Weekend is here, the baseball season is officialy over for me.  Dodgers were eliminated from the playoffs earlier this week, no thanks to the Colorado Rockies.  The Dodgers not making the playoffs is considered a big disappointment to many people out there, but if you look at their season, the future looks very promising with all their young players.  That is enough about baseball, now time to start on my weekend of BBQin'.  This weekend was very exciting for the BBQ geek that I am.  I had both bbqs going at the same time for the first time.  For the weekend I had planned to make Pastrami, Spicy Black Bean Burgers, Chicken Fajitas, and Yucatan Chicken Skewers.  It ended up that I didn't thaw out enough chicken to do the skewers, so I will do those sometime during the week.  

Pastrami:
To make this pastrami, I bought a corned beef point cut brisket.  Corned beef brisket is generally just a brisket that has been brined and then to convert it to pastrami, you would just add a spice rub and toss it in the smoker. The source for my method of preparing the pastrami can be found at another Cookshack owners site, MainlyDave.  So here are the steps I followed to make the pastrami:

1. Soak the corned beef brisket in water for about 45 minutes, drain water and refill.  Let soak for at least a couple hours (let mine soak overnight).  This is to remove much of the salt from the brining process.
   
2.  \Remove brisket from water and pat dry with some paper towels. 
   
3. Remove a good portion of the fat cap from the brisket and reserve.
4. Rub in the Pastrami Rub (can be found below), pat it in pretty good, the rub has a hard time sticking to the brisket.  (Some people use some type of weight to let it sit for a while to get the rub sticking to the brisket).
5. Place the brisket on the middle shelf of the smoker with the fat cap on the top shelf directly over it.
   
6. Smoke at 225^oF until temperature of the brisket reaches 165^oF.  I used about a 3 oz chunk of hickory this time in the smokette.
7. Wrap in foil and let sit for a while (get the juices settled back down)
8. Slice, serve, enjoy!

Pastrami Rub:

1 T Kosher or Sea Salt (many recipes call for 5+ T, but that seemed like a lot to me for something that has been brined). 4 T Paprika 3 T Coriander Seed 3 T Brown Sugar 2 T Yellow Mustard Seed 2 T Garlic Powder 5 T Peppercord Melange (mixture of Black, White, Pink, and Green Peppercorns)

Results:
I ended up taking the pastrami out, wrapping it in foil, and letting it rest for about 2 hours.  The pastrami had an excellent taste to it and I would definitely repeat this recipe.  The meat was nice and tender, and the rub was fantastic.  Someday, I will have to pick up a meat slicer to get nice shaven slices (the way pastrami should be).

Spicy Black Bean Burgers:
This was another first try and I really had some doubts that it would stay together.  However, since my wife doesn't care for too much for meat products, I had to give it a shot for her.  She supports my BBQin', so I feel like I should grill up somethings she would like once in a while.

Ingredients:

2 16 oz Cans of Black  Beans, drained and rinsed 1/2 C finely chopped onions (your favorite kind, I choose sweet yellow onions) 1/2 C Dry Bread Crumbs 4 TB Chunky Salsa  \2 t Ground Cumin 1 t Hot Pepper Sauce (Tobasco)

Instructions:

1. In a bowl, mash black beans with a potato masher or fork
2. Mix in the rest of the ingredients
3. Form into desired sized patties.  (I got 5 decent size patties)
4. Grill over direct medium heat for about 5 minutes per side

Serve on your favorite type of hamburger bun with salsa, sour cream, and guacamole

Results:
These burgers tasted great and held together very well.  This recipe is definitely a keeper.  They had a nice crunchy outside with a soft inside.  Definitely would recommend this one for anyone that is looking for something different to grill or looking for a meat alternative.

Chicken  Fajitas:
Fajitas are something that are simple to make and always taste great.  For this I made a simple marinade for the chicken and vegetables.

Ingredients:

2 lbs Chicken Breast, sliced into 1 inch long pieces 4 Colored Bell Peppers (mixture of red, yellow, and orange), slice into 1 inch slivers 1 large yellow onion, sliced 1/2 cup lime juice 1/2 cup orange juice 2 T olive oil 8 cloves garlic, minced 4 t Soy Sauce 2 t Kosher Salt 2 t Cayenne Pepper 2 t Black Pepper

Instructions:

1. Put sliced chicken into a ziplock bag
2. Put sliced bell peppers and onion into a seperate ziplock bag
   
3. In a bowl mixtogether lime juice and orange juice
4. Mix in the remainder of the ingredients
5. Pour half the marinade in the ziplock bag with the chicken and the other half in with the vegetables
6. Let chicken and vegetables marinade for at leat 4 hours or over night.
7. Prepare bbq for direct grilling
8. Place either aluminum foil on grill racks or use other device to prevent food falling through the grates.  I placed the chicken on a smaller grilling grate to prevent chicken from falling in, and the vegetables in a grilling skilling that contain a bunch of small holes.
9. Grill until you reach the desired doneness of the chicken and vegetables
10. Serve with tortillas, sour cream, hot sauce, guacamole, and shredded cheese

Results:
The fajitas turned out great with a real good flavor from the marinade.  This like the other 2 this weekend are definitely keepers.  The fajitas also brought the name of this blog to be true.  It was definitely a true adventure, shortly after I put the chicken and the pepper/onion mixture on to the grill a large thunderstorm hit, but all turned out good though.

The weekend:
This was a great and wonderful BBQin' weekend. Everything turned out fantastic and would do all three recipes again.  I wish I had thawed enough chicken for the Yucatan Skewers, I have been wanting to do these for a while now.  There is a certain ingredient in these that I had been looking for a very long time, and I had finally came across it about a month ago.  Hopefully in the next couple days I will have a chance to do these.  The only problem is that I do not think I saved enough pastrami to bring into the office like I planned.

J 

A couple years ago, I came across a T.V. show for building a better burger sponsored by Sutter Home.  I thought about it back then that I should try and enter the contest as I was watching it on T.V., but of course never did.  Well I randomly came across it online the other night, and unfortunately the recipe submission period just ended for this year.  So now I am on a mission to come up with a recipe to enter next year. Tonight is going to be the first randomly created burger recipe I come up with in the next year.  I am going to actually include a bunch of pepper jack cheese cubes that was left over from a party we had last weekend, the rest of the ingredients are going to be based on what I have in the house.  I am also going to make this Creole Mayonnaise to serve with the burgers.

Hamburger Ingredients:

1. 2 lbs Ground Chuck (random guess here, manually split a 10 lb package a couple months ago and tossed in the deep freezer, I should probably buy a scale someday.)
2. 12 Cubes of Pepper Jack Cheese diced as small as you can get them (approx. 4 O.Z. of pepper jack cheese).
3. 1/4 C Worcestershire Sauce
4. 1 T Garlic Pepper
5. 1 T Chipotle Chili Pepper
6. 1/2 T Garlic Powder
7. 1/2 T Ground Coriander Seed
8. 1 T Ground Mustard
9. 2 T Brown Sugar
10. 1/2 T Kosher Salt

Creole Mayo Instructions:

1. Mix together 1/2 T Creole Seasoning with 1/2 C Miracle Whip (may use real Mayo if you wish),

Cooking Instructions:

1. Mix together the dry seasonings in a small bowl
2. Mix together the Worcestershire and hamburger in another bowl
3. Add seasoning to the hamburger mixture and mix well
4. Add cheese to the mixture and mix.
5. Prepare the grill for direct grilling
6. Dice up pepper jack cheese cube
7. In a bowl mix together all ingredients
8. Form hamburger patties with meat mixture.
9. Place burgers on grill directly over heat
10. After about 5 minutes, flip burgers and cook for another 5 minutes (or until desired doneness)

Results:
The burgers were a bit on the spicy side, but had a pretty good flavor.  If I were to go by this recipe again, I would probably reduce most of the dry seasonings in 1/2.  The burgers were good for a random night of cooking, but this recipe is definitely not a winner yet.  The ground chuck was also not the greatest, but it was cheap, which makes it good to experiment with.  So why do I blog about things that don't turn out to as planned?  Basically to show the process of coming up with good recipes and to show you my true BBQ Adventures.

So what do you think makes a good burger?

Upcoming recipes:

• Yucatan Chicken Skewers
• Fajitas
• Pastrami (Finally, something in the Smokette)
• Vegetarian Black Bean Hamburgers (this one for my wonderful wife)
  

Another blog to check out: sullicom - bbq, hot sauce, cool music and other comforts for the body, mind and soul. - Anything that talks about bbq, hot sauce, and about one of the best baseball players all time, deserves a look. 

J

The BBQ Fork that comes with the typical BBQ Utensil package is one of the worthless BBQ Tools.  If you use it to get your meat off the grill, then you are just letting all the juices out of the meat.  Why, when you are BBQin' the juices of the meat are moving towards the outside of your meat.  As soon as you poke it with that BBQ Fork, all the juices come pouring out.  This can lead to very dry meat.  This is also the same reason why you must let the meat rest for a while after cooking, it gives the chance for the juices to settle down and be evenly distributed inside.  

So here is why I believe they sell us the fork along with the other utensils:

• Charge us more money
• Adjust the charcoal on the grill (primarily what I use it for)
• Remove hot cooking grates from the grill
• Gently poke this person who is asking, Is the food ready yet? (Be careful not to hurt anyone)
• Get a collection of BBQ Forks, and use them as Lawn Darts.
  
• Poke someone as hard as possible for doing a taste test of the food while on the grill (I really don't recommend this one, violence is never good).
• Use it as a hunting tool to catch more animals that you would like to grill up.

So do with it what you want, as long as you don't poke holes in your food, and remember, rested meat is better tasting meat!

J

Many people out there believe the smoke ring in smoked foods adds flavor and is a good sign of good BBQ.  However, this is just a myth.  For electric smokers, like Cookshack's Smokette, you do not get a smoke ring.  This is because it has nothing to do with taste or quality of smoke.  It is no more then just a chemical reaction between nitrates and the food.  Basically what happens when you are smoking with a traditional smoker, with wood and/or charcoal, you are producing a lot more nitrates then you do with an electric smoker, such as the Smokette which uses 2 to 4 oz of wood on average during a smoke.  To put it simply, nitrates are produced during the smoke and are reduced to nitrites by bacteria found in the food.  Nitrites then become Nitric Oxide which in turn cures the meat and this causes the smoke ring.   This is one of the longest ongoing debates on Electrical Smokers vs. Traditional Smokers.  Overall, people are going to BBQ the way they want to BBQ and that is about it.

Thanks,

Jason 

Last nights BBQ was 2 whole chickens cooked beer can style.  Instead of using the typical Beer Can Recipe, I went with a Lemonade Can recipe, which in my opinion is much better.  I have done this one many times in the past and the chicken always comes out nice, tender, and juicy.  This is a very simple recipe that can be used for any type of get together or family dinner.  Normally, I create a BBQ Sauce that goes with this recipe, but since it was a very busy day and wanted to keep things fairly simple, I decided to just use store bought BBQ sauce.  I have included this recipe at the bottom of this entry if you would like to give it a shot sometime.

Ingredients (Per Chicken):

• 1 T Lemonade Powder
• 1 T Brown Sugar
• 1 T Paprika
• 2 t hickory-smoked salt (Old Bay Seasoning)
• 1 t Lemon Pepper
• 1 t. Garlic Powder
• 1 t. Onion Powder
• 1/4 t Celery Seed
• 1 Can Lemonade
• 1 Chicken (3 1/2 to 4 lbs.)
• 2 t Vegetable Oil
• 2 C wood chips or chunks (I used Cherry Wood Chips this time)
• 1 12 oz can of Lemonade
• BBQ Sauce (preferably, from the recipe that follows)

Preparation Instructions:

1. Rub: In a bowl, mix the lemonade powder, brown sugar, paprika, hickory salt, lemon pepper, garlic, onion powder, and celery seed.
2. Prepare the chicken by removing any giblets or odd body parts from the cavity in the chicken (you may reserve this for another use if desired). 
3. Remove and toss any fat just inside the cavities of the bird.
4. Rinse the chicken, in and out, with cold water.
5. Dry chicken fairly well with paper towels.
6. Sprinkle 1 t of the Rub inside the body cavity of the chicken and massage into the cavity of the chicken
7. Sprinkle 1/2 t of the Rub inside the neck of the chicken, and massage
8. Massage the rest of the rub all over the skin of the chicken, reserving 2 teaspoons of rub (if doing the optional sauce), and 1 tablespoon for the lemonade.
9. Open the can of lemonade and remove the tab off the can.
10. Pour half the lemonade out and set aside if doing the optional sauce.
11. Use a church-key-style can opener; make additional 2 holes on the top of the can.
12. Put the 2 tablespoons of reserved rub into the can of lemonade
13. Pop the can into the main body cavity of the bird, and place on the grill. (I really recommend getting a beer can chicken holder, then can be found at just about any hardware store and a lot of grocery stores)

Cooking Instructions:

1. Prepare the grill as you normally wood for indirect grilling
2. Place chicken on the grill
3. On occasion, check the chicken and maybe rotate it to get and even cook across the chicken.
4. Pull chicken when the temperature is 160 in the breast and 180 for the dark meat.
5. Let rest for about 15 minutes to let the juices settle
6. Slice and serve.

Cooking Log:

1. I put the 2 chickens on the grill around 5:55 p.m. with 2 handfuls of cherry wood chips.
2. Added another handful of wood chips around 6:45
3. At about 7:15, I added another batch of hot charcoal and another handful of cheery wood chips.
4. At about 7:45, the temperature in the breast hit the desired temp, and pulled to let rest
5. At about 8:00, I slice up the chicken

Results:
The chicken turned out excellent.  It had a real nice flavor and was definitely a hit with the party we had.  I actually didn't use any BBQ sauce with the chicken, definitely did not need it, but check out the next section for a BBQ sauce that goes great with this chicken.  This chicken went great with the Blue Moon Pumpkin Ale that I was drinking last night.  Originally I had planned to do 4 birds, but not as many people showed up for dinner as planned.

Lemonade Mustard Sauce:

Ingredients:

• 1 T butter
• 2 to 3 shallots (1 small onion is fine) finely chopped, approximately 1 cup.
• 3/4 C lemonade (reserved from Lemonade Chicken)
• 1/2 C firmly package light brown sugar
• 6 T Dijon Mustard
• 3 T fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 t grated lemon zest
• Coarse salt and freshly ground black pepper

Instructions:

1. Melt the butter in a sauce pan over medium heat.
2. Add shallots or onion and cook until they start to brown
3. Add lemonade and increase the heat to high and let boil until reduced to 2 T.
4. Stir in brown sugar, mustard, lemon juice, and lemon zest, 2 t of reserved rub (if above rubbed was used).
5. Lower heat to medium and let the sauce simmer until thick and richly flavored.
6. Add salt and pepper to taste.
   

Source: Beer-Can Chicken by Steven Raichlen

J