Show Us What You're Cooking! (SUWYC) - Volume 34, Summer 2024

[Mosca]

One does not go to a kielbasa festival without coming home with kielbasa…

This is the “homemade” from Dymski’s:






Myself, I can never decide on sauerkraut and brown mustard, or peppers and onions and yellow mustard. The solution is to go half and half!




Buns,




Kielbasa,



Cheese,




Left to right we got one with half peppers and onions/ half kraut, one with peppers and onions, and one with peppers and kraut.




ORDER UP! Fresh summer corn and a Paupack Pilsner!

[Michael_in_TX]

I have been staring at your cheese method and I feel like the universe has just been opened up to me.

[SheilaAnn]

Being of Polish-Lithuanian descent from the SW side of Chicago…… you’re killing me! Oh man oh man…… it’s after 10pm right now and I would destroy some of this!

[texastweeter]

Kraut, brown mustard and onions

[Jim White]

I've probably posted this before, but it's just such an easy dinner, I had to share again. I started with a couple of pounds of boneless, skinless chicken breasts and marinated an hour or so in Bachan's Hot and Spicy. I put a cup of basmati rice and two cups of low sodium chicken broth in a Pyrex dish and then topped with the chicken. I poured most of the marinade from the bag into the pan, too. It cooked 30 minutes at 325 and then a final 10 minutes at 425. Turned out great. Served with some roasted pineapple left from the salsa I made a few days ago and a chopped kale salad from a bag.

[hoovarmin]

I'm definitely trying this

[fzxdoc]

Easy and delicious--a perfect summertime meal. I bet all those flavors came together beautifully.

K.

[texastweeter]

Smoked bbq chicken and pintos

[hoovarmin]

Yum. Been a long time since I did southern style smoked bbq chicken. When I was growing up it was a featured menu item everywhere down here, but rarely seen, now.

[fzxdoc]

Yes, please.

[Clawbear57]

I'm in.

[Richard Chrz]

Smoked 2 butts Saturday into Sunday, one for a friend, and one for us. I had some dough left, and all the fixings for Street Carnitas, elevated a notch. So I went with it.

[texastweeter]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bake_and_shark

And careful, next thing you know you will have thin crust, peperoni, jalapeno, anchovy pizza as your favorite!

[hoovarmin]

Fantastic. It appears you are folding the dough before you fire the Chrzaco "shell." Are you flipping them, or just leaving them be?

[Richard Chrz]

hoovarmin, fold it yes, but I do not turn it over. I do turn it in relation to the fire, .. but yesterday I did three at once, and it worked pretty smooth just moving them around. A bit, And it is done really quick.

[barelfly]

Gai paht bai grapano - or chicken with fresh basil. And this Thai basil if from the garden and going gangbusters. They have grown probably 6” in the last three weeks. And this dish was excellent with the fresh basil flavor. And a few blistered shishitos from the garden in there as well.

[hoovarmin]

I can taste that from here. That Thai basil is something special.

[Michael_in_TX]

I have been in the mood for some shwarma/souvlaki lately so I decided to do one of Sam The Cooking Guy's recipes: https://www.thecookingguy.com/recipes/chicken-shawarma (This appears to more again to souvlaki and shwarma.)

I like many of his recipes as he can get 85% of the way there with 20% of the effort, which is great for a weeknight.

The marinade is greek yogurt, cumin, coriander, garlic, salt, pepper, lemon juice, and olive oil. I let my chicken marinate for two days.

I debated not cutting up the chicken, but I hadn't done skewers in a long time, so I decided to go ahead and do it that way. Here we are about to go on the grill.



Once I got grilling, I remembered why I don't do skewers all that often. I suck at them! I really need to work on cutting uniform pieces....sigh. Also, I made a few mistakes in my setup:



First, that arched brick. What on earth was I thinking lol. Also, the fire was quite hot, so I got the requisite char while the interior of the pieces were still 130 F or so. With the grate off, I didn't leave myself any easy way to have an indirect side. Not wanting to clean the grate in the middle of the cook, I finished them in the oven at 350 F. (Only took another 10 minutes.)

Here we are plated up....



I also make the garlic white sauce in his recipe. It's not tzatziki -- no cucumber -- but it was quite good. The chicken was excellent; very flavorful.

The couscous you see in the background is a frozen medley I picked up from HEB and it was fantastic. I don't think I've ever had a frozen vegetable blend this good. In addition to the couscous it has bell pepper, chickpeas, soy beans, black olives and date sauce. Very good stuff. Here's what it looks like:

[Michael_in_TX]

jfmorris fzxdoc I will certainly try that set up, including the double skewers, next time. And the double skewers, with slightly larger chicken pieces, would make it far easier to get the "sides" done!

[fzxdoc]

jfmorris , Jim, you can always de-bone those thighs and then use the bones when making chicken broth. I haven't done that in a while, but once you get the hang of de-boning thighs, (I use Kenji's method) it goes pretty quickly.

I haven't noticed thighs at $1/lb where we live. If I ever do, I'll pounce on it!

K.

[jfmorris]

fzxdoc Kathryn I just checked and the price I've been paying at Sam's Club is actually $1.38 a pound for bone-in chicken thighs. For some reason they are currently out of stock on chicken drumsticks - another item I like to cook in summer.

[bbqLuv]

Thank you Amazing Rib Friends for the encouragement to keep improving. I confess, "Pictures or it didn't happen" aids in improving BBQ.

Fred Meyer's had spare ribs on sale for 1.49/lbs
I bought a rack last week and cooked today. I trimmed the spares into St. Louis Style and rib tips.

[Jfrosty27]

Man those some very meaty spares! Yum. Nice work Pitmaster. 👏👏

[fzxdoc]

Your rib game keeps getting better and better. I'd say you're at the top of that game now! Hearty congrats.

Kathryn

[Richard Chrz]

Great cook on them ribs!

[Bogy]

My wife went back to our own house today, Monday. I'm at the parsonage with enough meetings and obligations I'll be here til Thursday evening, when I head over to help celebrate a granddaughters birthday. All the grandkids want to celebrate birthdays at grampa and grandma's house. For me, it means I get to eat what I want for the next few days. Between what her diet restricts and what she just doesn't like it's nice to enjoy some things I don't normally get. First up, it's nothing fancy, but I love liver and onions, pan fried. According to family tradition this should be paired with American fried potatoes, but I had a head of cauliflower, and that was easier, so I steamed it.

[Jfrosty27]

We love L&O. Been way too long since I made it. Time to go shopping.

[SheilaAnn]

Ridiculous picture. Brats and corn. I was in a food therapy mode, so mustard to the rescue. Sautéed onions on the grill, added brats and beer. Finished the brats to crisp them up a smidge. Toasted bolillo (cuz that’s what I get in SoCal). Corn from FM.

[fzxdoc]

Bolillo--another perfect brat vehicle. Nice job on that char on the corn. It all ooks wonderful.

Kathryn

[Michael_in_TX]

I have to admit....that mustard application does look comforting.

[SheilaAnn]

And it just dawned on me..last nights repeat so many times. Exotic mushroom pan fry, ribeye. I had some teeny jalapeños from csa and extra criminis. Made some poppers. So good!

[hoovarmin]

Do I spot hearts of palm in that salad? Beautiful plate of food.

[SheilaAnn]

hoovarmin you do not, sir. Exotic mushroom pan fry is a dish composed of mixed sautéed mushrooms, chipotle cream sauce. Served over a polenta cake and topped with diced tomatoes, avocado and crumbled cotija cheese.

[SheilaAnn]

@hoovarmin

https://pitmaster.amazingribs.com/forum/recipes-technique-food-cooking/appetizers-other-side-dish-recipes/1286629-exotic-mushroom-pan-fry#post1286629

[gboss]

Pork loin chops on the gasser, with corn, tomatoes, broc.

[fzxdoc]

Gasser and GGs for the win. Beautiful color on those pork chops.

K.

[hoovarmin]

You need to teach searing at the graduate level. That is perfection.

[Panhead John]

You and your damn broccoli….😂 Chops look killer!

[GolfGeezer]

Dinner last nite. Sous Vide tri-tip, then seared on SnS. Oven roasted russet potato wedges, EVOO with S&P, then dusted with parm cheese and fresh basil. My plate with chimichurri, hers with mayo on the side. Served with a nice Far Niente cab.

[SheilaAnn]

GolfGeezer our pavilions flipped into a Vons. No better than Ralph’s or even the food 4 less now.

[GolfGeezer]

SheilaAnn Kinda funny as our Pavilions was an Albertsons, but they are both owned by Vons. And now there is the proposed merger of Vons and Kroger. Supposedly a large number of the Albertsons and Pavilions are to be sold to C&S, who own Piggly-Wiggly among other brands in an effort to avoid anti-trust, but the Feds aren’t buying it (yet).

[SheilaAnn]

GolfGeezer yes, I am following that story closely due to my involvement in creating a cooperative grocery store here in Da LBC.

[Andrrr]

Last night's summer dinner. The pork chops and taters were done on the grill paired with some green beans and tomatoes, both fresh out of the garden

[hoovarmin]

Nice haul of veggies

[Michael_in_TX]

Those tomatoes are beautiful.

[Michael_in_TX]

This morning while moving stuff around in the fridge, I found the remainder of the chicken wings I didn't cook a few nights ago. I didn't feel like getting the vacuum sealer out, so I decided....why the heck not cook them for lunch!

I also decided to do an experiment. My preferred way to do wings is with the Kettle, Vortex, and pecan wood, after dry-brining them for at least a day.

Well, today I only gave them three-hour dry brine and to add to the experiment, I forgot to dry the top (skin side) of the wings before applying Holy Voodoo.

I did a bit of Google search to try to help decide how to cook these in the pellet grill as I didn't want to mess with charcoal and I've been curious how a pellet grill wing would turn out.

A few months ago, there was apparently a viral method for cooking wings on a pellet grill called 0-400 wings. It's very simple: you put the wings on cold, start up the grill to a target temp of 400, cook for 30 minutes, flip, and continue to cook for an additional 20.

So that is what I did!

Here we are before starting up the Chimp. I have the rack raised on two small aluminum pans as one Youtube video suggested that it will keep the wings from burning. I didn't think that was much of a possibility, but I did it anyway.



After 30 minutes, skin had some nice color and was well on its way to getting crisp.



I flipped the wings and let them go another twenty. Skin was quite taut, but not quite where I get it with the Vortex method.



I was hungry and wings were temping in the mid 190s, so off they came. I doused them in Frank's Red Hot, eschewing the butter component as one does need to eat healthy(er) from time to time.





Verdict? Very good! To quote Matt Pittman....I ain't mad at it. The skin was not as crispy as I get with the vortex, but it was perfectly bite-through. Absolutely no complaints about the skin. Flavor was just fine -- love Holy Voodoo -- and, honestly, I think the 3-hour brine was enough. The wings being "wet" going in didn't seem to affect them, but I was cooking at 400 F. (Many Youtube videos hover around 275 - 350 F and I suppose you really want that skin dry at these temps.)

The one complaint -- and this should surprise no one -- next to no smoke flavor, especially compared to the vortex method. There was a hint of it, but it was very subtle. I found myself missing it. Pecan and chicken just go perfectly with each other.

The 0-400 method? I think it had merit, but many of us have been taking advantage of the "startup smoke" for years now, so it really isn't novel. I suspect that if I hadn't done the wings cold, they might not even have any smoke flavor as at 400 F, those pellets burn super-clean.

All in all, though.....I had eighteen tasty wings for lunch. I am not unhappy.

[bbqLuv]

I have never tried 0-400, Thank for posting, this will have to go on my ToDo list.

[Michael_in_TX]

Another thing I should have done is rotate the tray 180 after flipping. In my Chimp, the side towards the hopper is noticeably hotter than the other side.

[Mosca]

Today is National Filet Mignon Day!

I don’t know if that’s true or not. But it IS National Left Handed Day!

I don't know if that’s true or not either. But I am left handed, and I have some nice prime filets from Creekstone Farms!


Wagyu tallow and butter, thyme and rosemary…




Caprese tomatoes and Caprese roasted red peppers, with bacon…




ORDER UP! Mrs Mosca likes canned creamed corn on her mashed potatoes. Honestly, it is freakin’ delicious that way.




NAILED IT. I didn’t bother with reverse sear etc, I just wanted a steak. A little bit of gray, but who cares? That also means a really great crust on that side. Tit-for-tat, a decent trade IMO. It’s filet, it’s going to be tender either way.

[hoovarmin]

Beautiful meal. Adding creamed corn to my grocery list.

[gboss]

Sinister!

[Mosca]

gboss hehe….