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Another Good Day for Turkey Legs

We were at the market last week and turkey legs were $3.99 a pound. About a buck more than last year. The legs were big! We bought three legs at $21 and change. About 1 1/2 - 1 3/4 pounds each? Made up a batch of Pop's brine. Cut the tendons, into the brine, and into the refrigerator for 5 days. Pulled the legs out of brine, put in the refrigerator overnight to dry. It's 100 degrees outside to today. Pushing 85 inside without AC. A great day to keep the cooking outside. Into the...

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Little Jake with the Brisket

My son wanted to smoke a brisket while he was over. Used Holy Cow to season. He trimmed it. Still needs improvement but he supplied the meat. I cooked up a breakfast scramble while we fed the fire. 5 pounds of beef bacon is what we used Grandson likes fries so I used them for the scramble The brisket was wrapped in pink butcher paper at 165. And removed when probe tender. The brisket was delicious. Tender and juicy.

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Garlic Butter Crawfish Boil, aka Land Lock Lobsters

So I had Friday planned as a honey do list day and Mrs C says why don’t we break out the boat……so out it came….. So after a made scramble to get the the gear cleaned up and installed new batteries (10 years on the old ones….not more trust) got up to the lake after lunch and set 10 pots along the honey hole……they went in at 3 so this will be a short soak…..also trying 2 different tilapia as bait….. Bing 3 hours later scored 17 nice crawlers! The water is still cold and interesting enough...

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Grill chicken wings with a diy "vortex"

I must have been under a living under a rock for awhile, because I just recently learned about the vortex. Being cheap, an not really knowing if it would fit my need, I went the diy route. By cutting the bottom out of a large dog bowl. The main reason for teying this was for chicken wings an trying to get that crispy skin. Can't really say for sure if it was the result of the"vortex" clone. But I will be using this technique a lot more in the near future

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A Few Pies

My wife was in the mood for pizza and I don't think I've ever said no to that! She makes a great poolish dough that cooks up perfectly in our pizza oven. I also picked up a new (to me) camera yesterday, so gave it a test run during the cook today. Appreciate you putting up with the photos (some teething issues on focus). There was a thread yesterday about launching pies. If you look closely onto some of the launch photos you can see the corn starch which helps prevent it from sticking...

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HE-MAN Burger, my version.

Dennys has a promo going for Masters of the Universe and a burger. I thought to myself I'd never go there for a burger but the combination sounds good. I made my own. Angus beef pattie, smoked brisket, bacon, white cheddar, pickles, onion, lettuce, and tomatoes. Our daughter stacked this one. Yum

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First Pork Butt

With amazing results my first pork butt on my Oklahoma Joe Bronco 2.0. The Drum held temp awesome for 10 hours Prepped night before. Yellow mustard binder, Meat Church “ The Gospel “ for rub. To date best food I have made on the smoker.

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A great meal - chicken and garden veggies

Another hot smoked chicken, think I'll start doing 1 or 2 of these a month. Just garlic salt inside and out and a bit of red oak. This was a 5lb 4oz bird. Indirect at 275°f for about 150 minutes. Our garden has started to really produce and to go with the chicken we harvested potatoes, carrots, and zucchini. Carrots and potatoes tossed in olive oil, salt and pepper and roasted. Zucchini was dressed the same but grilled. buzzed up some sugar free margaritas to wash it down with...

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Stuffed Bacon Wrapped Grilled Quail

My Aunt called me. She had some stuffed bacon wrapped boneless quail in the freezer to cook. They were prepared by a local butcher shop, Chris' Specialty Meats. I whipped up a quick marinade for the birds and let them soak in that for about 45 minutes while we prepped the rest of the meal. First up-the board. Sbriciolona salami and Coppardo with Machego cheese and cantaloupe melon. One of the sides for tonight-Konriko Wild Pecan rice. It pairs well with the quail. The birds out of the...

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Memorial Day turkey breast

Brined, rinsed, seasoned, smoked, ate. Probably the least problematic smoke yet. NO issues. Brined with a picanha steak seasoning (95% salt) over night. Seasoned with "Bam" seasoning, smoked at 250 for about 6 hours. The beer can chicken stand worked perfectly to keep the breast upright. Even the skin came out more crispy than rubbery.

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golferguy17 | Smoker Build

Hey guys! Been lurking here for a while, gathering info for my smoker build. Started off by following the awesome guides on build volumes for proper flow, then began google image searching all the different options out there. Took a ton of design cues from TMG pits, and tried to implement any other features I could find that seemed like a good way to do things. All 1/4” plate, double walled insulated firebox, removable interior racks to allow for rotisserie attachment as well as a Santa...

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Back to the basics

Well, it’s been a minute or two since I last posted a cook. I haven’t been smoking much lately, so I gave my Recteq, which was my last smoker to my Grandson. He & his wife just moved into their first home & I thought they could meet a lot of the neighborhood by just firing up the smoker. Anyhow Publix had a BOGO on STL’s, so I grabbed 2. I still have 2 kettles, a Camp Chef flat top, & the old Genesis gas grill. So this is how I started grilling & this is what I returned to, the good old...

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Porchetta

I picked up two full bellies at restaurant supply. One skin on the other skinned. They are about 12 pounds a piece. These bellies they carry are irregular in thickness from say 1-1/2 on one side to 1/2” on the other. So I mostly buy them for rolled panchetta, but once in a while you can find a workable belly to do both panchetta and bacon. For this weekend I really wanted to do a Porchetta with pork loin inside. We will have my mother over as always on Sunday and it’s my wife and I...

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"Carver" HamCam Photos ~ Second Smoke on Ham Steaks

Man, that title ⬆️ is a mouthful 😄. I still had a Carver ham in the fridge, and today my plan was to slice it, do a second smoke on them and vacuum seal for a breakfast or a soup. Tonight, we're making a ham and bean soup of sorts. My set-up was a cool smoke in the Big Chief, with the lid blocked open with some 2X2s, using handfuls of apple pellets every 30-minutes, for 2-hours of smoke time.

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Muffuletta time!!!

When your favorite deli is closed you gotta do what you gotta do. Fresh baked sourdough, provolone, salami, mortadella, pepperoni, olive salad, redwine vinegar, and olive oil, a little yellow mustard. Hollow out some of the bread, construct sandwich, then wrap tightly in plastic wrap, then place in the refrigerator with a cast iron pan on top of it for 2 to 3 hrs= a belly full of goodness.

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No trim plate ribs - camping

Had a great camping trip with my wife this past weekend. Took the Joe Jr and threw on some ribs. Got to share a few beers and some smoked meats with some newly made camp friends. I didn’t trim because my small kitchen box got left at home and decided to let it ride. Wife gushed about the “burnt ends” before she headed out to choir tonight so might just do it again.

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Mother's Day Ribs

Decided to clear the freezer out a bit and pulled a rack of ribs for smoking. Dusted them up with Max Mix for pork. No smoker pictures today. Smoke Vault settled in at 233-241. Six hours. Apple wood chunks. Plated with potato salad. Potato salad recipe is out of our old Betty Crocker's cookbook (pg. 371). We did not have a bottle of Italian dressing in the house for the potato salad recipe, so we made a batch out of the same Betty Crocker's Cookbook (pg. 385). The Italian dressing...

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Top round jerky and pepperoni both smoked in 1 day and reverse sear ribeye

24 pound top round. Used 8.5 pounds for jerky and the rest with 2 pork butts for pepperoni. First time reverse sear. Definitely good

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Tacos de Lengua

I cooked up some tacos de Lengua yesterday. Simmered the cow tongue with garlic, onion, bay leaves, peppercorns, adoba seasoning, and salt for 2 hours. I removed the membrane after it cooled and seasoned with some Kinders all purpose bbq seasoning and smoked at 275 for another 2 hours. Chopped that tongue up and put on some warmed tortillas with white onion, cilantro and hot salsa.

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BRISKET FLAT- NO TRIM - WSM

Got a brisket flat from the local grocery store. Choice cut. I didn’t trim any fat. Rubbed down with a heavy amount of beef rub. Used the 22” WSM. Hickory and cherry chunks for smoke. A whole bag of Kingsford charcoal. Used the BBQ Guru and set it to 250 degrees. It was done in 11 hours. 205 IT temp. Halfway through I place the brisket in an aluminum pan with the fat juices. Came out pretty good. This will be for my breakfast for this week. Enjoy the pictures:

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Article 'Make Your Own Pastrami + Reubens and Homemade Russian Dressing'

Make Your Own Pastrami + Reubens with Homemade Russian Dressing (recipes included) SMF is like having your own personal pool of outdoor cooking experts and knowledge right at your fingertips. Literally the best resource on top of a community of a lot of lovely people. All the St. Paddy’s Day posts last month had me wanting a good reuben and that means I need some pastrami, and you’ve all got me believing in myself. Turns out: I can make pastrami. And it’s pretty easy. Especially when a...

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Article 'Dutchs Wicked Baked Beans'

WICKED BAKED BEANS (Beans that will even make Chili Heads happy) 6-8 strips of bacon cut into 1/2 inch squares 1/2 Medium onion, diced 1/2 Bell pepper, diced 1 - 2 Jalapeno Peppers, diced (seeding is optional) 1 - 55 ounce can Bush's Baked Beans 1-8 ounce can of pineapple chunks, drained 1 Cup Brown Sugar, packed 1 Cup ketchup 1/2 - 1 Tbs. dry (ground) mustard Saute bacon pieces in fry pan until crispy and remove from pan with a slotted spoon. Saute onion, bell pepper and jalapeno pepper...

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Article 'Geeks Basic Brisket'

I haven't contributed much in a long time, so here's a recent post I wrote for my web site: Brisket is one of those cuts of meat that tends to scare smokers away from trying it. For one thing, it's expensive. For another, we've all had someone else's bad brisket. It's like eating shoe leather. Brisket is actually two muscled connected by a thick layer of fat. The larger of the muscles is called the flat, which is the leaner of the two. The other muscle is called the point and contains...

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