Hickory Bacon - The Grease

I bought a Mr. Bar-B-Q Cast-Iron Ribbed Fajita Platter Set a while back which was unseasoned. I went through the trouble of seasoning it with canola oil only to have it fail extremely poorly. My own fault that I tried making eggs on it. The stickiness was ridiculous. I re-seasoned again and am going through the trouble of using bacon. Well after going through 3 pounds I realized that the grease I was dumping in the sink was a really bad thing to do because it clogs up the pipe. Really stupid right? I am not really a bacon fan at least not after eating some Tyson Hickory bacon. The package shows a lot of meat probably because only the bottom portion is showing but it's basically fat. A far cry from turkey bacon which I've had before.

Well if you manage to drop by this post the correct way is pour it into a used yogurt container or any plastic container that cannot be recyled and throw it away when it's full. You might also re-use it but let me tell you why I will not reuse fat again.

I went through the trouble of making simple chicken thighs in a Lodge Logic 3-Quart Pre-Seasoned Chicken Fryer which actually turned out pretty good. All the fat melted out revealing just the meat and it came off the bone. It tasted excellent. The trouble came after draining the oil in a bowl and into the refrigerator it went. It basically solidified with the yellow fat layer on top and a lower brownish gelatin on the bottom. I thought this would make great chicken stock for a soup... Boy am I stupid because I had to throw it away after eating just a little cause of all fat.

I can basically forget becoming a cook. I have no talent.

Some poorly made homemade pizza

I got to make some pizza yesterday because my mozarella cheese started to get some pinkish/red dots. I was meaning to make pizza for over a month but just never got the chance. I am still alive and do not feel sick but I wouldn't suggest people do what I did because food poisoning is seriously painful. So I also used some sourdough starter which I manage to recover several times even when it had a great deal of mold. Here's a picture of what it kinda looks like.

I cleaned up the pan a bit. The Eastman Outdoors 90414 ZaGrill Pizza Cooker did quite well in the oven even though it's made for the grill. However the steel handles are not non stick and I had to use a knife to get some of the burnt sauce. Also from this picture:

Some of the sauce leaked down and after scrapping it, the black came off revealing shiny metal. I am not quite sure why the picture makes the bottom pan look gray because it is actually black.

The pizza was ok considering I used 2 beef tomatoes blended with about half the mozerella and the rest was on top(one whole package). Next time if I used one tomatoe; it probably wouldn't have leaked down the pan.

Made my Turkey 18 pounds

So I just put my 18 pound (18.75 lb exactly) in the oven. This would be my third time making it this year. Last year the turkey came out really orangey because of the butter probably. This time I bought two foil dispoable turkey roasters because last year it leaked and stained the bottom of the oven quite badly. I should really buy a roaster. A foil roaster costs 99 cents. A sturdy metal one costs around 20 dollars and even less if you do rebate or something.

Anyway I'll post a picture when it's out of the oven which would be around 3 1/2 to 4 hours. I hate flipping the turkey though because it's a heavy turkey and It's really hard to flip in a foil roaster but if I don't it doesn't look too good with only half the turkey browned (orange in my case).

Here's a picture of the turkey 2/3 done.


Here's the picture flipped and finished. It was very moist and tasty.


The only thing is that I am not sure what you actually do with the broth that comes out from the turkey, white wine, carrots, celery, and herbs...