What's for dinner?

In keeping with the spirit of "events" happening in isolation, thought I would see if anyone has exciting plans for dinner tonight.
I'm not a cook, but do a decent job at bbq'ing. This whole Corona thing has given me a chance to research some interesting recipes. For tonight, it's Baby Back ribs. I purchased 3 racks (pre-lockdown), so thought I'd give this a try: brush on a mixture of mustard, apple juice, and Worcestershire sauce. Add seasoning of your choice. Smoke the ribs for 3 hours (hickory). Sprinkle on some brown sugar and honey, and a bit more apple juice. Wrap the racks in heavy-duty aluminum foil, and then cook for an add'l 2 hours. Remove the ribs from the foil, and brush on some Gates bbq sauce (or your choice), place back on the grill for 30-45 minutes, or until the sauce tightens.
Hopefully the weather will cooperate - wish me luck.

 

Tri-tip, spiced baked sweet potato cubes, roasted broccoli and calabacitas. Cinnamon brownies for dessert.

 

Green salad

Ham
Homemade cranberry sauce
Sweet potato
Green beans
Buttermilk biscuits

Lemon cake / raspberry filling

 

Fish, rice veggies. We had my famous Chicken Parm last night.

 

Tamales and posole from small neighborhood restaurant

 

Traditional Easter Dinner

ham
Kielbasa
Mashed potatoes
Veggies
Easter bread

nut roll/kolachi for dessert

 

In Texas or in Czech Republic?

 

Honey Baked Ham
Garlic cubed potatoes
Green beans with squash, bell peppers, bacon & Parmesan
Baked beans with bacon
Kings Hawaiian rolls.

 

It sure as shit is not going to be any species of bat......

 

How'd they turn out...be honest, lol.

Baby back ribs are very hard to perfect - I've been trying different methods for years. I smoke them indirect heat for 2 hours in the rib rack (spraying them every 30 minutes) Then wrap them in foil with apple cider/juice/worcestershire/brown sugar. Cook on indirect heat for 2 more hours - meat side down. Take them out of the foil and cook for another 10-15 minutes while adding your favorite bbq sauce. Try to keep the smoker/bbq at 200-225 the whole time. Amazing.

 

I've been thinking about going the smoker route, doing some reading and asking a couple friends about it. The friends I asked, live next door to each other and take great pride in their meats have a battle going on. One uses pellets and the other sticks to wood chunks. Usually they smoke tri tip or brisket, and always turns out fabulous.

What does everybody use, what are the pros and cons of smokers?

 

My only advice would be to make sure you buy one wide enough to fit a full rack of ribs.
My neighbor runs an electric pellet fed smoker and he sets it and walks away using a remote thermostat. Me on the other hand, I use a gas burner smoker and I have to check it periodically just to make sure things are good. Over time I have got a pretty good feel for where the temperature needs to be.
The nice thing about plug and play is you can do long hour smoking like brisket (14-16 hrs) or pork shoulder (10-12 hrs) and not have to stay up late or get up early.
I have found a different way to beat the long hours by smoking for a few hours then finishing in a crock pot though you don’t get the nice thick bark that you would doing it traditionally.
At any rate once you make the plunge you’ll be looking at anything and everything to smoke. It’s just a different experience.
I still have a barbecue and go back and forth because some meats are just better on the grill.
Stick burners vs pellets are very close in the taste department and it comes down to convenience of materials and price.

Hope this helps.

 

I read the first line and thought you were talking about taking up cigarettes and I was thinking at this point, why not? lol

 

They turned out pretty good - split decision really. Wife said they were fantastic; I thought they were good, but not the best. First, let me say that I have been cooking on a Traeger grill for about 4 years now, and am real happy with it, and I plan to upgrade to a larger size soon. Very easy to operate and the variety of pellets (which are made from real wood) add a great flavor. Plus the variety of what you can cook is incredible (pizza {which we loved}, deserts, pretty much anything). Honestly, the only thing that I miss is that you don't always get the char on the meats, as you do from using a traditional grill. Anyway, with last nights rib's, after removing them at the 3-hour smoking-stage, I noticed that they were cooking somewhat, so I was a bit concerned about toughness, and wrapping in foil and cooking at a higher temp for another 2 hours. I did add extra apple juice into the foil "tent", which helped with the tenderness, and only cooked them for about an hour and a half. Probably should have cut that down by 10 mins or so. But overall, they were tasty, and a good experience. The poster above mentioned brisket. The absolute best thing I've cooked on my Traeger, without a doubt. Recently bought the set-up to inject flavor into the meat - can't wait to use it.

 

I use wood chucks (Apple is my favorite) with a mix of Kingsford Competition Charcoal (Costco) and Royal Oak Natural Wood Lump Charcoal (Home Depot).

Couple things to consider..

Cost vs Ease - You can go the "cheap route" with Weber/Charcoal/Wood - that's what I do. I have the Weber 22" Original Kettle, $99 at most places. The charcoal and wood are cheaper than the pellet. But you don't get the "ease" like other Smokers of "set it and forget it" - that's why Traeger is so appealing. But they are very expensive for a beginner (expensive period tbh). Lots of my friends have them and rarely use them.

If you go the "cheap route", I would recommend getting a decent temp gauge ($40 at Home Depot) to maintain the desired temp. With that temp gauge, you can cook/smoke anything on the Weber. I love doing pizza.

BBQ is a rabbit hole that I will gladly go down. Let me know if you have any other ?s.

 

Made my annual Easter risotto with smoked quail breast [Emeril recipe], aspergasses, candied bourbon sweet potato and pan rustico.
and J Lohr Chardonnay. Dessert was matcha roll with lemon zest cream and raspberry topping. At least it looks very Eastery and lets me play in the kitchen a couple hours. What else are you gonna do on lockdown. Gonna start on my drone models today though, so back to the old schedule of spaghetti and other staples. I think we'll fire up the BBQ and pretend to tailgate this Saturday and relive the 2004 Rose Bowl. Stay safe everyone. PS. Instacart experience totally sucked last week.

 

I like shrimp vegetable salad.

 

LOL!

I should have said traditional Polish dinner.

We had some great traditions, some of which I no longer follow but would like to pass down to the young ones. On Saturday, my mom would make a huge Easter basket with part of the following day's meal. Easter bread, hard boiled eggs, ham, pork, kielbasa, etc.. and we would take it to church where they would bless the Easter baskets. For Easter Sunday dinner, we had to have a bite of each food group which had been blessed. Left over food could not be just thrown away in the garbage since it was blessed. We had to bury it in the backyard. We were all big eaters so I do not think we every buried anything.

 

Beginners probably shouldn't invest in a Traeger. Unless you are already grilling regularly, like 3 or 4 times a week, it's not going to make you start doing that. Agreed, it's a total waste to get one and then not use it.

 

Sometimes, you gotta say, "What The Fuck......?"