BBQ'd Nerves

BBQ is good!  Stress is NOT good!  BBQ'd Nerves, are really, really bad.

Lets hit a few highlights of this recipe ...

Add 1 part daughter getting married (see previous posts)
Add 2 parts financial stress, worried about said wedding
Add 1 part trying to lose some weight for said wedding (ie, don't want to look like a penguin)
Add 2 part new puppy running around the house that the kids leave me with to handle (Argghhh)
Add 2 part upcoming professional certification test
Add 1 part pressure from work to pass said professional exam
Add 4 parts normal routine is shot (I love my routine!)
Add 1 part all the crap that I keep hearing from my "friends"
Add 10 parts The Learning Channel

The Learning Channel?  What is that?  TV?  What the hell comes on that channel?  Apparently, I don't watch enough TV beyond fighting and crab fishing.

I don't know how many "parts" that is, but here is the "rest of the story" ....

I don't like change!  Yeah, I know, in my line of work, I am an agent of change.  The reality is that I love change, for others, but cant stand it for myself.  Additionally, I don't deal with financial stress real well.  So lets define stress as .... anything that I don't find as necessary or that I don't understand or that I don't institute!  Bottom line, its all about me!  So, with the clear understanding that this isn't about me, lets move forward by looking at the points above.....

The wedding is coming and guess who isn't in charge of the budget??????  Yeah, I "laid down the law" in respect to the budget, but do you think that matters?

Elizabeth and I are trying to lose some weight.  For her that means increasing exercise and skipping a few things, for me that means skipping carbs which includes my normal stress relieving potion.

Elizabeth and I are baby sitting the new puppy that thinks he owns the world!  I really dislike that dog as he has completely disrupted the whole "animal" vibe of the house.  Which really means this dog isn't MY English  bulldog so I don' like him.

On the job, we've been tasked with passing our Project Management Professional (PMP), yes, I will be a certified PiMP) certification.  Its probably not the hardest certification but I know its not the easiest.  To make matters worse, I really don't know what to expect as this will be my first professional certification.  Add a little pressure to pass since I am not the first to try and everyone else has passed!  IE, this is the root of the problem, I have pass a test!!!!

I am a creature of habit.  I am getting worse with age (thanks Dad, LOL).  The reality is that I feel great comfort in my standard routine.  Man is that interrupted right now.

Lets skip the "friends" part for right now, that will become evident in minute....

Now for the Learning Channel.....  Apparently, Jessica registered to be a part of a show on the Learning Channel, Say Yes to the Dress: Bridesmaids AND guess who got selected?  That's right, we are headed to Atlanta for some fancy dress shop to try on some dresses and film a show.  Well, we aren't headed there, all 10 of the bridal party is headed there!  I am staying home to get some last minute cram in for the test.

Enter the "friends" here...and all the jokes!  I should go because ...........

Here is the kicker, do you think there is any compensation for being on the show?  NO, NOT at all!  See this is hitting two of my stress points, its WAY out of the norm and its hitting the budget badly (think travel).

This is an "experience" so it doesn't count against the budget because they are going to be on TV!  TV?  Who cares?  What is so special about being on TV?  Besides, who is to say you will be on TV?  That isn't a given, it depends on if you bring the drama!  I hope they don't bring the drama (I don't want people to see our family drama!)  Trust me, our drama is pretty, it isn't funny except that is why I started this dang thing to begin with, so I guess our drama is funny after all.

OK, so I don't want people to see the drama, but I am happy to sit here and complain about it?  That does sound a bit like a double standard!  Maybe my real problem is that I am simply stressed about this test?

Maybe I need to kick out some BBQ, not nerves mind you that would probably be gross?  Besides, do you think that the local butcher has nerves for sale?  Yeah, I think I will throw a few steaks on the grill, maybe smoke a butt or two, and forget that lose weight thing this weekend.

Of course, I will cram for the test, I will worry about the girls traveling to big city without me, but I really hope they have some fun AND I will worry about ALL of this until its over, they've had their experience, and I am certified and the coolest episode of that show EVER actually airs on TV, till then .... these are the days of my life.  I hope some day that someone, somewhere decides that they want to air an episode of me, winning the biggest lottery ever!

I don't really think that mega millions will solve my stress BUT I am willing to volunteer to see if it does!

July 4th Brisket

Regardless of the holiday, especially in the spring, summer and fall, grilling and smoking are going to be part of the experience, particularly in the south.

For this fourth of July, Todd and I decided to try a beef brisket!    Here in south-central Alabama, smoking BBQ is more about pork and chicken than beef, but we decided it would be fun to expand our horizons.

With that in mind, we decided that an appropriate recipe might be needed for us (given we had never tried a beef brisket).  As usual, Todd and I decided to go for the gusto, ie. we went for one of the more ambitious recipes that we could find.

The "Wood Chick" is a nationally known, competition grilling and smoking QUEEN.  She regularly competes in BBQ competitions and does rather well.  You can find here at this location ... http://woodchicksbbq.com/.  We found the brisket recipe at this location ... http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/bbq-with-bobby-flay/wood-chicks-bbq-smoked-beef-brisket-recipe/index.html.  The bottom line, Wood Chick, is givings away one of her competition or restaurant recipes there for free.

Todd and I made the mop sauce and BBQ sauce on Wednesday night and started the brisket at 7:40 AM on Thursday. Here is a breakdown of the process.....

Below are the ingredients that we needed to purchase, this doesn't include the long list of ingredients that we already had in the house....

That BBQ sauce was simply awesome.  In fact, I think that is the best sauce that we could have made.  In the future, we will modify it a bit, since this one was completely sweet, no heat here.

Right before I put the beast one the grilll, we slathered it down with the mustard sauce to help tenderize the meat.

After 2 hours of smoking, this thing was moving along.  The green egg really helped with keeping the temp just right, 225 degrees.

At 185 degrees, we took the brisket off the smoker!

Once it was done, we sliced across the grain and used the tip to create some "burnt ends".   They are not well known in the south but they are fantastic.

Memorial Day Weekend

Tried a little something different!   Thats right, that is some electric RED hair.  

Big Elizabeth helped me with the color job (took an hour!).  The material was a gel type stain that mixed in and washed out with the first wash (thank goodness!).  I thought it would be a little fun to embarrass the kids since they have provided so many years of the same to us.

Although you cant see it in the picture, I looked like an evil Ronald McDonald!!! Hehehe.  I got my revenge somewhere in south Alabama as we stopped for lunch (on the way to the beach) and ate at McDonalds.  We (I) decided that we needed to eat inside and the place was PACKED!  Imagine the look on Brooke's face when she realized that she was going inside McDonalds with me, looking like that!  In addition, I managed to go to Publix, Winn-Dixie and some liqueur store too.  Bottom line, the kids either hated it or thought it was EXTREMELY funny.

We had a great weekend!  We spent Friday through Tuesday at the beach with John Michael's family.  There was 11 of us so we rented a large home on the beach.  That worked really well.  We grilled on the beach Friday night, ate at Angelo's Steak House (yummmm) Saturday, Captain Anderson's (double yummm) on Sunday and had a new experience at Dick's Last Resort on Monday.  

Dick's was unique in that the wait staff is supposed to be rude and our waiter was on par.  When Brooke requested lemon for her water, he brought her a lemon and a knife.  For her hat (a piece of paper folded into a hat that MOST dinners get), he wrote on Big Elizabeth's ... "The last time I got lucky, I yelled Bingo".  Pretty funny stuff until I realized that it was really making fun of me!  Special note, the waiter was really smart and did not make funny hats for the two guys paying the billl!!!!!

Anyway, we had a good time.  I, of course, will require a visit to the chiropractor now but that is my own ignorance.  Apparently, trampoline basketball is not healthy for a 43 year old back (especially not a fat 43 year old). BUT let me say that I spanked the kids at Laser Tag.

In addition to the great food, we managed a little fun on the beach too.  Well, everyone but Jeff (JM's dad) and I.  We spent the weekend shopping (weird for two dudes?), while they sat on the beach. We did get some good deals on shoes, shirts and hats AND we had a good chance to get to know each other better, talk business and basically try to act like 20 somethings.  Oh, that last part would have been Sunday night, when he and I decided that we could "Party like Rock Stars" with the 20 somethings.  Apparently, we can't!  I will leave that story "as is".

Now that we are back, let me throw a few additional details at you ....

1. Our bowling team is doing awesome, we are up to spot 8 out of 10.  Not bad for beginners.

2. Our bowling team needs to quit trying to shut down the bowling alley on Saturdays (I am too old for that).

3. I grilled some AMAZING steaks on Saturday before we went bowling.  

4. I smoked some AMAZING pork butt today!!!!!!  AMAZING!

Until next time, have some fun, its summer, enjoy the outside (in the shade) and remember that you only live once, enjoy it for all its worth!

Engagement Party

We had a party last weekend to celebrate the engagement of Jessica and JM.  We thought it would be fun to have the families come together and enjoy a perfect afternoon of food and fun.  For this party we decided to go full force, check out the ingredients.....

Mix 45-50 of your families, friends and neighbors with .....

15 lbs of Hamburger meat

4 lbs of Nathan's Hotdogs

6 lbs of Shrimp

4 lbs of Conecuh sausage

3 lbs of Smoked sausage

2 lbs of Bacon

40 hamburger buns

40 hotdog buns

24 quarters of Corn on the Cob

3 lbs of new potatoes

American and Monterrey Cheese

Lettuce

Tomatoes

Onions

Lemons

Limes

Bread Crumbs

Eggs

Butter

Hamburger seasoning

Chili

Sauerkraut

Add in the extras ....

1 bag of "Slap your Mama" boil seasoning (the best stuff ever)

More bags of chips than a chip factory

8-10 cases of soda and assorted kiddie beverages

20 gallons of "diet coke"

Potato salad

Pasta salad

cakes and pies

homemade ice cream (vanilla and grape)

and many other finger foods and appetizers that I didn't even get to try

About 100 lbs of ice 

One inflatable Jousting Arena!!!!!!

Add a dash of perfect weather and you got yourself a party!!!

Huge thanks go out to the guys that came early to help setup, stayed late to help cleanup, and grilled and boiled for approximately 3 hours to pull everything together.  There is no way that Elizabeth and I could have  done this one alone.

Here are a few picks ....

Thats me dominating Big E on the Jesting Arena 

The shrimp boil starting to be served.  Need more shrimp next time.

The lucky couple enduring one of my terrible announcements/speechs.

A little game time.

A group shot from early in the afternoon.

Friday Nights (Aint just for Fighting!!!!)

Whew!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Big Friday!

I've been running on a sinus headache and continually running nose for a few days but we decided that shouldn't ruin a good Friday night. To set this up ....

1. Big E and I joined a bowling league with two of the guys from work. We stink, but nobody is out there having as much fun as us. Oh yeah, we are in dead last place.

2. We have a bit of a fan club for our team. Each week, one or more of the usual gang comes to see the excitement. Either they are jealous of not being on the team or they want to see if Big E can back up the smack talk.

3. Thursday, Big E and I had a surprise "meeting" with a young man to discuss the future.

4. Thursday night, the bowling talk turned into a question of when we will be having the next party.

5. In a moment of weakness, joy or sheer ignorance, I agreed to Friday night.

Friday, for lunch, I managed to sneak away from work and picked up a couple of beautiful boneless pork "butts". They were destined to be main event (or so I thought) for Friday with a side dose of coleslaw, sausage and buns.

Everyone started to arrive around 7:00 Friday night, which turned out to be perfect timing. The "butts" were smoked, rested and ready to be chopped. Big E made the homemade coleslaw and we grilled the buns for a little extra flavor.

Side Note: Have I mentioned lately that I have the coolest and best grill made? The Green Egg is simply amazing!

The barbecue turned out to be PERFECT. The meat was seasoned perfectly. The pork had a nice quarter inch smoke ring and was super moist in the middle. The only thing missing was a home made BBQ sauce, which I still have not tried.

Throw in a few drinks, 8-10 good friends and we had a party! Regretfully, we didn't have any of the usual games to be played. Actually, we were having so much fun eating, drinking and talking that we forgot to drag out the games.

Another side note: The weather was awesome. By night fall, the temperature had come down so that it was completely comfortable sitting outside for those without the sinus issues. However, it was still nice enough to leave the back door open for those of us not up to sitting outside.

Everything wound down around 12:00, with Big E reeling from her extra pull(s) on the apple shine (potent!) and my head still splitting from the draining of my left sinus, we walked everyone out and then sat down on the sofa to rest for a minute and play with the dogs before heading to bed.

However, bed had to wait as the main event was still to come. Now, for some of you, get your mind out of the gutter!!!!!!! HeeHee

Around 12:30, Jessica stormed into the house with a sound of joy that could only point to one thing........ Remember that meeting with the young man about the future? Yeah, Elizabeth and I don't do the Gypsy Fortune Teller stuff, this was that other meeting with a young man about the future ..... John Michael had finally gotten the nerve to pop the BIG question!

Big E and I had a good idea that it would be coming soon, as JM came to see us on Thursday but neither of us expected the next day. That young man did a good job ... took Jessica back to the spot they first met and had a NICE ring to boot. We are so lucky to have him joining our family.

Needless to say, its was a few hours later before we were able to make it to bed with all the excitement. Going to be an interesting couple of months till October 6, which I hear is the planned date.

Another Sunday Dinner

Well this Sunday we had a little something different. It was just Big E and I. We spent the afternoon tuning up our bowling game (a different blog for a different day) and picking up some groceries.

Since it was just the two of us, she decided to grab some boneless pork chops. Normally, pork is smoked and takes hours to complete but we decided to grab some pork that could easily be grilled on the gas grill.

For seasoning, we tried the pork rub and BBQ sauce sold as part of the Nick and Terry Saban "Nicks Kids Fund" charity. You can find their website here ... http://www.nickskidsfund.com/.

Before going any further, I prefer to make my own rub! I've never tried to make my own BBQ sauce but it is on my to do list for this summer. I can't speak to the goodness of the individual rub or sauce, but combined they are awesome. Whether you are fan a Nick Saban or Alabama Football fan, the value is definitely there and a portion of the proceeds go to benefit a very worthwhile charity.

The chops were approximately 1 inch thick; coated liberally with rub and allowed to rest on the counter (covered of course) for about an hour to insure that the meat is room temperature before hitting the grill. Don't underestimate the value of allowing meat to come up to room temperature before going to the grill.

Since I didn't want to scorch the pork chops, I only had the heat going on two of the three burners. This allowed me to have a HOT side, a medium middle and a warm side of the grill.

I placed the pork chops on the warm side of the grill and placed some left over buns coated with butter on the Hot side of the grill. The buns only stayed on the grill long enough to warm up and melt the butter (trust me, 1 minute per side some enough). We used the buns as an appetizer.

HINT: use your favorite BBQ sauce as a dipping sauce for bread! Heat the sauce until its runny (if it isn't already) and dip your bread. This works best with spicier sauces as opposed to sweet sauces. Thanks to Dreamland BBQ for this little idea.

While the chops were slowly coming up to speed, Big E made some garlic mashed potatoes to have with the chops. After 5-6 minutes I flipped the chops and let them go another 4-5 minutes simply trying to get them up to temp.

Then I took a spoon full of the BBQ sauce and coated one side of the chops with it. I placed the sauced side down on the Hot side of the grill to caramelize the sauce to the chop and repeated on the other side. All told, I only left the chops on the Hot heat for 1-2 minutes per side.

The end result was juice dripping, extremely tasty pork chop with some really nice potatoes. We kicked back and watched the ACM awards. That was a good night for the two of us.

Sunday Dinner

Anyone of a reasonable age has memories of Sunday Dinner. Mom cooking up the goods and bringing it all together for a family meal!!!!!! Almost makes you want to cry just thinking about it, not to mention the five pounds it adds instantly.

Our family group doesn't do Sunday dinner very often. The girls are running in different directions and Sunday isn't my favorite day to have large groups of people to the house for food. However, everything sorta came together this past Sunday for a nice meal.

As I stated previously, we are changing the direction of the blog to be more about what is on the grill and how it got there, so ....

Sunday, we grilled ...

Garlic Bread

- Ruined it, threw it away, burnt to be disgusting

- I hope one day that I can master the bread on the grill action, it smells so good.

Corn on the Cob

- Slightly bland, used a chilli pepper and butter mixture, not enough chilli

- When you get the pepper to butter blend right, grilled corn is awesome

Green Beans

- Simple awesome, not bragging but everyone agreed, best ever

- Steam green beans, wrap in bacon (makes everything better)

- Oil up with olive oil

- Sprinkle with some red pepper flakes

Potatoes with Onions

- OK, so they didn't go on the grill (ran out of room)

- Oven 350 degrees

- Red potatoes, cut small, add whole onion cut into pieces, olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic

- mix together and place into oven until potatoes are soft to cut

- use some fresh thyme if you have it (yum!)

Green Onions

- Really simple, olive oil, salt, grill for a few minutes ...... Sweet

- and just for fun, yeah, I wrapped a couple in bacon ...... Sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet

Cajun sausage

- Really simple, buy it, grill it, eat it (just don't burn it and you are fine)

Chicken

- mixture of boneless tenders and thinly slice breasts

- we used a variety of different rubs

- montreal chicken is awesome (thanks McCormicks)

- mesquite chicken is good (another McCormick)

- cattlemans steak shake is really good (local seasoning from the cattlemans group)

- green egg seasoning (Big Green Egg owners will know this one)

Burgers

- One goofball thought hamburgers would be better

- Two pounds of hamburger meat

- blackening seasoning, Worcestershire, pepper, salt all mixed into meat

- make FOUR patties and grill FOREVER!

- dang good but 30 minute burgers is ridiculous.

Anyway, bottom line, I grilled for about 2 and half hours and it was worth it. Yeah, it was a lot of work, we grilled, we played, we ate. It was a good day.

Until next time, I'm studying the Latin America grilling book. I hope to have a worthwhile blog on that success soon.

Cooking with Mom

You cant talk about cooking in my family without including my mom. Normally, its my mom dropping the five star dinners on us, but Tuesday night, we had a different experience.

Mom booked a little cooking class action for the two of us. The local Williams and Sonoma is offering two hour classes where they demonstrate an entire meal (sales pitch included for their products) that includes you eating the meal. Needless to say, it didnt take any arm twisting to get me to attend that class.

Menu for that night included ... French Onion Soup, Rice Pilaf with Mushrooms, Ribeye steak and some sort of chocolate dessert (kinda a look a mousse).

I'm not a fan of French Onion soup, but to be honest the recipe is far less complicated than I expected and I might consider brewing some up for guests in the future. Everyone else commented that the soup was excellent, confirming my believe that it ain't for me.

The rice was really nice. It was cool to see a rice pilaf made from scratch as opposed to buying the dollar box at Publix and mixing the packages together with water.

It was the ribeye steak that I went to see and taste though. Martha, the nice lady teaching the class, took some very nice looking (and my favorite food in the world) ribeye steaks and crusted them with a mixture of kosher salt, fresh cracked pepper and fresh rosemary. Guess the secret ingredient? Duh ... Rosemary!!!!!

Interestingly, she placed the spices on right before she started cooking. I think that she waited to spice the steaks because the salt will rob moisture from the steak when I applied for long periods ahead of time. I forgot to ask Martha about that but after doing some research, salt tends to have an adverse effect on moisture.

Now, to be honest, I was suspect on the idea of cooking ribeyes in a pan or oven. Strike One and Two! (She actually did BOTH!) In my mind, you grill ribeyes!!! Last, Martha and several of the attendees were slightly older ladies that wanted the meat to be cooked, "well done". Strike Three! I was confident that I was in for a slightly ruined, overly cooked, rubbery ribeye.

I will stop now and apologize, on all accounts ..... well on two out of the three accounts.

Martha did a fine job of coating the steak with the salt, pepper and rosemary spices. The rosemary was fresh, like she picked it out of her garden that afternoon fresh!!!!!! Those steaks smelled wonderful sitting on the counter (directly in front of me) waiting to be ruined by the pan and oven.

Martha informed us that she had the eye for the pan turned on HIGH, the olive oil sizzled when she poured it in (ahhh, the smell of goodness). She then placed two of the ribeyes into the pan for about 2 minutes before flipping the steaks for 2 more minutes. I was almost in tears as I listened to the steaks sizzle and as she pulled them off to place into the oven I thought about how wonderful it would be to eat them right then. Martha repeated the searing process on the rest of the steaks till all where done and she placed them in the oven (around 350 I believe).

Let me say that searing steak (or any meat for that matter) is a great way to lock in the juices. The science behind it suggests that if you scorch (not burn) the outside edges of the meat quickly, the pores of the meat will close trapping in juices. Really, this is true stuff, you can look it up! Alton Brown (the food science guy) talks about this stuff on his Food Network shows often.

Anyway, Martha seared those steaks tight, then placed them in the oven. Apparently around the 12 minute mark Martha pulled the steaks out of the oven. I didn't have a good sense of time for two reasons; one, I was fearing for the life of those steaks and two she distracted everyone else talking about that chocolate dessert stuff.

Finally, Martha reached into the oven and let the meat free!!!!!!!!

Immediately, Martha began to cut into the meat. If you are wondering about letting meat rest and all that jazz, let me say, Martha said no (in this case) and Martha was right. She cut into that steak and it was ...... a perfect medium! For me, that is a little over cooked, but the individual slices that she served could be cut with your fork and tasted like heaven.

I was wrong! I was wrong! I was wrong! A fine steak can be cooked indoors with a pan and an oven. Martha proved that well enough for me. Sure, those steaks could have been medium rare with appropriate redness inside, and I would have enjoyed them even more but Martha needed to cook them to a happy medium for everyone (I couldn't be selfish on this outing).

As for the dessert, well I ate it. That says a lot as I don't generally touch dessert. Whatever that chocolate stuff was, it was good (was that English? three "was" in a sentence, can't be good).

A couple of lessons learned from the class for me ....

1. Traditionally, if I am looking for a fine steak, I go to a real butcher but she proved to me that you can go to Publix (or any grocery store) for a really good steak. Note: she did ask the butcher there to cut them special for her, thickness, marble, etc.

2. Fresh herbs are key and rosemary on a steak is great.

3. Pan searing is awesome. I will try that at home but I will finish it in the grill next time to get some of that smoke flavor too. I will not grill the steak though, I will BBQ it with indirect heat.

4. A really good olive oil does make a difference. My Cisco brand olive oil does not produce that kind of a buttery flavor (sorry Cisco). Looks like the sales pitch for Williams and Sonoma might have worked on me.

Special thanks to mom for treating me to a great dinner and some life lessons too. I hope to attend more of their classes.

Change in direction ...

The ole blog has been slow lately. OK, so by slow, I mean DEAD. I think that as the girls have grown, one of two things have occurred .....

1. They aren't near as ridiculous as they used to be?

2. I dont really know what is going on any more?

Im betting on number 2!!!!! I know that there is a LOT more whispering in the house these days even with Big E involved. So, I figure we have reached that point where its best that I don't know what is going on around the house? Hence, the new direction......

Big E got me the best Christmas gift ever. I got a Big Green Egg grill. If you don't know what a Big Green Egg is, look it up. Bottom line, best grill, smoker and all around food entertainment ever.

Therefore, I am going to start blogging about our grilling experience. We've been averaging 2-3 grilling activities per week since Christmas, so I figure I can rely on those for some fun and insightful communication.

Let me know what you think ......