Tiny's Tantalizing Text

Hey readers. Just thought I'd fill ya in on what happened during my lunch hour today. I was getting gas, had just paid for it in the shop and was walking back to my truck when I heard a funny noise, kind of like a crunch. I looked up expecting to see a car that had just run over some hard snow, when I saw that I was right, but it was a little more serious than that. The car was bouncing off the curb, then on the curb, then off again at the intersection, before bounding up on the curb and hitting a sign pole. I grabbed my radio and called to have Law Enforcement come down, and gave a preliminary driver report to the dispatcher. The driver said he was okay, and less than 2 minutes after my initial call, there were 4 Highway Patrol, and 2 PD officers on scene.

Since the driver reported that he wasn't hurt (I'm not trained for patient care beyond CPR anyway), and there were many officers there, plus the fact that I really couldn't provide any more information than other witnesses, I asked if they needed me for anything else, they said no, so I went on my way to relieve some of the traffic congestion at the scene.

About an hour and a half before this incident, I was on my way to my sales call, when my Fire Department was paged for an EMS call for a guy who was having trouble with his Oxygen level. I was a little over 4 miles from town, so I got to fly low to get back, and since nobody else was on the highway to lead the ambulance in, I took that job.

While writing this, I'm reminded that some how, some way, we are in a certain place at a certain time for a reason. I say this because, due to the first call (the guy with a low Oxygen level), I was running late for my sales call. I still made the sales call, and was really running late when I headed to where I was getting gas, so late that I debated just going back to work, and get gas and lunch here in town instead of the other town I ended up at, and decided against my first choice of where to get gas.

Granted, another gal was on her cell phone reporting the accident, noticed her just after I got done talking to the dispatcher, but still, it was almost like that's where I was supposed to be at that time.

I guess I finally had a relatively exciting day. Don't know how many more of these I can handle...lol.

Hey, sorry about not posting for over a week or so...just been busy. If you know me, you'll know that I like the sport of Auto Racing very much, and yesterday was the first race of the new season for the series I follow the closest, the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series. The race was pretty good, but I was a little disappointed with the ending. Not because of how it happened, it was one of the closest finishes ever, but because of who beat who. I so wanted Mark Martin to pull off the win, but he was nipped at the line by Kevin Harvick.

I had a pretty ambitious weekend, food-wise. On Saturday I made some pulled pork from a shoulder I had bought a few weeks ago. Didn't smoke it though, didn't feel like shovelling the snow away from in front of my "smokeshack". I put it in a low oven (>200 degrees) when I got off work at noon, then went to get some groceries. At about 8:00 or so, I only had about 170 degrees and I wanted to FTC (wrap it in foil, then bath towels, and put into a warm cooler) it after it hit 180, for at least 2 hours before ripping it to shreds. So I jacked the oven up another 50 degrees and it was ready to FTC at 9:00. I only left it in for about an hour and a half as I just couldn't take it any longer and had to get a taste.

My original plan for Sunday was to get some beef jerky going in the smoker by 10 AM, but since I got up at 9:50, this didn't quite happen on time. About 11:00 I was getting ready to make breakfast when my plans got pushed back a little more by an EMT call. Upon returning home, I managed to get the smoker warming up and set about to making omelets for Dad and myself. After they were eaten, I got the cured jerky strips out of the fridge and put 'em on my racks, then into the smoker at about 12:40 I think. Checked it at about 2:00, and since they had smoked as much as I was gonna let them, I then opened the vent all the way to let the moisture out and increased the heat a bit to compensate. 4:00 I took my first sample, I thought it was good, but Dad said it wasn't quite dry enough, so I let it go another hour.

At the grocery store on Saturday, I picked up a nice 6# turkey breast roll that is my next sacrifice to the smoking Gods, this coming weekend. I'll be slicing this one a little thinner than the 3#'er that I made last weekend, and having sadwiches off of it for lunch during the week. I'm also going to start curing a beef roast and a deer roast to make some dried beef out of, as soon as I get an order from an in-state supplier. Would like to smoke them the weekend of the 4th, but I also want to go to Cabela's in Omaha that Sunday as there is no race on TV. But, since I have to thaw the meat before I cure it, and I'm not going to start thawing it until the seasonings get here, I'm probably looking at the weekend of the 11th to smoke and dry 'em.

That's the part I don't like about this smoking stuff...having to plan so far in advance in order to do stuff right. Well, that, and spending so much money on stuff to make it easier and to accomplish what I want to do.

Well, that's all I have for today. Have a good week.

Or something like that. Not the greatest week I've had. Wednesday afternoon, Dad's computer decided it didn't want to go to secure internet sites, including one he needs for Tax Prep work, and also didn't want to talk to the printer. It was over my head, so we called the guy that set up our network, left a message with his son, that he didn't get, so called again the next morning. Anyway, he gets here and spends 2 and a half hours trying to get it fixed, couldn't do it so he was back to try more stuff this morning for an hour and a half. Still not fixed and it looks like we're gonna have to "day one" the computer and then get the documents and databases back to current.

In other news, I presented a bill to my banker (reimbursement type thing), thinking it would be taken care of the day I presented it (last Friday), only to find on Wednesday, hmm maybe it was just a day instead of week, sorry, back to the story, that he hadn't deposited the amount to my account yet, and as I was spending money, I had gotten 2 overdrafts. Didn't bother me much until the next day when I saw that he still hadn't taken care of it and another OD hit. I called the bank, they told me that he'd call me. Never heard from him, so I checked it out this morning, and he finally had put the money in my account, but hadn't done anything about the OD charges. I also had noticed that a CC payment that was supposed to have been made yesterday wasn't in the record. I went to the bank and mentioned the OD charges to the teller, asking for a call back. In the mean time, I checked on the CC website to see if I was getting a late payment and/or over limit charge, but so far they aren't listed and they have a payment on there, fingers are crossed in hopes of it staying that way. The bank called me back, but it was the teller and not the banker who caused this mess, saying that the OD charges were being reversed, so that's a plus.

On to smoking issues. Gonna smoke a boneless turkey breast roll this weekend. Do a nice little brine bath Saturday night, then a couple of hours of hickory smoke and a few hours of cooking in the smoker. Should make some nice sandwiches for lunch next week.

Don't know if I mentioned this earlier, but I ordered a new remote meat/smoker thermometer towards the end of January, and it still hasn't shown up. I used the retailer's contact form earlier this week, and it said they'd be back to me within 72 hours, and as of writing this, the 73rd hour mark has passed without me hearing from them. It sure would have been nice to have this thermometer for this weekend's smoking, since it's supposed to be only about 10-15 degrees outside when I'm doing it, and I don't really want to put my sweatshirt, gloves, and coat on every hour to go out and check my temps to make sure everything is working the way it should...but I will since I have to.

Well, I hope I haven't bored you, or lowered your spirits by complaining so much today. I'll try to do a light hearted, almost funny, post next week. Okay? Until then, have a good day, and thanks for reading.

Did ya miss me last week? I kept thinking about posting, but never had time when I was thinking about it. I had mentioned (I think) that I was taking last weekend off (the 27th & 28th of January) from smoking stuff. I didn't, I had read all day Friday, on a new forum about how good these "chicken rolls" were, so that evening I hit the grocery store and picked up the pieces to make some on Sunday. One reason I was going to take that weekend off, was so I could do some Smoked Buffalo Wings on Saturday, February 3rd, to take to the Super Bowl party that I was going to. That didn't happen because it was c-c-c-cold outside.

I'm also still waiting on a new toy that I ordered, so that I can monitor smoker and meat temps from beside my chair in front of the TV. It's real similar to my current remote thermometer, but my current one sits on top of the smoker with the lead going into the meat, and I have to go out to look at it. The new one has a lead to go into the meat, and another to measure the air temp inside the box, hooked to a sender that sits on the smoker. The receiver can then be located anywhere within 100 feet (allegedly, will have to test as soon as I get it).

I also ordered some seasonings/cures, this past Saturday, but for some reason, my order was declined. I have a message in to them asking why, but haven't heard yet (only been about a half hour). Giving the company a chance to explain before I drag them through the mud. If it is handled satisfactorily (and if their product(s) are good), I'll even come back and give them a good plug. Just gotta wait for now.

The other day, possibly even a couple of weeks ago already (where does the time go?), Dad was talking to his cousin and they were talking about how their families used to butcher hogs and cattle, and make sausage. Dad's cousin still has a locker plant make him some sausage from the family's old recipe, and he smokes it himself. That got me thinking about making some sausage myself. Found a couple of good places to order the seasonings and casings from, but I would also need a meat grinder/stuffer. Cabela's just happens to have one close to my price range ($35).

I don't want to get carried away spending money on this stuff, but I'm also enjoying the smoking, and the eating of the end products, and want to expand what I'm capable of doing.

Now for the Super Bowl. I went to a neighboring town's Fire Station to watch with friends from there, and play some cards while eating, drinking, and watching the game. My buffalo wings turned out pretty good, even though I didn't smoke them. I used an altered recipe. Cut the wing pieces apart, dicarding the tips, spread them on a sheet pan and sprinkled with Chili Powder, baked them at 350 for about 45 minutes, then melted 1 1/2 cups butter, added about 2 cups of a combination of Red Devil sauce and Cookies' Wings & Things sauce and a splash of vinegar, and poured this mixture over the wings in a crock pot. Set that on low and let them be for about 3.5 hours before heading to the party, then it was another couple of hours before I sampled them. Man they were tender, and the pepper heat was perfect, not enough to set your mouth on fire, but you could taste it.

As for the game, I really didn't have a favorite. Was leaning toward the Bears because I don't really like Peyton Manning. I do happen to like Tony Dungy better than Lovie Smith though. All I really wanted was to see a decent game, and I think, for the most part, I did.

Well, that about covers the past couple of weekends, and some time in between. Stay tuned for the next round (when I get that far, lol).