Sweet Honey Soy Vinaigrette

Remember those Bulgogi skewers the other day?  Lea Ann of Cooking On The Ranch confirmed that they are also quite good cooked under a broiler.  I had two skewers left over for the next day and they made a quick salad for lunch.  

I mixed some hydroponic Romaine lettuce and Summercrisp lettuce, Roma tomatoes, grilled red onion, fried egg noodles, and topped with the skewers.

I whipped up a quick vinaigrette that followed the Asian theme and turned out to be one of the best vinaigrettes I have made.  

Sweet Honey Soy Vinaigrette

source:  www.nibblemethis.com

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup peanut oil
• 1/4 cup rice wine vinegar
• 2 Tbsp Grilled Honey Sweet Soy Sauce*
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• 1/8 tsp red pepper flake
• pinch salt

Instructions

1. Place all ingredients in a mini-blender (speaking of Magic Bullet*) and blend for 20 seconds until emulsified.

Notes

• Alexis bought this for me when trying to find Sweet Soy Sauce.  Not the same thing but I do like this product.   It is sweet and salty with a robust flavor.  I don't know where the "grilled" comes from in the name but it does great with grilled foods like wings.  If you can find it, try it, but it's hard to find even on the Internet.  Meanwhile, I'm going to try to come up with a similar sauce on my own, I love it.  It has honey, soy, pineapple, garlic, ginger, sesame seed, molasses, cider vinegar, brown sugar and grape wine.  
• Magic Bullet.  Please please please tell me that you have seen their new commercial for the Party Bullet.  It is either incompetently horrible or brilliantly funny, I'm not sure which.  ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNycTjtvlJQ )   It was like a car wreck, I had to watch.  Then I had to make Alexis watch.  Seems like an SNL parody, doesn't it?

[Standard Disclaimer]  I have no affiliation with the Asian Gourmet or Haddon House people behind the sauce.  Just thought it was a good find.  

Grilled Big Mac

Filed under:  "Hell, why not?"

I think that a lot of people can remember when they were a kid and had their first Big Mac. It was kind of a rite of passage, graduating from a plain small burger to a “grown up” burger (or so we thought).

The Big Mac isn't really a bad burger in concept. Usually it's execution that's the problem. So on a whim yesterday, I decided to make grilled Big Mac style burgers for lunch.   These are intended to be a Big Mac clone, just a grilled version of them.

Photo taken "Pre-smush".  To fit it in my mouth I had to "smush" it so it wasn't so thick.

Want the recipe? Here is is

two all beef patties

special sauce

lettuce

cheese

pickles

onions

on a

sesame seed bun.

What? Seriously that was about it.

The special sauce I made was an adaptation from TopSecretRecipes.com

½ cup Dukes mayonnaise

2 Tbsp ketchup

1 Tbsp white wine vinegar

2 teaspoons sugar

1 teaspoon sweet pickled jalapeno, diced

1 teaspoon dill pickle, diced

1 teaspoon Vidalia onion, finely minced

pinch of salt

pinch of black pepper

Whisk it all together and put in the fridge for 1 hour.

Instead of just using chopped onions on the burger, I grilled some and chopped them up. Grilling them concentrates the already sweet flavor of the Vidalia onion.

I grilled my buns. I cut the top off of a top bun and the bottom off of a bottom bun to make two “middle buns”.

My buns are toasted!

I used my normal burger mix (1 egg, 1 tsp salt, ½ tsp pepper, ½ tsp garlic powder, 1 Tbsp worcestershire sauce, and ¼ cup bread crumbs per pound of ground chuck) to make 3 ounce patties. Grilled them for 8 minutes total.

Then it is as simple as putting it all together.

I'll be honest. I grilled a Big Mac kind of as a spoof. I was killing time before I started to smoke a few pork butts overnight. Turns out it was a very good burger, not anything like what I've ever gotten at a drive through. Everyone devoured theirs and asked that I make these again sometime. 

It did put me in a “food coma” for an hour or more afterward though.

Fire Day Friday Post: Smoked Cheese

Today is my weekly Fire Day Friday post when I guest post over at Our Krazy Kitchen. You know that you want to know the story behind this contraption, don't you?

The local news is calling for snow starting 1am Christmas morning and lasting through the morning. We are getting our first White Christmas ever!!! I probably won't post until after that so I want to genuinely wish each of you and your families a Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

Travel safe, be well, and may your stocking be full of natural hardwood lump coal!

So very wrong.....

I saw this, this morning posted on the Eggforum by PattyO. So funny....but so wrong.

Hearty Garlic-Potato Soup

Warning: This recipe is "plant your butt on a sofa" comfort food.

Which is good because I need some comforting. I have been relocating our Johnson City office to Greeneville this week and I am worn out. I have jokingly called this week my "on schedule, under budget, in pain" tour.

But when I got back to Knoxville last night, as tired as I was, I found myself wanting, no needing to cook. So it was off to the back deck for a little Big Green Egg therapy.

You could also make this on your stove top but like Jim Morrison of The Doors always said:

"You know that it would be untrue. You know that I would be a liar. If I were to say to you, I'm not in the mood to cook with fire."
[Authenticity of this quote might be questionable]

Hearty Garlic Potato Soup
Adapted from: America's Test Kitchen Magazine Best-Ever Recipes

3 Tbsp unsalted butter
1 leek, white and light green parts only (see instructions for processing note)
3 Tbsp olive oil
1 Tbsp all purpose flour
3 cloves garlic minced
2 whole bulbs garlic, paper removed and top 1/3rd cut off like you do for roasting
6 cups chicken broth, low sodium
2 bay leaves
3/4 tsp kosher salt
1 1/2 lbs russet potatoes, peeled and 1/2" diced (about 3 medium potatoes)
1 lb red bliss potatoes, peeled and 1/2" diced (about 4 large)
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 Tbsp thyme, fresh
pepper
1/4 cup fresh chives, snipped

The original recipe called for fried garlic chips but I found them to be bitter. Fortunately, I had also made fried leek rings and they worked out better so I'm leaving out the chips although you'll see them in the picture.

Fried Leek Ring Garnish
Cut the roots and green tops off of the leek. Cut off about 1" from the white end and then cut it into about 4 slices. Push the middle rings out with your pinky and discard the smallest inner rings. Separate the outer layers into individual rings so you'll have a bunch of tiny "onion" rings. Toss lightly in the flour. The dampness of the flour should help the flour stick to the leek rings, you aren't trying to batter it.

Heat the oil in a small skillet and fry the leeks about 60 seconds, flipping once. You just want a light, crispy brown color. Remove to a cooling rack over a paper towel.

Now this step is very important, especially when you have had a bad week. Notice that the leek roots you cut off remind you of the Flock of Seagulls hair cut and have a "I Love The 80's Mr. Potatohead moment".

Dice the rest of the piece of leek. That should give you about 1/2 to 3/4 cup. You could substitute a mild onion.

I set up Alexis' BGE for direct heat at 325f and preheated our #12 Lodge cast iron dutch oven. You'll notice the absence of potatoes. That's because they don't go in for a while.

Add the butter and let melt. Saute the leeks for 5-8 minutes until softened. This will test your fire management skills, because when you are frequently opening the grill to stir, it's letting air in and feeding the fire. Watch your temperatures and adjust accordingly.

Add the minced garlic and saute another minute. Add the whole garlic bulbs (cut side up), bay leaves, salt, and broth.

Now I get to use one of my favorite words ever. I could say "ajar", "askew", "tilted" or or even say "partially covered" like the magazine did. But no. Place the Dutch oven lid on so it is catawampus.

Close the grill, stabilize the temperature at about 350 - 375f, and bring the soup to a simmer. Cook for 40 minutes. I find that with the hot cast iron in there, it really doesn't take much air flow at this point to keep the temps up. I only had the bottom vent open this much for the first 20 minutes or so.


After the 40 minutes, add the diced potatoes, cover (catawampusly, of course) and cook 15 to 20 more minutes.

Carefully remove the Dutch oven from heat. Don't worry that it doesn't look creamy yet.


Find and discard your two bay leaves.

Remove the two heads of garlic and squeeze the bulbs out like you would do to roasted garlic. Mash them with a fork and add about half of that paste to the soup.

Fold in the cream and thyme, cover with the lid (tightly this time, not all catawampus), and let rest for 5 minutes. The cast iron's carryover heat is still cooking.

Taste for seasoning and add salt (I added maybe 1/2 tsp), pepper (~1/2 tsp), and more of the garlic paste (I didn't add any more).

Use a slotted spoon to get about 2 cups of potatoes out of the soup into a blender. Add about 1 cup of the liquid. Puree for about 20 seconds. Be careful using a blender with hot liquid, I actually did this in two small batches of 1 cup potato/ half cup soup. Return to the soup mixture and stir it in.

Garnish with fried leek rings and chives.

Without hesitation, I will tell you that this is the creamiest, best tasting potato soup I have ever had. The only thing that would have made it better would have been if it was 30 degrees colder outside.

America's Test Kitchen wasn't lying when they added this to their currently available special collector's edition Best-Ever Recipes. Alexis found our copy at Food City for $9.95. It's available until December 13th so keep your eyes out for it. [Standard FTC Disclaimer].

Giveaway Reminder:
Both Larry of BBQ Grail and Curt of Livefire are each giving away a Masterbuilt Indoor Electric Turkey Fryer. Larry's giveaway ends Sunday and I think Curt's ends on Wednesday, so you can have it in your grubby little paws by Thanksgiving. Click on the links and enter both of them today.

Tainted Egg Recall

When the billion plus egg recall hit this week due to a salmonella scare, I didn't even have to check my fridge because our eggs come from a local farm. So with my spare time I rewrote this tribute to eggs sung to the tune of Soft Cell's Tainted Love.

Sometimes I feel I've got to
Run away Cause the
FDA
tells me ‘bout the bad stuff you bring to me
The eggs I loved
full of nasty bugs
My eggs don’t taste right
For my stomach does not feel all right

(chorus)
Once yolks ran for me (they ran)
Now I'll run from you
These tainted eggs you've given
I give you all a cook could give you
Salmonella and that's not nearly all
Oh...tainted eggs
Tainted eggs

Now I know I've got to
Run away Cause the
FDA
says sunnyside up ain’t right for me
To make things true
You need someone to cook you through
And you think eggs are okay
But I don’t want a hospital stay

(chorus...)

Don't touch me please
I cannot stand the way you tease
I love you though I’m on my rump
Now I'm going to have my stomach pumped
Tainted eggs, tainted eggs (x2)
Touch me baby, tainted eggs (x2)
Tainted eggs (x3)

Yeah food borne illness isn't funny but sometimes you have to laugh instead of crying.

Overboard

One of my daily routines is reading the newspaper at lunch. A real, physical, tangible, held in your hands newspaper. One of my favorite comic strips in the News Sentinel is Overboard by Chip Dunham. It's about a bunch of bumbling, good hearted pirates whose past times include grilling and gardening.

"If you don't own a charcoal grill, you should"
-Steven Raichlen
Planet Barbecue

I wonder what the menu for the Overboard cookouts is...

"Get yer hands off my Booty" (pork butt)
"Peg Leg" (chicken drummettes on a skewer)

Any other ideas?

Experimenting with Chili Peppers

I tried something new this weekend without any real knowledge about how to do it, only what I had picked up on the Internet.

Wait, that sounds REALLY bad.

I tried making my own ground chili peppers this weekend. This isn't a "how to", I was just stumbling through this.

This year, Alexis grew a nice cayenne pepper plant that has been quite productive for a single plant.

I supplemented that with a nice selection from Rushy Springs Farm in nearby Jefferson County.

I picked a handful of the cayenne, some of the sweeter green chili peppers, and then those tiny little devil dogs (not their real name), some kind of thai chili pepper similar to a birds eye. I decided to try to cold smoke them first. I loaded my home made cold smoke generator with cherry and apple wood chips.

And smoked them whole for about 90 minutes inside of the Big Green Egg (not lit).

Then I cut them into slices, cleaning out the seeds, and placed them on a $6 garage sale bought dehydrator. I ran it for 14 hours.

Once they were crispy and dry.....

I rough chopped them and ran them through my spice grinder (electric coffee bean grinder, never used for coffee) for about 15 seconds. Too coarse.

I ran it back through a second time for about 30 seconds. Much better. I can use it at this texture or run it through a pepper mill for a more fine texture.

I like the texture and color that the larger green chili pepper pieces add. The heat provided by just two of those thai peppers gives a nice hit of heat but it's balanced by the rich flavor of the rest of the milder peppers.

I'm not sure how much of the smoke came through at the end though. Next time I'd either seed and slice the peppers before smoking them or just smoke the ground pepper at the end. There was a steady thin smoke coming out, I just think the waxy skins of the peppers kept it from getting in.

The aroma of this mix smells unlike any packaged ground red pepper I've ever bought. It smells like....ground chili peppers. Real chili peppers. I can't wait to grill with this stuff.

If you try this at home, let the spice mixer rest for a second after grinding to let the pepper dust settle. I failed to do that and when I opened the top, the whiff of dust burned my sinus cavity for a few minutes. It reminded me of this old joke.

Doctor: So, have you had any odd symptoms since we changed your medications last time?

Patient: No. Well, yes, just one. It's kind of embarrassing. Every time that I sneeze, I have an orgasm.

Doctor: Oh? That's odd. And how have you been treating that?

Patient: By snorting pepper!

Have any tips for dehydrating peppers or herbs?
If you had just a little bit of this red/green pepper mix, what would YOU use it on?

Wanna see what's in my drawers?

What? No, not THOSE drawers, you pervs.

I emptied the plastic drawers that I keep under my grill table to clean them out and couldn't believe how much stuff I had in there.

The contents included....

• 8 instant read thermometers
• 4 remote probe thermometers
• 7 spatulas
• 8 sets of tongs
• 1 pair welding gloves
• 2 pair safety glasses
• 2 grate brushes
• 1 MAPP gas torch
• 3 cans spray oils
• skewers (7 metal, 100 12" bamboo, 50 10" bamboo)
• 4 silicone brushes
• 2 rotisserie tines
• 1 can compressed air (not sure why that was in there)

Sadly, that doesn't even touch the "garden bin" that holds some of our smoking woods, rib racks, veggie racks, steam pans, chimney starters, and such.

Wait. Why are you dialing the number to Hoarders?

Greek Style Deep Dish Pizza

A few weeks ago, I complained that rabbits or squirrels were eating our strawberries just as they started to become ripe, before we could enjoy them. Well today, Brett rescued this little critter in our yard from a neighbor's cat's jaws.

Before everyone says, "awwwww, look at the baby rabbit", just remember, rabbits can be killers! Here's a scientific documentary proving that.



Even still, Alexis wouldn't let me make rabbit stew so we had to have something else for dinner. (Don't worry just joking, he/she is recovering fine and will be released back in our garden tomorrow morning.)

This is one that Alexis and I made up a few weeks ago (April 20th to be exact per my notebook) when she decided she wanted to try a deep dish style pizza. We looked at what ingredients we had on hand and decided to take it Greek style. It wasn't authentic Greek food, but it had a lot of Greek flavors.

We made it again tonight but this time made it in the brick oven....errr Big Green Egg. As I've mentioned a million times over, the Egg's ceramics make it the perfect wood fired cooker for pizzas. But this recipe does work well in both an oven or on a ceramic cooker.
Greek Style Deep Dish Pizza
Source: Nibble Me This

Ingredients
1 order pizza dough (make your own, buy from local pizza joint or buy a mix from store)
1/2 cup sun-dried tomato pesto
6 ounces mozzarella, shredded
8-10 slices salami, quartered
2 slices red onion
4-6 ea kalamata olives, sliced
1/4 cup portobello mushroom, diced and sauteed
8-10 ea mint leaves, fresh, chopped
4-5 ea marinated artichoke hearts, diced
6 ounces feta cheese, crumbled

Instructions
Roll pizza dough out and form it into a greased 9" round dish. This will work with a cake pan but does really well with a preheated stoneware pan. Poke the dough all over with a fork. Alexis tells me that will help keep the dough from bubbling up during the pre-cook. She knows the baking stuff way better than I (See? we complement each other!). Place the pan/dough into a 475f Big Green Egg or oven for 5 minutes.

Spread the tomato pesto on the base of the pizza and top with the mozzarella. We used Classico's Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto that you can find in most grocery stores but you could make your own, there's a lot of recipes available via a quick google.

Then toss in the next six ingredients (salami, onions, olives, mushroom, mint, and artichoke....don't you hate when recipes make you count?).

Top with the feta cheese and put back on the Big Green Egg or in the oven, still at 475f and cook for 12 minutes.

Pull from the cooker and let rest in the pan for another 5 minutes.

You should be able to lift the entire pan using a pair of large spatulas.

Slice and serve. Damn good stuff.

Both times this has been one of our favorite pizzas. It might not be pretty but the flavors pack a punch that wakes your mouth up. The strong flavors of the feta, olives, peppers, and other ingredients walk that fine line between making your mouth water and making your eyes wince.

Time for a quick game of Versus in the comments:
1) Deep dish vs. regular pizza
2) Monty Python rocks vs. Monty Python sucks (don't worry about offending me, I love MP, Alexis hates them).

Penne with Peas

I am sure that you have heard much about the plight of polar bears and global warming but did you know that they are using the simple green pea to catch the polar bears for relocation?

It seems the scientists and environmentalists have discovered an environmentally safe way to trap them. They excavate a 3.5 meter hole in the ice and then place green peas around the edge of the hole, spaced out at 1/2 meter intervals.

Then when a polar bear comes to take a pea they run up and kick him in the ice hole!

What? Oh come on, don't be like that. It was funny!

Anyway here is the side dish from last night's Smoked Black Pepper Ribeye Steaks. This is a recipe from Ciao Tuscany by Johnny Carrabba & Damian Mandola.

Penne con Piselli (Penne with Peas)
Source: Ciao Tuscony

1/3 cup unsalted butter
1 small yellow onion, finely chopped
1/4 cup pancetta, diced (I substituted bacon)
1/2 pound peas, fresh or frozen
2 Tbsp water
1 cup heavy cream
Kosher salt
Freshly ground black pepper
1/2 cup Parmigiano Reggiano, grated
1 pound penne pasta (substituted angel hair)

Cook your pasta according to directions. Reserve 1 cup of the liquid after straining but it might not be needed.

Melt the butter in large saute pan and saute the onion and pancetta for 5-8 minutes, when the pancetta starts to crisp. I was using bacon which didn't cook as fast as the onion. Next time I'd skip the butter, cook the bacon by itself for 2 minutes and then add the onion. Actually, next time I'd go to the damn store and get pancetta, it was Sunday and I was lazy.

Reduce heat to low and add the peas and 2 Tbsp water, cooking the peas until tender. Add the cream, season with salt and pepper (I used some of the smoked pepper I had made) and continue cooking for 2 minutes.

Add in the cheese in batches until melted.

Toss the pasta into the sauce to coat. If the sauce is too thick or you don't have enough sauce, add in some of the reserved pasta water. We didn't have to but we had cut the pasta and peas to 1/2 of the listed quantity because we like extra sauce.

Feel free to top with some more cheese.

This was a creamy, decadent side. I would have liked it better with the penne just because the peas kept falling off the angel hair as I ate. But that is nit picking because this is a wonderful comfort side dish.

Just be careful while your eating it and keep an eye over your shoulder. Some polar bear might try to sneak up and kick you in the ice hole!

But It Sounded So Good In The Car...

"Oh, you're a naughty, naughty girl," I told Alexis.

We were on our way home from the office and a light snow was blowing around. We were talking about the leftover roast beef at home. I had mentioned The Big Nasty, an warm, open faced roast beef sandwich topped with cheddar, green onions, and gravy.

While we waited at a red light, I recalled the pesto gravy that we made a while back for the Roast Pesto Chicken and thought I could make a spicy horseradish gravy. That would be perfect for a hot roast beef sandwich.

"Beef and swiss," she interjected into my pavlovic daydreaming, "maybe you could make a swiss cheese sauce."

That was when I told her she was naughty and it reverted me back to the Big Nasty idea. I decided to do both, a roast beef sandwich with a spicy horseradish gravy and a swiss cheese sauce. It sounded good.

The result.

It was okay. The spicy horseradish gravy was obscenely good. The swiss cheese sauce was rich. But it would have been a better roast beef sandwich using either one but not both. Hey, you live, you learn.

I used this Swiss Cheese Sauce recipe from Southern Living and ended up using 1.5 cups of shredded cheese.

Here's the recipe for the simple and spicy horseradish gravy that I made. Amounts are estimates, I just made it up as I went along.

Horseradish Gravy
2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp flour
1 1/2 cups beef stock
1 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp prepared horseradish

Melt the butter over medium high heat. Whisk in the flour and continuously whisk until you get a dark roux.

Whisk in the beef stock. I'm guessing about the amount but just slowly add beef stock while whisking. At first the mixture will thicken, get clumpy, and make you think you screwed up. Keep adding broth and keep whisking and it will start to smooth out into a gravy.

Once you have it at the consistency that you want, whisk in the salt, pepper, and horseradish. Taste and re-season according to your preference and heat tolerance. I ended up taking mine to 2 tsp of horseradish.

Nevermore!
A lot of folks found our "raven flying with a pancake" story from a few posts ago funny but Russ (a brilliantly talented artist in the vein of Calvin & Hobbes, The Far Side, Bizarro) has commemorated the moment with this special limited edition lithograph on his blog, Inner and Outer Demons.

Check out his blog. His dark sense of humor and artwork always give me a laugh. For the record, the raven we saw didn't look that intensely evil. But if he stole the pancake from someone's table, I'm sure they'd say that was EXACTLY what he looked like.

Chasing Demons

Russ at Inner and Outer Demons 2 has been a blogger friend of mine for years. He is an artist by trade and I was privileged to have him draw my avatar last year, a brilliant version of the Big Green Egg.


His disturbingly funny cartoons have made me laugh so many times that I can't ever thank him enough. He is far more talented than he admits and is way under-appreciated as a creative genius. I loved this post from Friday.

A Message From The Onion You Forgot You Had

So if you like the occasional, "Wow, I really shouldn't be laughing at that!" kind of guffaw, throw Russ' blog into your feed reader. It will make your day one day when you need it.

Inspiration for Tonight's Dinner

From today's Lio comic strip by Mark Tatulli :

My Big Green Egg is feeling neglected. I haven't cooked outside in almost a week. Something is getting grilled tonight. I don't know what "it" is yet, but something is getting grilled.

Thai Spiced Cabbage

This recipe flirted with me tonight.

I was looking for something different as I flipped though The Complete Step by Step Cookbook, a book I have not looked at in a few years.

I looked at this recipe like someone who catches your eye while walking down the aisles of a store.

I flipped though a few pages and then came back to it. We gave each other a spicy smile but kept going about our way.

Arriving back on page 297 and we passed yet again, this time I swear it winked at me. I couldn't resist. Forget monogamy...errr...monotony. I gave in and tried something different.

Spiced Cabbage

The Complete Step by Step Cookbook

Ingredients
14 peppercorns
2 tablespoons coconut cream
2 shallots, chopped
4 oz lean pork, finely chopped
About 1 lb white cabbage, fineliy sliced
1 1/4 cups coconut milk
1 tablespoon fish sauce
1 fresh red chile, very finely chopped

Instructions
In a wok, heat peppercorns about 3 minutes, until aroma changes.

Stir in coconut cream, heat 2-3 minutes, then stir in shallots. Stir-fry 2 to 3 minutes, then stir in pork and cabbage. Cook, stirring occasionally, 3 minutes.

Add coconut milk and bring just to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer 5 minutes.

Uncover and cook about 10 minutes until cabbage is crisp-tender. Stir in fish sauce. Sprinkle with chopped chile.

You'll notice their ingredient list doesn't include oil and neither do the instructions. They are presuming you are using a well seasoned wok. I didn't have any lean pork, so I substituted some partially crisped bacon. I had to choose between a fresh green jalapeno and dried red chiles, so I went with the red.

And after cooking this recipe, I know that the coconut cream can't be substituted in this dish. It's not just the flavor, it seems like it brought the oil that the shallots will need to saute.

The bacon and veggies started crisping up nicely before things went partially awry.

The flavor of the dish was impressive, in our opinion. The reduced coconut's sweetness was balanced out by the heat of the peppercorn and red pepper flakes.

But both of us thought the end result had a little too much liquid.

Two issues.

First, part of that is because in my SWAG measurement system, a head of cabbage is 2 lbs so half a head would give the 1lb needed for this recipe. In retrospect and after checking the receipt, this one was only 1.92 lbs and after halving it and removing the core, we probably had about .8 lbs of shredded cabbage.

Second, THEIR recipe said ABOUT 1 lb. The pictures of their wok in the book clearly show more like 1 1/2 lbs.

No big deal, it still delivered a creamy and pleasing taste. But to make it perfect, next time we both agreed we would EITHER add 1/2 lb of a Chinese cabbage like Napa OR cut the coconut milk to about 3/4 cup instead of 1 1/4 cup.

I look forward to trying this again with a few modifications.

So what recipe has recently flirted with you?
1) Tell me about a dish that you ordered/tasted that you normally wouldn't have. Or,
2) Show us your "scarlet letter", post a link to a recipe in your blog that tempted you and caused you to "stray" from monotony.

Happy Holidays!

May your stockings be full
of high quality coal !

Miscellaneous Stuff

Smoky Mountain Carbonara
Last night we made Katherine's Smoky Mountain Cafe's Carbonara and it was as great as it sounded. If you haven't visited Katherine's food blog, get over there and check it out.

Big Green Egg
I picked up my new fire box (aka fire bowl) for my Big Green Egg today.

I just wanted to say again how phenomenal the customer service at Big Green Egg and their Knoxville distributor, Hearth and Patio, is. A few weeks ago, my fire box developed a crack. It was the easiest, most painless, and customer friendly warranty experience I have ever had. The Big Green Egg is a world class product backed by world class customer service.

If you are ever considering buying a high end grill, smoker, and convection oven, you definitely need to check out a Big Green Egg.

Ox Rotisserie
Sure the Ronco Rotisserie (set it and forget it) or a rotisserie attachment for your grill can handle some roasts or chickens. But what if you wanted to throw a whole Ox on the rotisserie?

I found this on There, I Fixed It. It's a hilarious site that is the handyman's version of ICanHasCheezeburger or People of Walmart.
I hope that all of you folks stuck in the snow are doing OK!

Dino Bones: BBQ Beef Ribs

[Standard review disclaimer: Unless otherwise stated, I have no affiliation with and received no compensation from restaurants or product manufacturers reviewed and paid full retail price for the item reviewed.]

The hardest part about making "dino bones" is procuring the dinosaur.

I'd only ever had dino bones once and that was this past summer on our trip to Louisville. They were huge, meaty, but more importantly, had a rich flavor. I loved them and vowed I would make them soon. It took longer than anticipated, but soon is now.

Dino bones are huge beef ribs barbecued for hours. I was confused about what cut dino bones were actually from. Some people and places say they are beef back ribs, the part cut off of a prime rib to make ribeyes. Other folks and sites said that dino bones come from beef short ribs. So I consulted the good folks over at the BBQ Brethren and found out that either is acceptable.

Beef ribs are hard to come by in Knoxville. Mainly because true butchers are hard to come by in Knoxville. So I went and saw Scott Lynam at Lay's Market. I told him what I was looking for and he knew exactly what I needed, finding us a very nice uncut beef short rib. Lay's Market is 12 miles from our house and by no means convenient, but he treated me like a regular and has won my family's business.

This also gave me the perfect opportunity to try out the free sample (see disclaimer at top) of Big Bold Red Soppin' Sauce that I received from the folks at Fischer and Wiesner.

Dino Bones (BBQ Beef Ribs)

Ingredients
1 ea 3 bone beef short ribs, untrimmed
2 Tablespoon Grove's Cajun Beef Rub (or commercial cajun rub)
1 Teaspoon Kosher Salt
1 Tablespoon Black Pepper
6 ounces Big Bold Red Soppin' Sauce (separated into 3 or 4 portions)

Instructions
Rub the ribs with the salt, pepper, and beef rub.

Place ribs bone side down on a cooker set up for indirect heat at 225f grate temperature with a moderate amount of smoke. I like using Jack Daniels Oak Chips for beef. (On the Big Green Egg, that would be a dome temperature of 250f, with the DFMT closed with the dial open, plate setter in legs up, and drip pan.)

Cook for 4 to 6 hours. Using a clean brush, baste every hour with a portion of the Big Bold Red Soppin' Sauce. The purpose of using separate batches is to prevent cross contamination. The ribs will shrink back on the bones very drastically, don't panic. It's supposed to do that.

When you're ribs have pulled back about 50% on the bones and have an internal temperature of 195-200f, they are done. Remove and let rest for 15 minutes. Slice into rib portions. Unlike pork ribs, one beef rib is a normal serving size.

Servings: 4
Source: www.nibblemethis.com

I seasoned both sides of the ribs and then left them out while I got the Big Green Egg up to temperature.

Shrinkage can be a good thing, when it comes to BBQ. That's the toughness leaving and all the goodness staying! I placed the fork in the picture for scale, these are some pretty big assed ribs, kind of like the ribs that flip the car in the opening credits of The Flintstones. Hence the name.

Much like brisket, these will turn very dark. They will be mostly blackened but not burned at all.

The Big Bold Red Soppin' Sauce was not a thick, tomato based BBQ sauce. It is a thin and beautifully tart sauce to be applied during the cook. In fact I used it more like a mop, than a sop and that worked, building multiple layers of flavor instead of one big "hit" of it during the last few minutes of cooking. There are not too many sugars in it so it doesn't burn like BBQ sauce would. The sauce would actually be a good marinade for steaks and a sopping sauce for brisket too. You can order Fischer and Wiesner products online or find them in retail locations. I know that Earth Fare in Knoxville carries some of their products.
For more information on soppin' sauces and recipes for making your own, check out this page.

We were very happy with the ribs. The flavor was excellent. I had just the right about of smoke on them. Alexis and the boys loved them.

Things I'd do next time? I'd probably take them to 200f internal, I pulled them off at 193.8f and there was still a little collagen toughness in one or two spots. I might also try slicing them into individual ribs before smoking, that's how we got ours in Louisville. I'd be tempted to try foiling them for an hour during the cook, but I've just now gotten weened from using the "texas crutch" for pork ribs and don't need to pick up bad habits again:)