Cinco de Mayo

Well, better late than never.....I took the pictures w/my sons camera and then I couldn't find the patch cord until today. Yesterday was Cinco de Mayo, we celebrated w/shredded pork tacos w/roasted poblano and onion, guacamole, rice, and fruit. I put a 4 1/2 lb. pork roast in the slow cooker first thing yesterday. I cut it into about 2-3" chunks, added a couple of cans of diced chile green peppers, chipoltle sauce, a couple of fresh sqeezed limes, and about a cup of chicken broth. I cooked it all day. The meat turned out very tasty, but not near spicy enough for my taste. I'll spice it up more the next time. I roasted 4 poblanos in the oven, peeled the skin and cut into strips. I sliced 1 onion and sauted in olive oil until I got a nice brown color, added 3 minced cloves of garlic, cooked for about another minute or two then added then poblano. It was delicious. I just shredded the pork, slapped some of it on a flour tortilla and topped w/the poblano/onion, sour cream, cheese, and guacamole. I had cilantro, but I forgot to get it out...cilantro makes everything taste better!! Yo made the rice and guacamole, it was excellent...as usual. My wife makes the absolute-very-best mexican rice. Period.


The fruit was just a mix of watermelon, mango (fruit of the Gods), cantalope, and red grapes.

Papas con huevos

I think I've mentioned before that I like papas con huevos (eggs w/potatoes). The best potatoes for papas con huevos are left over baked potatoes. However, earlier this week I had roasted some potatoes, spicing them w/salt, coarse-ground black pepper, garlic, chipolte powder, paprika, and olive oil. I like spicy food!!! The chipolte gave it a very nice kick. Anyways, I had some left over roasted potatoes that I used.

To make the papas con huevos I sweated some finely diced onion in olive oil, added in the papas- just to heat and crisp them up. Then I added in eggs that I had beaten. Since the papas had already been spiced, I didn't add any seasoning.

Birthday Party BBQ

My daughters boyfriend celebrated his 21st birthday yesterday. He asked me to cook for his party, he wanted BBQ. Now, I haven't had much opportunity to fire up the smoker for about 3 months, this was a great excuse to:

1. Take a day off
2. Fire up the smoker
3. Take the day off
4. Assume the smoking position-in the rocking chair w/the remote for xm radio
5. Did I mention taking the day off??

The party was for about 30 of Chris' family and friends, Chris' Mom (Chris is my daughters boyfriend) provided the meat. Four slabs of ribs-she chose loinbacks, two 12lb. briskets, and six chickens.

I halved the chickens removing the breast plate and cartilidge, then brined overnight. I usually trim briskets a little by cutting out the hard fat and trim the fat cap to 1/4-1/2 inch where needed. The ribs only needed the membrane peeled. I put the dry rub on the meat right before I put it in the smoker. For the brisket, I first put on a thin layer of wooster sauce, they make it in a thick version now that I really like. Then I rubbed w/ Texas BBQ Rub - brisket blend. I put the briskets on at about 5 a.m. At about 11:00, the briskets had reached 160 degrees, I sprinkled some more rub on them and completely wrapped them in foil and put them back on. Right after I foiled the briskets, I slathered the ribs w/a thin layer of yellow mustard and rubbed w/Texas BBQ Rub - original blend and put them in the smoker. At about 1:00 I made a paste of Texas BBQ Rub - original blend and Italian dressing. I worked the paste under and over the skin then sprinked some dry rub on top. Put those on at about 1:30. At about 2:00 I pulled the ribs out slathered w/honey and sprinkled more rub on, wrapped them in foil and put them back in. At 4:00 I pulled the ribs out and removed them from the foil. Then I basted w/Texas Pepper Jelly - pineapple habanero. I put the ribs back on the smoker for about another hour to let the pepper jelly glaze set and to 'firm up' the ribs. The briskets reached 200 degrees at about 4:30, I left them in the foil and let them sit in the (off) oven until we left. The chickens were done at about 5:00.

I didn't get any pics of the brisket.............my bad. In the end, I was MOST pleased w/the results. The brisket was very moist and fork tender, the ribs were moist, juicy and still had a little 'pull' to them,. The chicken was squirting juice all over as I cut it up. Everyone loved it (at least that's what they told me).

It was a great day!! The weather was very nice, I got the day off, it was most relaxing to assume the smoking position, the food turned really good, and I got the day off!!