Smoking, This and That

For those who have been fortunate to either be following this blog or physically following me you know that the last month has been a whirl wind of smoke! I have had the pit fired no less that 7 times with cooks of Ribs twice, 3 separate brisket cooks, 5 pork shoulders, several meatloafs, salmon, sausage jalapeno bombs and the beat goes on.

So for the last few weeks I have been smoking several different types of items and making some other dishes off the pit as well as experimenting with new side dishes.

For this weeks blog I wanted to touch on a few new items.

First I was looking for a new snack to serve to some of the usual suspects. I really enjoy smoked cheese and crackers, however the temps have been just to hot to smoke cheese So I decided on smoking the crackers.

As you can see in the pic I choose Ritz Crackers (after all would Andy lie? Everything taste better on a Ritz!)

I simply added the chosen amount of crackers to a pan, fired my Pit trying to keep the temp below 200 and poured as much smoke as possible into the crackers for 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

The outcome was fantastic!  Went well with all types of cheese and made for a great happy hours.

Side of the Week:

I am always looking for new side dishes and lately I have been in an I...Talian mood.

I choose summer salad of Green Bean and Mozzarella Cheese. The most important point and I can not stress this enough is to use all FRESH ingredients.

Ingredients:
2 Cups Fresh Green Beans cooked and drained
6 (I used about twice that many) Plum or Cherry Tomatoes Halved
1 Cup Fresh Mozzarella Cheese Grated
1/3 Cup Fresh Basil (I used about 6 leaves)
1/3 Cup Italian Dressing of your choice

Toss all ingredients in a bowl and refrigerate for at least an hour.

Keep Smoking My Friends
Randy

Our First Event

One of my first goals when diving into the world of BBQ was to compete in BBQ contests. However, as I have been smoking for a couple of years now I have now found real enjoyment out of cooking for others just to see the enjoyment they get out of eating all the different items that come off the Pit.

With this in mind I accepted my first offer to cater an event. After some vigorous negotiations I was hired to do a wedding rehearsal dinner. The guest list looked to be 55-60 so with that in mind I I started planning months in advance.

A couple of challenges arose early on. First I had no experience in cooking for that number of people and had no idea how much food I would need. Second, I had to decided on a menu not only for the numbers, but one I could prepare. Last I would need to travel to get to the event site and needed to be able to haul the necessary equipment without the need of a trailer.

I started doing some research and found that if you were serving sandwiches you could calculate about a 1/2 pound of meat per person. That made it sense and also led to my option of smoking brisket and pork shoulder as these make excellent sandwiches and can be prepared to feed a larget number.

I figured about 30 lbs of brisket and 36 lbs of pork shoulder would be more than enough. That came out to two briskets and 4 pork shoulders.

I smoked the briskets a day in advance of my departure and would smoke the pork on site. Yes you are correct that heating the brisket on site and making it moist would prove a challenge. (more on that later)

I arrived on site and set up camp.

As you can see in this picture I found an extra smoker on site (also more on this later)
I started on the day of the event at 6:00 in the morning by injecting the pork shoulders and reading my smokers. At 8:00 I fired the Pits and rubbed the meat. The smoke arrived about 8:30 which is when I put on the meat.

I was smoking around 250 - 275 and was looking to add smoke for about the first three hours. I has smoked the baked beans the day and had coleslaw to make so that would keep both Central Patti and I busy for a few hours.

I covered the port shoulders after the smoke was done and went about getting other things done. I glazed the pork about an hour prior to the start of the event and put the beans in the oven for warming and thickening.

Now as for the brisket I laid it out in a warming pan and with a combination of my Magic Mix and Beef Broth attempted to make sure the beef slices were moist, but not soggy. This turned out only marginal to me, however the brisket went very fast once the guest started eating.

I thought the overall cook was average, however I had lots of positive comments, met a lot of great people and made some new friends. I also learned a lot about catering an event and hope to do another soon.

Keep Smoking My Friends
Randy