Blues Hog Chicken Sauce, American Fries, Caramelized Onions, & Cheese

Trimmed up 10 thighs Saturday afternoon and brined them for 3 hours, seasoned them and held in fridge overnight for cooking yesterday morning. The brine worked way too good and the thighs were dang near too salty to eat. Being the kind of frugal guy I am and not wanting them to go to waste I trimmed the meat off the bones, chopped it up skin and all put it in a small sauce pan with 50/50 Blues Hog and Blues Hog Tn Red and added the same amount of water, cooked real slow till all the liquid was gone and we had a kinda chicken confit to which I added back some sauce (no water this time). Cut up some baking taters into strips and fried (Sue did) for 3 min and drained on paper sack and then on paper towels and let completely cool. They were fried again this time a little hotter, till crisp and browned, placed on pepper towels. While she was frying I was suppose to be caramelizing some onions and took my eye off of em at the end and burnt em pretty good which ruined the looks of the dish but they still tasted alright. Now it was time to plate it and we piled all the fries on first, a good layer of the Blues Hog Chicken Sauce, Caramelized Onions, and then the cheese which was some pizza blend followed up with a lil fresh moz. Placed under the broiler for 3 or 4 min till cheese melted. Shake a good amount of Texas Pete on there at the table and life was pretty good.

A Good Day For Golf And Nice Supper

I don't know when I've hit the ball any better than yesterday. I turned in a 38 on the front (one birdie) and 40 on the back. Just seemed to magically be there and I keep telling them guys that Jane Fonda ortta be worth something and that stick she sold way back when I have at the gym really helps me out even if I don't play very much. These burnt ends were a little over done as they were off the side of the brisket and not really the point, but them splatter beans (butter beans) were enough for me. Great day.

Fresh Hams 2 Ways

My wife's brother Tommy raised him 3 pigs and had them processed all at the same time and wanted me to smoke the hams. I suggested he just cook a couple and freeze the rest for the holidays, so our weekend project was smoking two fresh hams using our Backwoods FatBoy pit. The cooker performed like a champ and gave no problem with the 14 hours burn time needed on one load of natural briquets. I injected them with pork injectable marinade and trimmed very little fat as the cap had already been removed. They went into the cooker at 6:45pm Sat afternoon and the first one was pulled and placed in the cambro when the internal reached 185 which was around 4am. This ham was sliced with our electric slicer and turned out very well and I'm sure he will enjoy plenty of roast pork sammies or bbq sammies with it. The second ham was pulled and placed in the cambro when the internal temp reached 195 and rested in the cambro for 2 hours before pulling it and it pulled every bit as good as a boston butt, if not better. I have said before that the hams make excellent pulled pork. The pulled ham is how my folks all cooked hams for the holidays usually with a coca cola recipe and we do em now days more often than not the same way except using the smoker.

Boneless Hot Wing Pizza

Everywhere you look the fast food craze now days is boneless wings. Of course they are not wings at all and the only justification for the name is that hot wing sauce is used on them. Chicken nuggets with hot wing sauce would be less misleading and much more accurate in the description, but what do I know. I did some last night using some nice chunks of thigh meat (wonder where those came from) and made pizza with them. Hence – BONELESS HOT WING PIZZA. Used some bleu cheese dressing for sauce and well you can see the rest. Next time it will be regular pizza sauce with a mixture of the bleu cheese and texas pete for a dipping sauce.

Kennesaw, Ga - Pigs n Peaches

Cooking the KCBS BBQ contests on a regular basis is like being a part of a small roving community made up of friends and their various trailers and / or pop up tents, all just having a good ol time cooking outdoors. We sure enjoyed this one and it’s always easier for us to do those closer to home. We had great weather from the time I got there Thursday at about 2pm till Sue and I finished packing up and headed home Sunday morning at 8am, we are early risers 7 days a week. Chatham Artillary took home the Grand Championship and cooked right next to us and I could not help noticing how well organized and confident they were the entire weekend. I was not feeling like someone that would be very good company after the awards Saturday so I had planned to talk with them Sunday before pulling out as they had already said they weren’t leaving till then, but we were a little too fast getting ready to go I guess because they hadn’t got up yet when we left. Congrates Chatham! We will be heading to Lenoir City, Tn in another few weeks searching for the big win. Ya’ll come. See you there.

Once the video begins click at the top of the screen for full size.



Click HERE to view the video production of the contest ogranizer.

Mountain High BBQ Festival - Franklin, NC

We competed in the Mountain High BBQ Festival this weekend and got to spend time with some of the great folks that make up the competition bbq circuit. Our trailer is over 30 ft and like most teams with large trailers you just don’t want to arrive late, so I pulled in at about 2pm Thursday. Setting up our trailer and cookers went real well with our front door and John & Kathy’s of Wild Bunch Butt Burners facing each other and on the other side me, Tarheel Smokers and Joe & Voncile of Smoky Mountain Smokers which were also facing each other. It was plenty ho and I had just finished setting up and showering afterward and had some refreshments when Chad Renfroe from Uncle Chet’s BBQ team stopped by for a visit (he never has told me why he named his team after me but if he keeps beating me as he did this weekend, I'm going to ask for my name back). While talking we both found we both had a few things we needed from the store and we’re hungry too so we hit the store first and then Bojangle’s for a chicken supper. I watched a western that had to be filmed just after the still movie days but it kept me occupied till bedtime. Sue stayed home to keep the office open Friday and since our partners Vern & Helen Ashbrook from Maryville, Tn were coming, she didn’t make the long trip up Saturday either so Thurs night was just me, myself, and I. First thing Friday I loaded some charcoal in the little PK grill to cook breakfast and the plan was a nice “Everything” bagel with thick sliced bacon (pig candy) rubbed with a little brown sugar and red pepper flakes, topped with a fried egg, tomato and mayo and I ain’t bragging but this was one dang good breakfast sandwich and I shared with my neighbors John and Kathy and they seemed to enjoy them as much as I did. Vern & Helen got there Friday around noon and Helen surprised me with a nice pasta salad and chicken salad and both were excellent and in fact it was so good I must have lost all control while eating mine and managed to dump about half my plate full in my lap and had to take a shower and change which I needed to do anyway. I had everything to make 4 pizzas with but just didn’t see the need to cook em with the nice salads Helen brought. The Backwoods Fatboy was unreal good throughout the entire cook and I give it credit for our 2nd in Brisket and a check for 400 dollars. We fired up the Chubby too early and had trouble managing the temp while doing our chicken but the chicken turned out like I thought it should in order to place well but the judges didn’t see it that way. We finished 18th out of 49 in the Overall scoring and the 2nd brisket was our best meat. Can’t wait till Thursday to head out again, this time a little closer to home in Kennesaw, Ga and Sue will be coming Friday night. For someone that makes pictures as much as I do, you would think I could get better pics at these contest but I never seem to. Here’s a few pics of some of the teams I know with the first being Rob “Rub” Bagwell (Swampboy’s) with his new Stump’s rig, BubbaQue, Smokey Mountain Smokers, and BobbyQ's truck with rig behind it. I sat beside the Grand Champion of this event through awards and it was the first time I have had a chance to meet "Tuffy" Stone of Cool Smoke and he and his wife certainly seemed like a nice couple and worthy champions. BobbyQ was Reserve and continues another year with great consistency. Come and see us.

Turkey and Chuck Roast Cooked On The Backwoods Smoker

I did these two 5 lb turkey breast the other day for sandwich meat. The lil Backwoods Chubby had to hold 300 for several hours for the turkey and then it was cranked up to 450 for some cornbread to go with a small chuck roast we had cooking at the same time. You just can’t beat a well made simple design on a cooker that performs the way you want it to all the time. One of the turkey breast is injected with Tony Chatcheres butter & jalapeno marinade and rubbed with Birds N Bones, the other just B n B’s. I didn’t weigh my bounty but it sure seems like a pile of turkey. So cook one day and into fridge, slice next day and back in fridge, vacuum seal next day. Works pretty darn good.

Square Burgers!

This was a little experiment in hamburger making that turned out to be pretty good and will be put to good use in the future. I like to find boneless chuck roast on sale like those we picked up a few days ago to do this with at 1.99 per lb and grind them myself – the meat is so much better and it’s really no trouble and the meat grinders are usually 99 bucks at Northern Tools. You can season the meat as you go or you can season the meat before grinding for an even more flavorful burger. I doubt this square burger making will work near as well with store bought already ground meat as it’s compacted when you get it and what seemed to really help making good even sized burgers for me the other day was the fact the meat was loose and I could evenly spread it on the wax paper before patting down into the big square. The really neat thing here is when you have your burgers ready you can slide them in the freezer on a sheet pan or as I did on a disposable cutting board and freeze them with the wax paper still in place and then place them in freezer bags or better still vac sealed freezer bags. We now have 12 even sized burgers in the freezer ready for the grill.