Roger's View of the World, Love and Seafood Gumbo!
Seize the Day! Put no trust in the morrow! — Horace
My daughter Karla wanted to do somethng ‘special’ while her mother was in Tennessee with her sister Karen. I asked Karla to make a list… and not too surprisingly, she came up with a list of dining experiences.
One of these experiences included the “Cracked Crab” in Pismo Beach. Here Karla is showing off some of her “Alaskan King Crab”. They brought a bucket of seafood and Karla enjoyed it all.
As for me, I am on Jenny Craig… I just sat there and watched!
Roger Freberg
Well, Karen brought this back from the Knoxville, Tennessee Airport… for me.
The name is a bit strange… but it is very good!
Roger Freberg
PS. Strangely enough, they say this is one of the best selling items…
It’s tough living within a family of ‘super tasters’… everyone wants something new and interesting… I guess years of ‘Turduckens’ weren’t tasty enough? Now , the crowd is demanding a South African-style “Ostruducken.” I ‘assumed’ that an Ostruducken was put together much like any other bird within a bird recipe… you know… a chicken within a duck within a turkey … all stuffed into an Ostrich… however, it doesn’t work that way, since the Ostrich has very little breast meat…. but their legs are the size of a Buick! I went on the internet and found little help… Hormel is usually good… but not this time:
Similar to a turducken, this food is a combination of four meats, ostrich, turkey duck, and chicken that are layered together and rolled into a poultry roast. With the exception of the ostrich meat, turducken and osturducken are prepared in the same manner, starting by spreading a spicy seasoning over the meat, then placing a cornbread and sausage stuffing over the meat as they are layered together, and rolling the layers into the shape of a roast. Typically, the skin of each bird is kept on the meat if this is hand made, in order to add moisture and flavor to the combination of meats. Commercially produced osturducken often removes the skin and layers only the meats together.
So, have you ever cooked anything more than an Ostrich steak or burger? Frankly, I haven’t … and I was ready to build a giant smoker to handle this latest holiday challenge… but it isn’t imperative anymore…. Thanks to ‘Roger’ and the good folks at Blackwing Quality Meats … I have ordered what should be the right about of meat to cover my Turducken to transform it into an “Ostruducken.”
I still have a few loose ends… finding the right stuffing mixture to place between the Ostrich and the Turkey…. the right wine(s)…. but this is all the fun part.
I’ll post the final recipe after we do a little testing and let you know how it turned out!
Roger Freberg
I have lost almost 90 lbs and my family is jokingly ( I think) referring to me as “MAN-orexic” as though being 236 lbs is like being one of those ‘stick models with poofy lips!” True, my size 32 jeans is hell and gone from my old 46’s… but I think that is a GOOD thing, don’t you? Thank you, Jenny Craig.
However, this now presents a ‘problem’ as I enter apon unknown territory into what dieters refer to as ‘maintenance.’ Jenny has a plan for this… and for $39 a year, it’s a bargain. Regretfully, part of the program is ‘cooking on your own.’
In truth, we always do a certain amount of preparing already… ‘super sizing’ the salads and dinner time veggies helps curb my big appetite. However, I have become quite fond of their ‘complete start cereal’ ….and wondered… how I would get along without it?
So, I put my ‘marketing hat’ back on and ‘theorized’ that Jenny wasn’t probably baking up her stuff …but having other folks prepare to her specifications. I thought, what better way to come up with your own ‘proprietary’ cereal than to take a few assorted packages of other folks stuff and mix it up as your own. Clever, girl ….. Anyway, that’s my theory.
I then took the bag of Jenny Craig ‘Complete Start’ cereal and separated it into what seemed to be it’s component ingredients …. and I found: an ‘all bran’ , a ‘flake’, a ‘puffed wheat’ and a crunchy nugget that — to me — tasted of almonds. So, I began to look for the components in other cereals in order to reproduce a reasonable ‘facsimile’.
It’s tough to match Jenny’s low fat and high fiber combination… but I think I got breakfast down… but the other meals? Sheeeeesh…. I think I’ll be on Jenny for a while down the road… which is all fine by me… I love the ‘individually frosted’ chocolate cakes!
Roger Freberg
Have you called Jenny, Yet?
South African ‘Biltong’ is grand! However, this ol boy has enjoyed what we call “Jerky” since he was a mere sprout.
I had the opportunity to try some J.C. Rivers “Ostrich” Jerkey… teriyaki style… and frankly, I wanted to eat it all myself! Not only is this stuff good… but they discount shipments to military personnel… and my daughter told me they lived on this stuff when they were running convoys to and from Bagdad.
Love that Ostrich!
Roger Freberg