Happy BIRD-day!

[Bird]

Bird's thinking he better lose some weight or the funeral director won't be able to pick up the stretcher to haul him off someday. Incidentally, Kristy's husband is the funeral director.

I thought about mentioning that Jim's a good photograper, but then realized he's in the picture, so it's Kathy that was the good photographer. That framed picture Jim mentioned is the most flattering picture of me that was taken that day. And those other 8 TBNers look great, too.

 

[tugboat-2]

Ahh Bird,....just saw this. Very Best belated good wishes!! Looks like it was a grand bash with good friends and family. Many happy returns !! It'll soon be 3 years since I saw that number, so you're just a young fella to me!

TxDon: so glad you made it home ok!

Take care Bird and enjoy what I found to be a "very good year"!!!!

CHEERS!
. . tug

 

[scott_vt]

Good Evenin Bird,
I havent spent much time reading many posts lately, but a belated happy birthday to you ! Looks like it was a special time !

Youve got quite a family !

 

[bigtiller]

I'm 10 days late but it sounds like you had a good one! And hopefully many more.

I wish I could type as eloquently as you.

 

[Bird]

TxDon and Kyle_in_Tx made sure that bird has plenty of peanuts for awhile. That's a 25 lb bag of peanuts that Don brought.

If you go back to jinman's post #4 in this thread and look at the last attached photo, you'll see that 25# bag, plus a 2# bag, plus a ziplock bag. The ziplock bag was shelled, roasted, "Cajun" peanuts and I ate them pretty quickly. But being a bit lazy, when I buy raw peanuts to roast myself, I buy raw shelled peanuts. The 27# in that photo are raw peanuts still in the shell. Now I'm lazy, but not lazy enough to let good peanuts go to waste, so since we've had a bit of cool, wet weather the last couple of weeks, that gave me something to do in my spare time. And I just finished this morning.

I've always known that peanut shells or hulls were pretty light in weight, but never really knew how light; i.e., what percentage was shell. Now I know. Starting with 27#, I now have 21.5# of raw, shelled peanuts in the freezer in one quart ziplock bags. So the shells are barely over 20% of the weight.

So, I'll have some good peanuts to snack on for several weeks. Thanks, Don & Kyle.

 

[txdon]

Bird, I've always wondered what the ratio was but ended up eating as I shelled so I never did correctly calculate.

My grandfather would roast his home grown the peanuts in the shell on top of his wood burning stove. As kids we would fill up our pockets with the warm peanuts and go out and play and snack. By the time we got the the last peanut it was cold and we were warm from playing.

Oh, by the way the shells make good compost, but they do breakdown slowly.

 

[Bird]

Don, I've never tried roasting peanuts in the shell, although I would think it should work just fine. The salted in the shell are supposedly boiled in salt water, then dried. My parents even liked these peanuts raw, but I never cared much for raw peanuts. Last summer, I did buy several bags of the roasted in the shell "Jumbo Virginia Peanuts" at Walmart that came from the Hines Nut Company in Dallas. That's some that I ate as I shelled them, out on the patio.

I'll never forget one year at Healdton, OK, when we had a fast moving grass fire go through our pasture and under the pecan trees. Fortunately, it didn't hurt the trees, but made the pecans that were already on the ground unfit to sell. But I found those fire roasted pecans quite tasty.

Incidentally, I used to roast both pecans and peanuts and mix them together, but if you ever do that, you need to roast them separately, or partially roast the peanuts before adding the pecans because the peanuts need roasting a lot long than the pecans.

 

[jinman]

Now I'm lazy, but not lazy enough to let good peanuts go to waste, so since we've had a bit of cool, wet weather the last couple of weeks, that gave me something to do in my spare time. And I just finished this morning.

Bird, if there's one thing I've found about shelling peanuts, it's that you cannot do it without making a mess. Since it's been too cool to sit on your patio the last few days, and I don't figure Margaret would let you do it in the living room, my guess is that you must have shelled the peanuts in your shop. Did you do it one-by-one or use a multi-crush method?

 

[Bird]

Jim, I did do it in the living room on a very old "TV tray" with just a little lip on the tray to keep things from sliding off, then would carefully pull the shells into a waste basket and carry the TV tray outside to finish knocking off the shells. And it was a one-by-one operation in my spare time; a pie pan full of unshelled nuts, a little cereal bowl for the shelled ones, and the shells just on the tray. Then I'd pour the shelled ones into one quart ziplock bags and into the freezer when full. And Margaret even probably did 2 or 3 pounds of it herself. She shelled a few one day while I went to the store for her, and she helped finish the last of them yesterday.

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

Bird, you have more patience than I. If I'm at a ballgame, I'll buy in the shell and peel as I go but if I have a choice, I buy the shelled peanuts.

Costco is a good place to buy nuts. I love their cashews and pistachios. The cashews come shelled!

PS. I had trouble keeping the wife and kids out of those cajun peanuts all the way up there. I promise they did NOT put their slimy little hands in them. I have to admit it was tough not getting into them as they smelled up the suburban the entire trip.