Well, I guess french fries or chips weren’t gonna cut the mustard to go with some bacon cheeseburgers on the grill for tonight’s dinner. We decided to step it up a notch and make some oven roasted potatoes to go as a side to the burgers. I made the following short video to show how these are made. They tasted absolutely fantastic!
Yesterday’s meal included a batch of baked beans I made from Patio Daddio’s recipe, Baked Beans for a Crowd. I cut the recipe approximately in half since I was only feeding four people and wanted to have some leftovers but not a freezer full. Click on the link to see the original recipe.
My variations of this recipe were minor. I had to use the chili beans rather than the ranch style and I did cook mine on the smoker rather than in the oven. I cooked them at 250-275° for about three hours, stirring occasionally as I went. As for my ‘favorite hot sauce’ as suggested in the recipe, I used some of the Chipotle Tabasco sauce that I had in the cabinet.
I wanted some leftover baked beans to go with some leftover pulled pork to use in an upcoming deep dish pulled pork BBQ deep dish pizza. Stay tuned for that one!
I’m tossing a big Boston Butt on the smoker early in the morning for some pulled pork and I thought it would be nice to make some home made coleslaw to go along with that on some sandwiches tomorrow night. Here’s my recipe for some really excellent sandwich slaw…
I chopped my onions and then used the food processor to shred the carrots and cabbage…
Stir all that up to mix it very well…
Add the rest of the ingredients, mix well, put in airtight container and put it in the refrigerator overnight to marinate.
The tarragon vinegar in this recipe is a rather ‘key’ ingredient to the flavor. If you substitute something else for that, your results may vary :)
As most of you know, I’m a beer snob to some extent. One of my absolute favorite west coast breweries is Rogue Ales. I have yet to try a beer from Rogue that I didn’t like. They have a long list of fantastic brews, and Dead Guy Ale is one of my favorites. I won’t get into the details of their various beers today, but I did want to cook with the Dead Guy! I decided to whip up a twist on a potatoes au gratin recipe with the help of the Dead Guy… Here it is…
Ingredients:
Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350° (I used my Weber Smokey Mountain for this particular cook). Grease a 9×13 baking dish and lay the potato slices in, sprinkling with the minced onion as you go. Combine the rest of the ingredients except the cooked bacon in a bowl and mix thoroughly. Pour the mixture evenly over the top of the casserole. Sprinkle the bacon on top along with some extra grated parmesan cheese. Cover the dish with foil and cook at 350° for about 30 minutes or so and then uncover and cook for another 15-20 minutes until the potatoes start to brown and get bubbly. Let stand for 15 minutes before serving… Makes a great side for some juicy ribeyes…
Here are most of the ingredients I used. I have to admit that I just added the bacon to this recipe and didn’t actually use it today because I was out of bacon.
Some potato slices with the onions sprinkled about…
Sauce poured in evenly and topped with a little extra parmesan cheese… Here is where you would want to put that bacon on… I hate that I didn’t go to the trouble to do that…
And the finished product… When you think these guys are ready, poke them with a fork to make sure the potatoes are cooked all the way through…
Enjoy!
Oh yea… I did serve these with some Ribeyes on the side!
I’m still REALLY happy with the cast iron grates I added to my Weber Kettle.
Well, all I can say after making this recipe from Brother Wampus over at the Brethren forum, I have found a new staple side dish for my BBQ meals. This stuff is farkin’ awesome. No doubt about it… Here’s the skinny…
Wampus’s Award Winning Peach Bourbon Baked Beans
Ingredients:
2 cans (15 oz) of cooked Great Northern beans, drained and rinsed
4 slices of thick sliced bacon, chopped
1 lb maple fatty (smoked ahead of time), crumbled/diced
1 med onion, diced
1/2 bell pepper (I like orange or yellow)
1 can (21 oz) peach pie filling (run knife through can to cut up larger pieces into smaller pieces)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup Famous Dave’s Apricot Bourbon BBQ Sauce
2 TBS worschestershire sauce
1/3 cup bourbon
1 lg clove garlic, minced
2 TBS yellow mustard
1 TBS rub (I like SM Sweet & Spicy)
1 TSP Ground Cayenne Pepper (OPTIONAL)
Directions:
Smoke Fatty (can be smoked well before), crumble or dice
Brown Bacon in skillet (about 1/2 way)
Add onion & pepper – cook until just caramelized
Slowly add bourbon & garlic – simmer until caramelized
Remove from heat
Add remaining ingredients to skillet, mix thoroughly
Put in pan and place in smoker
Smoke for at least 2 hours, stirring occasionally (I smoke for 4 hours)
Here are some photos from this cook…
This is a Jimmy Dean maple sausage log right off the grocery store meat cooler shelf. I smoked it with apple wood to an internal temp of about 170 degrees, wrapped it up and tossed it in the fridge. I did this a day or so before I made the baked beans recipe…
This is the peppers, onions, and bacon getting ready for a little sautee action in the cast iron pan…
And lets not forget a little whiskey… You should have smelled this when I poured it in the pan… Is ‘nosegasm’ a word?
Chopped up that smoked sausage fatty… yummmmm….
Mixed it all up… ready to go on the smoker for several hours…
If you like baked beans, this recipe is a MUST TRY! If you can’t or don’t want to smoke it, you can do it in the oven. If you are smoking at 225-250, I’d recommend four hours…
Good stuff!
Oh yea… here’s a photo of Brother Wampus collecting his winnings for this recipe!
Mother’s Day was my first opportunity to smoke a slab of beef in my new Weber Smokey Mountain. I was excited and nervous at the same time. I was excited to get the chance to use my smoker for the first time, but I was nervous about the potential of screwing up a meal due to my lack of experience in this field. The above photo shows my finished Brisket and it tasted fantastic. Here’s a photo of the uncooked and unprepared brisket that I purchased at Sam’s Club… It’s a 7.2lb flat…
I trimmed the proper amount of fat and added the rub from the “Bare Naked Brisket” recpie in the Big Bob Gibson’s BBQ Book and the results were fantastic. Here’s what the finished brisket looked like on the smoker after 10 hours:
My Weber Smokey Mountain smoker perfomed flawlessly. I loaded it up with a rather heavy load of Kingsford charcoal (the regular kind in the blue and white bag) and got the smoker fired up around 4:45am that morning. At about 5:05am I tossed the brisket on, inserted the temperature probe, and closed up the smoker. I was totally amazed at how well this smoker held its temperature over the course of the day. The temperature fluctuated between 225°F and 235°F for the entire 10 hours of this smoke. My meat’s internal temperature was 46°F when I started and I took it all the way up to 185°F before I took it off the grill. I wrapped the brisket in foil and put it in a pre-heated cooler covered with towels to rest for two hours. The next course of action on the smoker was a couple batches of Smoked Macaroni and Cheese!
This recipe is based on a video I found on YouTube HERE if you would like to have a look at the source of inspiration. I modified the recipe a little and you can find that on my recipes page through the menu bar on the right if you like…
We rounded out the meal with Baked Bean Stuffed Red Peppers, which is also another recipe from the Big Bob Gibson’s BBQ Book. I wasn’t totally stoked with this recipe, but it has potential. I’m going to work on it again in the future and get it up to something that I think is fantastic!
Tonya made a beautiful Red Velvet Cake at my request for dessert to go with this meal, and that was awesome too!
New Toy Update:
My DigiQ DX temperature controller for the Weber Smokey Mountain smoker arrived in the mail this week from The BBQ Guru. I intend to make a video showing how to install and use this device on the Weber Smokey Mountain smoker. Most or all of the videos I have seen on YouTube for this product are using the Big Green Egg, which I can’t afford… yet… ;) I have to work all weekend so I’m not sure when my next cooking experience will be, but hopefully it won’t be long!