A Beautiful BBQ Day

What a great day to BBQ. Rained most of the day, as usual, but temp hovered around 70. Today was my monthly BBQ day, and I had a pretty fair load for the smoker. Here’s some pics of the raw meat ready to head for the pit.

Two briskets with Billy Bones Beefmaster

Pork butt with my homemade rub

Raw Czech sausage

Finished regular fatty, cooked to 147

Finished Czech sausage cooked to 147

Rubbed ribs ready for the smoker - can't believe I forgot the finished pics as they were beautiful

Smoked bologna - many folks do it more fancy but I like just plain ole smoked bologna

A finished brisket for a friend

The finished butt

My plate - leftover twice baked potato and some great pulled pork

Our brisket, it was excellent


All in all, a great day at the pit, with only a couple of adventures

A Little Fun In The Sun

Since we did a lot of our traveling before I started this blog, I decided to go back and pick up a trip from April. Each year, me and my girls (wife, her sister and mother) make a trip to Marco Island for a week in a timeshare condo. It’s nothing fancy, but is in a great location, with a nice pool and beach. The ladies lay around the pool and go shopping, we do a little site-seeing and eat some pretty good seafood. We’ve tried BBQ from two different places with one being terrible and the second being okay - restaurant sampling helps me calibrate what I cook.

Here’s a view from our condo balcony (not bad huh). The girls are just to the top right of the hot tub – with the red bag. I think they each read about 3 books while we’re there.

A sunset pic of my girls

This is from the deck of one of the restaurants we like, located in the ten thousand islands.

The ladies like it alot and are rarely ready to come home so they bought another week so we can stay for two. Since it's a 13 hour drive, it makes sense to get all you want while there.

Thanks Alexis

I saw this recipe on Swibirun’s blog http://www.nibblemethis.com from Sept 3 and have really been wanting to try it. Since Beverly took Alex to the orthodontist this afternoon, she put me in charge of dinner, so today it is Italian Sausage Fettucine ala Alexis ( also our granddaughters name who goes by Alex). I pretty well followed the recipe as she made it (with her modifications) but used a clove of minced garlic rather than garlic powder. Since I didn’t want to clean two skillets, I cooked the meat, onion, herb concoction in a skillet then put it aside and used the same pan for the sauce – later decided it was good to pick up the extra flavors that were left in the pan – but may have made the sauce a little more brown. We thought it was a home run recipe and will definitely cook it again – way to go Alexis.

The finished sauce - looks just like my normal sausage gravy less the red chunks.

The dish on the platter

We mixed all the sauce and pasta, then plated and topped with parmesan (obviously pre grated)

After thinking about it, I figure this dish must be from Southern Italy – what could be more southern than sausage gravy over starch.

What A Nice Birthday

When you get over 60, birthdays aren't near as much fun as they used to be, but this was a pretty nice one. We grilled up some steaks and sided with twice baked potatoes and garlic bread and topped off with key lime pie and double chocolate brownies (forgot to get dessert pics).

I got them just right.

My plate - it was delicious


The captain at the helm of his pontoon boat during the post dinner cruise on the lake - Alex is on the torpedo in the back.


Riding behind a pontoon boat is pretty boring so she had to entertain herself by doing other things


A small place along the lake - hard to believe folks live this way.



A wet dog. Sweetie got so excited or worried about Alex being back on the torpedo, she jumped off the seat into the lake and swam to her. She'd never done anything like that before.


A nice little tranquil shot of the sun beginning to set and reflect off the water.

If I could reverse the numbers in my age it would have been a perfect day.

Black And Blue Salad

Since we had a flat iron steak in the freezer, plenty of salad material and some blue cheese dressing, Bev suggested we have black and blue salad for dinner – which I’d never heard of. We marinated the steak in the leftover roadside chicken stuff from yesterday, grilled it for 3 minutes per side, sliced thin and topped the salad - it was delicious. I’m a pretty good smoker and griller and a fair cook, but Bev is the creative chef in this family. Here’s a pick of my plate (my plating skills need a little work).

Also checked the results of my germination test from the four cucumbers I had saved. I got 100% from 3 of them, but only 40% from the other one - I'll give it another day or two, but it will likely get trashed.

Hanging Tomato Planter

I’ve never used one, but for those of you who may be considering it, my friend Joe tried a couple this summer and sent me the following report:

This year I planted a celebrity tomato and a patio tomato plant in two of the hanging planters. (See celebrity 1 and patio tomato) The celebrity plant was almost 6 ft long and required a total hanging height of about 8 ft above ground. The patio tomato was only about 4 ft overall including the planter.

An estimated 30 - 40 tomatoes will be harvested from each plant. However, the tomatoes are undersized from what I would have expected from one planted in the ground. (See celebrity 3) The celebrity produced mostly tennis ball sized fruit and the patio mostly golf ball size or a little larger.

Pros of using these planters
1. The tomatoes were tasty though undersized (maybe I should have fertilized more)
2. No blight problem
3. The plants are producing for a longer season than those that I planted in ground soil because of the blight (See celebrity 2)
4. Overall the plants were healthier

Cons of using these planters
1. Undersized fruit
2. Frequent watering required (at least twice per day) and you cannot miss a day without a wilted plant
3. To help reduce the watering required I moved the plants to an area that had about 3 hours of direct sunlight but it was obvious that more sunlight was needed, so I moved them back to an area of about 8 hours of sunlight and production picked up again.

Next year I will probably use the hanging planters with the smaller plants of the cherry tomatoes and try to determine the correct amount of fertilizer.

Celebrity 1

Celebrity 2

Celebrity 3

Patio

As I advised him, I'm pretty sure the greenhouses add a little fertilizer with each daily watering and this is what he may want do as well. Also, there are some varieties that are recommended for containers. For those who'd like to have fresh maters and don't have/or want an inground plant, this sure looks like a good option. If it will prevent my annual blight fight, I may just hang 20 or 30 on my house next year - wouldn't that make a good blog photo - the tomato plants and me (Bev's input to the process) hanging from the rain gutter.

Roadside Chicken

Going thru the freezer yesterday, I came across three chicks that needed to be eaten. Since reading about it on a BBQ forum, I’ve been wanting to try Roadside Chicken (I have no idea where the name comes from). The recipe, the pictures and the reviews were all great, so we whipped up a batch today using 1½ chicks, sided with some mac & cheese (a granddaughter favorite) and salad with bleu cheese. I think I could almost eat grilled chicken, mac, and blue cheese every other day. I used the following recipe:

ROADSIDE CHICKEN
BrianS – BBQ Central Forum

1 cup White vinegar
½ cup Veg oil
¼ cup Worcestershire sauce
1 TBS Sea or Kosher salt
1 TBS White sugar
1 tsp Garlic powder
1 tsp Onion powder
1 tsp White pepper
½ tsp Celery salt

Mix/shake till well dissolved. You can marinate the chicken in the sauce for up to 2 hrs before cooking. If so, discard marinade and make fresh for the cooking sauce. I apply the sauce every 5 min to both sides and turn every 5 min. Apply one final coating 5 min before removing from the grill. You can't put too much sauce on while grilling.

And Bev made the mac & cheese from this one:

MAC & CHEESE
Bigoven.com
Scaled down from the original

16 ounce Velveeta, Light cut into chunks
4 tbsp Butter
1 cups Heavy whipping cream
1 cups Whole milk
½ tsp Salt & pepper to taste
18 ounces Elbow Macaroni, dry
1½ cups Cheddar cheese shredded
1 tsp Paprika

Instructions
1. Pour milk and cream into pot. Add the chunked Velveeta and cook over low heat, stirring until Velveeta has melted. Add 1 stick of butter and melt into cheese sauce. Add salt & pepper to taste.
2. Cook elbow macaroni noodles according to pkg directions. Drain.
3. Place cooked elbow macaroni in turkey-sized roasting pan(if making the full recipe) and pour cheese over. Mix well. Top with 1½ cups of shredded cheddar cheese. Sprinkle top with paprika.
4. Bake at 350 until bubbly, about one hour.

The other chicken and a half was grilled with olive oil and a little Wolfe citrus for making chicken salad.

The mac & cheese - not as brown as it looks

The platter of chicken

My plate

Everyone loved the mac and 4 out of 5 liked the tang of the chicken, but my sister in law thought she liked regular grilled chicken best. Bev and I would definately cook the chicken again.