Labor Day cooks, drinks, music and eating competition

[Uncle Al]

We had a great Labor Day weekend this year.  We pretty much stayed at home and grilled, had great drinks and listened to good music all weekend long.  This was also the most cooking I have done to date with the kettle logging in over 24hrs of cook time over three days.
Friday evening I started two 7lb pork shoulders - my first on a kettle.  For drinks we had Leinenkugel Summer Shandy and for music some fine sounds of Iron Maiden.  I started out with an apple juice injection topped off with a little rub.  I set up the kettle with my PitMasterIQ set to a temp of 225° and added some apple and hickory wood.  22 hours later they finally reached 200°.  I foiled them and let them rest in the cooler for an hour.  After the rest I pulled them, added some finishing sauce and on to some ciabatta buns.  The sandwiches were great! (no plate pic)  I do not know if it was because I was happy that my long cook turned out or If I was really hungry at that point.  Next time I want to try for more flavor in the injection than just plain apple juice and once they reach 160° I'm going to foil them for a little more moisture.  All in all the payoff was worth getting up every few hours to check on things and I had fun doing it. 

[Uncle Al]

Sunday:  We got out with the recently acquired rotisserie attachment and cooked a bird.  Drinks again were Leinenkugel Summer Shandy and for music some Queensrÿche.  I injected the chicken with a mixture of beer, butter, honey and some herbs, laced it up with some twine and then onto the spit.  Sides were zucchini and squash on the Smokey Joe plus some yellow rice from the kitchen.  For desert we had grilled pineapple over ice cream with butter rum sauce.  Everything was excellent!

[Uncle Al]

Monday:  Meatball subs and a eating contest.  Dinks were Żubrówka Bison Grass Vodka and lemonade, music was Soundgarden.  I set up the kettle with two zones with a little mesquite wood.  Meatballs and contest burgers only took a few minutes to cook.  We still had some roasted garlic and peppers from a few weeks ago for the sauce so my work was done.  Toast the hoagie rolls, add meatballs, sauce and cheese then toast again.  We make these pretty regularly - they are addictive!








Finally we got to the annual Italian Greyhound burger eating contest!  In the grey we have Roxy weighing it at 14lbs and in the brown we have Enzo weighing in at 17 lbs.  Competitors must first sit and then the food is served.  Eating was very fast, possibly a new record.  Enzo was declared the winner with Roxy only being a mouthful behind.  As customary the competitors check each other's plates to look for any signs of cheating or leftovers.  We all had a wonderful Labor Day weekend and we hope you had a great one too! 

[einrej]

Very Cool

[Thomas Andrews]

Wow!

Great looking food and a great choice of music, especially the Iron Maiden - I hope Killers got an airing

[austin87]

Sounds like a great weekend!

[WNC]

Awesome weekend for sure!
Love this post, especially the eating contest! Just great

[rich]

Sounds like a great weekend. That very first bite of your first long cook, man...
Cute dogs, nice contest, great food, and I like your pics-of-the-sounds-of-the-party thing.
Cheers!!

Ps: I've never been into meatball subs, but now I'm intrigued. What kind of sauce do you use?

[SixZeroFour]

Fantastic post start to finish! That's a little slice of perfect right there!

Thanks for sharing it with us Uncle Al

[SixZeroFour]

How is the King Animal album btw?! Worth a listen to start to finish?

... Probably a silly question as pretty much anything that comes out of CC is gold

[Uncle Al]

@rich

The meatball subs are from a recipe on the Weber website.  I do it with less pepper than what is called for.  Doing it all on the grill is described is a must - they will be incredible!

http://www.weber.com/recipes/beef/meatball-subs-with-roasted-red-pepper-dressing

[Uncle Al]

@SixZeroFour

The King Animal album is definitely worth a listen.  My least favorite track is the one that got the most airplay on the radio - "Been Away Too Long".  I wished they would have included "Black Rain" from Telephantasm instead.

[blieb]

All looks great!  I like the music + drink + food pairing.

[SmokenJoe]

The sandwiches were great! (no plate pic)  ...   Next time I want to try for more flavor in the injection than just plain apple juice and once they reach 160° I'm going to foil them for a little more moisture.  All in all the payoff was worth getting up  ... 

Sounds a lot like one of my first over night cooks.  Lately I've been using Harry Soo's SYD Injection mixture in my pulled pork.  It has a good flavor.  You can check it out over at the tvWBB site.

"http://www.virtualweberbullet.com/index.html" under Cooking Topics (as I recall).                     SJ