that is a great looking pit. lake looks goog to. nice pics

I made some LBRs and both kinds of BLCs* for the game today. They turned out great.

Shrimp Before Pureeing


More Ingredients


The LBRs are jalapenos stuffed with a cream cheese center surrounded by a mixture of Italian sausage, shrimp, mushroom, garlic & ginger.

LBR Pre-Smoking


The BLCs were large mushrooms stuffed with a mixture of shrimp, scallions, serrano peppers, sesame oil, garlic and ginger. Of course, I also made the more traditional ones that included some Italian sausage in the mixture as well.

LBRs & BLCs Ready for the Smoker


An hour or so later, and voilà

Lichtenstein Bottle Rocket


Balinese Love Cups


LBRs = Lichtenstein Bottle Rockets
BLCs - Balinese Love Cups

really nice looking snacks there Steve, I also like the names you came up with, and appreciate that you kept the names clean, an unoffensive.

Inspired by jimswside's smoked loaf I tried one of my own last week. I used a meatloaf blend of beef, pork, veal and a mix of sauteed carrots, peppers, celery, garlic and onions. Threw that in with some Tony Chachere's seasoning and a 1/3 cup of Cajun steak sauce and layered the top with some lightly cooked bacon.


before

Smoked it with hickory and served it with ABT mashed potatoes which was just creamed cheese mashed potatoes with chopped smoked jalapenos and bacon. It came out very tasty with a nice smoke ring but since it gets dark at 430 now I didn't get any good pics of a prepared plate.


after

that meatloaf looks awesome, I gotta do another one soon.

my supper( ABT's, Spares, Links, Macaroni salad, pickle slices, and jalapenos:

Jim, you eat too damn well. In my dreams I would eat like that everyday.

Habibi wrote:Jim, you eat too damn well. In my dreams I would eat like that everyday.

I appreciate that, I love to cook, eat, and share.

Jim, I too have appreciated your passion and flair for cooking. Have you had any formal training? What got you started on your creative cookery quest?

razbry wrote:Jim, I too have appreciated your passion and flair for cooking. Have you had any formal training? What got you started on your creative cookery quest?

thanks razbry,

I was a line cook(pretty much every position on the line at various places, hotel, restaurant, greasy spoon, banquet hall, etc)) for about 12 years when I was younger, and have always loved cooking. Picked up a little bit from everywhere I worked. I have trained myself(with some help and advise from folks on this board and elesewhere) on the smoking food end.

I smoked some scotch eggs over the weekend:





The verdict: needs some tweaking, though they were great as a cold snack the next day.

However my habanero pickled smoked eggs have been quite a success

nice jim,

I liked the ones I did a while back, I need to try another batch sooner rather than later.

just some basic wings for a late supper:

jimswside wrote:just some basic wings for a late supper:

Wing look tasty. I see a little sausage snuck in there, is that the Ream's polish?

Sunday spare ribs on Big Green Egg



Buttermilk brine leg quarters rounded out spare ribs.



Thin coat of sauce today, not sure why, simply felt 'saucy'

G Wiv wrote:

jimswside wrote:just some basic wings for a late supper:

Wing look tasty. I see a little sausage snuck in there, is that the Ream's polish?

yes, those Reams polish are making me rethink what I had thought in the past was a good polish sausage. just great. They also worked really well in the gumbo I did on Sunday.

nice looking spares and chicken you did.

Gary,

Those spares and chicken look great! Can't wait to check out one of those Big Green Eggs! How hot were you running on it?

Danny

jhawk1 wrote:Those spares and chicken look great! Can't wait to check out one of those Big Green Eggs! How hot were you running on it?

Big Green Egg was running around 260-270 at the surprisingly accurate* lid mounted gauge.

Once you get the hang of the BGE is it very economical charcoal wise. I fired it up around 1:30pm with approx 8-lbs of lump and it was still holding a steady 260 at 11pm, good for another few hours at least.

*I checked accuracy with an oven thermometer set on the cooking grate

Enjoy,
Gary

some smoked turkey thighs that went into my smoked turkey and sausage gumbo:

Smoking the almost 6# buttermilk brined bone in turkey breast for t-giving tomorrow(hickory, lump, apple).

Also going to smoke some pork on Friday, either fresh BB ribs which are on sale @ Brookhaven for $2.99/lb, or a small 5-6# bone in butt if Sages has one available.

Got my mint creek farms turkey yesterday, but that is going to roast in the oven traditional style. Got a second turkey from TJ's and that is going on the smoker. 14#'s or so. I going to do a cajun brine and smoke over cherry and apple. Pics to follow. I love holidays devoted to food and especially like when the smoker is involved.

buttermilk brined breast.





(2) nice slabs of BB's for tomorrow

Made a double batch of Dragon Turds for the two thanksgivings we go to every year. Few were eaten at the first, many at the second, where the heat is more accepted (and it's a bigger party).

Only change from the basic recipe is dried cranberries for the dates. They taste quite nice in the heat and smoke.
They spent a mere hour on the smoker (used sand instead of water because of the outside temp and need to do this quickly) -- a few on the bottom rack had somewhat flabby bacon, but all had 160F+ sausage in them. Quite nice, but the vagaries of jalapenos made some a pleasant heat and some deadly. A little longer cook would have softened the peppers more too.

Note: If you're loading up a WSM with two racks of DTs, either don't use sand, or only fill it part way and leave a drip pan area, as the chorizo and bacon will render a lot of fat. With me it was running over the edge and flaring up something nasty -- probably why they cooked up in only an hour.

i cooked (smoked) yesterday pork crown, 3 rib beef ,12 lbs bird & 3 racks of baby backs. on the klose it all turned out great.

philw wrote:i cooked (smoked) yesterday pork crown, 3 rib beef ,12 lbs bird & 3 racks of baby backs. on the klose it all turned out great.

sounds good, and like you had quite a feast there Phil.

Today Im back to pork, doing 2 slabs of BB's, & some homemade slaw.

Using some of the leftover smoked turkey for some smoked turkey nachos for the football games

taken some of my left overs to high school football championship tailgate todayin champaign,il.

knocked it out of the park today imho, my rub has been a work in progress, and I think I am close to where I want to be(more ribs for testing will be necessary I think).






4.5 hours at 230 - 250. glazed with sauce while they were resting after being pulled off the smoker(I used lump, a chunk of hickory, some apple, and cherry.

my assistant even liked em:

looks great jim, good job

philw wrote:looks great jim, good job

thanks phil, gonna have a couple cold from the fridge in a few minutes.

looks like you had some good games down in Champagne yesterday, Im sure your bbq was a hit as well.

JoelF wrote:Note: If you're loading up a WSM with two racks of DTs, either don't use sand, or only fill it part way and leave a drip pan area, as the chorizo and bacon will render a lot of fat. With me it was running over the edge and flaring up something nasty -- probably why they cooked up in only an hour.

Joel,

My typical sand WSM technique is a mix of sand and water. I will the waterpan 3/4s full of sand, cover sand with foil, and fill the remainder with water. You get heat retention from the sand while the foil/water cover cuts down on dripping fat burning and creating off flavors in the meat, particularly in the initial stages of the cook.

Enjoy,
Gary