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My thoughts released; a mind set free |
| Dinner is done. It's done cooking, and I've done et it. I had never heard the term "et" until an elderly person my wife knew decided to try fishing where we had done a fair job of fishing a day earlier. He told her he caught a fish, cleaned it, and then et it. Of course, another elderly Sodak had used the phrase "over yander", which I had never heard before either. As it turns out, et is actually past tense for eat, while "over yander" is just a mispronunciation of "over yonder". Will I still say "over yander"? Mayhaps. But I'm digressing here, which makes me a digressor. I had tossed (not literally) a ham hock, some little potatoes, and some cabbage into the slow cooker for our dinner. My wife had the day off, but had to go in for training today, so it was a good day to slow-cook dinner. It was done when she got home, and it turned out nice. And, since it was also nice outside, sunny and near 50°F, I decided to fire up the pellet smoker and smoke some porkchops. The pork is from a pig we ordered and had processed, so the hocks are smoked, not fatty, and more like ham. The porkchops are also very lean with just a little fat on them. I was surprised at how lean the pork is. I have a portable smoker we got a couple of years ago for Christmas, from my wife and me to my wife and me. We tried it out after we got it, but it didn't work well in the cold winter air. It just doesn't maintain a consistent temperature when it's cold; it cools down too far, then heats up too high. So, I decided to try putting it inside a shelter so we can use it in the winter. I decided to order a portable camping shower to use for a shelter. It's screened on top and has two zippered openings towards the top, and it worked great. It's vented enough that the smoke dispersed well, but it also held the heat in enough that the smoker held a more consistent temperature. The porkchops were smoked at about 250°F for three hours, then I turned them down to 180°F and let them slow-smoke for a couple more hours. They look wonderful, and tomorrow for lunch we'll try them out. It's nice to use the smoker again. With the chemo messing my taste up, and just being sicker than hell all spring, summer, and fall, there wasn't any reason to fire it up. But now that I have my taste back, I'm starting to feel much better, and have a shelter to put it in, I'm looking forward to using it again. |
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