Mother's Day Dinner

Carla is a little under the weather but we were still able to have a very nice Mother's Day. She puttered in the front yard planting things. Our front yard always looks so nice thanks to her gardening. I have a theory that the entire world can be divided into two camps; those who call it gardening and those you call it yardwork. Carla is a gardener; opposites attract.

Andrew and Henriët FaceTimed with us this afternoon and shared their final pick of name for Baba; sorry, you'll have to wait until he's born late May / early June before we can share. Jeff and Sarah dropped by with a beautiful flower in a coffee mug; they came in time to FaceTime with Andrew and Henriët as well.

I have been totally caught up in "The Martian" by Andy Weir. On my own I would have skipped dinner in favor of finishing the book (book report coming soon). But I bought some beautiful salmon, baby potatoes and asparagus (yes, I actually cooked asparagus!).

I bought a plancha for my grill last month and have been waiting through the spring rain for a chance to use it. Plancha is a fancy word for cast iron griddle; I have an enameled one that fits in the grill by removing one of the grate sections. Cooking raw potatoes would take a lot longer than the 20 minutes for the salmon so I hunted for a recipe and found one on Cook's Illustrated.  I made my own garlic-rosemary olive oil by mixing 9 cloves of garlic, 1 teaspoon of minced rosemary and some salt in 4 tablespoons of olive oil. I sautéd the mixture for a few minutes; don't let the heat get too hot or you'll burn the garlic (like I did). No problem it still tasted great.

Garlic-rosemary olive oil prep

The key is to partially pre-cook the potatoes. I scrubbed, let them dry, cut them in half and poked holes in the skin side. Then I brushed on a tablespoon of the oil and liberally sprinkled salt on them. While the salmon started I microwaved them for 8 minutes on high.

Potatoes after the microwave.

I picked up a beautiful piece of salmon at the market. In October 2011 I made this cedar planked salmon with dijon mustard and brown sugar; Carla requested a redo for her special dinner. I originally got the  Bobby Flay recipe from Food Network; my version can be found here. The recipe calls for taking the skin off the bottom; I totally butchered the job. I've plank-smoked salmon before without removing the skin; next time the skin stays on. Rinse with cold water, dry off, place on a cedar plank that has soaked in water a few hours, sprinkle with salt and pepper, smear with dijon mustard and sprinkle brown sugar on top of it all. Then into the grill until it reaches about 135°F.  I've taken salmon off at 120°, but you are on your own. 

Salmon prepped for salt, pepper, mustard, and brown sugar.

Believe it or not I actually cooked asparagus!. Toss in a bit of olive oil and salt and pepper and onto the grill. 

Asparagus believe it or not

I started the salmon, then immediately put the spuds in the microwave; when they came out 8 minutes later, I tossed with a bit more oil and threw on the plancha, then added the asparagus

 I don't normally need all the space on my humongus grill. But it really comes in handy on a day like this.

Everything on the grill

 The asparagus was a bit large so took a bit more time cooking than the other items.

Ready to serve

Dinner is served.

A nice dinner.

I bought a tripod and ball-head for my camera Friday and used it for these pictures. My angle was way too high, but I was able to shoot at slow shutter speeds without blurring the pictures. I'll work on my camera angles as I continue to use it.

Family Barbecue - June 30, 2013

Andrew and Henriët were coming out west (how odd that sounds) for a wedding in Couer d'Alene over the 4th of July. Anytime they come home we try to get a party organized; I finally feel confident enough in my brisket to share with a group and this would be the best chance of the summer.

They were due to arrive at 6:00 on Friday evening June 28; my favorite butcher, Gartner's Meats, is close to the airport, about an hour from home. It seemed like a perfect plan; pick up the meat, then the kids and home in one trip. As the poet Robert Burns observed in his poem "To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough"

The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley,

or

The best laid schemes of mice and menGo often awry 

(and people told me my English Literature major was a waste).

 Andrew called me from the airport to tell me the plane would be a few hours late. Since Gartner's closes at 5:00 it meant I'd need to make two trips. No big deal; I have Fridays off now that I'm semi-retired and it was a nice warm day for a drive to the DES (Dreaded East Side). Oh, except it was Friday before a holiday weekend and there was road construction on one of the freeways resulting in backed up freeways all over town. A 45 minute drive out to Gartner's took two hours; followed by another hour back. And I had that trip to look forward to later that night when Henriët and Andrew arrived at 9:30. Oh well, it was an inconvenience but didn't rise to the level of  "grief and pain" Burns referred to. And the results of the two trips were well worth it; kids at home and good barbecue.

I rubbed the brisket with Meathead's Big Bad Beef Rub. My recipe showing ingredients and measurementgs is here.

Rub ingredients

It went on the smoker at 8:35 on Saturday night. A few laters I went out to check on it.

Brisket on the smoker for a few hours

Andrew caught me in action.

It finished in about 12 hours - much faster than I planned for. I separated the point from the flat, cut the point into chucks, dusted with more rub and put it back on the grill for an two and a half hours (one hour would have bee great).

Burnt ends. The real treat of brisket. Almost as good as bacon

I wrapped the flat in foil, and put in a Coleman cooler wrapped in towels where it stayed toasty warm for 4 hours.

The flat cut across the grain. Decent smoke ring.

Dinner is served. It tasted better than it looks here.

I used the Cook's Illustrated barbecue sauce recipe which is my go-to. Simply the best barbecue sauce I've had. I'm not bragging; credit goes to Cook's Illustrated, not me. 

Barbecue sauce ingredients

I smoked this on a Mak 2 Star Grill. If you'd like to see the details of the cook, check here. (10/5 corrected the link). 

Later in the afternoon the family arrived bringing side dishes and what-not. 

Andrew, Linda, and Sarah

It was a hot day so we jammed one table right next to the house to get some shade.

Sarah, Andrew, and Henriët. We are blessed to have these two wonderful women in our family.

 This picture captures a very rare image of Jeff in the wild.

Starr, Charlie, Jeff, and Jim

Mak 2 Star Retrofit Temp Test

I know, I know, I'm supposed to be working on organizing my posting from our trip to South Africa. I got a little distracted today. I got a retro fit for my Mak 2 Star. It has an improved heat diffuser and new flame zone cover. I've heard that the temp runs a little higher with the change so I ran a test, putting probes on the upper and lower racks while running it at different temps. Here is a snap shot of my log.

(I'm mostly posting this in order to get the picture posted on pelletsmoking.com)

Beef Brisket

We will have a lot of out-of-town guests in August when we celebrate Henriët and Andrew's wedding. We figured we'd host a barbecue night one evening, so everyone could have some time together. It will be very special for Carla and me to host this. It reminds us of when we got married down in the Bay Area in 1976. Every morning for a week we'd wake up to another group of college friends who showed up over night. Carla's folks (Glenn and Tommie) were fantastic. Tommie was a great cook and was in her element; she cooked breakfast, lunch, and dinner non stop. Glenn had us all busy working on the last minute arrangements in the back yard where the reception was going to be. We put up mud walls and erected a deck in a week.

So, anyway, hosting this barbecue will be a memory of that time. Having a barbecue is a no-brainer; I should be able to cook plenty of food on my smoker. Pulled pork is my "go to" but I thought it would be fun to have a combination of pork and brisket. I made a brisket last summer and wanted to try again.

Brisket can be great or terrible and not too much in between. I think the biggest key to success is the quality of the meat. So, after our latest Burger Project lunch we headed over to Gartner's Meats where I picked up a 14+ pound brisket. If you live in the Portland area and aren't a vegetarian, you should go to Gartner's. It's about 20 miles from my house but well worth the trip.

Gartner's Meat's. Uncrowded for a Saturday

I made up a batch of Meathead's Big Bad Beef Rub.

Pepper, salt, onion powder, chili powder, dried mustard, sugar, garlic powder, cayenne pepper

The brisket may have started at over 14 pounds, but there is a LOT of fat to trim from a full packer brisket.

Rinsed and patted dru. I'm not crazy about that big cut in the middle of the bottom 2/3

After a bad haircut. I should have grabbed a picture of the fat I removed

Next, I injected it with beef broth, rubbed it and put it on the smoker over night. (I confess, I should have injected it first, then rubbed it; but it wasn't until the rub was on that I realized I forgot to inject it. Oh well; that's what practice is for. On the grill

Brisket's home for the next 12 or so hours

The smoker doing what it's named for

 When I cooked a brisket last summer I put it on the top rack over a giant water pan. It took over 18 hours to finish. Since then I've taken to using a small water pan and using the lower rack when possible. This made a big difference; I put it on at 6:15 PM Saturday night; at 6:20 AM it hit 180* internal temperature. At that point I put it in a disposable aluminum roasting pan, pour a bottle of Session beer, and seal it tight with aluminum foil until it hits 195* which it did at 8:00 AM. Next time I'll start around midnight.

There are two major muscles in the brisket: the point and the flat.

The "point"is on the top left. The "flat"runs underneat

I separated the point from the flat, chopped it into large cubes and dusted with some more rub, then put it back on the smoker for 2 1/2 more hours to make burnt ends.

The point gets turned into burnt ends

The flat sliced thin across the grain

Dinner is served. Squash and beans round out the menu.

St. Louis Cut Ribs

I've been wanting to bust out the smoker for a month or so now. But we either get to busy or it's too wet and cold for me (I admit I'm a fair weather smoker).

But this weekend the stars aligned; the weather was absolutely gorgeous: mid 70's and I had Vin Scully and the Dodgers to keep me company while the cook was progressing

I found a nice rack of St. Louis Cut ribs which are a bit meatier than baby backs. I've only cooked them once before and wanted to try again.

3 racks of ribs from Costco

My plan was to go very simple. Usually I rub the ribs the night before and wrap them in plastic wrap overnight. This time it was going to be run 'n cook. My boss gave me a box of Penzey spices for Christmas so I used it on a couple of the racks. I had some left over Chris Lily Butt Rub for the 3rd rack.

Rubbed and ready for the grill

 One method of cooking ribs is to cook for a while then wrap in aluminum foil with some apple juice then finish. I've found that adding a water pan to the cooker and spritzing with apple juice every 45 minutes to an hour does a good job. Based on a recommendation by "Sparky", the expert rib cooker over at pelletsmoking.com I also cooked a bit hotter than I have in the past; I went with 275* instead of 225 or 250. St. Louis cut ribs are definitely larger than baby backs. They take up more room. I need to use two levels to get everything on.

On the Mak

Off we go

 After smoking for 5 hours, I slather some sauce on and grill them on the Weber.

Sizzling the sauce

Finished

Nice smoke ring

Dinner is served

You can look at my detailed cooking log here.

Chipotle Chicken Tortilla Soup

Not a cook? Doesn't matter. You can totally do this simple recipe for chicken tortilla soup.

I'm a fan of chicken tortilla soup; I have a bunch of recipes most of which I haven't tried yet. I saw this recipe in the 30 minute meal section of the February/March 2012 Cook's Country magazine and decided it was worth a try. It was delicious. The only real prep is chopping the red peppers; most everything else is store bought stuff. You can find my recipe here.

The line up. I forgot to pose the 2 cans of low-sodium chicken broth.

Ingredients minus the 2 cans of chicken broth

Shred the store-bought rotisserie chicken; chop the bell pepper; chop on smokey jalapeno; juice the lime; empty the picante sauce and chicken broth in measuring cups. Easy-peasey

Ready for the soup pot

Slice 4 tortillas into strips

Tortillas ready for crisping in the oven

And put in the oven for about 8 minutes. I was worried that since they weren't fried they wouldn't taste good. No worries.

Tortilla strips crisping in the oven

While the tortilla strips crisp sauté the red pepper for a few minutes 'til it gets a little color.

Sauté the red peppers in 1 Tablespoon of vegetable oil

Add everything but the lime juice and tortilla strips and simmer for a few minutes. When the chicken is warmed through turn off the heat and add the lime juice and tortilla strips and serve

Ready for serving

Serve and top with grated cheddar cheese and diced avocados

Dinner is served

I think I made it look harder than it is; really this is very very simple and very very tasty.

Try it and let me know what you think.

Pulled Pork - New method to avoid the "stall"

The best thing about this cook is that we didn't have company over for dinner. The 2nd best thing is that it served as a Thomas Edison moment; I succeeded in finding a way not to make pulled pork.

A couple of weeks ago I used a Cook's Country recipe to prepare Kalua (Hawaiian) pork. It was prepared similarly to pulled pork but was cooked in an aluminum pan with a few holes poked in for smoke for a couple of hours, then completely covered for a few more hours. I wasn't a big fan of the rub; but the meat was tender, succulent, juicy, delicious. It fell apart like regular pulled pork. I thought at that time it might be worth trying a method like this for pulled pork.

Then this week I read Craig "Meathead" Goldwyn's article on methods to avoid the stall. It is a great article worth the read. The short version is you can avoid the long "stall" where the internal temp of the pork shoulder (or brisket) sits at 160* +/-  for a few hours. The solution is to tightly wrap it in foil. Hey; that's what I found with the Kalua Pork. I was intrigued and thought I'd give it a shot. If I could cook a good pulled pork in just a few hours, I'd be very happy.

So, I went for it. My earlier results were so good I thought I'd skip the injection and brine, so I went straight for the rub. I put a basic pork rub on a 3.8 pound boneless pork shoulder Saturday night, wrapped it tightly in plastic wrap and let it rest in the refrigerator.

Sunday morning it came out as Carla and I headed to church

After church it went on the grill

So far a normal cook; it was on at 235* waiting for an internal temperature of 150* when I would wrap it.

I wrapped it a few degrees early; at 145* IT after about 4 hours.

Once it was wrapped I bumped the cooker up to 335*; It only took an hour to get to my target of 190. I didn't like the color of those juices. Much redder than when I did the Kalua pork.

I let it rest and then attempted to pull it.

Okay smoke ring but it was way, way too tough. But I wouldn't be detered; I used the bear claws best I could

It may look good, but it sure didn't taste good.

Thank goodness for barbecue sauce. I used a little Bob Gibson's sauce and served up a sandwich with some slaw.

I was too disappointed to get a real good plate shot.

 Part of the problem may have been the meat, I had 2nd thoughts about it when I picked it out Saturday; it had a lot of fluid in the package. The other problem may have been that it went from 145 to 190 so quickly. I think next time, I'll pay closer attention to the piece of meat I use and then  smoke for only 2 hours then put in the foil.

I had such high hopes but ended up being very disappointed.