12/02/10 - 20:51
When I was writing this year’s 5th annual Looking Back, Looking Ahead blog entry I realized I has a really good year. I have been trying to analyze why this year worked out so well. It certainly wasn’t any one thing, I think it was a combination of items that may have come together to make the total greater than the sum of the parts. Writing this down on the form of a blog entry may help me understand it better too.
Read More...Tags: Overview, Goals
11/28/10 - 18:02
THE YEAR IN REViIEW:
Continuing a 5 year tradition, I am writing a blog near the end of the year summing up the past year. It contains several “Top 5” barbecue related lists from prior years: “Top 5 Cooks”, “Top 5 Things I’ve Learned”, “The Top 5 Mistakes Made”, and a list of “Top 5 Goals for the New Year”. In 2009 I made a change to the format and added a new list. This year, as in 2009, I was lucky enough to have made some of the best meals I’ve ever eaten. Since these items were also some of my favorite foods, they would automatically have to be listed as the Top 5 cooks this year. There were a lot of other great meals I made that deserved so acknowledgment. So the category I added last year for “Top 5 New Items Cooked” will return in 2010. It is intended for recipes using new foods or new techniques that turned out great. Additionally I am adding a new category in 2010 called “Top 5 Grilling/Smoking Related Events”.
Read More...Tags: Year in Review, Goals
11/19/10 - 16:05
I’ve been doing a lot of cooking lately and when I do that I tend not have time to write here. It is time to make up for lost time. This blog entry covers a somewhat last minute decision I have been wrestling with regarding how to cook my Thanksgiving turkey.
Read More...Tags: Brining, Carving, Turkey
02/17/10 - 10:31
Most grills or smokers have hot and cold spots-it is the nature of the beast. On the surface this could seem to be a minus, but in reality it can also be a plus. I will discuss some of the ways you can work with this reality so your food is cooked evenly.
Read More...Tags: Thermometers, Food Positioning
01/09/10 - 07:59
I had a very strange cook yesterday, and I think the only explanation is sometimes you just have to expect the unexpected. To begin at the beginning: I decided almost on a whim to make a smoked chuck roast after reading some posts on the Barbecue Bible message boards. I love pot roast and I love smoked food so the combination of the two should be great, right? Well I’d tried it in the past (see
PIT POT ROAST) and the results were mixed. I decided to try it again using chuck roast. The recipe I found on the Virtual Weber Bullet web site had three things that gave me hope this recipe might be the one. The first was it used chuck and not bottom round and I’ve used chuck for other things in the past and it was quite good. The second was the rub used here: A blend of powdered brown gravy mix plus powder ranch dressing & Italian dressing mix. Lastly this recipe had you cook carrots and potatoes in with the roast for the last couple hours, just like a New England boiled dinner. However this is where things started getting interesting.
Read More...Tags: Pot Roast