We've found brisket the most difficult thing to get right when smoking. I'm coming to the conclusion that it should be smoked a while then maybe wrapped and finished in the oven.

There is a BBQ thread.

much appreciated

I love making huge sandwiches. Last night I made a delicious chicken sammi

1/2 chicken breast pounded flat-ish, seasoned with kosher salt, cracked black pepper and garlic, seared in olive oil.



bbq sauce on one side, sriracha on the other, sauteed onions and mushrooms in butter, lemon juice and white wine. All on top of a thick cut crusty wheat bread toasted lightly so it was still soft in the middle.


its growing!


7 inches of yum. required a little pressing before eating but was tasty

I've been making cookies a lot lately:

120g sugar
100g light brown sugar
110g butter
2g salt
2g baking powder
180g flour
1 egg
200g whatever

These are white chocolate, cranberry, orange zest. Great combination imo:

Bought some royal red shrimp from whole foods the other day and wow... Never tasted shrimp anywhere near this good before and they're only $9.99/lb and I'm a few hundred miles from the gulf... Try these if you can find them

Cured meat update: the bresaola is still coming along, at about 20% weight loss right now. You can see some nice white mold developing on the one on the right which is the one with the herbs and garlic. The yellow fat on the one on the left is from the berbere spice. Also pictured are some beef & pork salamis I made recently.



I had to toss the pancetta pictured upthread after some bad mold bloomed on it. The mold growing was fuzzy and green, and I wiped it off with vinegar a couple times early. I left for a short vacation and came back and the mold was back in full force, and appeared to have left dark spots on the meat when I wiped it off. Not gonna take any chances there, but it's a shame.

Made some chicken and garlic sausages last night, also. After stuffing, these were smoked at about 180F for a couple hours then poached in water until done. Heated one sausage up on the grill for lunch today, with bell peppers and onions and grilled romaine heart.

Here's a grilled portobello mushroom sando with beet chutney and avocado and pesto mayonnaise, and grilled asparagus.

Cool stuff with the cured meat.

I really hate anyone who grills what is meant to be a crisp green. There is no upside.

This burned out as a fad in the top restaurants very quickly.

You "really hate anyone" who grills crisp greens? That romaine is on the heat for about 90sec, it stays crispy and even cold in the center. The upside is that you develop additional flavors in the caramelized lettuce or melted cheese you put on it. No accounting for taste, I guess.

had some cookies like these recently except the base cookie was oatmeal. nomnomnom

Moved over the winter and finally got the grill out of storage today.

jackindacrak, what is the box you are keeping the curing meat in?

A 32 bottle Craigslist wine fridge with all the shelves except the top one removed. It runs about 51 to 55 degrees. I try to keep the relative humidity above 70% using wet clean kitchen towels but it's tough in Colorado. This here is the first batch from it.

I like to cook but have never got into grilling due to lack of an outdoor space. This summer I have a porch, and am thinking about getting this:

http://www.amazon.com/Weber-10020-Sm...3307646&sr=1-8

Suggestions for beginner grill recipes? I prefer chicken / fish over beef

you mean Gulf Shrimp? The shrimp w/ the pink dot on the shell? I used to work for WF seafood, and that shrimp is indeed the best ever. Wild>Farmed imho

Reading ur post took me back to the days of the seafood counter at whole foods. I definitely don't miss the smell

fennel and zuchini soup with tomato relish

from here

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/fo...-Relish-364537

Hi, I need help. I have been cooking a lot lately, but I am naturally a bad cook. It's hard for me to get better cause I don't understand the simplest of cooking terms like steaming, sauteing, and so on. I don't understand when to use what sauces. So all my dishes are basically the same thing, beef or chicken with a random vegetable and a random chinese sauce, fried with a random oil, or with water. I can cook chili, chicken soup, steak and pepper stir fried, and I have even roasted a chicken, but that is it. I want to move beyond this and need a little guidance.

Right now I have some lamb in the fridge, can someone tell me what to try here with this? If I were to do it alone I'd probably put it on a pan (my pan is super ****ty, not sure if that matters), put some soy sauce, garlic and pepper on it, and put some green pepper in the pan, and make white rice... Eatable, but bland and novice

google is your friend

yeah, just use google. generally with lamb garlic and rosemary will be your friends though.

could you be more vague about the lamb? if it's the head I'd boil it and make lambs head cheese

I don't usually take pics of my food but these just looked so good I had to find my camera.

Baked potato dominos topped with scallion oil

My Canon digicam is defective so I haven't been able to contribute for a while. Luckily, this past weekend a few of us went up to a cottage and one of the girls was fairly trigger happy with her SLR.

I'm usually the one cooking for the whole group, so despite the fact most people whip out the grill at the cottage, I find it easier to use an oven and braise/stew in big batches. This time I brought along 4 racks of side ribs in a couple cryovacs, gave them a dry rub, braised them for a couple hours in cider vinegar and mustard, then blasted them under the broiler after a bbq/mustard saucing.

I overcooked the meat a fair bit but, as usual, that's exactly how most "normal" people like it. I guess people will take tender meat over a little pull every time. *Shrug*. Still the tastiest ribs I've ever made.

Cooks,

Some great stuff here. Those potato dominoes look especially awesome.

I had some chicken and spinach I wanted to use up, so decided to try something new. I guess it's sort of a spin on Indian Saag Murgh.

I chopped up a bunch of onion, sauteed in butter til starting to brown.
Tossed in some cubes of chicken and browned.
Added a bunch of spices - paprika, chili powder, cumin, garlic powder, salt, pepper
Poured some yogurt in and mixed it all up, let it cook for a bit.
Then chopped up a bunch of spinach and mixed it in and cooked for a bit.

Turned out like this, delicious and super easy:

i bet it tasted great but that looks disgusting

FC,

That seems to be consensus so far among others who have seen picture, haha. It was delicious, though!

I actually debated whether to post it or not because I thought it might look sorta gross, but it was so delicious and easy I decided to post it as a public service to OOT.