Hello again, everyone! Fear not, I am not talking about tobacco use, but rather smoking as a means of cooking. Many of you know (as we never stop talking about it) that we have taken up camping at Kenisee Grand River Campground, the most wonderful campground ever, and a couple weeks back we bought a nice big charcoal grill with offset smoker from Wal-Mart. It was the best $168 I have ever spent and I am gaining a bit of a reputation at the campground for my cooking!
The first week after I setup the smoker I bought a 13 lb. brisket from the same chain of Walton family stores where I purchased the grill/smoker. That Saturday I happened to wake up at 4 a.m. and it dawned on me that I needed to get the brisket going because you need to smoke it roughly an hour to 90 minutes per pound, and we planned to eat around dinner time. What we wound up with in spite of the flaws in my preparation was the best brisket I have ever eaten. I do not think I ever need to order it at a restaurant ever again. Here is how it all played out. Friday night I applied a dry rub to the meat and wrapped it tightly in foil. The dry rub consisted of brown sugar, cayenne pepper, salt, black pepper, ground mustard, onion salt, and garlic salt. I had intended to use Chili powder, but I simply forgot it. I pressed the rub into the meat and covered the entire surface of the brisket. Incidentally, some people suggest trimming the fat on the brisket. Well our knives out at camp are very sub par and I tried briefly to trim it then gave up. So the meat was coated and wrapped before bed. When I woke up, I very quietly, so as not to wake the people next to us, loaded up the firebox with lump charcoal and made a ring inside the firebox. I have a charcoal chimney for fast lighting and I filled it as well to light the charcoal without using lighter fluid (it makes a difference I promise). Once the charcoal in the chimney was nice and white I dumped them into the middle of the ring of unlit charcoal. This allows the charcoal to burn from the inside out, slowly.
At this point I realized I had not soaked my apple wood chunks. Oops. So I threw some chunks into a bowl of water and allowed them to sit as the grill came up to temp. Once it was where I wanted it, I threw a handful of wood chunks in the firebox and put the meat on the grill and went back to bed.
That was my next mistake. When I woke up two hours later and came out, the grill was still at a good temp, but there was no smoke. My wood chunks had burned off completely. When smoking the first few hours are the most important because it is only in the first 4 hours that smoke flavor will really permeate the meat.
I quickly added some of the soaked wood chunks and then worried all day about whether I had ruined it. Well we also chose to use a bottled mopping sauce (Guy Fieri's Carolina #9 Mopping sauce) since we have not made our own yet. At about 1:00pm on Saturday I began mopping the brisket once an hour and tending the fire. Once the charcoal had been burned I began adding wood to the firebox instead of charcoal as well. Wood is cheaper.
At 6:00 pm the brisket came off the smoker and was sliced (thinly against the grain) and it was absolutely amazing.
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Wednesday, March 13, 2013
Hey Mashed Potatoes, lighten up!
Hello hello hello! It has been a while since I have posted anything, as I have been somewhat busy and somewhat distracted by...well everything, but I finally feel as though I have something noteworthy to talk about. In my absence from writing on here there have been several triumphs and some downright delicious soups which maybe I will share, but for now we are going to mash some things up!.
I am sure that some of you out there are either on a diet, have been on a diet, or just think about trying to eat better, yet never seem to get around to it. Well after doing some research on something I saw on one of the food programs we watch, I decided to try to make mashed potatoes a bit better.
You see, I am a meat and potatoes man. I do not care for vegetables much, generally i do not like most of them, and normally view them as a waste of space on a plate. In this recipe I will recreate for you, I use cauliflower, which under any other circumstance I will not eat. I absolutely hate it. I will admit that the first time I saw a potato/cauliflower mash, I immediately decided it would be disgusting. It turns out that it is absolutely delicious, I loved it. That is no small feat for me, because there is no other way in which I will ever eat cauliflower.
Here is how it works:
I bought a 5 lb bag of Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and cleaned about half of the bag(a 3lb bag would have worked) and cut the potatoes into cubes. I purchased a nice sized head of cauliflower (fresh...from the produce section, not frozen). I broke the head down to small florets, and placed them into the pot with the potatoes. While I was at the store I also purchased two boxes of organic chicken stock. One full box goes in the pot, with enough water to cover all of the potatoes and cauliflower, add salt to your liking, then I placed on the stove, heated to boiling, and then boiled about 15 to 20 minutes, or until the potatoes and cauliflower are fork tender. I then drained the mixture, saving the stock for a very low fat gravy. Once drained, place the potatoes and cauliflower back into the pot and return to the heat to dry them off. This will keep your mash from becoming too watery. Once dry transfer to whatever you are comfortable mashing or whipping the potatoes in. In our house we do not mash in the pot because we use non stick pots and do not want to damage the surface of the pots. Add just a very little bit of butter to the mash, for my recipe it was 2 tablespoons and mix. If your mash is too thick for your liking, add a splash of low fat or fat free skim milk and continue to blend.
In my case, my mash was a bit too thin, because I did not dry the potato and cauliflower and I assumed that I needed to add milk, so I did so before taking the mixer to it. If this happens to you, here is how I handled it. Dinner included Chicken breasts stuffed with spinach and reduced fat cheese, and I had some of the reduced fat shredded cheese left over, so I added it to the mash to tighten it up. It also added a nice flavor to the mash.
Remember that stock that was left over? Well it was fat free organic chicken stock, I took what was left from cooking my mash, and the second container and heated it to boiling. In a mixing bowl I mixed 1 cup of water with approximately 1/2 cup of corn starch and whisked til smooth, then added to the hot stock to make a fat free gravy for the mash and the stuffed chicken. The end result, I loved it, the spousal unit raved about it, as did the older kids, and the youngest one that will not eat any vegetables? We waited until he had devoured all of his to tell him he had just eaten cauliflower.
I am sure that some of you out there are either on a diet, have been on a diet, or just think about trying to eat better, yet never seem to get around to it. Well after doing some research on something I saw on one of the food programs we watch, I decided to try to make mashed potatoes a bit better.
You see, I am a meat and potatoes man. I do not care for vegetables much, generally i do not like most of them, and normally view them as a waste of space on a plate. In this recipe I will recreate for you, I use cauliflower, which under any other circumstance I will not eat. I absolutely hate it. I will admit that the first time I saw a potato/cauliflower mash, I immediately decided it would be disgusting. It turns out that it is absolutely delicious, I loved it. That is no small feat for me, because there is no other way in which I will ever eat cauliflower.
Here is how it works:
I bought a 5 lb bag of Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and cleaned about half of the bag(a 3lb bag would have worked) and cut the potatoes into cubes. I purchased a nice sized head of cauliflower (fresh...from the produce section, not frozen). I broke the head down to small florets, and placed them into the pot with the potatoes. While I was at the store I also purchased two boxes of organic chicken stock. One full box goes in the pot, with enough water to cover all of the potatoes and cauliflower, add salt to your liking, then I placed on the stove, heated to boiling, and then boiled about 15 to 20 minutes, or until the potatoes and cauliflower are fork tender. I then drained the mixture, saving the stock for a very low fat gravy. Once drained, place the potatoes and cauliflower back into the pot and return to the heat to dry them off. This will keep your mash from becoming too watery. Once dry transfer to whatever you are comfortable mashing or whipping the potatoes in. In our house we do not mash in the pot because we use non stick pots and do not want to damage the surface of the pots. Add just a very little bit of butter to the mash, for my recipe it was 2 tablespoons and mix. If your mash is too thick for your liking, add a splash of low fat or fat free skim milk and continue to blend.
In my case, my mash was a bit too thin, because I did not dry the potato and cauliflower and I assumed that I needed to add milk, so I did so before taking the mixer to it. If this happens to you, here is how I handled it. Dinner included Chicken breasts stuffed with spinach and reduced fat cheese, and I had some of the reduced fat shredded cheese left over, so I added it to the mash to tighten it up. It also added a nice flavor to the mash.
Remember that stock that was left over? Well it was fat free organic chicken stock, I took what was left from cooking my mash, and the second container and heated it to boiling. In a mixing bowl I mixed 1 cup of water with approximately 1/2 cup of corn starch and whisked til smooth, then added to the hot stock to make a fat free gravy for the mash and the stuffed chicken. The end result, I loved it, the spousal unit raved about it, as did the older kids, and the youngest one that will not eat any vegetables? We waited until he had devoured all of his to tell him he had just eaten cauliflower.
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