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Ate at the local amish place. I had chicken fried steak and mash potatoes with white gravy, and sweet corn. Iced tea. Too full for pie.
I made chicken fried steak for supper too :) w/ brown gravy, green beans and homemade focaccia bread w/ herbs and parm.
 
I noticed catfish fillets are up $2 per pound in the last 4 months. Which is strange because I can drive to commercial catfish farms in less than 40min. More than two dozen farms in the next county. I can't get good frozen fillets at the market either. What? did catfish stop growing?
They probably had to jack up the pay to get anybody to work there. I know that has happened to both the pork producers and the pork slaughterhouses in my area. The labor shortage is part of what's driving beef, pork, and chicken prices up - the packing plants are having to absorb the labor costs.
 
I love tuna casserole and it is another thing I haven't made nor eaten in a long time. We ate it on Fridays when I was a Catholic child. Once you do a keto diet, all the carbs, at least for me, are not eaten as often. I like lots of onions, extra onions in tuna fish casserole, and I add frozen peas to it. I also love a tuna fish sandwich. One of my clients made one for me one day. She doesn't like onions, but adds celery instead. It was such a good sandwich. I love onions in mine, but the celery was a nice difference for me.

I like to put celery in my tuna fish, and a little paprika. To quote my mother "it gives it a little color". Quite by accident I found a small container in the produce section of Wal Mart that was minced celery, onions, and carrots combined. I was using it for another recipe, and it was handy, so I thought what the heck? I added that to the tuna fish and it turned out pretty good.
 
I noticed catfish fillets are up $2 per pound in the last 4 months. Which is strange because I can drive to commercial catfish farms in less than 40min. More than two dozen farms in the next county. I can't get good frozen fillets at the market either. What? did catfish stop growing?

Many moons ago I was on a flight with a guy from Ralston Purina. He said catfish was the highest yielding animal in the world. One pound of feed would add one pound of meat to a catfish. Leave it to Ralston Purina to invent catfish chow. I don't know if it was true, but he was very convincing. I can't imagine any of the ills we are seeing in today's world have changed the biology of the catfish.
 
Commercial catfish feed has been available since the 60's. I saw it used many times. Catfish seem to like it, they will mass at the surface of a pond at feeding time. The feed floats,the fish can see it, swim up and gulp it. Just modify a tractor feed auger used with cattle and it'll sling feed over a pond. Same tractors, same equipment. Or you can buy small automatic feeders for just one pond.

Funny, I was 9 or 10. Grandpa took us to the commercial catfish ponds of another farmer to fish with cane poles. 7 or 8 kids who were used to catching 1lb or less bluegills. In 10 minutes we broke all our poles or lines trying to snatch 5lb catfish out of the water.

There are some big ponds by where I used to get parts for my Vemeer round baler. By some, I mean 1 pond after another beside the road for 20miles. Several thousand ponds in that county. Big business in my state.
 
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We actually looked into catfish farming a little bit. The start up costs were prohibitive. Up north, you need climate controlled facilities to make it work.

My old neighbor's son started a tilapia farm near to where I grew up though. It's been going for a few years and they sell a lot of fish, but I'm not sure if they've actually turned a real profit yet.
https://www.eagles-catch.com/
 
It makes money down here...

"Alabama’s catfish production is second only to Mississippi, with sales totaling $97.4 million in 2019. Those sales represent the production of 102 million pounds of catfish on more than 16,000 acres."

I like catfish, been eating it since I was little. Folks here know the smaller fillets are best. Once a wild catfish reaches 2lbs they start tasting like the bottom of the swamp. Pond raised catfish are different. They get to 4/5lbs before tasting swampy. Then they don't taste the same kind of swampy as their wild cousins.

It's a meat that freezes well, tastes great 6months later.

With the current prices I want to get some fish baskets in the swamp this summer. "Where" is the problem. Last time I had baskets out someone found them and started robbing my traps each day. They were near a road.

I could put them many places they wouldn't be found but that'd require walking over a mile through the swamp. Frustrating...
 
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Going to make a pasta and veggie dish with the first grey zucchinis from my garden, some carrots and a few sweet peppers that need using up. Trying to decide if Michelob Ultra or a Cayman Jack would go better with it 🤔 Also brown some ground turkey taco meat to have this week.
 
Going to make a pasta and veggie dish with the first grey zucchinis from my garden, some carrots and a few sweet peppers that need using up. Trying to decide if Michelob Ultra or a Cayman Jack would go better with it 🤔 Also brown some ground turkey taco meat to have this week.
Well, might have a "homemade" moscow mule if you pick the right kind of cayman jacks :)
 
Tater Tots are the only reason I stop at Sonic drive-in. Their milk shakes aren't bad either. Sometimes a shake and big order of tots are worth $5.

Speaking of catfish (above), I have a fresh fillet left... hmm. I also have sliced pork butt from the bbq joint in town...
Catfish and tater tots? Sounds like a winner to me!
 
I guess if you dont have Hush puppies they will be a good substitute :brewing:

I'm a Yankee. I just can't get into hush puppies. My sister always likes them though. Those Long John Silvers hush puppies were gawdawful though...

You know what my kid likes? She likes to get a burger at the drive thru, without fries. Then she wants me to drive her 6 blocks from the burger place to Taco John's and get an order of Potato Ole's, which of course are basically tater tots.
 
Yes! Tater Tots! Party Time!!!
One of our daughters loved tots so much, that her friends asked her what she wanted for her birthday one year. She said tots, and was given a bunch of sonic gift cards for tots. After six months, she took a tot break.
But she's back to tots now.
Tater Tots are sold in bulk in the freezer section of our little amish store!
 
Jake and I cooked dinner for Alexandra. We made thick cut pork chops, baked potatoes with green beans and corn on the cob. Strawberry short cake for dessert.

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My wife didn't feel too good today, so we canceled my plans to fix a big Mother's Day dinner. But what I thought was going to be a meager offering came out to be really good. Only two items - grilled/BBQ'ed chicken drumsticks, and sweet potatoes. Not the orange mush with marshmallows and brown sugar on top (yeuch!) I melted some coconut oil (it's a solid here in Colorado most of the year) and cut up a Stokes sweet potato into 3/4" squares. Stirred in the sweet potato and mixed things up to completely coat with coconut oil. Then added some Sea Salt. Baked in the oven for about 1/2 an hour at 400 degrees or so, stirring/rearranging every 10 minutes, testing for when they got soft (indicating cooked all the way). Next time I think I might broil them a bit at the end to crisp them up.

I used to absolutely hate sweet potatoes as a kid. Everybody served that orange colored marshmallow and brown sugar coated slop at Thanksgiving. But once you move on from that mess and start getting Stokes, Okinawan, Japanese and Purple sweet potatoes, those varieties are really good. The Japanese are maybe a tad too sweet for my tastes, but they're still OK and much better than the orange mush. I think the Stokes and Okinawan are my favorites. But there are still 5 bazillion more varieties that I haven't tried yet.
 
At the risk of being completley osrticized, sweet potoatoes do NOT need brown sugar and marshmallows.

just sayin, now you can ignore me, the infidel 🍠🍠🍠

Yes, the roasted sweet potato emoji is alive and well.

BTW.chrome spell checks sucks sweet potatoes
 
When I was a kid we always had sweet potatoes but never canied or cut up or fried, just baked whole. Mom or grandma would bake them early in the morning. Slice them open to fill with butter and then roll it up in tinfoil. That was lunch when we were working in the field or woods. Where my mom finished highschool there was no kitchen (only 2 rooms). She was married to dad, got up and cooked, baked a couple potatoes, that was her lunch everyday at school and dad's lunch.

Sweet potatoes were cheap carbs, everyone grew them. We set out nearly an acre each year. I ate them baked often been a long time since tho'. Think dad baked some a few years ago.

Around here when someone says "I ate potatoes"... I assume sweet. If people are referring to Irish potatoes... They say the word Irish first with a particular southern inflection. The word sounds like one syllable and begins with the letter A. I always thought it was funny as kid! What? Arsh? What the heck is an Arsh? My grandma would swat me for laughing! 😁
 
At the risk of being completley osrticized, sweet potoatoes do NOT need brown sugar and marshmallows.

just sayin, now you can ignore me, the infidel 🍠🍠🍠

Yes, the roasted sweet potato emoji is alive and well.

BTW.chrome spell checks sucks sweet potatoes
Personally I like them best cubed and roasted with olive oil, onions, garlic and spices
 

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