Busy Weekend in the Kitchen

It was a busy weekend in the kitchen at our house this past weekend.  Uploaded the photos, and will blog over the course of this week.  Here is a preview of what’s to come:

Ribs, Pastrami, and Walnut Raisin Bread

Smoking my first Pork Shoulder

Tonite is the first time I’ll be smoking a pork shoulder (butt) and only the second time the Bradley Smoker has been fired up.  Here is the step by step of what I did… this is my first time.  Might be tough tonite, as the low temperature here in MN is going to be just below zero.  A post on the Bradley Smoker forums really gave me a great high level overview of what to do. There are other posts in more detail, but I used this to get going.

I will update this post over the course of the smoke (approx 18 hours)

• Purchased two Pork Shoulders -total of 14 lbs from Village Meats in Wayzata, Mn.

• 7 PM – Place the meat on a cookie sheet, cover with your favorite rub. Tonight I’m using Wee Willy’s Porkie Pal, let it rest and warm up from fridge temp. for an hour or so

• Turn on the Bradley Smoker on High, place the trays, water bowl (3/4 full with hot water) and let it warm up for 30-45 minutes.

• It’s 9PM – Place the pork in on the bottom two racks, smallest one on top. Insert a remote digital thermometer to monitor the internal temperature (IT) – We are shooting for 190-205 final temperature - prob. ~18 hours from now.  I’m using Apple Wood bisquettes and will give 4 hours of smoke.  The vent on top is about 25% open.

• Check the temp. of the smoker at about 10, then time for some sleep, back at 1. At 1AM (after 4 hours of smoke), check the meat, and refill the water bowl.  Notice the smoke coming out the top and the temp. reading of 117.

• UPDATE: 7:30 AM – The Bradley has been on all night long, suffering thru sub zero tempratures… but things are looking on track. The smaller shoulder has reached 154 degrees.  Time to swap the shelves and update the post.  Looking good, eh?

• UPDATE: 4PM – The shoulders are off. One came off a couple hours earlier than the other prob. due to the size difference and the way they were rotated in ths smoker. Here is the final meat (see the bone sticking out?) and initial pull of the meat. Gotta say it looks fantastic.  The dark spots are the bark (and man is that packed with flavor).

• The final result… Pulled pork sandwich (carolina style – with coleslaw on top) and cornbread. It was a crowd pleaser!

Couple of last notes… The Ryan family was over for dinner, and we had my favorite BBQ Sauce – Cowtown BBQ Sauce – the retail version of the sauce from Okalhoma Joe’s in Kansas City and my new favorite Cornbread from Trader Joe’s!  I won’t mention the rack of ribs that I fogot about in the smoker…

Atomic Buffalo Turds

Atomic Buffalo Turds are a tasty appetizer to go with any BBQ meal.  I was introduced to this tasty little treat, known as ABTs, at The BBQ Shack in Paola Kansas and have craved them ever since. The BBQ Shack was a very small BBQ desitnation about an hours drive outside of Kansas City, MO that was well worth the drive.  The (only) waitress was very friendly and enoucraged the group to try the ABT’s. A round of ABT’s it was, and there were no regrets (other than we did not know where we could get ABT’s at home in Minnesota.

ABT’s are very simple… A cored Jalepeno, stuffed with cream cheese and smoked chicken (or other meat), wrapped in bacon and then smoked. They were better than expected, and not overly spicy; A sure crowd pleaser.

I’ll be following this recipe for ABT’s specifically in my new Bradley BTIS1 Original Smoker as soon as I can. I did make a point to pick up a King Kooker Jalapeno Rack to make the whole thing a bit more organized.

Here is the recipe in full (http://www.susanminor.org/forums/showthread.php?t=25)

ABT=Atomic Buffalo Turd

These little treats will satisfy almost anyone and bring most back begging for more. The prep time is where the real work is but worth every minute. I like to use left over brisket and Boston butt but you can substitute cocktail wennies, cooked shrimp, left over rib meat, smoked chicken or just about anything you can think of.

Ingredients:

• 6 medium to large jalapenos (straighter the better)
• 1 8 oz. block cream cheese softened
• 1 pack uncooked thin sliced bacon
• 1/4 lb. cooked meat
• 1 Tbsp. of you favorite rub
• toothpicks

Directions:

1. Preheat Bradley smoker to high.
2. Remove stem from peppers and slice each pepper length-ways.
3. Clean out all seeds and white membrane. I highly recommend wearing some type of gloves during this process. The pepper juice can cause adverse side effects. Set peppers aside.
4. Take the cooked meat product and place it in a food processor along with 1/2 of the rub. Chop until meat is ground and mixed but not by any means a paste.
5. Fill each pepper half with meat. Set aside.
6. Take softened cream cheese and pinch off a piece about the size of the pepper.
7. Mold the cream cheese to form the opposite side of the pepper on top of the meat. Repeat for all peppers. Due to the complete mess this will make you may use a pastry bag with a open tip or a plastic bag with a corner cut out to squeeze out the cream cheese onto the peppers. When all peppers are complete sprinkle the remaining rub over the top of the cream cheese.
8. Take one piece of raw bacon and completely wrap the pepper with the bacon. Using thin bacon is important because it will stretch to cover the pepper best.
9. Use a toothpick to secure the bacon.
10. Once all peppers are ready move them to a Bradley rack and place them in the preheated smoker on the second rack down. Apply your favorite smoke until the bacon is fully cooked and the peppers are soft. This usually takes 1 1/2-2 1/2 hrs depending if you are cooking other food items.
11. I like to cook them on high if possible so the bacon will be crisper. Remove when done and serve hot.

First Post… its still Christmas!

Today has been a big day for the new site finished the setup and install of my the Rackspace Cloud Server, WordPress (Blog) Software AND… UPS/FedEX paid a visit!

My brand new Bradley BTIS1 Original Fully Automatic 4-Rack Outdoor Food Smoker arrived, as did my King Kooker 36JR Stainless-Steel 36-Hole Jalapeno Rack with Corer and lastly the critical Bradley 5 Flavor Variety, 60-Pack (to burn to generate smoke in the smoker). I cant wait to get it fired up for the first time. First things first – its needs to be seasoned. Basically burn some of the wood discs to get the ‘new machine/plastic’ smell out.

The Bradley smoker arrived packaged very well (First Photo)

Here are all the parts (Second Photo)

Here is the finished product – an extremely simple and fast (about 1 minute) assembly  (Last Phot0)

It should get setup for its first smoke soon to break it in. First things queued up for real smokes are Pork Shoulder (can’t go wrong) and then probably a Brisket.