Birthday Burgers

Today was Cathryn's 10th Birthday.....she wanted burgers and sweet potatoes.

Unseasoned sweet potatoes indirect until soft.


Once soft I added a liberal dose of Wolfe Rub Citrus.




Burgers over lump.



After a flip, moved the burgers indirect and added cheese. Swiss on mine, American on the Birthday Girls!



Time to eat!



And of course a Strawberry Birthday Cake!

First Butt of the Year on the Kettle

First butt of the new year. Naked 9lb butt. Started at 11am plan on eating around 6pm. Cooking high heat and will foil around 160-170.

At 11am.


At 2pm.

This was a 9lb butt. Total cook time, 7 hours.

Time to foil at 170.



Finished cooking in foil until 190, let it rest and it rose to 195.

Once the pork was pulled, It was sprinkled liberally with Wolfe Rub Original.

Homemade mac n cheese.


Time to eat. Homemade slaw and Texas Pete on the sammich. Collards and mac n cheese for the win!

Cold and Windy Day Chili!

It was the perfect day to make a pot of chilly!  Very cold and windy!

2lbs - Ground Chuck

Bell pepper, onion, garlic and jalapeno 

Bottle of beer, canned whole tomatoes, kidney beans, salt, black pepper, granulated garlic, granulated onion, cumin, salt, chili powder and oregano 

Everythings in the pot and getting happy! 

Dinner is ready.  Garnished with cheese and pico de gallo. 

The little brisket that could.....

I love making meals out of leftover's! I had a little brisket and a little mac and cheese leftover. At first I was going to make chili with the brisket.
So I decided to make kinda sorta 'Chili Mac'
Added the brisket to on can of enchilada sauce and let simmer until falling about, roughly 30 minutes.

Time to add the mac n cheese.


Time to eat. This was pretty darn good if I may say myself!

Topped with a bit of mexiblend cheese and chips on the side.


Had to add some extra heat to mine!

Little Piece of Brisket

I cooked one of these 'pieces' of brbefore and it was like the bottom of my shoe. This time, I did a different approach.
I got this piece on sale for $5.33, I figured it would give me something to do and if I dried it out, I'd make chili today.

Weighing in at a lean and mean 2.69lbs, it was ready to cook.

My 'new' approach' with such a lean piece of brisket was to attempt to retain all of it's natural juices, without adding any. So I made a little pool out of aluminum foil to hold the juices. As you can see I did not trim whatsoever, needed all of that little piece on the end!

Seasoned with salt, pepper, granulate garlic and onion power.

After roughly two hours, here is all the juice that would have been lost.

At this point I wrapped it up in the foil and juices and continued to cook until tender, another 3 hours. Looks like a NY Strip huh?


While the brisket was resting, I tended to the homemade macaroni and cheese.......STRAIGHT OUT THE BAG BOY!

Dinner is now ready. This brisket, small as it was, was one of the most tender and flavorful briskets I've cooked in a while....fork tender, but not falling apart. Going to the store after work to see if they have more on sale!





That brisket was perfect for me and Cathryn and there's just enough to make a small pot of chili for us tonight!!

Mumbo Wings

Mumbo Wings

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This sauce is typically sold in Chinese restaraunts in Washington, DC and some various Soul Food restaraunts. First time I had it was back in 1990 when I worked for the Corps of Engineers in DC, which was a couple blocks from China Town.
Here's a knock off recipe I found online, it's pretty good and I tweaked it some too.

Mumbo Sauce
1 cup ketchup
1 cup sugar
1 tablespoon Hungarian paprika
3 tablespoons hot sauce (I used 2 TBS Crystal and 1 TBS Sriracha)
3 tablespoons water
4 tablespoons white vinegar
I also added granulated garlic, onion powder and a dash of Accent.
Combine in sauce pan and slowly bring to a boil, stirring frequently.

Cut the wings up and fry until golden.

Ready for the game.



Cathryn and I did damage to the plate but there were about 10 left at dinner time. So I put some waffles from breakfast back into the waffle iron and reheated and sauced the wings. They were even better reheated and sauced. Added some maple syrup to the waffles and dinner was done and delicious!