So, Neko! Let me tell you what I did yesterday...

This post is dedicated to the memory of my dear friend, Neko Hamlett.

Neko and I first got to know each other in 1999. I had just recently been hired by American Roamer (now Mosaik Solutions). Neko had long been a friend of the president of our company, and was just asked to join the team as VP of sales. It didn't take long for Neko and I to discover that we had a lot in common. We both loved darts (He was good at it, and I was good at making him look even better at it.), a good beer and a cigar (I didn't even know I had a passion for these until Neko introduced them to me. In fact, Neva says I was fairly virtuous...until I met Neko. I sure owe him a lot!), talking about how proud our wife and kids made us, and smoking (food)! It took a little while before we discovered the grilling part. One day I mentioned that my family loves for me to smoke our Thanksgiving turkey. Shortly after that, we were emailing before and after each holiday to find out what the other was going to smoke, and how it turned out. Neko went to be with our Lord during the Labor Day weekend in 2008. I was smoking a huge mess of ribs that weekend, and never got to tell him about them. I still love smoking meats (as well as all the vices he so wisely passed on to me), but there has always been something missing on holidays like Memorial Day, Independence Day, and Labor Day; holidays that require the use of a grill. This Memorial Day holiday I decided, what the heck! I might not receive a direct reply, but there is no reason for me not to let Neko know what I cooked for the holiday. So, Neko! Let me tell you what I did yesterday...

I hadn't smoked anything for quite some time. I've been itching to though. Plus, I needed to empty some space in the freezer. It didn't take long to decide I needed to smoke a turkey AND a boston butt. The next dilemma was figuring out what device I was going to smoke them on. Was I going to pull out the trusty Chargriller and smoke these the old fashioned way, with charcoal and wood chunks? Or was I going to crank up the Sawtooth pellet grill and slow smoke these items on the back deck? Both methods have their advantages. Nothing gives a good smoke ring and crust on a pork butt like smoking the old fashioned way. And you have to use the old methods if you want a smoked turkey that has that gorgeous mahogany skin. But...you have to really be prepared to dedicate your day to the grill. It is important to keep the smoke and temperature consistent, if you want your meat to come out just right. That's kinda hard to do if you have a lot of other things going on in your life that day.

Making life easier is what the pellet grill is all about. Other than occasionally checking the pellet level, these grill/smokers are about as "set it and forget it" as grills can be. You don't get the mahogany color on your smoked turkeys with a pellet grill, but that mahogany color comes at a price. While the turkey meat is juicy and flavorful, the skin gets so full of smoke it becomes acrid, and leathery. With a pellet grill, the smoke flavor of the turkey meat is still there, though as part of the background harmony, rather than the lead. However, the real treat with a pellet smoked turkey is the crispy, yummy skin. Who can argue with a turkey that looks like this?

 I thought about doing the pork on the Chargriller, and the turkey on the Sawtooth. My wife made some smart comment about me running back and forth between grills all day. I certainly did not want to create any unnecessary exercise for myself. That is NOT the purpose of a holiday. The pellet grill won!

The night before the great smoking event, I prepped my turkey. This year I found a commercial brine on clearance, that looked pretty good. It was mainly kosher salt, black and pink peppercorns, rosemary, and thyme. The next day, the real preparations began. I had to mix up a dry rub for the pork. Now, I live with a family of wusses (myself included). When we eat barbecue, we would much rather sink our teeth into something sweet and smokey, rather than spicy. My dry rubs have a tendency to be heavy on the brown sugar, and lighter on the salt and pepper.  This time my dry rub had brown sugar, smoked kosher salt, garlic salt, cumin, white pepper, dried red bell peppers that had been ground down completely, and finally, some dried tomato flakes that had been ground down. As you can see below, The tomato and red pepper gave the rub a nice red coloring.

Before rubbing the butt down, I mixed a bottle of pear hard cider and half a cup of vinegar, and injected all over the butt.

Next, I dried the turkey, oiled the skin, and sprinkled smoked salt and coarse ground black pepper all over the bird. Then, it was out to the pellet grill that was set on low/smoke which kept the temperature around 150 degrees, and produced ample smoke. It was a tight fit, but I got both pieces of meat, as well as a pie plate filled with water, herbs from the brine, and an apple, for moisture.

I kept the Sawtooth on the low/smoke setting for a couple of hours. I then cranked it up to medium, which got the grill to just above 200 degrees. This still produced a good amount of smoke, but kept the butt and turkey both at a good rate of cooking for producing moist and tender meat. For the first six hours, I sprayed the turkey and pork butt with a mixture of pear hard cider, vinegar, and water. After six hours, I turned the Sawtooth up just enough to get the temperature to 250 degrees, and started spritzing every half hour. After nine hours (just in time for supper) I had the golden brown turkey pictured earlier in this post. The pork butt needed another hour and a half to finish.

Neko, I don't want you to think we were total carnivores last night, without a hint of vegetables on our plates. As you can see below, I had a green vegetable...as well as some Loaded Potato Salad.

So, you've never had Loaded Potato Salad!?! Well! All you have to do is boil three pounds of red potatoes that have been sliced into decent bite sized chunks. While those are boiling (Don't forget that Anne Burrell says to always add enough salt to the water that it tastes like the ocean!), mix together a cup of mayonnaise, a cup of sour cream, one pack of ranch dressing mix, half a pound of crispy bacon all crumbled up, a half cup shredded cheddar, and about six green onions finely chopped. Stick the dressing in the fridge to cool. Once the potatoes are boiled til fork tender, drain and allow to cool just a bit. Mix them with the cooled dressing. If you can make the day before, it is better. That gives the ranch flavor some time to mellow a bit. It ain't your mother's potato salad, but it sure is good.

By the way, did you see the pink on the turkey meat in that picture. That's smoke! Once that bird hit the table, it didn't stand a chance. I was afraid things were going to break out into WWIII over the drumsticks. Fortunately, some last minute diplomacy prevailed.

Don't worry. I haven't forgotten about the pork butt. Here is a picture of the finished product.

The bark isn't as dark and thick as it would have been with the Chargriller, but it was far from being a disappointment. In fact, I had some of the pork for lunch today, with my left over potato salad. All I can say is I am glad my office has a door on it. That pork resulted in some sounds that some might deem inappropriate for an office setting. I am definitely going to have to use the hard cider as an injection again. I don't know that I could pick out the pear flavoring, but there was something about the cider, that made this meat scrumpdillyicious.

Well, that's pretty much all there is to say about my weekend, Neko. Something tells me you fixed them one heck of a barbecue on the other side of those pearly gates. One day, you'll have to tell me all about it...

The Great Food Junkie Wishes One and All a Very Merry Christmas!

Were you starting to think that the Great Food Junkie was going to play the part of Ebenezer Scrooge this year? I know my readers are completely heartbroken that they haven't heard from me since just after Thanksgiving. I promise that I had always intended to write something for Christmas. I even have a few pictures to show you. The Great Food Junkie has been busy cooking this Christmas. Unfortunately, He didn't always remember to take pictures.

Christmas has always been the holiday most associated with traditions. For me, that has held true this Christmas season more than most. This holiday has been about traditions my family has practiced for years, reviving even older traditions, and starting new ones. There were times I thought Topol was going to come around the corner, singing "Traditions!"

Let's start with orange slice cake. Orange slice cake has been one of those traditions that has been in my family for many years. Apparently, the tradition started for us around 1973. It was at that time that my mother was first introduced to this delight. She asked for the recipe, and finally received it in May of that year, as we were preparing to move. Orange slice cake is one of those desserts that can easily be mistaken for a fruit cake. If you are one of those who comes across an orange slice cake, and mistakes it for a fruit cake, you are certainly going to miss a wonderful treat...unless you are love fruit cake...then hopefully, you are delighted to be introduce to a new treat.

Orange slice cake is a wonderful mixture of chopped orange slice gummy candies, dates, coconut, and pecans, covered in a scrumptious orange juice glaze. If the orange slice cake has not been sliced yet, do not fear. It is still easily identifiable...even if still covered. It will be the cake causing the greatest sag in the table. I do like to some times refer to orange slice cake as "How many calories can you pack into one cake" cake. Quite simply, the cake is super rich, super heavy, and has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. But, it is one of the greatest pleasures you will ever taste.

Do any of you GFJ readers remember spiced gum drops? They were these little brightly colored gummy candies coated in sugar crystals. One of my memories as a kid in the seventies was my mother making gum drop cookies for Christmas. I wanted to make some for Christmas so I called my mother and asked for the recipe. Much to my dismay I was informed that she threw that recipe away because she was tired of hearing my brother and I complain about having to cut gum drops. Apparently, complaining was another holiday tradition my brother and I participated in. Fortunately, there is a thing called the internet. A quick search brought up the recipe at the Taste of Home website. I tried it out, and the results immediately took me back to my childhood. Fortunately, it didn't take me back so far I ended up in a scary pair of plaid bell bottom pants.

Pictured with those cookies is some apple cider. That is one of my new traditions. I've drunk apple cider many times, but have never really made it. I took a gallon of apple cider and poured it into my slowcooker, set on high. Into the cider, I put two cinnamon sticks, ten whole cloves, six allspice berries, one inch of fresh ginger, peeled and thinly sliced, and a thinly sliced orange. I let it steep on high for about two hours, then set the slow cooker to warm. This will definitely become a new Christmas tradition. As the picture shows, it is great chilled as well.

Another new tradition is pimiento cheese wafers. For many years, I have cooked cheese cookies, which are a simple mixture of rice crispies, cheddar cheese, butter, flour, and a touch of cayenne. This year I tried something different. It was my wife's fault. She came home from her office Christmas party talking about these wonderful pimiento cheese cookies her coworker brought. She asked for the recipe. We waited, and waited. Being somewhat impatient, I once again decided to turn to my friend the internet. I found a good looking recipe. Of course, once I had bought all of the ingredients, the coworker emailed her recipe...which was nothing like the one I was using. Oh well. Below are the results.

I followed the recipe, but something tells me they could have baked for at least another five minutes. They just didn't crisp up as much as I liked. However, my son seems to like these even more than the regular cheese cookies. According to him, Rusty and T-Bone are great fans as well. Apparently, I have just created a new Christmas dog treat.

The final tradition is brunch. For about ten years now, our family has enjoyed brunch on Christmas morning. It's not a fancy brunch. Simply a breakfast casserole, and one or two side items. Unfortunately, the casserole this year is one of those things I never got a picture of. It is like the orange slice cake, in that it has very little redeeming value other than absolute great taste. Take twelve slices of bread and cut it into cubes. spread half the cubes in the bottom of a greased 13x9 baking dish. Then sprinkle on a pound of cooked crumbled breakfast sausage. Cube one pound of Velveeta cheese and evenly layer about two thirds over the sausage and bread. Layer the remaining bread, followed by the rest of the cheese. In a bowl beat nine eggs, three cups milk, a teaspoon of mustard, and a pinch of salt and pepper. Poor the egg mixture over the other ingredients in the baking dish. Cover, and allow to chill overnight. When ready, bake uncovered at 350 for one to one and a half hours, until a knife inserted comes out clean. Like I said, it has little redeeming value, but it sure tastes great!

I just have one tradition to go. I have my black eyed peas and ham hock ready for New Years Day. So what traditions do you have for the holidays? Please share.