Easy Tostadas & Gorditas

I have always enjoyed finding different ways to make a work night dinner that is fast, easy to do but also taste great. Many times that consists of not all of the meal being made from scratch but rather pre-made such as last nights Tostadas and Gorditas. Boneless chuck roast were on sale for 1.99 and I hardly ever pass that up, so I stopped by and picked up a couple of 2 ½ lbr’s to grind up for burgers and a 3 lb meat loaf. The extra ¾ to 1 lb of meat got me to thinking about having tostadas for supper. No sooner than I hit the Super Mercado I happened to remember those pre-made gorditas in the dairy section that I have been wanting to try for a year or more and I added that to the cart. The easy supper would be the heavily seasoned course ground beef (chili power, paprika, cumin), enough oil in a very small skillet to cover the gorditas and fry, fresh market made pico de galo and salsa verde, limes, shredded lettuce, a couple deep fried japs (after the gorditas were finished), some canned refried beans, and last but not least and I gotta thank Sis for this one, some Salvadorian style crema. I learned the fried Japs from a very popular taco stand that kept getting complaints about his salsas not being hot enough and started serving these on the plate. Oh BTW, the review on the pre-made gorditas is that they are very good and well worth the try, also I was happy with the pico de galo but I knew I would be as I saw them mixing it up so I knew it was fresh made. The best surprise though was the market made salsa verde which I just knew I would not like because I like my homemade version so much but I thought it was a very good substitute.

Brunswick (Ga) Stew PIZZA

And your saying to yourself "are you sure"! Well I confess that I have this problem when it comes to leftovers and the thought of wasting good food, and this is for sure a result of that little problem. Not too bad of a fault to have though I don't guess, some of the crazy concoctions are actually pretty good as this one was believe it or not. I was going to add more ketchup to the stew so it could serve as both the meat and the sauce but Sue didn't like that idea and we ended up just spooning a little pizza sauce on here and there to fill in. It also has some country sausage and if you look close you can see some kernels of corn and the tiny lima beans that all good Ga Brunswick Stew has in it.

Lenoir City 2009

We really enjoyed doing the Lenoir contest again this year as it gave us the oportunity to spend time with our friends and teamates "Vern (Jose) & Helen Ashbrook at their home in Maryville, Tn both before and after the contest. They are the best host you could every hope to find. I have heard a lot of teams say, "if you think you turned in great meat, you probably won't do well and if you thought you turned in bad meats you probably did much better than expected". It sure seems to play out that way a lot of times as it did this Saturday. I was very dissapointed in ribs, pork, and brisket and thought the chicken was great, but the judges thought the ribs, pork, and brisket were all better than the chicken. Anyway we finished 3rd place out of the 25 teams with a 8th in chicken, 3rd in ribs, 5th pork, 5th brisket. The really unique thing about this is that Adams Ribs (Grand Champion, Team Allegro (Reserve Grand Champion), and myself all used the Backwoods Smoker and what a testimony for this great little cooker.

Chicken Halves

BBQ was served at the wedding Saturday and a quick glanze told me I didn't care about even tasting the pulled pork. So I tried the pulled chicken and spooned on what I'm real sure was the Masterpiece sauce and I was surprised but it was pretty darn good. I've been telling Sue we need to cook some whole chickens for pulling and vac sealing for the freezer, so that became my project yesterday. It was kinda fun actually as I have my trailer at the office and of course everything you need to cook with is in the trailer so I cooked right on the side of Walnut Avenue yesterday while about a million cars drove by. The traffic and the noise was not a problem because I cooked on the opposite side of the trailer and it blocked the noise for the most part. I used the Backwoods Chubby and cooked the six halves in 3 half pans in butter. When they were done I sauced them and took them out of the pans and back on the cooker for 30 min. I cooked them at 275 and had very little red near the bone.

Brie Goes To Wedding

We got to take Baby Brie to her first wedding today. Snapped a few pics before leaving.