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**RonB** · January 31, 2026, 10:19 PM

I made some crispy Mongolian beef the other night and decided to make some changes to convert it to a chicken stir fry tonight.
It turned out good, but it could have been better. I did cut the sugar in the sauce in half, (half what the Mongolian beef recipe called for), ' cause it was sweeter than I like. That made a sauce that was not sweet enough, so I'll try 3/4 next time. BTW SWMBO loved both recipes - so it's still a win. And I subbed asparagus for the peppers and sweet onions for the green onions tonight.

Mongolian beef

Chicken

**SheilaAnn** · January 31, 2026, 11:18 PM

All this talk of chicken and dumplings got my cravings jump started. I made the “slicks” recipe that fzxdoc put up. I did not end up with the creamy base… very brothy. The dumplings were kinda lumpy, too. We like the veggies, so I used them and added celery and carrots. We ate it. But it wasn’t what we were expecting.

**ItsAllGoneToTheDogs** · February 1, 2026, 12:58 PM

Its a biscuits and gravy kinda day

**DavidNorcross** · February 1, 2026, 04:06 PM

Turkey on the SilverBac

**johnec00** · February 1, 2026, 04:13 PM

Salvaged the last 3 ripe peppers before the plants were killed off by last night's freeze. Made reuben stuffed peppers with some pastrami, kraut, Swiss cheese and other stuff Great dinner this evening.

**Michael_in_TX** · February 1, 2026, 05:27 PM

There's only a few weekends in the year in which it is safe and practical to smoke cheese down here and this weekend was one of them.

My goto cheeses for smoking are a medium cheddar and swiss, so I did two blocks of those, plus a habanero white cheddar that I saw when I picked those up. (I learned from the last time I did this and did not choose a melting cheese lol!)

Only smoke and heat was from a smoke tube that I put below my Chimp's deflector plate.

Here we are at the start.....

I let them go for three hours. It was getting near midday and the internal temp of the Chimp was getting up to 85 F and the cheese was starting to sweat. (A trick I stumbled upon that I am surprised had never occurred to me is that if it starts to get a bit hot in there.....just open the lid for a bit and let the heat out!)

Here we are at the end....

I took the cheeses off, wrapped them in wax paper, and put them in the fridge to firm up before I vacsealed them. I forgot that this will make your fridge intensely smell like wet stale cigarettes for a day or so! Oops.

Once they firmed up, I vacsealed them, labeled them, and put them in the coldest place in my refrigerator. I won't touch them for six to eight months. I learned that it does indeed take that long for the acrid taste to disappear and the smoke flavor to mellow.

**DTro** · February 1, 2026, 05:57 PM

This big plate of flavor was the best meal I have had this year and possibly the tastiest meal ever.

—Irodori Wagyu rib roast served with citrus fennel slaw, blistered cherry tomatoes, and sweet potato. The sides were awesome, but I couldn’t stop eating the beef! In case you are on the fence about the splurge, this is from Meathead in his new book, “Do not die without having tasted true American wagyu steaks.”

The waygu roast came from my secret Santa, aka Mosca -THANK YOU! I defrosted it this week, expecting about 7 guests. But it ended up being just my family for dinner. After trimming the roast, it was 6.5 pounds. Too much for just the family, so I cut two steaks for later use. This left about a 4-pound roast, which was dry-brined, rubbed with Mrs O’leary’s beef rub, and reverse-seared.

Complimenting the beefy flavor was a super delicious citrus fennel slaw made from this recipe: https://mandytanner.com/citrus-slaw-...l-and-oranges/

Wanting to add a bit of Asian flair, I blistered the tomatoes in canola oil and glazed them with a mixture of mirin, sesame oil, and soy sauce. The sweet potatoes were cooked in foil on the smoker, and Secretariat sauce was served on the side.

Cheers!

**ItsAllGoneToTheDogs** · February 1, 2026, 06:24 PM

During our snow I had smoked a pork butt and a chuck roast, the butts for pulled pork sliders through the week but the chuck was an excuse for tacos and refried beans.

AND the beans were an excuse to.finally use.my new handy dandy bean masher. Goodness it was sooo much easier making the beans with a proper tool. Smoother mash and less fatigue! Thanks again SheilaAnn

I used the leftover grease from my biscuits and gravy sausage this morning and some olive oil since we don't have lard. The beans are a 5 bean assortment from whenever I cook only a cup on rancho gordos, the rest of the bag goes into a gallon ziploc until its full.

**JCBBQ** · February 1, 2026, 07:44 PM

Grilled octopus w a Thai red curry and coconut milk sauce, with roast potatoes and an arugula and beet salad.

Edit: adding ingredients Thai Red Curry Paste

**Michael_in_TX** · February 1, 2026, 08:21 PM

I try to do this once a year either for my wife's birthday or anniversary: smoked pastrami reubens.

I took a 3.58 lb, 2.5" thick USDA prime chuck roast and, using the values from our handy cure calculator, sent it on its way in a salt and nitrite bath. I flipped it every day for eight days. I then desalinated it in a gallon of distilled water for eight hours.

Here we are. (Most unappetizing thing ever. That image is not greyscale; that is what the meat looks like after eight days of curing.)

I then generously applied Meathead's pastrami rub all over the thing and got on the Chimp this morning right at 10 am. I set the Chimp for 250 F Pro mode and just....let it go.

After six hours we were at 185 F and the bark was nicely set.

I decided to wrap it in butcher's paper and kick the Chimp up to 275 F. After an hour, it was at 200 F internal and probe tender.

I let it rest for about 15 minutes then put it into my oven "cambro." I learned a trick on here that if I recalibrate my oven to -35 F, set it to 170 F, and prop the door open with a wooden spoon, it'll run 150 F just fine.

I let it rest in there for an hour. The temp dropped down to 180 F internal during that time.

Purple meat is purple.

I then toasted up some HEB marble rye bread (baked this morning), added some homemade russian dressing, a generous amount of the pastrami, and some of my smoked swiss cheese (from last year, not yesterday's). I let that go under the broiler until the cheese was just melted. Then I added some sauerkraut and put it all together.

That is some gooooood stuff.

I did two thing better than the last time I did this.... last time I didn't get a "full" cure; that is, I still had some grey meat in the middle. This was pink (actually, purple!) throughout. Also, last time, I completely forgot the desalinization step! This was distinctly less salty than last time (although, still pretty salty).

Something that did catch me off guard here is that cure "flavor" is very intense. In our cure calculator, the amount of water/salt/prague powder is determined by the weight of the meat; the cure time is solely determined by the thickness of the meat. Maybe eight days caused this to be overcured? (Also, I don't remember last time's being this purple.)

It still tastes wonderful, but there is no doubt this is pastrami.

**Richard Chrz** · February 1, 2026, 08:54 PM

Enjoyed a full day in the kitchen today,

My mother in law is having hand surgery tomorrow, so I have taken the reigns on meals for the week. Prepared a few of them today.

First I had made ghee last night and scrapped up all the brown bits, then cooled, chopped snd whipped into brown butter chocolate chunk cookies I baked this morning.

She also has Chuck roast, and mashed potatoes, and some chili for the first few days.

while that was going I did a pork belly for ramen on my wife’s request.

some how I managed to cook 3 days worth of food for our Labrador as well.

**Panhead John** · February 1, 2026, 09:17 PM

Apparently HEB believes in Truth in Advertising….

PRIME porterhouse steak 😳

**dpearce** · February 2, 2026, 01:42 PM

Pizza!

We're attempting to replicate my mother's recipe. Saturday, we made the sauce and the dough, let both ride overnight in the fridge.

On Sunday we let the dough and sauce get up to room temp. We had enough for two pizza's, so I made one topped with red onions and red pepper flakes for myself. The wife prefers either cheese or pepperoni, so hers was just cheese.

The recipe calls for three different cheeses. Smoked Provolone, Extra Sharp White Cheddar, and Smoked Mozzarella. The crust is thin, crunchy, although ours seemed to be a little thinner than what my mom would make. We're dough making newbies and she was a master, so that'll be one thing we will continue to work on.

All in all, it tasted pretty close!

Cheese pizza in progress. Not all the cheeses were on it yet, you can kinda tell how thin the crust was:

Used mom's old flat iron skillet for the red onion & red pepper flake pizza:

Cheese Pizza cooked:

Red Onion pizza cooked:

All said and done, they came out better than our previous attempts!

**Richard Chrz** · February 2, 2026, 06:44 PM

Mujaddara

Basmati rice & Rancho Gordo lentils seasoned with cumin, cinnamon, coriander, chili powder, … topped with crispy fried onions and parsley

**bbqLuv** · February 3, 2026, 10:33 PM

Chicken Drumsticks Traegerized @ 400'F, zucchini, asparagus All on a portion control plate.
Really good chicken drumsticks, lightly seasoned with Traeger SPG, and Meat Heads Chicken Rub. (9.3/10)
Perhaps, improvement, remove the two tendons in the drumsticks.

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