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