Shrimp Scampi Pasta

We made this dish back in May and liked it so well we wanted to make it for the kids – remember Rhett’s request was cook him stuff he’s seen on my blog. They decided to leave on their trip to Disney World a half day early, so we made the dish for lunch and sided it with some garlic cheese Naan bread, left from another meal.

Following is Ina Garten’s recipe for Linguine With Shrimp Scampi, which we doubled for this meal.

Ingredients
· Vegetable oil
· Kosher salt
· 3/4 pound linguine (we used angel hair)
· 3 tablespoons unsalted butter
· 2 1/2 tablespoons good olive oil
· 1 1/2 tablespoons minced garlic (4 cloves)
· 1 pound large shrimp (about 16 shrimp), peeled and deveined
· 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
· 1/3 cup chopped fresh parsley leaves
· 1/2 lemon, zest grated
· 1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice (2 lemons)
· 1/4 lemon, thinly sliced in half-rounds
· 1/8 teaspoon hot red pepper flakes

Directions
Drizzle some oil in a large pot of boiling salted water, add 1 tablespoon of salt and the linguine, and cook for 7 to 10 minutes, or according to the directions on the package.

Meanwhile, in another large (12-inch), heavy-bottomed pan, melt the butter and olive oil over medium-low heat. Add the garlic. Saute for 1 minute. Be careful, the garlic burns easily! Add the shrimp, 1 1/2 teaspoons of salt, and the pepper and saute until the shrimp have just turned pink, about 5 minutes, stirring often (we tossed in some grape tomatoes that needed to be used). Remove from the heat, add the parsley, lemon zest, lemon juice, lemon slices, and red pepper flakes. Toss to combine.

When the pasta is done, drain the cooked linguine and then put it back in the pot. Immediately add the shrimp and sauce, toss well, and serve. We decided to serve family style today, so here's the big bowl full.


For the bread, we ran 4 garlic cloves through the press and into about 5 tbsps of melted butter and brushed it on the 2 pieces of bread. Then gave it a light sprinkling of five-blend cheese (couldn’t find the mozzarella) and grated parmesan and put it under the broiler until the cheese melted.

Here’s my plate and once again it was delicious and the bread was a major hit – and I did it off the top of my head, so maybe I’m still making some progress toward being a little more creative.



Time to get the canner cleaned up, it won’t be long now.


Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.

Larry

Leg Of Lamb On The Spit

On Fathers Day, we had a Greek meal because we had some lamb eaters here and Bev doesn’t like it well enough to cook it just for us. Saturday night, we had the lamb lovers here, in Rhett and Beth, and I had another leg of lamb that I’d been saving for them.

Unlike those on Fathers Day, this one was bone in, but I still cooked in on the spit. I had to tie it with butchers twine to force it into a rounder shape, then cooked it using the same method as I’d used previously.


We decided that rather than sides, we’d have two appetizers then just the lamb and Greek salad. For appetizer one, we made Baba Ganoush using a slightly modified recipe from Mary at One Perfect bite. Mary mentioned that her’s was tangy due to the amount of lemon juice, so we added half the recipe amount to start. We decided it could use more lemon but not the additional liquid, so we added the zest of a half lemon and decided it was fine with that, so in the fridge it went for a couple of hours for the flavors to get happy. This is the finished eggplant after about 30 minutes of direct fire grilling.


For appetizer number two, Beth made humus using a recipe that she had developed over the years. This is the two of them ready to eat (hummus on right) with the first round of pitas that I warmed by tossing on the grill with the lamb and closing the lid.


I cooked the lamb on the spit using the infrared burner on the grill's back wall and here's a shot of it resting after being removed. This is my second attempt and I'm 0 for 2 on getting a nice crust, but I think I may know why. I've been cooking with the the lid closed and I think the baking effect this creates is getting the inside done before the crust has a chance to form. So next time I'll allow twice the time and cook with the lid open the entire time - this took 1 1/4 hours.


Here's my plate. The kids like theirs pretty rare so I pulled it at 125* internal and it turned out perfect for them (and me). I found some cooked pink for Bev. It's hard to carve pretty with the bone in and I'll debone next time or only buy boneless. We served it with some tzatiki sauce, which Rhett decided he had to have with lamb from now on.


Rhett and Beth are big fans of Hummus and eat it frequently, but they had never had the Baba Ganoush - we pretty well cleaned both bowls. They loved the lamb (as did I) and wanted the recipe - I was happy since I'd cooked it mainly for them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.

Larry

A Very Berry Breakfast

Most of my life, I ate cold cereal for breakfast, including my standard bowl of dry Cracklin Oat Bran on my way to work, so I rarely eat it now. But every now and then, an inspiration comes along and I have to have some and a couple bowls of fresh berries sitting on the kitchen counter will do it. As a kid, I ate lots of cereal and preferred the kids stuff with catchy names and lots of sugar, but when I went next door to Grandma’s she gave me Grape Nuts and convinced me they were good. That was probably due to the dose of sugar and long softening soak in milk that did it.

But somewhere along the line, I decided I liked them crunchy, without sugar and with just a little milk - Euell Gibbons would have been proud of me (you have to be old to understand this comment). So I asked Bev to pick me up a box at the store and this is my first meal from them and it was very enjoyable – fresh berries make everything better.


In case you’re sitting around wondering what to do with some left over garlic, buttermilk mashed potatoes, try this.


A man can’t eat cereal and berries every time – although he should.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.

Larry

Korean Family Finally Home

If you’ve been reading long, you may recall we have a son in the Army who has been in South Korea the past three years, along with his family – except Alex who’s been living with us. They got back to Fort Knox, Kentucky safe and sound on Wednesday, after a few days stopover in Hawaii. After getting checked in and securing housing, they headed for Almost Heaven South for a couple of days in route to a 10-day vacation at Disney World. Bev and I passed off the parenting baton and are now back to being just grandparents - whew. It's been a real experience for all of us and Alex is a very different person than the one who showed up here 14 months ago.

I had previously asked Rhett what he wanted for meals while here, and as a loyal reader, he said “all that stuff you’ve been posting on your blog.” We probably can’t do it all, but we have a pretty good handle on their favorites, so we’ll try to cover some of them. Like most of the Caton clan, fried okra and corn on the cob are high on the summertime list and we decided to have that as a first meal along with some beer can chickens – food we all like, fairly easy to cook for a crowd, and we had chickens in the freezer. We were going to do it at the lake, but some long awaited showers were passing through so we used the house grill, which has a roll out awning above it.

For the chickens, I did my normal of rosemary, thyme, and fruit (had oranges and lemons in the fridge), in a half can of beer (Dos XX for these). On the outside, I rubbed one with homemade Wolfe Citrus and the other with Home BBQ’s Sweet Orange Habanero spiked with some additional cayenne. I set them in the middle of the grill over two off burners, a lid temp of 300*, and cooked to an internal temp of 165* in the breast. They came out moist and tasty, but not as spicy as Bev wanted – I may have to marinate hers in Sriracha sauce next time :-).

Since I’m not really gardening this year, I didn’t have any super fresh corn, so I bought some from a couple selling it out of their pick up sitting along the road and Bev got some locally grown okra from the veggie market. We cooked the okra in the discada and the corn on the grill side burner so no heat was added to the house. The corn turned out to be just ok – I’m spoiled by the sweet, tasty, fresh picked stuff – but the kids liked it. No food pics as it was just ordinary stuff that I've posted before.

It sure is nice to have them back in the states and they are really glad to be home. They will be at Fort Knox, Kentucky, which is about a 5 hour drive. Rhett left here at 7am this morning to go get his boat from storage – guess we know what he missed. Middle child Reese is ready for some serious hanging out.


When the girls got up, Bev took them blueberry picking then turned them into pancakes for their breakfast - had a table full of happy campers.

We finally got a little rain Friday evening, and while better than nothing, the ¼” won’t go very far toward reducing the 8+ inches we’re behind for the year. The silver lining – it should be a good weekend for boating.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.

Larry

A Hot Day Salad Ala Lea Ann

Bev has been good friends with a lady since before I met her and she is also one of my BBQ customers. She’s my only customer who grew up in North Carolina and just wants a water, salt, vinegar SOP on her pork – go I give her the pork in bags and a container of SOP for her to add to suit her taste. The SOP is a friend’s secret family recipe so I can’t share it.

She’d asked that I just freeze the pork for her and the next task was getting it to her in Maryville, which is usually accomplished by she and Bev going to lunch. But this time, Bev suggested she come down here for lunch and they could lay out in the sun (I don’t understand why anyone wants to be out in the midday sun on a day in the high 90’s). Bev and I discussed a lunch that would be good on a hot day, fairly easy, and something our friend would like, and since we still had shrimp in the freezer, we decided on Lea Ann’s Avocado and Shrimp Salad with Mango Dressing, which we had made before and loved. Bev had picked some blue berries and blackberries that morning and suggested they would make for a prettier picture, so I scattered a few around the plates – they went well with the dish. We served it with the same Naan bread as in Lea Ann's blog. Here’s my plate.


I made everything up and took it down to the dock for final assembly, and it was a big hit. I didn't hang around to chit-chat very long as even the air from the ceiling fans was hot - I think they were going to cool off in the lake, but Sweetie Pie (our American Eskimo) and I elected the AC at the house.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.

Larry

Grilled Margherita Style Pizza

I’d noticed this type of pizza mentioned a few times lately (I’d never heard of it) and most recently by Michelle over at Monthly Challenge and when Bev mentioned she wanted pizza, I said I know just the one - we had three fresh picked ripe maters in the produce basket. I read a recipe to her and she said "it sounded good, but how about adding some olives" to which I said "lets do one Italian and one Greek."

So she whipped up a batch of dough by getting the dough balls out of the freezer and telling me what to do with it while she went to town – we’re more about the toppings than the crust so frozen dough works fine for us, unless she just feels like baking some – I cook, I BBQ, I grill, I garden, and I mow, but I don’t bake. We had two packages of dough and each made two grill sized pizzas, so we made one Italian, one Greek, one built by Bevs sister and one piece went back into the fridge for later. Here’s the first crust just after flipping – I cook it done then just cook the bottom a minute or so until it’s not tacky, then this side goes back on the grill after topping (unless I screw up).


For Pat’s (Bev’s sister) it was jarred pizza sauce, ham, onions, garlic, oregano, onion, asiago, provolone, and parmesan. Here's the finished pic.


For the Italian margherita style it was, in order of addition to the crust – good olive oil, finely diced garlic, mozzerella and asiago cheese, sliced tomato and red onion, S&P, and sliced basil.


I screwed up and got the wrong side of the crust up and therefore with the toppings, so rather than rebuild, we put it under the broiler to finish. After baking, it got some parmesan and crushed red paper.


For the Greek margherita style, it got olive oil, garlic, mozzerella and aged provolone cheese, sliced tomato and onion, salt and pepper, kalamata olives, chopped oregano and feta cheese. Here’s the before and after baking.



Here's a shot of my plate.


They were all delicious and I really like the margherita style of pizza with the fresh tomatoes and will make it again. The one thing I’d do differently is use paste tomatoes as they have less water in them. Bev thought they may have been our best grilled pizza yet.

And the bonus part is we have leftovers for breakfast. Wow, it was only 98* here yesterday and we're still hoping for rain. One highlight was getting to see a spotted fawn crossing the road with mom in the early morning. Seeing deer is a regular event, but this is the first fawn I've seen - it sure was cute.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by.

Larry

Pork Butt On Your Grill

Now that you’ve turned your grill (gas or charcoal) into a smoker to cook a beer can chicken and a fatty, it’s time to move to a bigger piece of meat and cook a pork (Boston) butt. A butt is a fattier piece of meat and is therefore very forgiving, so it’s a good piece of meat for the beginning BBQer.

There are many debates on cooking a butt – cooking temperature, fat up or down, wrap in foil or not, in a pan or not and I believe the competitors win with all of them, so I’ll just describe what I would do on the grill as a first timer. Since you probably don’t want to spend too many hours on it, I’d suggest a 6-7# butt. Start the evening before by trimming the fat cap to about ¼” or you’ll just have to deal with all the melted fat. Before you go to bed, give it a good coat of a rub, that’s not too heavy in salt. I used to make my own rub but now for pork I use a 3 to 1 mix of Billy Bones Original and XXX Cherry. There are many fine rubs out there, but I think Bad Byrons Butt Rub is pretty readily available and it’s a good choice. After rubbing, wrap in plastic and stick in the fridge over night.

When you get up, remove from the fridge and let it begin to warm up – some folks add more rub at this point but I do not. The cooking time and temperature I’m allowing is to be sure it’s done for dinner. Set your grill up for smoking as I discussed on June 20. I like to cook the butts in a foil pan as it ensures I collect the juices and it keeps the cooker cleaner. Check out June 30 for what mine looks like in a pan. I’d allow ten hours at 250* and feel confident it will be done and then it can be kept in a cooler until you’re ready to pull it.

Use a remote probe thermometer to monitor the internal meat temperature and when it gets to 165*, dump the juices from the foil pan into a bowl (after the rub is set and the bark begins to look dry, about 3 hours, each time the smoker is open and the meat exposed, I like to spritz with apple juice). Cover the pan with well sealed aluminum foil and cook to about 190*, then remove the foil, dump the juices again and cook uncovered (to redevelop the bark) until the bone is loose and the thermometer probe slips in with nearly no resistance (like going into a room temperature stick of butter) – it will be around 200* at this point, but go by the probe and bone test rather than the temp. Not covering in foil will make it cook slower, but develop more bark, so it’s a choice you make. For the first try, I’d cover it, as it’s faster and a little more forgiving.

At this point the meat is done and if it’s mealtime pull it and enjoy. If not, just pour off the juice again, give it an apple juice spritz, seal the pan top or wrap the butt in foil and place in a pre warmed (use hot water) cooler until ready to pull - depending on the meat temperature you can use your hands or two forks to pull it - I like to use bear claws. Before pulling, put all of the collected juice in a de-fatter and after pulling pour all of the juices (not the fat) into the meat and mix well. You will now have some great pulled pork BBQ and your butt will yield about 50% meat (6# butt = 3# of meat), and each pound will make three large sandwiches.

Check out this for how your final product will look.

After you’ve had this first success, you can experiment around with the cooking temps, pans, foils, injection, etc, to achieve the pork you want. Since I collect and return all of the natural juices to the pulled meat, I don’t bother with injecting, but I believe most of the competitors do.

Let me know if you try it and have a great day. Title pic is morning serenity at the dock.

Larry