French Dip Sandwich

Knorr French Onion Soup and a nice roast beef sandwich makes me smile. No dipping here either, submerged the whole sandwich in the soup and served. And you don't really have to have enough sandwiches to soak up all your soup, just have a bowl with the sandwich.

Birthday Surf n Turf

Mom kinda likes steak and shrimp and these NY Strips were real good and all turned out great. She did kinda over do it a bit on the shrimp consummin though - guess it had been a while since she had grilled shrimp. Just turned 79 years young so guess she was entitled to ever how many shrimps she wanted.

Really Bad Chicken Deal

Here's one for the record books. You know how hard it is to trim thighs for competition especially if your scraping the fat off the skin on 16 of em. Last week I went to the local meat counter that acts like an old style meat market but it really ain't to get my thighs for the contest and they didn't have any but had plenty of leg quarters. The gal said "I can cut you some if you want" and I said "sure, I'll be back in a minute". She had all of em cut in about 3 min and they looked perfect and fresh as could be. Problem was she left the rib cage partly on making them look just the right size but way too small by the time you removed it. I went ahead and did my best to trim and scrape and etc only to wind up with quail thighs, which I vac sealed and was thinking about using but decided to get some more cuz them wuz too small. I FORGOT ABOUT HAVING EM IN THE FRIDGE TILL TODAY AND THEY WERE TOO OLD AND HAD TO THROW EM OUT. SUKS BIG TIME. Just because some one say's they are a butcher does not mean they really are is what I say.

Liberty Tree Contest - Dalton, Ga

Our contest started I guess you could say with my having our trailer pulling into Selvidge St at 5pm friday. I unloaded the two little cookers and set the trailer up but went back home instead of sleeping in the trailer since we were about 5 min away. Now that last part sounds real good doesn't it? Not so - I think between the two of us we made about 7 extra trips back to get things that we would have never left out when we loaded up if we were going to be away from home. Also we were a bit more exhausted than normal because we cleaned and organized everything back into the trailer before pulling out which took a good two hours of serious cleaning and work. Feeling kinda like host since we were from Dalton we wanted to cook a little something for our friends on the bbq trail, so we made a Bread-Sausage-Cheese Breakfast Casserole with Eggs on top. I mixed up the casserole at home and took a carton on eggs with me to the cooking site and cooked it there on one of my smokers. This casserole is about the best breakfast casserole you'll ever hope to find and we'll probably do it again for the day after Christmas or the day after New Years or both. It was made extra special by having some of my good friend Vern's home made Smoked Sausage for the meat. We also went home to cook our Brunswick Stew for the Auxiliary category in the contest and managed to win it. We had a bad cook overall with some bad luck on our primary cooker giving us problems through the night that caused us to bomb out in ribs which in turn gave us a bad overall finish. Any way like a friend of mine says, it was a good time, good friends, and good food, so I say that's good enough for me.

Big BBQ Bash

"it was a festive time for sure" - Most contest are centered around a festival of some sort for the community and this one just seemed to be special in a way that I can only describe as a "one on one personal type thing that just kept getting more so as neighbor got to know neighbor". I know all contest are that way but since this one was as small as it was I think it was more so. Big John Molloy and his boys took the Grand Championship with some excellent Pulled Pork, Ribs, and Chicken and I know because we all tasted each others final product after each turn in and that was really fun and I learned that all 3 were very good. My friend Vern was close behind with 3rd Overall and a first in Ribs. John was our neigbor on one side and the other guy you see was the neigbor on the other side and he my friends treated everyone to some of the most awesome 2 in T-Bone you ever had in your life.

Vern's Homemade Smoked Sausage for the Anything But entry. I'm not just saying this and I told him the same thing "this is the best Smoked Sausage I every tasted bar none.



Me and Verns "Better half's"



Our neighbors that cooked that awesome T-Bone just right.



John Molloy, the Grand Champion and very happy camper.

Time For A Hot Dog

I love a good hot dog and decided to make a Hot Dog Plate like they do at the Cremo Drive In. The Cremo has been in business here since I was little, probably over 50 years. Mr Poag became a large property owner and a millionaire opening new ones all over two or three counties and selling them or leasing them to folks that wanted to get into the restaurant business. When you order your Hot Dog or Hamburger as a Plate you get Fries and Slaw with it. I never get the Plates but since we're just playing with our food here, I thought it would be fun to have em that way just once in honor of Mr Poag.

Ham Dumplings

Still enjoying the benefits of last weekends freezer diving. These HAM DUMPLINGS could make Chicken Dumplings obsolete.

Bologna & Bacon Sandwich

A quick google for Bologna & Bacon Sandwich shows a couple of breakfast sandwiches with egg and that's it! I guess this is about as original as I get and to me it was a no brainer. If you think about that lucious creamy texture of N. Ga. Round Steak combined with that crispy fried bacon piled high along with all your favorite sandwich fixens, you'll see what I mean. But if your fortunate enough to own a smoker / grill you can kick it up a whole bunch of notches (and no I have not watched Emeril or the Food Network for several years now). This Bologna was slathered in Emerils Mellow Yellow Mustard though (I love this product) and coated with Cajun Rub then smoked with Pecan wood in my Traeger Pellet Smoker / Grill. Just Look!  Also consider deep frying the bolo just before making your sandwich.  Good stuff.

Freezer Diving Done Right

First thing you have to understand about FREEZER DIVING is that the stuff you put in the freezer had to have been good to start with for it to be good on your second go around. I started Saturday morning by throwing some flap meat off the spare ribs and a ham bone in a big pot on a slow simmer for some soup Sunday. That took a few hours and another few to cool enough to pick the meat off that ham bone, then I strained the broth and let it cool enough to slide in the fridge till Sunday to get that fat off the top. It still seemed like the broth would be too rich so didn't use it all. Onions, garlic, carrot, celery, roasted and peeled hatch green chili peppers, chayote squash, pasta, and cilantro and lemon to serve with crusty bread. Chayote squash is one of my favorite things to go into a pot of soup, I highly recommend giving it a try if you have never had it before. Steak can be a little boring but not this time for me because it was Ribeye and a couple little Lamb Chops, Lamb and Beef, what could be better - life is good. I had never taken the time to par boiled the little new potatoes first before roasting and from now own that little step will not be skipped. Those lil suckers were getting crisp before they were brown - a few dried herbs, one being chives and these were dang near as good as the meat. Sunday morning breakfast was a couple of BONELESS PORK CHOPS that were frozen in a tupper ware container along with the cabbage and onions they were smothered with, Sue just took the meat out and scrapped off the cabbage and heated those in a skillet and made gravy with them still in the skillet and we served that over hard toast with hot pickled eggs and some of those leftover taters. We still got some more freezer diving to do but if it all turns out this good I can't complain.

Smoked Then Fried Ribs

Well not exactly fried but rather simmered real low n slo in enough lard to cover. It's a wonderful way to do pork. We just did ribs tips like these the traditional way a couple of weeks ago and these were our favorite by a good margine.