Dave's Staycation Cook-a-thon

[DaveD]

Hey, thanks folks! Very glad there is some enjoyment to be had from all this. Definitely useful for me, writing all this stuff up in real time is a good way to capture what's happening, and the act of simply writing things down helps them stick in my increasingly unreliable memory. And if someone actually benefits from whatever my experiences are here -- successful or not -- so much the better.

Today my lovely bride is handling lunch, and dinner will be a pan of flat enchiladas using the last of the leftover pulled pork from a few weeks ago as the filling. A very easy day compared to the past few, and there is substantial thunderstorm activity forecast for the late afternoon and early evening, so cooking indoors is the way to go today.

And this means I am on track to complete my to-cook list for the staycation... after today's enchis, all that's left on the list are the thick cut pork chops and the prime rib. Both are thawing now, and I'll do the rib roast on the weekend as my final entry for a fine meal right before having to go back to work on Monday

[jfmorris]

Oh! Enchiladas..... now I know what to do with the last 1-2 pounds of pulled pork I just vac sealed and froze on Monday!

I love those prime ribs. When you separate out the ribs, the rib eye cap steak and the eye roll, it's really 3 different cooks in 3 different ways. Slow smoke the ribs like baby backs, slow smoke the eye roll as your traditional prime rib, to med-rare, and then do the rib eye cap like you might a flank or skirt steak...

[WayneT]

Thanks for posting all the great pix and documenting all your cooks so well. I’ve certainly benefited from it and hope to be able to pull off similar cooks. You’ll go back to work with another knot on your pitmaster apron strings.

[DaveD]

Enchilada construction zone!

Used the last two vac packs of leftover pork butt from last weekend (which came out great), and some Santa Fe Olé* New Mexican red chile sauce. Saw some Tillamook coarsely shredded 4-cheese "Mexican" blend at the store and snagged those - Tillamook makes the best U.S. cheese I've had yet (and ice cream!). Nice to combine stuff from two places I lived for a combined 15 years or so...



Heated up the pulled pork on the stovetop with about a third of one of those jars' worth of sauce:



Then just laid out the tortillas in the baking pan, put in half the meat, cover with cheese and pour on some more sauce, repeat for the other half the meat, then one more tortilla layer topped with more cheese and more sauce. Basically four ingredients (do not have any green onions to chop up as a topping, and I'm not an olive kinda guy).





These will go in the oven at 350F/177C for about half an hour covered with foil, then another 20+ minutes uncovered until the cheese is golden & bubbly on top. I shall document the results in due course.

* Santa Fe Olé is one of my two fave New Mexico red chile sauces, the other being Monroe's. It's also not too hard to make it from red chile powder if you can get the good stuff, but we'll use up the dozen or so jars we still have until then...

[jfmorris]

This looks great. The only time I made enchiladas with leftover pulled pork, I used salsa verde, per an excellent recipe on here from Troutman. I may need to try some red sauce next time.

[DaveD]

jfmorris I haven't seen Troutman's recipe but he obviously scores huge for credibility on any recipe. That said, most salsa verde I've seen is tomatillo-based, a very different flavor profile from this red chile or even from Hatch green chile for that matter. I find tomatillo a little bland to be honest... this right here is basically a poor human's carne adovada enchiladas, without having to steep the pork in the sauce all day.

[jfmorris]

DaveD you are right that salsa verde is tomatillo based, and probably blander than either you are talking about. I would love a Hatch green Chile based sauce.

[DaveD]

Alrighty, after-action on the enchiladas. Muy bueno y muy sabroso. There was plenty of congealed juices in the vac-sealed pulled pork portions, and the pork itself remained very tender. All the smoky flavor came right through, and combined with the earthiness of the SFO red sauce, it was really outstanding. Topped it with sour cream and some guacamole, some Tostitos Scoops on the side with our house black bean charro.

First half hour covered with foil. Here they are right after removing it before the home stretch.

And after another 25 min or so:

La plata:


The beer is from our local Port City Brewery, a few miles away in Alexandria. Multiple GABF medalists, just excellent stuff. This is their Octoberfest, an amber lager that is one of the holy grails of brewing: Malty But Dry. So hard to get right. Absolutely perfect pairing with this kind of robust and earthy meal. *chef's kiss*

[WayneT]

I think you’ve set a pretty high bar with your staycation cook-a-thon. Great planning and execution. Kudos!

[DaveD]

My lovely bride pointed out that I could probably use a break today, so she'll handle the lunch duties and we'll have what's left of the rack of spares I made over the weekend and some corn on the cob for tonight's dinner. Pork chops tomorrow, prime rib roast either Saturday or Sunday...

[DaveD]

We had leftover Duroc spares from last weekend and one chicken thigh each from the shoyu chicken cook a couple days ago, another couple of ears of corn, and called it a day

[Jfrosty27]

That works! Sometimes a few leftovers are just right. Heck tonight I had a ham sandwich for dinner!

[DaveD]

We are entering the home stretch of the Staycation Food-A-Palooza! (See what I did there? Home stretch? Staycation? Like I said, I'm here all week.)

Tonight it's the honey mustard porkie chops (doo-dah, doo-dah! Honey Mustard Porkie chops, oh de doo dah day.) This is originally a Weight Watchers recipe, and is easy on the waistline. Mix up 1/4 cup dijon mustard, an overflowing tablespoon of honey, tsp of red wine vinegar, and coarse salt & pepper for a marinade, bag up the chops in the sauce all day (or overnight), then grill hot & fast.




Then I carved up the 3-bone prime rib per the many recommendations, and will be doing the main "eye" of the roast tomorrow. Packaged up the spinalis, bones (some great meat on them!), and trimmings for later.


Bones off:

Trimmed the fat away significantly:

Vac sealed & labeled. Spinalis is 22oz /625g, bones 28oz/800g.

Main part of roast trimmed, trussed, & salted w/kosher:



Back later with pics of the porkie chops!

[Panhead John]

We are entering the home stretch of the Staycation Food-A-Palooza! (See what I did there? Home stretch? Staycation? Like I said, I'm here all week.)

Uuh, I’d go ahead and keep that day job…..

[Jfrosty27]

I have had those same chops several times and have a couple more in my freezer. Love them. They cook up so nice. Nice looking beef there too. Enjoy!

[DaveD]

Panhead John I got a million of 'em. To which my lovely bride never fails to respond, "...and I am doomed to hear every one."

[DaveD]

Alrighty, mixed results on the porkie chops. Mine was perfect, exactly on target, but my lovely bride's was undercooked, despite having a temp probe dead center - I could feel where the tip was in my gloved hand when I inserted it - and not close to bone. Definitely at a loss. The other whiff was the rice - first time with a brand new rice cooker. Followed the instructions to the very letter, and the result was a truly impressive combination of uncooked grains and absolute mush. Tasted terrible too, like omg-spit-it-out-quick terrible. Will have to figure out what's up with that.

But my chop and zucchini were outstanding! Did some 2-zone until the chops were about 110F/43C, then onto the ripping hot side for the rest.

[Jerod Broussard]

How do you measure the water for the rice cooker? White or Brown?

[DaveD]

Jasmine rice, the cooker comes with its own measuring cup, and the cooking pot is inscribed with graduations for 1, 2, or 3 measures. The manual makes a Very Big Deal out of using only this measuring cup for the rice. Rinse the rice thoroughly, put in the pot, fill to the line (1 measure in our case).

[DaveD]

Welp, here we are, the last planned cook of the Staycation Food-A-Palooza: it's prime rib day! The central eye part, anyway - will have the bones & spinalis next weekend.

After the overnight dry brine, I hit the roast with a dusting of granulated garlic and coarse ground pepper, then vac sealed and into the sous vide at 131F/55C, where it will sit for at least 8 hours. Then I'll douse it with some Mrs. O'Leary's Crust before searing on the gasser with GrillGrates (flat side up). Hopefully there will be a decent amount of juice left in the bag, which I'll doctor up with some beef broth & demi glace to make some jus.

Gonna make another batch of those roasted taters I did with the brisket (except with only a tbsp of the tallow in there, the rest olive oil, so it's not a total heart attack on a plate) and steam some broccoli.

[DaveD]

Alrighty, here is the after-action on the eye of rib roast. Spectacular!! It sat at 131F/55C for over 8 hours in the end, and then sat tented in foil while I combined the juices from the bag (about 1/2 cup) with a teaspoon of "Better than Boullion" beef demi glace, a tablespoon of the smoked wagyu tallow I've had working, and half a cup of water. Got that fully boiled then simmered while the rest went forward.

Made some of the potatoes I mentioned from earlier this week with olive oil (plus another tbsp of the smoked wagyu tallow), after parboiling the chunked taters and roughing them up in a metal collander, roasted in the oven at 450F/232C for 45 min, turning halfway through. The texture was just as great as with the tallow-only version, but of course the flavor nowhere near as intense. Could still pick up that tablespoon's worth, though...

Along with some steamed broccoli, we had a bottle of Ridge Zinfandel out of Paso Robles. A very fitting finale to the Staycation Cook-A-Palooza!

After the sous vide, coated with Mrs O'Leary's Cow Crust.

The jus of the SV bag juices, beef demi glace, smoked wagyu tallow, water:


Seared it on the flat side of the GrillGrates, everything at thermonuclear levels, and just rolled it around every 20 seconds or so, including the ends. It was fun!



After the sear:


Slicin' & servin'.


And with the jus:


Thanks everyone for following along! Tomorrow is our last day of staycation and we cleared the dance card, pretty much, so we can relax and veg out before emerging, blinking in astonishment, from our Bubble back into the so-called Real World. Excellent rehearsal for retirement... just under seven years to go

[Jfrosty27]

One word: winner!

[Draznnl]

Okay, okay. You’ve convinced me. I’m willing to add a stop at your house for dinner to my itinerary for my next trip to D.C. That’s some nice looking cooking you’ve done this past week.

[58limited]

Wow!! Everything looks so good, especially that prime rib!

[STEbbq]

Doesn’t the prime rib feel satisfying Dave? All that butchering the meat, and then delivering a perfect plate? When I did mine, I did take a moment and look at my carefully divided up cuts of meat at the end before cooking them and went "wait, I just did that? How cool".

[DaveD]

Totally! Very satisfying to have managed the butchery without, ya know, butchering it I think I'll do the other two pieces next weekend, have the ribs going low and slow all day and do the spinalis hot and fast right before plating...

[Bad Hat BBQ]

Thanks Dave
Nice collection of Great Cooks

[rlozinak]

You have done well! I enjoyed reading and following along with your amazing cooks. Good job