Blue Cheese Burgers, Juicy Burgers With Cheese Inside

When I saw Lea Ann's recipe for Blue Cheese Burgers, Juicy Burgers With Cheese Inside on her weekly email, and her comment was “Elevate your burger game with these Silver Spur Ranch Blue Cheese Burgers. Juicy and full of flavor, this Western style blue cheese burger is absolutely mouthwateringly delicious,” I knew it had to be tried if only for me.  As it turned out, Bev said to count her in as well but Pat was a no-go.  So, I bought two one-pound packages of ground beef and cut Lea Ann’s recipe in half (shown below) for one package and made the other into regular burgers with just S&P.  When I went to Food City to buy the Blue Cheese, the selection included none of the varieties recommended by Lea Ann (no surprise) so I opted to go with Roquefort.  When I was a kid and we went out to eat, my mom always ordered Roquefort dressing for her salad – not sure when actually I knew there was blue cheese.  You can click on the above link to go to Lea Ann’s site for the original recipe, her notes, and great pics. 

Weight Loss Update And Ribs For Card Night

A second three-month period has gone by since I began taking Zepbound so it was time for another doctor visit and I'm happy to report that I'm down another 30 pounds for a total of 60 and I'm excited to see where I can be by year end.  The first shot below is after the first 30 lbs. and I'm wearing a 4X shirt (all given away) and the second shot is now and I’m wearing a 3X shirt – I should have tucked them both in.

It won't be long before I have to retire some shorts (this pair now for sure) but since most of mine have draw strings, I can use them for a while longer.

Ribs

I don’t know how many racks of pork ribs I’ve cooked in my BBQing days but I’ve never done beef short ribs and have always wanted to make some like I’ve had in Texas but the ribs in the store always had very little meat left on them as it went with rib roast at a much higher price.  They looked like this.

I always thought the Texas BBQ joints had their beef ribs special cut with a lot of the rib-eye meat left on them, then I discovered that they were actually using short ribs and after a little more research, it seems that beef chuck short ribs (2-5 on the cow) are the ones to get.  

So, I drove about five miles to the local Hyde Farm store where they raise, slaughter, and butcher their own beef and I put in a special order for the cut that I wanted. 

Since not everyone prefers the beef ribs, I also cooked the two racks of pork ribs that I had in the freezer – leftover, properly reheated pork ribs still go down very easy.  To prep, I removed the membrane from the pork ribs and seasoned them with Head Country Original Rub.

The membrane didn’t want to easily come off of the beef ribs so I left it on and I left on the fat cap on the other side but I scored it (maybe too deep) so the rub could get to the meat.  I'll likely regret both of these decisions.  Rather than make up a batch of beef rub, I just used Montreal Steak Seasoning as we like it on beef.

I used my RecTec smoker running at 240F and I’m not sure what the pellets were made of as they had been there quite awhile.  

I wanted the meat to be done and resting in a 145F oven by 4pm and I was confident the pork ribs would take 5-6 hours at 240F using the 3-2-1 method so I put them on at 10am.  Since this was my first time with the beef short ribs and I knew they could take 10 hours, I put them on at 8am, knowing I could continue cooking them while we played cards if need be and still eat at 6pm.  

After a few hours of cooking.

Pork ribs about to be wrapped.

Pork ribs finished.

Ready to slice and serve.

Beef ribs ready to slice.

The top one is what I expected 

But what I got was one good one and three that were mostly fat so Hyde Farm is fired.

Bev made refried beans and slaw to go with the ribs and this is my plate.

The Verdict:

Both side dishes were very good.  Bev thought the ribs were a perfectively cooked fall off the bone version but I thought they were a little dry and overcooked - I think the 3-2-1 pork rib cooking method is designed to work best with a pit temperature of 225F so I’ll use it next time knowing the beef ribs will take longer or use 3-1-1 at 240F.  The beef ribs were moist, tender and tasty but I will do several things differently next time.  First of all, get them from a different source and remove both the membrane from the back and the fat cap from the top.  Then I will use a good beef brisket rub to season them and wrap them in foil at 170F internal temp as is done for brisket.  I can sure tell I’m getting old and haven’t made BBQ in a while but I hope to do better.

Photos can be slightly enlarged by clicking on them and the blue words are links.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

8/27/26 event date

Lunch At Bonefish Grill And A Whataburger

As part of taking Zepbound, my doctor wants to see me every three months and the week prior to each appointment I go in for a quick blood draw.  On this occasion Bev and I were both going to the Costco Hearing Center after the blood draw so we decided to have a lunch date as well.  We had both heard good reviews from several folks about Bonefish Grill and even though Bev was lukewarm on going there, since it was very near the doctors office, we decided to give it a try.

Chicken Stir Fry And Leftover Mac And Cheese

Since we no longer RV or travel very much otherwise, I’ve given up gardening and don’t cook much while on a diet, and we only eat out occasionally, I don’t have a whole lot to post about these days but I'll keep plugging along.

Lunch for Me And My Girls At Thai Cuisine

I still owed Kathy and Cindy a lunch as part of their 2025 Christmas present and Pat (SIL) is still with us recovering from her knee replacement so we all went to lunch on this day.  I’m sure you know that I watch Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives regularly and Guy frequently visits oriental restaurants.  As I watch these restaurants, one of the things that always appeals to me is steamed dumplings but they are rare on restaurant menus around here.  I recently discovered a Maryville restaurant simply named Thai Cuisine and since they had great reviews and dumplings on the menu, it became a must try.

The restaurant is located in a small strip mall in South Maryville and this was our first visit to it.

Here we are getting ready to order.  I can't believe how much I resemble my Dad in the shot.

Our first order was for the dumpling (Steamed or fried stuffed with ground shrimp, pork, and water chestnut served with light soy sauce) and the pot sticker (Pan-fried dumplings filled with chicken, cabbage, and green onions, served with a house dipping sauce) appetizers which came with five of each – perfect.  Would you believe I forgot the pics but this was when we were finished 😊

As it turned out, the dumplings looked just like these from the web.

But I was looking for something more like these which I think may be the Chinese version.

And our pot stickers looked like these – I forgot to order fried.

For our meals, Cindy ordered a Papaya Salad And Spring Rolls (got no pic) and Pat ordered General Tso's Chicken - Fried breaded chicken sautéed in special sauce. Served with steamed broccoli and carrots. $18.95.

Kathy had the Cashew Nut Special With Chicken - Cashew nuts, onions, mushrooms, carrots, scallions, water chestnuts, bell peppers, snow peas, and special house sauce. $18.95

Bev’s choice was Kung Pao Chicken - Stir-fried with bell peppers, onions, mushrooms, peanuts, zucchini and special house sauce. $18.95

I may have eaten a curry dish one other time so I decided I needed to branch out and try one so I went with Massaman Curry (with chicken) - Massaman curry paste with broccoli, onions, bell peppers, potatoes, and peanuts.  $19.95.  Like many of their meals, I had my choice of several proteins to go in my dish.

We don’t eat much oriental food but I would go to Thai Cuisine again to have it.

Photos can be slightly enlarged by clicking on them and the blue words are links.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

8/5/26 event date

Greek Shrimp with Tomatoes And White Beans

I discovered some shrimp in the freezer that needed to be used and decided I wanted to make something simple and friendly to my diet from them.  There was a bag 16-20 size that I had previously cleaned and frozen in water and a small bag of Alaskan Spot Prawns that had to be cleaned giving me a pound of a cleaned mix of the two.  To make the meal even more protein rich, I opted to add some white beans to the dish.  So, I looked around the web and found several recipes that included the beans or to which they could be added.  I settled on the recipe for Greek Shrimp with Tomatoes from the “Spicy Southern Kitchen” blog to which I added the beans.

Grilled Pork and Grilled Romaine Caesar Salad And Computer Help Needed

Let’s talk about the computer first which is an HP Laptop.  Some of you have commented that my blog posts used to auto fill some info for you and it also auto filled your info when I commented on your posts or when I did banking – it would show my log-in ID.  Obviously I have hit a wrong button at some point so if you have any suggestions for a fix, I’d love to hear them.