Had To Cook Something!

With all the lawn and garden work done midweek I just couldn't go all day Saturday (especially not being out on the golf course) without cooking something. Heck of a buy on sirloin tip roast and that's all it takes to get me started. Some nice roast beef sandwiches and the new zuchinni dish I wanted to try sounded like they might go good together. I dosed off while the zukes were in the cooker and got those a little over done but they are very very good and would be better had I not took my little nap. I scraped out the centers of the zukes with a melon baller and scored the insides to better absorbe the marinade I made up with zest and juice of one large lemon, evoo, minced garlic, mint, salt and pepper. Since I was not going to use meat for the filling in the zukes, I just mixed up the part I scraped out with any marinade that would pour off the zukes, bread crumbs, parmesean, salt and pepper. Before stuffing I coverd the bottom of each one with a strip of swiss cheese. They rested in this mixture in the fridge for 3 hrs or more while I cooked the roast. I used my new granton edge 12 inch slicer and it is one heck of a knife but this meat would be better if I had used the electric slice and shaved it.

Cuban Pork Sandwich & Dino Bones

Did a couple of decent cooks over the weekend, both of them had been a long time coming. One of RumR’s most admired cooks for me anyways was the butts cut up in eights and cooked Cuban style with Mojo. I guess you could say I mojoed these country style ribs and boy did they make some good sammiches. I definitely got the fat rendered out of these ribs but they were still not dry and by the time you applied a bunch of the mojoed mayo both on the bun and drizzled on the meat, you couldn’t ask for better. I gotta get off this bean / corn stuff till the maters start coming in at least and the peppers should be ready about the same time which is real good cause I’m having a hard time getting this hot enough and plan to pour the peppers to it next time. I used a commercial mojo and just cut the ribs into cubes and placed in a gal bag along with the marinade and one of them long – fresh cayenne peppers chopped fine for about 3 hours (would have rather had it in there overnight) then browned in the Jr before going indirect in a covered half pan with more mojo till they were done. I don’t know why I haven’t done the dino bones more often cause I love em. I did these 2-1-1 with a heavy rub or 3 and applied some honey mustard for a glaze at the end and had one goal all along and that was to not overcook em. Set Jr at 300 from start to finish. I’ve lost a setting somewhere along the ling on my little camera as the pics are getting worst all the time. That red cutting board did help none either.

Veggie Stuffed Red Peppers

Chopped tomatoes, niblet corn, cooked rice, minced garlic, diced zukes, Monterey Jack pepper cheese, sliced black olives, huge red peppers, red and black beans, parmesean cheese. In a big mixin bowl mix all that up except the parmesan cheese and spoon this UNCOOKED veggie mixture into the peppers, top with Parmesean. Mix some spagetti sauce with h20 so the peppers are setting down in the liquid, pour a lil bit of that on the peppers, jack up the indirect heat on your smoker to bout 400 and cook to your desired doneness.

Amazing!

The kitchen window has been graced with this potted plant that has looked exactly as you see it here for about 3 months now - it's hard to believe a flower this beautiful can look like this for this long. I don't even know the name of it but it sure is pretty. As for the Cactus flowers, I have always been amazed at their beauty as well and the one word to describe them that first comes to mind is "delicate".

Fillet Mignon & Cokannon

Tired of baked spuds and had to have some kind of taters to go with these little fillets, so after a little poking around recipes I figured I’d try some disaway. Mashed taters, boiled then sautéed cabbage, green onions sliced once long ways then thin sliced, and just fer good measure sprinkled on some caramelized garlic. I liked it a lot so it was a good change from the bakers. I think some folks also call it Champ.

Stephy Style Wangs

Had these wangs last night and boy was they good. I got some of Stephy’s stuff and had to see what wings would be like with it, added some secret cinnamononnon hot stuff to it and you just wouldn’t want to do nutin else to these wings cept eat em. Smoked em on a hanger wing rack at about 275 to 300 for bout 2 hrs rotating em every now and then, then turned on the heat to bout 400 and squirted some of that secret cinnamononnon flavored melted butter on em for just a little while to get that good finish. WOW is all I can say, good good good.

Here's Our New Home

The second weeekend of this month Sue and I made the long trip up to Ohio to pick up our new trailer. Our Carpet Capitol Smokers bbq team now has a 1st class rig to cook contest with from now on.


Our team is made up of Sue and I along with friends Vern & Helen Ashbrook from Maryville, Tn. Here's a pick of us at his home on a Sunday following a Saturday contest last year.

Here's our team logo and we're doing pretty good and improving all along and this past weekend at the Horsin Around BBQ Festival at Brasstown Valley Resort in Young Harris, Ga, we finished 11th overall with a 7th in chicken, 11th in Ribs, 3rd in Pork (200 cash), and 21st in brisket.

Unusual Memorial Meal

Yesterday was not the first Memorial day that have we spent most of our time working around the house and when the work was done we found ourselves doing a rather out of the ordinary meal. It wasn't BBQ, burgers, dogs but it sure was good. The meatloaf got some garlic power, ground pepper, and then some Wow Up Your Cow rub from The Slabs co. Nice smokey flavor and the diced up smoked sausage hiding in the center of the loaf made for a nice touch.

Mother's Day Surf n Turf

Mother’s Day dinner turned out to be a pretty dang good and well rounded dinner for 3 well “rounded” and happy eaters. Mom really enjoyed that oh so tender fillet and lobsta tails. The grilled lemon pound cake with brn sugar, butta, and a sprinkle of ground chipotle pepper and topped with whipped cream was a nice touch. I knew as soon as I got back from Kroger with that fillet at that price I should have got more than one of em. I can’t wait to try the 1 ½ pound ground fillet for a burger. WhoooooooBuddy.

3rd ANNUAL BIG BBQ BASH, LOUDEN CO, TN

Me, Sue, Jose, and Helen finished RESERVE GRAND CHAMPIONS at the 3rd annual Louden Co, Tn Big BBQ Bash contest Saturday with a FIRST PLACE CHICKEN, FIFTH PLACE PORK, & 11TH RIBS. Twenty nine teams competed in this Non Sanctioned event with about five teams regular competitors on the KCBS circuit. As you can see in one of the pictures it was extremely MUDDY so to encourage patrons to visit the vendors there at one point a tractor with a scrape pulled the mud down to one end of the lane and volunteers scattered straw. A few kids (I wanted to) were allowed to take their shoes off and walk in the mud half way up to their knees. With Mother’s Day the next day we planned to leave early and the awards were late so we got the good news from HAPPY JOSE & Helen on the phone about 6 pm and I just couldn’t believe we finished so well even though I knew in my heart all 3 meats we turned in were the best we have ever cooked (THANK YOU Rod Gray & Johnny Trigg) and the pork definitely should have done even better because it was awesome.