Scotch eggs for breakfast

I've had a hankerin' for scotch eggs lately, so I fired up the deep fryer this morning and whipped up a batch. I used this recipe, leaving the flour out of the sausage mix and using panko bread crumbs for the golden brown and delicious crunchy outer coating. I made a dipping sauce by mixing marmalade and spicy brown mustard because using marmalade made it feel all breakfasty.

The recipe made 4 eggs, but both Spork and I decided that one each was plenty for brekkie. Now we have leftovers just perfect for a cold snack with beer.

Nom, nom, nom!

More adventures with deep frying

My parents are from North Dakota, so deep frying is not in my genetic makeup. My mom makes homemade donuts, but everything else was made in the oven, even French fries. I've worked really hard to overcome this deficit and I'm slowly getting better. My ultimate goal is to be able to make some awesome fried chicken. I've seen some improvement in that area, but nothing I've deemed picture-worthy.

These little gems, on the other hand, were pretty darned fab!


Yes, that's right. Those are deep fried mashed potatoes! Spork had seen some on a blog and casually mentioned them about 47 times. I made some mashed taters the other day and when he casually mentioned them once again, I took pity on him and gave it a whirl.

I rolled the leftover potatoes into small balls and placed them in the freezer for a while (I left them in longer than I intended - I was aiming for 'firm' an ended up with 'frozen solid'). I dipped each ball in beaten egg, then rolled it in panko bread crumbs. I set the fryer for 360F and fried until GBD. They were wonderful! A crunchy, golden shell (panko crumbs are great - how did I live without these?) filled with warm, creamy mashed potatoes. Mmmmmm!

Turkish bread

For some reason I've been on a real flatbread kick lately, so when I found this super-easy recipe, I had to try it.

Turkish bread

Ingredients:
2 Cups flour
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 Teaspoon salt
3/4 Cup plain yogurt

Directions:
Stir all the ingredients together, then knead until an elastic dough is formed. Place in a bowl, cover, and allow to rest for 30 minutes.

Divide into 8 rounds and let rest briefly. On a floured surface, roll out to 1/8" thickness and dry fry in a cast iron skillet or cook on a grill, allowing both sides to develop some dark brown spots.

NOTES: If the dough is too sticky, add a little flour. If it is too dry, add a little more yogurt.

Results: Excellent! The bread actually keeps well, stored in plastic, for a couple of days. It's not quite as pliable the second day, but I think a little experimenting on reheating methods would fix that.

Ellie May's spy cam

For my birthday, Spork gave me a really cool present: a Moultrie game camera. The camera is made to be mounted outside and can capture both still pictures and short video clips. In daylight, the images are color, while the nighttime ones use an infrared flash, yielding black and white images.

The camera is intended to be left in place for months at a time, but I can't stand to let it go for more than a day or two before I have to grab the images and see who has passed through. I've had it set up pointing at the bird baths, the bird feeders (thanks to the nifty clamp that Spork made) and at various places in the woods.

So far we've had lots of birds, raccoons and foxes. I'm hoping to add opossums, skunks and deer in the future. I've even set up a bribery station in the woods with a feeder block and a salt block. When I have some intriguing fruit leftovers, such as melon rinds, I put those out near the feeder block, for extra enticement.

Bathing cardinal family

Banditos!

Enthusiastic blue jay

Chickadee

Baby cardinal and wren

The camera makes a slight shutter sound. There were about 20 pictures of this baby cardinal giving the camera a suspicious stare.

Male red-bellied woodpecker

Downy woodpecker and wren

Firefox looking for some din-din

Firefox pounces