and we had a great gathering the day
after Christmas. This year we did steaks and potatoes on the grill. Most of the
family did pork steaks, but my niece doesn’t like pork so I brought a couple of
ribeye steaks from the meat market for us. We also had greens, deviled eggs and
rolls for dinner. WE went a bit lighter on desserts this year. We had cheese
cakes (or as some folks call then, cream cheese pies), banana pudding and the
traditional fruit salad.
I can honestly say we are blessed!
I hope everybody is well and doing good this year. Hang on, just a few more
days of 2020 and we can start a brand new year.
God bless!
Robert
From: blindcooks-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <blindcooks-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On
Behalf Of Jonathan Rawlings
Sent: Monday, December 28, 2020 4:37 PM
To: Blind Cooks <blindcooks@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [blindcooks] Hope all is well with everyone
Hi list:
I just wanted to take a few minutes to send out a note to you all. Things
have been alright with us, but financial issues always seem to be hanging over
our heads, especially this year. Christmas was a good one, and my Mom spoiled
all of us with gifts. Oddly enough, I actually did not get much for use in the
kitchen this year. I got some little tablets that are supposed to remove
unpleasant odors from my garbage disposal, and Emily replaced the garlic peeler
I lost a couple months ago. I took the liberty today to order a citrus reemer
off Amazon, so I’m looking forward to that. It was a year of lots of small
items, rather than one or two big ticket things. All in all, a very good
holiday.
As far as the kitchen and cooking, our Christmas dinner consisted of a
smoke-roasted pork loin, baked sweet potatoes, rice for the kids, and roasted
green beans with butter and lemon. I also made my very-tasty caramelized onion
and apple relish to go with the meat. I have been away from my smoker for far
too long, and when I went to smoke the pork loin, the fire got too hot, and my
wood chunks caught fire. I think maybe I used more charcoal than I needed.
Our family has been given three whole turkeys over the past month, and one of
them is going on the smoker tomorrow. I’m going to try a new method that has
become popular recently called the snake. Essentially, you make a ring of
coals around the inner edge of the grill or smoker, but don’t totally close it.
You light one end, and it slowly burns all the way around to the other end,
buying you hours of low and slow heat. We’ll see how it goes. I’m also trying
out a dry brine for the first time, were I a pply a mixture of sugar and salt
to the turkey, under the skin, then let it sit in the fridge for a day or two.
Again, we’ll see. I also seasoned my new wok not long ago, but to date, I have
only cooked one thing in it. I hope to change that soon.
Anyway, just letting you all know I’m still here, and still cooking. The home
schooling thing with Heather keeps me busy, but we’re taking it easy the rest
of this week. I’m also starting to get back to my personal cookbook project.
I’ve been away from that for a while as well. Hope you’re all doing well, and
hanging on alright.
Jon