Tacos Al Pastor

Well today was a very COLD winters day and i really wanted to do somthing on the BGE. I took out a pork shoulder but we really did not want the usual pulled pig sandwhich or plate. Hmm what to do what to do. Kelly said that she has a real desire for some mexican so I got to thinking, what about Tacos Al Pastor? Good enough.




Also today I am trying Byrons Butt Rub. It smells wonderful and taste great. I LOVE IT. So I woke up this moring and got the fire going. Now keep in mind that the air temperature outside was 7 degrees above zero not to mention the below zero wind chill. However it is going to be a clear day and NOTHING, i repeat NOTHING smells better than a hickory fire buringin on a cold cold day. In fact as I type this I have a roaring fire in the fireplace.

The Pig Shoulder after about 1 hour on the BGE

Shoulder almost done. 10 hours of goodness

The Pig off the bone

And the final product.... Taco Al Pastor... MY VERSION

NEW YEARS PRIME RIB

Happy New Year to everyone. Ok so yeah I know it is January 2nd but my wife was not feeling great yesterday so I decided to make her the promised prime rib on the 2nd when she had more energy and appetite.

She went wild for the injection that i used on the fried turkey the other day so we decided to try injecting some marinade in the prime rib. I am also using some of the BGE Green Pecan Rub. I really like the Rub, it has a great flavor that really compliments most anything we have tried it on so far. I have to say that I was not all that impressed with the taste of the final product, and I think it is because we used a roasted garlic creole butter injection. THis gave the meat a slightly sweet taste which i DO NOT LIKE for beef. Oh well wont make that mistake again. As for future cooking sessions, I am researching several recipes from the cookbooks that I got over Christmas. At any rate enjoy my latest grill session.... THE FIRST OF 2010.

My Cookbook Fetish

It all began quite innocently while we lived in michigan and were holed up in the house due to the 3 feet of new snow on the ground and I discoveredthat you could buy cookbooks on ebay, specifically William Sonoma cookbooks and other such items on this really cool sight called ebay, well being homebound during the DEAD of a Michigan winter led me to start what has become a massive collection of cookbooks.

Now that my passions have turned to the fine art of BBQ, Smoking and Grilling I took it upon myself to spend some of the money that I recieved (thanks Mom and Dad) this year for Christmas and purchased a new round of cookbooks, this time however i got them new and not previously owned. I also received 3 cookbooks from Kelly as a christmas present from her.

I can hardly wait to try out some of the legiondary recipes in the coming weeks. So here are my latest additions to my collection. I think we are up to about 200 cookbooks in our kitchen library.

Some of the new Sauces and Rubs that I received over the holidays

So I decided to treat myself this year to a few mail-order sauces and rubs.


RUDYS


Rudys is a great texas bbq JOINT in texas that kelly and I found when we lived in the Dallas area a few years ago. Rudys is the kind of old meat market that you go and order the meat you want by weight. I had been craving some of their que ever since we left. THey have a great rub that has a wonderful spice to it. I ordered several bottles of their regular rub and 2 bottles of their turkey rub which is great for all poultry. THey also carry two forms of their sauce or sause as they call it. THe first is the sissy sause, which despite its name still has some kick to it and the regular sause. Both are a great spicy tomato based that goes great with chicken, pork and beef.





Mississippi State University


So in case you did not know I am also a graduate of Mississippi State University. GO BULLDOGS ! Mississippi State has a wonderful dairy program. Every year we order some of their award winning cheese. THis year we ordered the usual Edam and Jalepeno Chedder but in addition to the normal order of cheese we noticed last spring that MSU is now carrying a supply of BBQ sauce and Spice rubs. So I am giving them a try.



The Rubs are:
Steak Rub
Lemon Pepper
BBQ
Cajun

The sauces are:
Carolina BBQ
Steak sauce
and Regular BBG (This bottle arrived broken)



I am planning on doing some cooking soon and will let you know as soon as I have a report .

LET IT BE DONE - Goodbye 2009 HELLO 2010

So I know it has been quite some time since I bothered to sit down and write anything for this blog. Beleive it or not the 4th quarter of any year is a very very busy time for the business that I am in. I am a sales manager in the employee benefits consulting field, so I have been overwhelmed with work and January 1 effective dates. I am a bit burned out on work at the moment and I am looking very much forward to getting back to regular cooking.

So what did "Santa" bring me that I will be blogging about? Christmas was really good in this home. THe BBQ Gods came and left me all kinds of good things and I will soon be posting pictures of all the great resources and tools (and food items) that I received over the past several weeks. Some of what you will be seeing and hearing about include:

New BBQ tools from William Sonoma
Sausage from Kreuz Market in Lockhart TX
New two probe thermomitor
MANY great new cookbooks, several specifically for BBQ and grilling
Indoor Turkey Fryer

I plan for 2010 to be a great year for my pit.

I am also planing several new projects and will be updating you as I complete them.

GOD Bless, Good Luck and have a very Happy and Prosperous Smoke FIlled new Year

Loaf Pan Chicken

Today was a very special day for my family. We are in the middle of IVF and we had our embryonic transfer today. We had a very successful transfer day and I decided we should do somthing to celebrate, so I decided to do what I do best..... COOK on my Big Green Egg.

Loaf Pan Chicken

Chris Lilly who is the pitt master at one of my favorite local BBQ Joints (Big Bob Gibsons in Decatur AL) has a new cookbook out which i strongly recomend to every one. Bob Gibson was the man that invented White BBQ sauce back in the 1920s. One of the recipes in his cookbook is a recipe for loaf pan chicken. Since the dip and flip chicken turned out so awesome I thought I would give this one a try.

Ingredients

• 1 Roasting Chicken
• 2 cups apple sauce (I used my wifes homeade apple sauce)
• bbq rub
• a loaf pan

Process

• Rinse chicken well
• seperate skin from chicken and spoon some of the apple sauce between skin and breast meat
• apply rest of apple sauce all over bird, really slather it on good
• cover the entire chicken in your favorite bbq rub. I used some fromt he smokin guitar player
• stuff bird into a loaf pan (i put the bird breast side down)

Grilling

using hardwood charcoal and hickory and oak chips get your smoker (or in my case BGE) up to temperature on indirect heat. I got the egg up to about 275 and got it smoking. I put the bird on for about 1 hour. I turned the bird right side up at 100 degrees internal temperature. I took the bird off the grill at 170 and let rest a few minutes before carving.

Result

This turned out really great. Chris Lilly certainly knows his stuff.... Kelly (my wife) now likes this even better than the dip and flip. I will definately try this again !

Cheese Paradise

Count them..... 500 different types of wonderful Amish made Cheese. My wifes family is from Medina County Ohio, which is very close to one of the largest Amish communities in the world. Every trip we make up there we always pack an extra cooler so we can bring back some of the wonderful Ohio Amish cheese. I will have a blast cooking with the selections from this years trip.

From this years trip we picked up severl vairiations of chedder - even raw milk chedder, farmers cheese, lacy and baby swiss (the creamery that invented the baby swiss is just up the road) I strongly reccomend visiting if you ever have the time.... Heinies cheese chalet in Berlin, OH