Last I heard, the weather was not supposed to be nice: rain forecast for Sunday and Monday, which if true will mess up any number of municipal fireworks plans and backup fireworks plans. Assuming Sunday has some clear sky, we'll be joining in a big family shrimp boil (brother-in-law's from New Orleans), so I'm working now on trying to think of a fitting contribution to the party.

Katie wrote: Assuming Sunday has some clear sky, we'll be joining in a big family shrimp boil (brother-in-law's from New Orleans).

shrimp boil, nice.

I was hearing good weather until Monday, at least down sw of the city.

Right now it looks like: smoked, galbi style beef short ribs, Thai papaya salad, a shrimp & crab steamer, some bbq oysters, a steak, a smoked chicken, and alot of beers, tequila, and bourbon spread over the 3 days.

I will be doing a high-heat 13.4lb packer brisket on my WSM and jerk pork shoudler and a porchetta pork shoulder on my Performer.

I got my shopping done yesterday between Whole Paycheck(papaya, oysters,peppers, mirin) and Ultra Foods(scored some more of the coconut shell charcoal). My dinners:

Saturday:

-Galbi marinated, butterflied, grilled beef short ribs
-Thai style papaya salad
-steamed white rice
-bbq Blue point oysters

Sunday:

-Shrimp boil(shrimp, kilbasa, corn on the cob, red potatoes, garlic heads) - thanks for the idea Katie.
-steamed snow crab legs

Monday:

-Smoked whole chicken(I might make some stuffing in the oven using Uncle Johns hot links & sourdough)
-mashed potatoes and gravy
-corn on the cob
-peas

Happy 4th weekend folks, hoping mine starts @ noon today with lunch in Chinatown.

Not quite sure what I'm making yet. But I have made ABTs twice and having been inspired by the tasty variations jimswside and GWiv have made, I think I might grill up some ABTs with a filling other than my usual bacon wrapped chorizo and pepper jack cheese ABTs.

having about 8 over tomorrow

2 racks KC-style spares on the WSM. One will have GWiv's rub, the other will have a 5-spice rub of my making and perhaps the Low & Slow mustard rub on each half. 2 bbq sauces -- texas style and L&S bourbon
Buffalo bugers on Labriola buns
Grilled corn
Mac & cheese w/ andouille sausage & roasted red peppers
a salad of someone else's making
beer
soda

And we're ready to go to our 4th of July BBQ. On the plate for tonight......

24 ABTs stuffed with a blue crab, cream cheese, cilantro filling
Red wine infused Italian sausage
Tortellini salad with toasted walnuts, broccoli and champagne vinagarette
Homemade guacamole with El Ranchero chips

Happy Independence Day, LTH!!!!

since the 4th is a weekend long celebration, meal # 1 was last night, did some grilled oysters, galbi, and a papaya salad:

galbi on the grill:




finished(darn good):



papaya salad with cucumber, carrot, red pepper, & red onion. Dressing is fish sauce, garlic, red jalapenos, habanero, lime juice & sugar. Really nice:



Shrimp boil in a few hours

Brats, dogs, burgers (enhanced courtesy of The Spice House). Lots of people coming with lots of booze. Happy 4th!

Cheating: about the leave for the Kane County Cougars' stadium for our annual outing. This will involve pork chop sandwiches and maybe a little beer. And a really great fireworks display after the game. Family tradition with my cousin and his wife. I'm wearing my USS Wisconsin cap to the game.

Have spare ribs fermenting in the fridge, using GWiv's rub and prep recipes and my famous BBQ sauce for after the Hinsdale Fourth of July parade (held, inexplicably, on Monday the fifth this year) where I'm doing Marshal duty as I have for the past twelve or fifteen years. It's a wonderdful chance to boss people around!

Potato salad, a bunch of DT's with cream cheese and andouille, baked beans, and cole slaw will finish up the holiday celebration with our son and grandson. (The other son and grandson were supposed to come up from Texas, but that plan got loused up.)

Happy Fourth

Mike

Oh, and God bless the United States of America.

Pulled pork, turkey breast and potatoes

and of course lots of beer.

HI,

Balkan Cucumber-yogurt-dill soup called Tarator, recipe from a Greek living in Toronto.
Koenemann's Sausage's natural casing hot dogs, the navel on this dog was spectacular!
Bulgarian Shopska Salad, which my Dad said I made it where it finally reminded him of similar served in Sofia. We've been quibbling on this issue for a few years.
German Plum Cake, originally planned cherry pie until I found these great plums.
Homemade Lime Soda - bless Bob S for this idea long ago.

Bringing to a friend's home:
- Venison bratwurst
- Russian beet salad

I had originally intended to make Bulgogi, too, but could not bare the thought of grilling this afternoon.

Regards,

Cathy2 wrote:HI,

Balkan Cucumber-yogurt-dill soup called Tarator, recipe from a Greek living in Toronto.
Koenemann's Sausage's natural casing hot dogs, the navel on this dog was spectacular!
Bulgarian Shopska Salad, which my Dad said I made it where it finally reminded him of similar served in Sofia. We've been quibbling on this issue for a few years.
German Plum Cake, originally planned cherry pie until I found these great plums.
Homemade Lime Soda - bless Bob S for this idea long ago.

Bringing to a friend's home:
- Venison bratwurst
- Russian beet salad

I had originally intended to make Bulgogi, too, but could not bare the thought of grilling this afternoon.

Regards,

wow, quite a list of items, kudos to you Cathy.

shrimp boil & steamed crab legs.

I steamed the crab legs because I dont like to boil lobster or crab.







I like crab(alot), shay likes crab(alot):

Have about 40 folks coming over tonight. We're having 35 pounds of Berkshire pork spare ribs on the grill (Becker Lane Farms), a hamburger grind from Pulina Meat Market (chuck/brisket/short rib with extra fat added), veal, curry and turducken brats from Pulina, and pulled pork from Smoque. And banana cream and coconut cream pies from Joe's on Rush/Grand.

4th picnic dinner, which we had on the front lawn instead of the beach: cold fried chicken legs, blue cornmeal polenta with roasted red pepper and blue cheese and fennel-fruit salad with a honey-lemon dressing (shaved fennel, cut apples, cut grapes, blackberries, cut nectarines.) You've already seen the hand pies (the Goya puff pastry discos are NOT up to my standards of hand-pie dough, though I freely admit those standards are somewhat unreasonable.) I love these cheap little bento boxes we got at Target.

Blue cornmeal is NOT the same in polenta as the other varieties - perhaps because it is more coarse. It wasn't bad, though - the texture reminded me a bit of bulgur wheat.

Sparky had wanted to make red, white and blue maki - I thought we could use forbidden rice for the blue, and maybe do a vegetarian daikon/red pepper maki roll, but, surprisingly, I couldn't find the rice at Fresh Farms and was too busy to drive out to H-Mart. There's always next year!

I grilled up a variety of sausages, 7 different types in total, from Gene's, Lincoln Quality Meats, and Paulina. I also grilled up some sweet corn, slathered afterwards with smoked paprika and aleppo pepper compound butter. Guests brought broccoli slaw, cabbage slaw, chocolate chip cookies, and lots of beer.

Sausage, sausage, sausage

From right to left, Gene's Sheboygan brats (2), Paulina's chorizo "brat", Paulina's thuringer, Paulina's duck sausage (2), Gene's kielbasa (2), Gene's Polish. Running perpendicular is Lincoln Quality Meat's cajun andouille.

Grilled corn, smoked paprika & aleppo compound butter


-Dan

edited to indicate sausage quantities

Griled up a skirt steak from the Farmer's Market, and made Kale Salad and Cherry pie from farmer's market produce. Nice

Just back from the Kane County Cougars game. The least interesting game we've seen since we started going some years ago. And, it took 3-1/2 hours; Cougars lost decisively. Very low level of play on both sides. I know it's single-A level, but I remember better in prior years.

Pork chop sandwiches fully lived up to the park's reputation; tried a draft beer called "312" from Goose Island. Beer just as uninspired as the name (local telephone area code - get it? I don't.) Better I should have had a Bud Light.

But... the FIREWORKS! Sensational as usual, and pretty well synchronized with a nice recording of a medley of patriotic songs. Lasted about 30 minutes and we all loved it.

I haven't found out who sponsors the fireworks, whether the park, or a commercial backer. They burned up a H*LL of a lot of fireworks. That was a great show. It wasn't a string of one-bomb-at-a-time; it was more like ten or twelve at a time; the Grand Finale what I would imagine the Normandy invasion looked like.

I made a saffron pastry cream, baked a pie shell, and topped it with farmer's market raspberries.

It was better than anything on Top Chef last week

I made an old favorite from the first Union Square Cafe Cookbook to bring to a pot luck.

Spicy Gingered Asian Slaw:



Also brought some chips we picked up at Julius Meinl in Vienna a few weeks ago:

Got back late yesterday from Indianaplois and grilled some thin cut short ribs and brats. Today, BB ribs are going on the WSM.

dansch wrote:I grilled up a variety of sausages, 7 different types in total, from Gene's, Lincoln Quality Meats, and Paulina. I also grilled up some sweet corn, slathered afterwards with smoked paprika and aleppo pepper compound butter. Guests brought broccoli slaw, cabbage slaw, chocolate chip cookies, and lots of beer.

Sausage, sausage, sausage

From right to left, Gene's Sheboygan brats (2), Paulina's chorizo "brat", Paulina's thuringer, Paulina's duck sausage (2), Gene's kielbasa (2), Gene's Polish. Running perpendicular is Lincoln Quality Meat's cajun andouille.

Grilled corn, smoked paprika & aleppo compound butter


-Dan

edited to indicate sausage quantities

nice dan, really nice.

Baked beans
Curried chicken salad (Ina Garten recipe)
Green beans
Biscuits
Strawberry cobbler

I'm tweaking the cobbler recipe and I have a ton of strawberries so I'm making it again tonight. That's the excuse, anyway.

jimswside wrote:nice dan, really nice.

Thanks Jim. It was fun to try so many different links. I just had some leftovers with my scrambled eggs this morning, and the Andouille from Lincoln Quality Meats is definitely my favorite of the bunch. Coarse definition with good bind, good snap, nice smoke flavor, not quite enough heat for me, but good overall flavor.

Lincoln Quality Meat Market
4661 North Lincoln Avenue
Chicago, IL 60625
(773) 561-4570

I have to thank Mike for putting it on my radar

-Dan

Good lord that all looks great. Once again, I need to head over to Paulina.

I cooked for a lot of people on Saturday night at a friend's farm in Indiana. Thursday night I prepped a Korean style marinade (rice vinegar, brown sugar, soy, lemongrass, onion water, sesame oil, chilies) and plum/ginger/soy sauce for a few beef tenderloins that I rolled out to be about 1/2" thick for quick grilling. Friday night I got to the farm and realized I left the marinade and the sauce

Other than the lemongrass I found everything I needed at a nearby Meijer and cooked it up. I served the tenderloin with rice and the sauce in lettuce leaves and grilled some asparagus to go with it. It turned out really well! Now I just have enough marinade and sauce at home for 40 servings, used them on some beef short rib tonight and now just have to figure out how to use them for the next two weeks







I also smoked a bunch of chicken thighs on cherry wood that turned out well, and cooked some other unmentionables.



Am I the only person who has people come up them at big parties and thrust a case of frozen Wal-Mart patties at them and say "look what I brought! No need to thank me" grrrrrrr............

We had an Asian-inspired 4th bbq with a trio of sate (mango-mint marinated shrimp, lemongrass beef and thai chicken), cucumber salad, noodles with peanut-lime-ginger vinaigrette and maki. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures of the sate. David Hammond's gulf oil spill maki at jimswside's bbq inspired a recent run of maki-making for me. I found some green 'wasabi' covered sesame seeds at Tai Nam to add a little color.

Cucumber salad, peanut sauce, noodles with peanut-lime-ginger vinaigrette:



Maki (vegetarian maki with mint, mango, avocado, cucumber and fresno chiles pictured--also had some spicy tuna and avocado)