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.