Some of my recent cooks (5 1/2 cooks lots of pron)

[Aawa]

It has been a busy winter/spring so far for me.   I haven't been able to cook much lately or read the forums as of late as I am working 2 jobs and I'm in 3 sports leagues.  I did want to share some of the last few cooks I have done since I posted my Caribbean winter dinner.

A few weeks after the island dinner, I decided to have friends over for some ribs and other fare.  Here is what I served up.
BBQ Ribs, tropical slaw, sweet potato biscuits, panko and parmesian crusted asparagus, and appetizers of smoked swiss, elk and black pepper summer sausage, and venison cheddar jalapeno summer sausage.  (Pardon the pictures, I had to gather them from my friends facebook photos lol )

These sweet potato biscuits, I thought, were the star of the night.  It had taken me several attempts to get them right.  I made the sweet potato puree from scratch and had it for dinner earlier that week.  Leftovers went into making the biscuits.




Next up was a few days after St. Paddy's day.  Cornbeef was nice and cheap and I took advantage of it to make some pastrami!  I bought a store cornbeef, and soaked it for 24 hours changing the water out about 4 times.  i sliced a little bit off and fried it up to check the saltiness of it.    Then I rubbed it up and threw it on the kettle with maple wood till it was just before probe tender (my guess was it wa sabout 190ish IT)  I served it on some rye bread, with home made coleslaw, brown mustard, smoked swiss, and saurkraut and kale chips.




My parent's had recently found out what pastrami was and fell in love with it.  I brought some over to them with the cole slaw and rye bread and they said it was the best pastrami sandwich they have had and asked that I always bring them some whenever I make it.  Looks like I will have to make 2 pastrami's at a time from here on out.  One for my parents and one for house lol.

For one of my days off, I cooked up dinner for my roommates and me.  It was a couple beef bottom rounds smoked with maple wood.  Served with roasted potatos w/ italian herbs and spices, grilled asparagus and kale chips.  If you haven't noticed I use quite  a bit of the season veggies as they are at the peak for taste and also the cheapest at the market
Rubbed with Adam Perry Langs beef rub in his Tri-Tip recipe from Serious BBQ




I don't have a lot of pictures for the dish I made.  My friends have a joint party for 3 of them as they were all born within 2 weeks of each other.  They always have a theme to the pot luck and this year it was Iron Chef: Sausage battle.  I didn't want to go with typical sausage dishes so I decided to push my creativity.  I did a Sausage and 3 mushroom stuffing muffin w/ onsen eggs (eggs poached in their own shell).  I cooked the sausage and mushroom stuffing muffins on my kettle with a chunk of apple wood in the coals.  The poached eggs took almost an hour to do once I was able to get the water to a nice stable 145 degrees.  The reason why I did the onsen eggs was I did not want to be poaching eggs the whole time during the party (i made 36 stuffing muffins and 36 onsen eggs).  Onsen eggs you literally crack the egg over the stuffing muffin and a perfectly poached egg comes out.



I had 5 people come up and ask me how I made the eggs as they were the perfect consistency and it kept really easily.  You can literally make a dozen of these eggs, and keep them in the fridge.  Whenever you want a poached egg, get a bowl of hot water and place it in there for 2-3mins and bam warm poached egg to top anything!


Next dinner was in celebration of my buddy able to finally get around after going through hip replacement surgery.  His request was torta talong (eggplant and egg filipino dish) and the rest was up to me.

I did Torta talong, smoked onions, old bay roasted potato wedges, smoked beef sausage and beef short ribs, and grilled sour dough.


The short ribs and beef sausage was done on the kettle using the ring of fire method and pecan wood.


Torta Talong and smoked onions.  I roasted the egg plants over the charcoal and then peeled them and mashed them flat.  Then dipped them in beaten eggs and fried them up.  Onions I just cut the ends off and peeled them and threw them on the grills while the short ribs cooked.  Then took them off and cut them up.




My plate


And the last cook is from Friday.  Was just a get together that I threw together.

BBQ Ribs, spatchcocked bbq chicken, cheesy cornbread muffins, mashed sweet potatoes, edamame beans, steamed corn.  Only the corn and the butter weren't home made :p


Ribs were rubbed with Simply marvelous cheery rub and done on the kettle with maple wood.


Chicken was brined with 2 parts salt, 1 part brown sugar, 1 part old bay, and some pepper corn and crushed red chili.  I brined it for 6 hours, drained it, and let it sit in the fridge uncovered to dry the skin for 4 hours.  I rubbed the skin down with some olive oil and used some leftover Adam Perry Lang Serious BBQ Tri Tip rub.  I cooked it at 400 degrees on the kettle with maple wood chunks in the coals.  This was absolutely the star of the show.  The chicken was nice and moist with flavor all the way down to the bone. 



My plate



Thanks for taking the time to look over this post.  I know it was long, but I wanted to share my cooks with everybody.  I have learned how to really use a kettle from this forum and have drawn a bunch of inspiration from the members here.  I wanted to post my cooks to try to inspire other cooks the way the members here have inspired me!

[pbe gummi bear]

Damn dude, you're back with a vengeance! You got some insane skills. I bet you keep the family stuffed and happy.  Was this all on the Weber or did you cheat with the drum?

[Aawa]

 All the meat and most of the sides were cooked on the kettles.  I think the only things that didn't get done on the kettle are the biscuits, kale chips, sauerkraut, and steamed beans/corn, and cole slaw, everything else had at least 1 component that was done on the kettle.  Heck I did the mashed sweet potatos on the kettle.  Roasted the sweet potatoes up on the kettle, peel them, dropped them in a preheated cast iron dutch oven, added the seasonings, coconut oil, coconut milk and let it stay warm in the kettle while everything else was being finished up also.

Now that you mentioned the drum, I just realized that I haven't fired my UDS up since Thanksgiving.  My go to cookers are my kettles.  They are just easier to get setup and start cooking, along with doing the sides on them vs trying to get it all done on the drum.

[1buckie]

     

      "Thanks for taking the time to look over this post.  I know it was long, but I wanted to share my cooks with everybody.  I have learned how to really use a kettle from this forum and have drawn a bunch of inspiration from the members here.  I wanted to post my cooks to try to inspire other cooks the way the members here have inspired me!"



Ya know, there's a lot of stories about traipsing around the landscape looking for the long lost 'golden kettle' written here, but this quote up above, along with all those photos and the work that when into them.........well, that's the end game !!!!


Thank You very much !!!!

[Aawa]

     

      "Thanks for taking the time to look over this post.  I know it was long, but I wanted to share my cooks with everybody.  I have learned how to really use a kettle from this forum and have drawn a bunch of inspiration from the members here.  I wanted to post my cooks to try to inspire other cooks the way the members here have inspired me!"



Ya know, there's a lot of stories about traipsing around the landscape looking for the long lost 'golden kettle' written here, but this quote up above, along with all those photos and the work that when into them.........well, that's the end game !!!!


Thank You very much !!!!

Thanks for the kind words.  As much as I love the hobby of collecting and I wish I could have the golden kettles, my true passion is cooking.  We are all lucky to have a forum such as the WKC where we can share our passion for the kettles and outdoor cooking and where we can find inspiration for our next cooks.

If anybody ever wants a recipe from dishes I have posted, I am more than happy to share them as well as the different cooking techniques that I use.

[One Touch Platinum]

Everything looks great! I will take one of everything please.

[jcnaz]

Terrific cooks and a terrific post. Thank you!