OT: Deer Season II; Funny Stories To Share?

Hollow,
I hear you. Some of that vegetarian stuff is really weird. The same with vegetarian cookbooks. You would have to go to India or Japan to find some of the strange stuff in those recipes.

We like the MorningStar , Gardenburger, Yves, and Boca products. MorningStar makes great bacon, breakfast sausage in both links and patties, and "chicken" nuggets. Gardenburger puts out some lip smacking barbecue "ribs". Yves has a good selection of luncheon meats, and the salami goes great on pizza. Their tofu hot dogs are the best, and their ground meat is great for chilli or to add to spaghetti sauce. Boca makes several different kinds of patties for burgers, as well as sausages. I wouldn't think of making a tomato sauce for spaghetti or lasagna without throwing in a few of their Italian Sausages, and Beans and Rice without their Smoked Sausages just wouldn't be the same.

All this meat-free vegetarian stuff is more expensive than buying meat, but because we live in an urban area, it's all sold at the supermarket so I don't have to go to the Yuppie store to get it. When we move to our place in the country, I will probably have to drive 100 miles to Seattle to find it. I had better start growing my ponytail back and get a pair of Birkenstocks or they might not let me in.
 
I respect the lifestyle and food choices- I have relatives who are Seventh Day Adventists. For me, though, looking at these products that go to so much trouble to duplicate the flavor and protein of meat; I prefer to go straight to the source.




munk
 
munk said:
...looking at these products that go to so much trouble to duplicate the flavor and protein of meat; I prefer to go straight to the source.
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And then there's Tofu in it's original, unmodified form. It doesn't try to imitate anything unless it would be opaque milk colored Jello. I couldn't imagine making a stir fry without it.

My wife likes to shake it in seasoned flour and fry it in hot oil and soy sauce. Then we eat it with tarter sauce or sweet chilli sauce. Our former landlord, Mr. Lee, who came from Hong Kong, used to say the way we cooked Tofu rendered it inedible and that it would "Choke a Chinaman".
 
Funny this thread should be heading towards vegetarianism.

A couple of days ago I figured that I'd make stirfry for dinner. (Read: needed to clean out the fridge.) Into the wok went the odds and ends: half a red onion, a yellow onion, some peas, a green pepper, some mushrooms, an eggplant (new one for me...never thought to stirfry the things before) and 1.5 lbs. of "beef for stewing," half price on account of age, obtained from the commissary.

It came out quite good. What surprised me was that the one part I didn't love was the beef. (It was a few months old by this time so that shouldn't be a surprise.) I may just make the next one up with no meat at all. Eggplant will now be included in every stirfry I make. If you haven't tried it like this, do so. It cooks up to something like squash and absorbs other flavors like a sponge.

I'm now a believer in having meat in one's diet; I started following the Warrior Diet a few weeks ago and I'm liking it. (Whoever mentioned the Warrior's Diet a week or so ago on DIJ's diet thread, thanks.) That being said, I'd be willing to try a strictly vegetarian diet for a week or two...just as soon as someone figures out a reasonable substitute for prime rib. :p

Still, a ToFurkey might've been a good idea this year. I normally eat Thanksgiving dinner at the galley; my nearest relatives are 3000 miles away and we don't talk much even when I'm closer. (I guess, by eating at the galley, I am eating with my family, in a sense.) Each year I get some invites to eat with friends and coworkers (for which I'm extremely thankful) but I've never been comfortable eating holiday meals with other families. Most times, the galley's pretty good for holiday dinners. This year, it wasn't. Every dish (with the exception of the gravy...the gravy's always good there) was worse than shipboard. The galley's been feeling the budget cut bite this fiscal year and it shows. I feel bad for the junior sailors who eat there by necessity and not by choice. I could've left and gotten something else. Seaman Smith, who lives in the barracks, receives a comparatively meager paycheck, and doesn't own a car...well, he's got to eat there. :(

Great stories, Ben. Good call on the Tadcaster too. Until I tried Budvar last deployment, the Tadcaster oatmeal stout was my favorite beer bar none. Seeing as how Budvar isn't sold in this country (and probably never will be), the stout still gets the nod.
 
namaarie said:
..When you said 'Yves', I thought you said 'Yvsa.'..
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If you wanted to cook Yvsa you would probably have to simmer him all night in a big stew pot, like you cook a rooster, or other tough old birds.
 
Satori said:
... Tadcaster oatmeal stout was my favorite...
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I like the Tadcaster Brown Ale too. Another of my favorites is Saporro Black, but it's in such a big can that I feel like I should wrap it in a paper bag and go hang out in front of the "Loans Until Payday" check cashing store.
 
Ben Arown-Awile said:
If you wanted to cook Yvsa you would probably have to simmer him all night in a big stew pot, like you cook a rooster, or other tough old birds.
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You got that right, but you would need one helluva sized stew pot in order to get me to fit.:D LMRRAO!!!!:D
 
Ben Arown-Awile said:
If you wanted to cook Yvsa you would probably have to simmer him all night in a big stew pot, like you cook a rooster, or other tough old birds.
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Two African cannibals are finishing dinner and one asks the other for his secret to getting the missionaries so tender, saying that he had tried boiling them, baking them, grilling them and so on, but that they always came out tough.

"What kind of missionaries do you have?"

"The ones with that funny circle haircut."












"Oh...that's the problem...those are friars."

.
 
Ben,

I like the Boca burgers and Gardenburgers are awesome.

Although I like the Great Balls of Tofu I generally don't like vegetarian stuff that tries to be something like meat. I'm not a real tofu fan although I love soymilk of all kinds. The place that makes the Great Balls is Spring Creek Soy Dairy, it's out a hollow about 2 hours north of here. They make killer fresh soymilk too, but it's hard to get locally. Have to order it thru a coop.

However I LOVE Tempeh! Especially White Wave Sea Veggie. I'd say about 50% of my friends are vegetarian, although most will eat deer or anything meat wise I personally raise cause it's not factory farmed.

I like vegetarian stuff that is Indian or Mediterranian cause it doesn't try to be something else. But I wish the fast food chains would offer veggieburgers cause I think they are actually better than meat ones. Although a lot of them have cheese in them so they still have some cholesterol.

Here's an article about Spring Creek

http://archives.cnn.com/2000/FOOD/news/10/02/springcreek.soy.ap/

And although they tore down the mental hospital and put a Wal Mart on the site, Spencer is still about as far out in the sticks as it was in 1970. I used to be President of the Dairy Goat Association here and we met in Spencer in the basement of the Presbyterian church same place where the Buddhist meditation group met during the week ;)
 
Hollow,
That article on Spring Creek flashed me back to the days when we used to make our own tofu. We also made our own yogurt and used much of it for Farmer's Cheese, sometimes called Pot Cheese, by hanging it in cloth sacks and letting it drain. It would be the consistency of cream cheese with the flavor of yogurt. When I ground the soy beans and extracted the milk, I always saved some for drinking before curdling it for tofu. My wife liked it, but I never acquired a taste for it.

I could never figure out what to do with the stuff that was left over that I filtered out of the soy milk. I know it was supposed to be nutritious, but it tasted like sawdust. I wouldn't be surprised if much of what is added today to baked goods and cereals as "fiber" is actually this tofu by product.

Recently we have been buying chocolate flavored soy milk. I like that a lot and found that I can pour it in the ice cream maker, come back in half an hour, and have a pretty good chocolate ice cream. Of course it can't compare with what I can make with a quart of heavy cream and a cup of sugar.

For me, soy milk, or things made from it will never replace cow's milk. I have always been a milk drinker and go through about two gallons a week. Cheese is also a major part of our diet.

We are also pizza lovers, and make at least three or four a month. Soy pepperoni or soy sausage is great, but soy mozzarella just doesn't hack it.
 
I like soy milk. I'll take cream on my oatmeal, though.

I haven't had tofu much since leaving Calif. The Chinese cook in Santa Cruz Ca, name long forgotten, was busted for embezzling. They used to let him out at lunch time so he could cook.

Szechuan cusine I miss and not much else about California, except for the Desert they are busy walling off.


munk
 
Ben Arown-Awile said:
Hollow,
That article on Spring Creek flashed me back to the days when we used to make our own tofu. We also made our own yogurt and used much of it for Farmer's Cheese, sometimes called Pot Cheese, by hanging it in cloth sacks and letting it drain. It would be the consistency of cream cheese with the flavor of yogurt. When I ground the soy beans and extracted the milk, I always saved some for drinking before curdling it for tofu. My wife liked it, but I never acquired a taste for it.

I could never figure out what to do with the stuff that was left over that I filtered out of the soy milk. I know it was supposed to be nutritious, but it tasted like sawdust. I wouldn't be surprised if much of what is added today to baked goods and cereals as "fiber" is actually this tofu by product.

Recently we have been buying chocolate flavored soy milk. I like that a lot and found that I can pour it in the ice cream maker, come back in half an hour, and have a pretty good chocolate ice cream. Of course it can't compare with what I can make with a quart of heavy cream and a cup of sugar.

For me, soy milk, or things made from it will never replace cow's milk. I have always been a milk drinker and go through about two gallons a week. Cheese is also a major part of our diet.

We are also pizza lovers, and make at least three or four a month. Soy pepperoni or soy sausage is great, but soy mozzarella just doesn't hack it.
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I guess I must have lived in Europe in a previous life, cause I have never been a big milk drinker. I don't care for cows milk that much either, although 7 Stars Farm makes a killer non homogenized cow's milk yogurt. The cream floats on the top.

On the other hand I love cheese and yogurt. I take about 2 gallons of goat milk right after I have milked it. Pasteurize it, take it down to about 115 and put it into a couple of the institutional gallon glass jars in a cooler full of 115 degree water for about 8 hours and get a great yogurt. I don't add any gelatin or powdered milk so mine is semi liquid, easy to drink. I'd have that over a glass of milk anyday.

My 3 main cheeses I make are just plain chevre' which is totally easy and great on salads or baked. I also make Feta. It is a bit more complicated but not that complicated. I usually store the Feta in olive oil infused with dill and garlic. Then I make "instarella mozzarella" Basically you quick acidify the milk with citric acid, then you rennet it and then heat it till it gets stringy. Then you put it in a glass baking dish in the microwave and melt it and work it with a wooden spoon. It's great right out of the oven or put it in a bowl to mold it and in the fridge for grating.

Make a whole wheat/buckwheat pizza crust, sprinkle on fresh basil and garlic from the garden, slice some Roma tomatos real thin on it Then mozzarella and zucchini. With the exception of the flour, yeast and olive oil all ingredients are home grown. ;)

I also make a semi hard cheese. I used to try to make them out of the cheesemaking books, but some of the best cheeses I have made seem to have more to do with how you ripen them than the actual recipe. I made a killer blue last summer 03 and an aged chevre pyramid with white mold and green peppercorns that was great. :D

So I could do more traveling I dried my goats off in May and while I have loved not being tied down by twice a day milking I missed making all the cheese. I bred all of them this fall so starting in March I'll have milk again. It was a good rest after twice a day milking for 16 years. I have a farmsitter, who can milk(we use a machine) but still when I am milking I have less of a tendency to want to put all the work on anyone, even if I am paying them :rolleyes:

I have never made tofu, but I bought the spores to make tempeh once, but you had to prepare the beans and I never got around to it cause I was making cheese all the time.
 
Hollow,
Your lifestyle sounds like a chapter right of Mother Earth News. My wife and I always thought that's how we would live, but when we had kids we somehow got stuck here in the city.

Now that we actually have a place in the country that we will soon move to, we are too old and lazy to put out the kind of energy that would be required to live that way, especially if we had animals like goats.

Reading about the Feta (my wife's favorite) and the Blue (my favorite) that you make, makes me drool. After we are set up in our place on the Rain Forest Coast, I'll trade you a box of crabs, some fresh dug clams, or a smoked salmon for some of your cheese.
 
I guess I must have lived in Europe in a previous life, cause I have never been a big milk drinker. I don't care for cows milk that much either, although 7 Stars Farm makes a killer non homogenized cow's milk yogurt. The cream floats on the top.

On the other hand I love cheese and yogurt>>>


I don't know what Europe has to do with this- Dogs love cheese, and so do I.
In fact, certain people (s) are by heredity geared towards a dairy diet that might prove harmfull to someone else. Meat was expensive in Old Europe, the Peasentry not able to afford it or willing to poach the King's deer, so dairy products were important.

You guys amaze me. You know more of cooking and food preparation than I and have obviously been enjoying yourselves. I've missed out on a lot.


munk
 
munk said:
...certain people (s) are by heredity geared towards a dairy diet that might prove harmfull to someone else...
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Then there are those of us who are geared towards a dairy diet that would kill them if the doctor hadn't prescribed cholesterol lowering medication.
 
munk said:
I guess I must have lived in Europe in a previous life, cause I have never been a big milk drinker. I don't care for cows milk that much either, although 7 Stars Farm makes a killer non homogenized cow's milk yogurt. The cream floats on the top.

On the other hand I love cheese and yogurt>>>


I don't know what Europe has to do with this- Dogs love cheese, and so do I.
In fact, certain people (s) are by heredity geared towards a dairy diet that might prove harmfull to someone else. Meat was expensive in Old Europe, the Peasentry not able to afford it or willing to poach the King's deer, so dairy products were important.

You guys amaze me. You know more of cooking and food preparation than I and have obviously been enjoying yourselves. I've missed out on a lot.


munk
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I had a friend went to France and know another fellow originally from Belgium and they both said where they were almost nobody drank milk, and most of the stuff in stores was the boxed milk. In fact the one fellow from Belgium is a pediatrician where I work and he preaches against drinking milk after you are an adult. However he is all for cheese and yogurt.
 
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