Farmer's Omlette

With Easter tomorrow, I thought a big breakfast was the best way to start the day of preparation.  I looked out my back window early this morning and saw gray skies.  Not what I wanted for the day.  I sat down with some coffee and read a few blogs, morning ritual,  and came across some very inspiring pictures from My Year on the Grill's Daily Photos.  These took me away from the dreary Birmingham, AL scenery and reminded me of a great breakfast treat from the coast. The Farmer's Omelette at Tacky Jacks in Orange Beach, AL is one of my favorite breakfast items and has been for years. I didn't have everything on hand, but I was not leaving the house before 8 on a Saturday.  

I first diced a potato and roasted them in some olive oil, salt and pepper.  I put them in the oven on 450 and tossed them every few minutes until crispy.  About 20 minutes.

While the potatoes were cooking I:
Diced 2 thick slices of bacon.
Diced some white onion and green bell pepper.
Grated about a cup of mild cheddar cheese, its what I had.
Scrambled 3 eggs, didn't want this to be to big of a breakfast.

Cook the bacon until crispy and remove from omelette pan, don't remove the bacon grease.  Then add in the onions and peppers with a little salt and pepper.  I also added a pinch of CRP for a little spice.  Once they are tender add in the potatoes and then the bacon.  Pour the scrambled eggs on top.

Make sure to move the egg around in the pan as to not burn the bottom.  Once it is almost fully set, top with the cheese.  Then under the broiler until fully set.  Top with a few of the left over potatoes.  Then flip out on to a plate.

My favorite topper for all things eggs.

I am not sure if this is technically an omlette or a fritata.  But either way it is delicious.  I know I will definitely not be hungry while all the Easter prep is going on.

Pork Balls

Trying to think of a way to use the thin cut boneless pork chops is sometimes tough.  They are usually used for sandwiches and things of that nature around here, but Byrd came up with a new use last night.  If you have not looked over the deer balls, then this will be new to you.  Here is what we did.  I took 5 thin pork chops and cut them in half.  Pounded them out with a tenderizer, the one in the picture came from my grandmother, it has a hatchet on the reverse side.  Place diced onions and bell peppers inside, and roll them up.  Add a cap full of Pilleteri's, or Dale's/Moore's.  Then wrap a piece of bacon around them and secure with a toothpick that has been soaked in water.  This is as easy as it sounds.  

Then onto the grill, I would say it was about 350, I am not much on temping my little hibachi.  Make sure you constantly mess/roll/flip them in order to not burn one side.  When the bacon is crispy they are done.  

I know this is too many for just the two of us, but this is the main course so 4 per person is about right.  With two left over for a snack tomorrow.  Here they are with Byrd's favorite pregnant food, potato wedges.

I liked these more than the original deer balls.   But then again anything wrapped in bacon is going to be delicious.

A tale of two Butts

I have been thinking about doing a taste test on butts for a while now (don't laugh, you know what I mean.)  I have never injected anything with well..anything.  I have read and seen a lot of people who inject their butts/briskets/turkeys/chicken with some form of marinade.  On at least 100 occasions I have seen,picked up and read, the cajun injector at any of the stores that I frequent.  Just never bought it.  Well I didn't buy it this time, but I did buy an injector.

Then I had to figure out what to inject.  I decided on a mix of apple cider vinegar and Saw's Sauce.

I put 1 1/2 cups of the marinade into the larger of the butts.  I let it marinate(I guess this is the correct term) over night.  I got up yesterday morning at 5 a.m. to start the fire.  I then rubbed both butts in Rut's Rub.  The one on the right has been injected.  Butt on the left 6.5 lbs, right 7.5 lbs.

I got the fire up to 250 then put the butts on.  If you remember from yesterday I got a new smoker.  This is the first big cook on it.  It was 6 in the morning, dew still covering the ground, I am on my second cup of coffee, a clear white smoke coming out of the smoker, I am in hog heaven (pun intended.)  It will be a great day, well....Here is the short summary of my day:

I noticed quickly the temp started to waiver, it did this early and often.  Then at some point, around 10, I walked outside and heard a noise that made my heart quake.  What I heard was the top rack had fallen, hitting the bottom rack, into the water pan and on into the coals.  I slowly opened the door to the smoker to make sure nothing fell out.  Byrd came running out and helped me take the butts off get them into the oven on 225, while I got the smoke back up to temp and set up again.  I wish I would have gotten a picture of this, but the frustration of the situation did not let me think that far ahead.  All set up, the butts go back on.  I thank Byrd for helping me to see the funny side of this and I get my spirit back.  Then things settled into a nice routine of having about 2 hour breaks in having to do something.  Around 11 last night the internal temp was 175.  It was a long night to say the least.  I wrapped them, in a sleepy haze,around 3 this morning when the internal timer went off at 190.  They stayed on until 6 when they reached 210.  I went back to sleep after that.

I pulled the pork this morning at 8.  I am not sure I have ever gotten out of bed, poured a cup of coffee, and started to pull pork.  What a great morning.  The bones slid right out, great smoke ring, and the bark was delicious for breakfast.  This is my pork plate, you can barely see the pig in the middle, it is only used for pork products.

 Here they are pulled.

As I tasted them this morning, I couldn't decide which one I liked better.  The one with the injection definitely had the little bit of extra flavor, but I still liked the straight pork flavor from the other one.  A very tough decision.  Maybe after lunch I will be able to make a better decision.  I will do the injection again, partly because it was fun to prepare.  Although it was a much longer cook than I had expected, and extremely frustrating on the new smoker, it was still a day/night spent outside cooking.  I also will be able to take pulled pork to friends and family, who are anxiously awaiting.  I will say this about this cook, I envy people with the BGE. There I said it.

Bacon Wrapped Onions w/ Balsamic Glaze

 I don't think side items get enough credit.  Sometimes they definitely are the star of the show/plate.  Tonight was one of times.  A little back story, when Byrd and I started dating she swore the only thing she could cook was spaghetti sauce. At first I believed her, I had no reason not to, I did most of the cooking when we dined at our respective houses.  When she did, it was spaghetti.  I was ok with this, hers is delicious.  Then one night she told me we were going to have steaks and bacon wrapped onions.  Yes bacon wrapped onions.  I am pretty sure this is when I fell in love.  She stills says she couldn't cook before we met, I don't believe her as much now.  With that being said we used to eat these all the time, but like somethings you eat to often you stop cooking them in order to try new things.  Well they made a come back tonight.  I was glad to see/eat them.  A very simple delicious treat.

To prepare the onion, skin them, but don't cut off the ends.
Then quarter the onion.  Each quarter will give you 3 perfect size wedges.
Wrap the wedges in bacon and secure with a toothpick.
Then cut the end of the onion wedge off.
Place on a baking sheet, lined with tin foil.
Drizzle with a generous amount of balsamic glaze.  If your local grocer doesn't carry a balsamic glaze, buy a cheap balsamic vinegar, put it over medium/low to  reduce by 1/2.  It will become the consistency of syrup, and the flavor is very concentrated.

As a side three per person works out well, although I always want more than we make.

Bake in a 450 degree oven for 15 minutes then flip them.  Back in for another 10-15 minutes depending on the thickness of your bacon.  We used a rather thick slice so it took about 35 minutes total.  When the bacon is crisp they are done.

A great side item, tonight we served them with a NY strip and a spinach salad.

It was a great meal, but I would have shared a steak in order to have twice as many onions.  I am glad Byrd brought these up for a side item, they are very versatile and can go with just about anything, but also it was a great taste down memory lane.

Roast Pork Loin Stuffed with Spinach, Bacon and Onion

I've had stuffed pork on my mind for about a week now.  There were a couple of blogs that I read that really got my mouth watering.  Both Nibble Me This, and My Year on the Grill had different takes on stuffed pork recently.  I had to have one.  I have been reading Frank Stitt's Southern Table for a couple weeks and guess what I came across last night, right there on page 223, a stuffed pork loin.  A pork loin stuffed with rosemary, bacon, and onions of all things.  Pork stuffed with pork.  What a great idea. There was only one problem with the recipe from the book, Byrd does not enjoy rosemary.  So I had to make a few changes.

The original recipe calls for:
1/2 lb. slab bacon, cut into 1-inch cubes
4 medium onions, cut into 1-inch cubes
2 cups 1-inch cubes crustless day-old French bread
2 garlic cloves, crushed and finely chopped
2 rosemary sprigs, leaves removed and finely chopped
1 small bunch flat-leaf parlsey, leaves removed and finely chopped
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 to 2 tablespoons olive oil or chicken broth, if necessary

This is what I used for the stuffing:
3 slices of bacon, diced
3/4 medium white onion, diced
3 slices day old white bread, crustless
3 cloves of garlic, crushed and finely chopped
1 frozen package of spinach, drained of all liquid
Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
2 tablespoons of olive oil

Other than those changes to the stuffing, I followed the recipe exactly.
I sautéed the bacon and onions.  Then set them aside to cool.  Once cooled I added the spinach, bread, and garlic, in with them.  The bread was a little dry, even with all of the delicious bacon drippings, so I added the 2 tablespoons of olive oil. I added salt and pepper to taste. Then I put the stuffing in a pastry bag, well the only pastry bag I have is a zip lock bag with a hole cut in one of the bottom corners.

I took a knife and inserted it in the center of the loin, turned it in a circular motion to create a hole.  Then with the back end of a wooden spoon, I widened the hole by pressing against the sides until it was about an inch in diameter.  Then stuffed it, by piping the stuffing into the whole in the center of the meat.  Then seasoned the pork with salt and pepper.

I put it in the oven on 450 for 20 minutes, then turned the oven down to 325 and cooked it for 25 minutes. When the internal temperature reached 145 degrees I then pulled it and set it aside to rest for 10 minutes.  I might have over stuffed it, but it looked and smelled great.

Still trying to go easy on the carbs, I made some steamed broccoli and carrots.  All together it made quite a meal.  This is my plate, I am not a huge fan of cooked carrots.

This was exactly what I wanted.  The stuffing was great, the flavor from the spinach, bacon, onion and garlic worked perfectly with the pork.  I am sure the original stuffing from Southern Table is divine, but I am pretty proud of what came out of my kitchen tonight.  Plus now that I have this under my belt the possibilities are endless.

Smoker Fun

Byrd and I set out yesterday to spend time with some family.  My cousin Matt and I wanted to fire up his smoker and try out a few new rubs and well, just cook.  This is an original smoker built by Matt.  He documented the entire build on The Smoke Ring.  Here is the link to his build.  You can tell by the size, this isn't a cooker you fire up to do a little cooking so we had big plans for the day.  Matt lives across from a pecan orchard so having plenty of it, that is what was used for the heat and smoke.

We got the temperature up to 250 and put on a brisket.  It looks so lonely all by itself.

One of the reasons for this cook was to get our cooking times down for a competition in April.  The Bodagetta BBQ is in its second year and is held at Auburn University.  Matt and I both are Auburn graduates so what better place to enter our first competition.   We tried a new rub that Matt has been working on for the spare ribs.  It has a cast of the normal rub characters.  

Now on to join the brisket

After the spare ribs were on, some family members dropped  by to get a few items smoked while it was hot.  Added to the spare ribs and brisket were 2 slabs beef short ribs, 2 pork tenderloins, 5 split chicken breasts, and 1 slab of pork baby back ribs.  Like I said no reason to fire this behemoth up unless you are going to cook an obscene amount of food.

Both trays pull out for easy loading and unloading.

This is the brisket after it reached internal of 165.  Then it was wrapped in foil and put back on till internal of 195.

The brisket sliced.  Great smoke ring and flavor. 

One of the slabs of spare ribs.

Matt's wife Erin, made some great sides.  A marinated slaw and spinach Madeline.  

The tenderloins, beef ribs, chicken, and baby back ribs went home with there respective owners so no pictures of those meats.  They all looked great when they came out though.  The ribs had a great flavor, and the sides were delicious.  Spinach Madeline was new to me.  I did get the recipe from Erin and I will be having it again soon.  Once again we came out on top with no big errors on the cook.  We got our times down and close to the flavors we wanted.  We also got to sit around and enjoy the first day of spring by cooking and drinking beer.  Not a bad way to start off the BBQ season.  Not that the season ever really stops around here.

St. Patty's....Sort of.

In the days leading up to St. Patty's day I had planned to make corned beef, cabbage, and Irish Boxty's.  Standard Irish themed meal.  Well yesterday morning Byrd and I stopped by her parents house to pick up some baby loot from Granny Annie (Byrd's grandmother) whom her mother went to see last weekend.  They had some grilled sausage for us for lunch, Johnsonville Irish O'Garlic sausage.  I had never seen this and think it creative and a bit funny that they named a sausage this.  Putting an O' in front of something makes it Irish, kind of like adding vowels to the end of words to make them Italian or Spanish depending on the voice used.  I am guilty of the latter.  Menu change 1. Byrd wanted sausage instead of corned beef.
McGuire's Irish Pub is and has been one of my favorite restaurants throughout my life.  This is the first and last place I have had Irish Boxty's.  Basically they are garlic mashed potatoes, made into balls, rolled in herbed bread crumbs, and fried. They serve them with a horseradish sauce, salsa, and guacamole.  I have no idea why these flavors work so well, but man do they.  We got to running around town and time slipped away from us, so Menu change 2 Potato cakes instead of boxtys.  I have never had a potato cake, but Byrd's dad used to make them for her when she was growing up so she wanted to make them.
The cabbage got to stay.
I fired up the Hibachi for the sausage.  My plan was to grill them, then add them into the cabbage and onion pan.

While those cooked I shredded some cabbage, sliced some white onion, and diced some bacon.  I started the pan with about 2 Tbsp of butter, then added 2 slices of diced bacon.  Cooked until the bacon was almost crispy then added in the cabbage and onion.  How to make cabbage unhealthy? Fry it in butter and bacon grease.  Then I pulled the sausage off the grill and put a lid on it to simmer.

While I was running around doing this, Byrd was making Potato Cakes.  She washed, peeled, and shredded 2 cups of potato.  Then put them in a towel and rang out all of the water.  Into a bowl, then added 3 eggs,  1 1/2 Tbsp of flour, and salt.  I was in awe of my wife.  She then broke out a cast iron skillet and added some oil.  Once it was hot enough she started to spoon in the potato mixture.  I was drooling at this point.

The doctor would not be happy if she new this is what we were cooking last night, but it's just one meal right.

As for the theme of the day, we definitely ended up more German than Irish, but that's ok, because it was delicious.  As Byrd reminded me, our house smells like Waffle House, and it's because we cooked, not because we needed it to soak up the St. Patty's day festivities like years past.

Brinner

Brinner (I heard this term on Scrubs, one of my favorite TV shows) is breakfast for dinner.  Growing up I lived across the street from my grandparents and at least once a month she would have everyone over for supper, as she called it, and it was breakfast.  This was one of my favorite night/nights of the month.  I am not sure if she used pancake mix, I doubt she did, but I always have.  Tonight that changes.  I looked through a few cookbooks and decided to go with the buttermilk pancakes recipe from "the all-new ultimate Southern Living Cookbook."  The batter was thicker than the usual pancakes, which come from the Aunt Jemima box, but I guess that is to be expected.

Another component of tonights Brinner is country scrambled eggs.  My mom calls them this, so I do as well.  Brown a little butter, then let the egg whites cook before breaking the yolk.  Then scramble.  Add cheese if wanted, Byrd wanted.

 I wanted to try something a little different so I dipped half a slice of bacon in the pancake batter, just to see how it would taste. Not that it can be bad, its bacon.

All together now.

I am glad I tried the non box pancakes, not that box pancakes are bad, these were just much better. Around here we have brinner a good bit, so I am anxious to try more things inside pancake mix, such as sausage or just more bacon.  I wonder if you could bake the batter in a muffin cup with several different fillings?  May have to try that soon.

Candied Bacon and Chocolate Chip Cookies

We have been planning a trip to The Smokin' in the Square BBQ Festival in Pensacola, FL for a month or so and tomorrow we get to leave. I've been to several festivals in my life, but this will be the first time at this one so I am extremely excited about a weekend of great Q. In order to have a few treats to take along with us for the weekend I decided to bake again today. I know this is ridiculous, 2 days baking in a row. I am that bored with no work. This does give me a lot of free time to read all of the great food bloggers that I guess I aspire to be. I ran across a blog that first made me laugh at the title, Accountants can cook?, and then drool at the name of a cookie. It involves my favorite food, BACON. To be exact, candied bacon. I have heard of candy bars that have bacon in them, but have never been able to locate one in the stores. The full recipe from the afore mentioned blog is here.


First the candied bacon: 1/2 a cup of light brown sugar sprinkled on top and baked. Then cooled.

All ingredients mixed together with the chopped bacon and chocolate chips on top.

The cookie dough balls before baking. Yes, that is half the loaf of Chocolate Chip Cornbread Breakfast Cake from yesterday. Yes there is only 2 of us in the house, and it was good enough to eat half in under 24 hours.

Same cookies, I just really liked this picture.

Out of the oven after the 12 minutes and cooled. Well all cooled except the 2 we ate immediately.

This picture actually shows the delicious super food, bacon, coming out of the top of the cookie.

These were some of the best cookies that I have ever eaten, and definitely the best ones I have ever made. I thank you Accountants can cook? I have learned a lot from these last 2 days of baking. I actually can bake if I put my mind to it and have the help of my beautiful wife. If I am to continue baking I need a few more kitchen items. A cooling rack, and something called Silipat to be specific.

Boneless Pork Chops

Boneless pork chops are not one of my favorite thing to cook. They are always dry and tasteless, of course this is due to how I cook them. It never ends well for me. But I refuse to give up, and they were on special at our local Publix. I seasoned these with salt and pepper, onion powder and smoked paprika. I browned them in a little butter, and by a little I mean 2 tablespoons. I am always worried about drying out boneless pork chops, so they may have been on each side for about 2 minutes. Then removed them from the pan.

These potato wedges are a common theme these days. I think they are Byrds favorite pregnant food.

The mushrooms were a test. Trying to make them taste like some we had at a local restaurant. And I will say they were really close. Sauteed in butter with a little salt and pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, steak seasoning, and season salt. Let all the butter soak into the mushrooms then added a couple teaspoons of water, and reduced heat to low.

Back to my idea of how not to dry out the pork chops, this time. With no wine or stock in the house, I dissolved a beef bouillon cube in a couple cups of water and used this to deglaze the pan. When I got everything off the bottom of the pan I added the chops back. Then covered and let simmer for about 8 mins.

All together it made a great plate.

This attempt at pork chops was much better than the last several. They were tender, juicy, and full of flavor. With the added mushrooms it was a great dinner. I no longer have the fear of cooking boneless pork chops.