It being saturday and having made no concrete dinner plans, I decided to haul the smoker over to the park and do some bird related items.
The proposed menu was just to be some chix thighs I had in the fridge, and maybe some ABT's.
Went to pick up the makings for ABT's and noticed turkey wings on sale. Hmmmm.
And Turkey Italian sausage. Hmmm
So, the revised menu consisted of turkey wings, chix thighs, a fatty consisting of Italian sausage stuffed with onions, green peppers and mushrooms all rolled up in a nice turkey bacon weave and some Krab ABT's. There was a day when I'd scoff at turkey bacon and sausage, but I'm zeroing in on 50 and the stuff really ain't too bad.
And for dessert, there was a pineapple on sale, so I figured smoked pineapple might be interesting.
The Wings and thighs just got a light dusting of a quickly tossed together rub. The fatty was assembled in the usual manner, sorry I didn't get any pics but I was busy and my friend Steve who came along isn't much of a photo buff. The wife was out doing something or other.
The ABT's were a bit of an experiment. Just some store bought crab dip made of sour cream, Old Bay and some faux crab. Actually pretty good stuff, despite the risk of being convicted of heresy here in Blue Crab country. Anyway, the peppers were halved and cleaned, then each half was filled with Krab dip and wrapped in turkey bacon.
The smoker was stoked with a load of Target's store brand lump charcoal and a few hickory chunks.
Here you see the 2nd load of coals, some hastily procured Kingsford, as the initial load just kinda went out after about an hour and a half. Odd, hadn't had this happen before.
The food went on at 5:30 I think.
That last one is an attempt to show the chicken thighs on the bottom rack.
Despite the coals going out midway thru, everything was finished around 8, and really tasty. The Turkey wings were awesome, extremely tender and juicy with just the perfect amount of bite from the rub and a wonderful smoke flavor from the hickory. The thighs were perfect as well.
The fatty was, well.....
Pretty Freakin' awesome if'n I do say so myself.
The ABT's were a really nice surprise. They were fantastic, the flavor of the dip came through quite nicely and blended well with the pepper, bacon and smoke. We'll definitely be doing these again. No additional photos of the ABT's as they were gone in mere seconds as soon as they came off the smoker :)
Now for the life altering discovery. I had mentioned smoked pineapple. After the food came off, we put the cored and quartered pineapple on the smoker. After a half hour or so, It became apparent that this was going to take WAAAY too long, so we pulled out the charcoal pan and put a grate right on top of it.
This put a really nice sear on the pineapple.
It was good, though not quite life changing.
Then my wife remembered we had some marshmallows and Hershey bars upstairs.
So we started making s'mores.
Then it hit me. What if I put a chunk of the smoked/seared pineapple IN a s'more?
It's hard to see in the pic above, but it's in there, all nestled among the marshmallow and melty chocolate.
Even my wife Nancy seemed to like it!!
I gotta say, the cool, smoky pineapple was a nice contrast to the rich sticky traditional s'mores ingredients. This one's definitely a keeper!!
Thanks for watching and sorry for the bad phone pics. Next time I'll bring the real camera along.
The proposed menu was just to be some chix thighs I had in the fridge, and maybe some ABT's.
Went to pick up the makings for ABT's and noticed turkey wings on sale. Hmmmm.
And Turkey Italian sausage. Hmmm
So, the revised menu consisted of turkey wings, chix thighs, a fatty consisting of Italian sausage stuffed with onions, green peppers and mushrooms all rolled up in a nice turkey bacon weave and some Krab ABT's. There was a day when I'd scoff at turkey bacon and sausage, but I'm zeroing in on 50 and the stuff really ain't too bad.
And for dessert, there was a pineapple on sale, so I figured smoked pineapple might be interesting.
The Wings and thighs just got a light dusting of a quickly tossed together rub. The fatty was assembled in the usual manner, sorry I didn't get any pics but I was busy and my friend Steve who came along isn't much of a photo buff. The wife was out doing something or other.
The ABT's were a bit of an experiment. Just some store bought crab dip made of sour cream, Old Bay and some faux crab. Actually pretty good stuff, despite the risk of being convicted of heresy here in Blue Crab country. Anyway, the peppers were halved and cleaned, then each half was filled with Krab dip and wrapped in turkey bacon.
The smoker was stoked with a load of Target's store brand lump charcoal and a few hickory chunks.
Here you see the 2nd load of coals, some hastily procured Kingsford, as the initial load just kinda went out after about an hour and a half. Odd, hadn't had this happen before.
The food went on at 5:30 I think.
That last one is an attempt to show the chicken thighs on the bottom rack.
Despite the coals going out midway thru, everything was finished around 8, and really tasty. The Turkey wings were awesome, extremely tender and juicy with just the perfect amount of bite from the rub and a wonderful smoke flavor from the hickory. The thighs were perfect as well.
The fatty was, well.....
Pretty Freakin' awesome if'n I do say so myself.
The ABT's were a really nice surprise. They were fantastic, the flavor of the dip came through quite nicely and blended well with the pepper, bacon and smoke. We'll definitely be doing these again. No additional photos of the ABT's as they were gone in mere seconds as soon as they came off the smoker :)
Now for the life altering discovery. I had mentioned smoked pineapple. After the food came off, we put the cored and quartered pineapple on the smoker. After a half hour or so, It became apparent that this was going to take WAAAY too long, so we pulled out the charcoal pan and put a grate right on top of it.
This put a really nice sear on the pineapple.
It was good, though not quite life changing.
Then my wife remembered we had some marshmallows and Hershey bars upstairs.
So we started making s'mores.
Then it hit me. What if I put a chunk of the smoked/seared pineapple IN a s'more?
It's hard to see in the pic above, but it's in there, all nestled among the marshmallow and melty chocolate.
Even my wife Nancy seemed to like it!!
I gotta say, the cool, smoky pineapple was a nice contrast to the rich sticky traditional s'mores ingredients. This one's definitely a keeper!!
Thanks for watching and sorry for the bad phone pics. Next time I'll bring the real camera along.
Last edited: