Sugar picks the "Big Game"

Next Smoke!

Gonna be smoking another pork butt for the "Big Game" this Sunday. I'll be sure to take some pictures and write up a report for it.

Baked Mac and Cheese

I decided if I was gonna make BBQ I should also work on a few sides. Macaroni and cheese is my favorite vegetable so I wanted to start with it. Before you know it I'll be cooking. I don't have any pictures but I'll try and grab some this weekend if I make it again. This is the current version of the recipe. Change it however you want, it's a free country.

Ingredients

1 pound of elbow macaroni. The small kind is better.
2 or 3 cups of shredded Mild Cheddar cheese.
2 or 3 cups of shredded Monterey Jack or Colby Jack cheese.
2 tbsp. of flour.
2 tsp. of ground mustard
1 tbsp. of the pork rub I used in my first smoke.
1 cup of milk.
Some squeeze butter maybe.

Directions

(1) Boil the dumb macaroni. While that's going, spray Pam all over a 13" x 9" oven-safe casserole dish thingy.

(2) Get a big bowl and mix all of the DRY ingredients along with HALF of the cheese. Also preheat the oven to 375 degrees.

(3) When the macaroni is cooked, drain it and dump it in the bowl with all the cheese and stuff and mix it up, then pour it into the casserole dish.

(4) Cover it with the rest of the cheese. Then cover the whole thing with aluminum foil. Bake it for 45 minutes. I take off the foil with 5-6 minutes left to let the top layer firm up a bit. You don't have to use foil at all if you like a crunchier top but seriously blechhhhhhhhh.

(5) Spoon it into your face.

These numbers will feed 8 people but more likely only 4 because it is delicioussssssss.

BWCC Chicken Breasts

Hey everybody!

Alright, so I decided to do the bacon-wrapped Coca-cola chicken breasts I found in the only BBQ book I own, authored by Myron Mixon. I marinated the chicken breasts overnight in a mixture of ~14oz of Coke, a diced onion*, and two crushed garlic cloves.

(*I learned to dice onions by typing "how to dice an onion" into Youtube and watching a two minute video from Gordon Ramsay. I wanted to make bourbon-caramelized onions for burgers and being able to dice without piercing the bulb has been an invaluable skill. Also bourbon is great for caramelization. Firefox says caramelization isn't a word but what does it know.)

The next day I readied the smoker(the recipe calls for 300 degrees and an MES30 only goes up to 275, so I knew I wasn't going to get as much smoke as others) and put the rub on the marinated pieces.

Rub:
Coarse Kosher Salt
Some Black Pepper
Ground Mustard
Chili Powder
Cumin
Garlic Powder
Onion Powder 
Sugar

I wrapped them in a couple pieces of bacon each(and draped the rest of the bacon over the whole dish). These hung out in the smoker for about 1 hour 45 minutes while we watched the DVR and made sides. Instead of water this time I put apple juice in the bowl for SUPER APPLE STEAM POWER.

Next time I'll use less salt, or won't rub both sides. It was a bit salty but not too bad. The bacon was basically super salty ham, which means it was DELICIOUS AND WILL KILL YOU IF YOU EAT TOO MUCH.

I'm ready to try all kinds of different smoked chicken breast recipes now. I'm hoping my next smoke will be another Boston butt. I'll probably do a blog entry tomorrow on the baked mac and cheese recipe I'm fiddling with. Thanks for reading, share the blog and follow me on Twitter here

Second Smoke: Bacon-wrapped Coca-Cola Chicken Breasts

This is from a Myron Mixon recipe. I'll add all the details in to this post later, I just wanted to get a picture up.

First Smoke: Boston Butt

Hi. I'm Dave. I've spent about a year watching BBQ shows and researching it on different forums and stuff. This blog is just a way for me to keep a BBQ journal of my first year of smoking low and slow. Hopefully there will be lots of pictures.

I got a MES 30(Masterbuilt Electric Smoker, 30") for Christmas, along with some heavy duty meat cooking gloves and a giftcard to grab some meat from Wal-Mart. I got a Smithfield Boston butt, some aluminum pans, a couple airtight plastic canisters to hold rubs, and some of the spices we didn't have.

The night before the smoke I seasoned the MES to burn out all the factory grease. While that was going on I made my rub. I didn't get too complicated:

Equal parts Coarse Kosher Salt and Black Pepper.

Some Onion Powder(granulated is best).

Some Garlic Powder(granulated is best).

A bunch of Smoked Paprika.

Check out the Aaron Franklin video to the right, about 30 seconds in he makes a rub and I basically just copied it.

I got out the 9.3lb butt and immediately forgot to both (a) rinse/dry off the butt and (b) forgot to put on the coat of olive oil before rubbing the first side. I got it all rubbed and wrapped up in clingwrap and left it in the fridge overnight.

The next morning I got the smoker heated up and ready for a 6:30 start. I added a layer of brown sugar to the top(fatty) side of the butt and smoked it in an aluminum pan. After 3 hours at 275 degrees I foiled over(not wrapped) the butt and added some apple juice.

After 7 hours in the smoker it hit 190 internal temp so I moved it to the oven for 4 hours(still at 275). I had to sleep because I didn't line up the start of the smoke with the start of my day, so that was another lesson I learned. After four hours I pulled the butt(205 internal temp) and let it rest for about 30-40 minutes. The bone slid out and I pulled the thing apart with my gloves and a fork.