We had a lovely day.
Meal info to come. Maybe. 🙂
Another Rotisserie Chicken
posted by
Sunday Dinner- 31 March 2019
This week we inaugurated the Weber Kettle Rotisserie for 2019, with a whole chicken and drip pan potatoes. It was a small fryer this time, a little less than four pounds. I used the Custom Culinary spice for dry brining, and chunks of cherry wood on the coals. I also cut up about four pounds of potatoes and par cooked them in the microwave for 15 minutes before putting them in the pan.
Because of the cold temperature, after an hour the interior of the breast was still only about 147 °F, so I moved everything to the Genesis gas grill, with the chicken on top of the potatoes, to finish.
We served this with one of Claudia’s lovely green salads and raided the freezer for some delicious local sweet corn that our brother-in-law, Jeff, had given us. Wine was Butter Chardonnay, and Aunt Pat brought a lemon meringue pie from Blue’s Cafe for dessert.
Turning Another Bird
posted by
Sunday Dinner – 14 October 2018
We roasted another chicken on the Weber Kettle rotisserie this week.
This was about a six pound bird. I dry brined it, seasoning with course salt and black pepper Saturday night. Sunday morning I also hit it with garlic powder, onion powder, Herbs de Provence and a little MSG. Hickory chunks added the fire spice. Since it was largish, it took about an hour and a half to get the temp up to 165 °F in the center of the breast. I also par cooked three pounds of potatoes in the microwave for about ten minutes before putting them in the drip pan. There’s really nothing like potatoes that have roasted with chicken drippings.
Claudia made a nice salad and cooked some fresh green beans. We also had radishes and cornichons. The wine was a deliciously bracing Bokisch Andrus Vineyard Albariño from Lodi.
Claudia also baked cupcakes for dessert.
Another Long Cook
posted by
Sunday Dinner – 16 September 2018
This is the first time we’ve repeated a main course for Sunday Dinner in 2018. We had a six pound Boston Butt in the freezer, and the weather was favorable, so it was hard to resist the long cook.
I was up at around 6:30 AM to set up the Weber Kettle and start the coals. I’d rubbed the pork shoulder Saturday Evening with my usual seasonings, and set up the Kettle as usual with a drip pan full of water between ten unlit briquettes on each side. I added several lit coals and some wood chunks before placing the pork on the grate. After about three hours, I wrapped the pork in foil to get it through the stall, and eventually moved it over to the Genesis Gas Grill to finish. After about six and a half hours total, the internal temp was 203 degrees F. We let it rest for about another hour before shredding.
I’d made pasta salad on Friday evening, and Claudia made a delicious green salad, plus some truly amazing green beans with onions and bacon for sides. The wine was from F. Stephen Millier (a Lodi Shiraz which paired perfectly with the barbecue). Claudia also made brownies for dessert.
We’re missing Aunt Pat while she spends some time with family out west. It was another lovely Sunday with Grammy and Grampy, though. It’s such a blessing to be able to be in their company each week.
Pulled Pork and Roastin’ Ears
posted by
Sunday Dinner – 22 July 2018
For Sunday Dinner this week, we pulled a Boston Butt out of the deepfreeze and did a long cook.
It was a 5 1/4 pound pork shoulder that we’d gotten on sale some time when Ultra Foods was still in business here. I remembered to get it out of the freezer on Thursday evening so it would be thawed well enough to season on Saturday evening. Here’s my rub recipe.
- 2 t Black Pepper
- 2 t Mustard
- 2 T Turbinado Sugar
- 1 t Onion Powder
- 1 t Garlic Powder
- 1 t Paprika
- 1 T Kosher Salt
I use this mainly for ribs and pulled pork, but it would also be fine for brisket or other cuts that get rubbed for smoking.
I also made a batch of Wolfe Pit Cole Slaw, and some Carolina Mustard BBQ Sauce Saturday Night. Here’s the recipe for that.
- 1 C Yellow Mustard
- 1/4 C Apple Cider Vinegar
- 1/4 C Brown Sugar
- 2 T Ketchup
- 1 T Soy Sauce
- 1 T Worcestershire
- 1 T Crystal Sauce
Usually with the pulled pork I would cook up a pot of baked beans, and maybe serve some potato salad or macaroni salad alongside. But this week Aunt Pat brought us a baker’s dozen of fresh sweet corn from Hersher, so I saved back some ears for the meal. We generally cook our roastin’ ears on the grill nowadays, but I boiled these up in a big pot with a little salt, the old fashioned way, and they were delicious, smothered in butter. One of the cool things about living in Kankakee County is the incredibly sweet Hersher corn on the cob.
I was up shortly after 5:30 AM on Sunday to get the grill going. I set it up for the long cook as usual, with ten unlit briquettes on each side of a water pan, then adding four lit coals to each side, along with some wood chunks. Hickory and Apple are my choice most of the time for pork. The kettle was smoking steady at 225°F by twenty after six, and ready for the roast. I turned and mopped it every hour for the first four hours, using a spray bottle of coffee, cider vinegar and Maibock. After four hours, it was reading 135°F in the center, so I wrapped it in aluminum foil, moved all of the charcoal to one side of the grill, and added some additional briquettes to get the temperature up a bit. After another two hours, the roast was still only at 165 (and it had begun to rain pretty steadily outside) so I brought it in to finish in a 350°F oven. It took another hour-and-a-half to get up to around 190, which was my target temp for this cook. We let it rest for another half-an-hour before Claudia shredded it with the Kassa Claws.
The sweet corn, slaw and sandwich (on a Kaiser Roll topped with dill chips and Carolina Sauce) made for a pretty plate. Unfortunately, a problem between my camera and computer resulted in the loss of what would have been a nice photo to share. Rest assured that it was all plenty delicious. We also had a couple bags of chips, some Blues Hog Tennessee Red Sauce, and our old standby Sweet Baby Ray’s on hand at the table.
I’ve never been quite satisfied with the slaw recipe, so I think I might try a different one next time. Although this one came out better than previous attempts, it doesn’t match the sweet, creamy goodness of what I remember my mom making when I was a child. Otherwise, this meal was perfect. Wines were Cali Merlots from Intertwine and Karen Birmingham.
The older set played cribbage while Claudia and I took well-deserved, overdue short naps, then we enjoyed a nice banana cream pie that Aunt Pat brought for dessert.
Mai Tai—Roa Ae!
posted by
Sunday Dinner – 3 June 2018
Our neighborhood grocer had pork loins on sale, so this week’s Sunday Dinner was a Trader Vic’s inspired faux Polynesian feast.
I began preparations on Saturday with the marinade for the pork. The Char Siu recipe comes from an old Trader Vic’s cookbook, and consists of equal parts brown sugar, hoisin sauce, soy sauce and ketchup. That all went in to a ziplock bag with the pork loins.
The sides for this meal came from Rebecca Crum’s Ezra Pound Cake site. I put together the Hawaiian Macaroni Salad on Saturday evening before we left for Mass.
I still hadn’t decided on the vegetable side until Sunday morning. Finally went with an Asian-flavored slaw, based loosely on Rebecca’s recipe. It was a package of slaw shreds, some chopped roasted peanuts, and this dressing.
Asian Slaw Dressing
- 1/4 cup peanut oil
- 3 tablespoons white wine vinegar
- juice of 1/2 lime
- sesame seeds
- 1/2 Tablespoon powdered ginger
- 2 Tablespoons brown sugar
- 1/2 Tablespoon soy sauce
Sunday morning at 9 AM maybe wasn’t the best time to perfect a Mai Tai recipe, but adversity builds character. After a couple of failed attempts (too strong, too sour) here’s the final concoction.
Mai Tai
- 1 oz Bacardi Gold
- 1 oz Myer’s Dark Rum
- 1 oz Orange Curaćao
- 1 oz Crème de Almond
- 1 oz Rose’s Lime Juice
- 1/2 oz Grenadine
- Juice of 1/2 Lime
Shook the heck out of that with crushed ice, decanted into a tumbler with cubes, and garnished with an orange wedge, a pineapple chunk and a cocktail cherry.
The appetizer recipe came from a site that, sadly, is no longer online. It’s a healthier, vegetarian version of Trader Vic’s Rumaki (chicken livers and water chestnuts wrapped in bacon, smothered with brown sugar). The water chestnuts are still there for the crunch, the smoky bacon flavor comes from liquid smoke in the mushroom marinade, and pineapple chunks add some sweetness.
Veggie Rumaki
- 1/2 cup soy sauce
- 4 T white vinegar
- 1/2 t garlic powder
- 1/4 t powdered ginger
Pour some of the marinade over 2 cans of water chestnuts.
Add a teaspoon of liquid smoke to the remainder, and pour it over a pound of white mushrooms cut into bite sized pieces.
Let these sit in the fridge for a couple hours, then skewer them with chunks of pineapple, and cook them on the grill or in a 450°F oven for about 15 minutes. We served these while the rest of the meal was cooking
I cooked the pork loins on the Weber Kettle, over direct heat with some Hickory wood. I made another rookie mistake this week, pulling the loins off when they “looked done” instead of checking the internal temperature. So they had to go back out for another five minutes over high heat. They probably cooked for 25 minutes total. The last step was to sprinkle toasted sesame seeds over the top.
I also roasted some baby carrots and scallions on the Genesis gas grill while the pork was cooking.
The pork can be served with mustard and sweet sour sauce on a King’s Hawaiian roll as a slider.
We had a nice bottle of Stephen Millier California Zin with the meal. I managed to sneak in a Shiner Bock or two during the afternoon as well. It’s the Cowboy Way.
For dessert, Mrs. Noe baked an Angel Food Cake, and cut it into pieces for dipping in a simple orange/chocolate fondue, along with pieces of apple, banana and strawberries. Had I not been an idiot and forgotten about the pineapple chunks we had left, we would have dipped them too.
Music for the afternoon was courtesy of Jason Croft’s Bachelor Pad Radio. I’ve been listening to his show on Friday nights for decades now, and it always delights.
Overall, it was a satisfying meal and a lot of fun. The only thing that needs work is the macaroni salad. It just didn’t have much zing. I added some soy sauce, ginger and Bacos to try to kick it up a bit, but it was still a little bland. Maybe need to add some more vinegar next time, or some cheese shreds or something. Tarragon, maybe.
Until next week, Aloha ʻOe!
First Long Cook of the Year: Spare Ribs
posted by
Sunday Dinner – Mothers Day – 13 May 2018
For dinner on Mothers Day, along with the regular Sunday Dinner crew, we were pleased to welcome Claudia’s cousin Dan and his partner who were visiting from Florida. I prepared St. Louis Style spareribs, baked beans and coleslaw. Dan brought macaroni salad and Aunt Pat made an Angel Food Cake with macerated strawberries. Claudia also prepared some nice appetizers, including skewers of fruit, veggies and cheese. We also grilled some small peppers stuffed with cream cheese filling.
I got the grill going early, around 7:30 AM, and had the ribs on the rack by 8. I’d removed the silver skin and rubbed them the night before with my usual mix of Kosher salt, black pepper, Turbinado sugar, cumin, paprika, garlic powder and onion powder. The grill was set up with ten unlit coals on each side of a water pan, five lit coals on top of each side, and some chunks of apple and hickory. Bottom vents started with two open and one closed, then I damped one as needed to keep the temp at 250°F. The sweet smoke smelled heavenly as we enjoyed our morning coffee.
I had knocked out both the coleslaw and crock pot baked beans on Saturday evening, but there still seemed little time for relaxation. Attending the ribs meant monitoring the temperature, adding coals as needed, and mopping the slabs every hour with a combination of apple juice, coffee and Schlitz from a spray bottle. We also had to attend some last minute gift wrapping for the moms, and Claudia and our daughter did some tidying and cleaning to prepare for company.
The cook was a classic 3/2/1 (three hours on a rack over smoke, two hours wrapped in foil, one final hour over smoke again to finish) and the ribs turned out great. The rest of the meal was fabulous as well, likewise the conversation.
In fact, we enjoyed ourselves so much that we failed to take food photos, so you’ll have to use your imagination. 🙂
We had a bottle of Alma Andina Malbec first, which was just sort of alright. Then I opened a California Zin from F. Stephen Millier. It was scrumptious.
It’s hard to beat a long cook, particularly when you’re sharing the results with good company. I’m especially appreciative of time spent with Claudia’s family, and the opportunity to honor her (and her mom) again this Mothers Day. She has created an exceptionally happy and loving home. Very literally a dream come true.
The Spinning Bird
posted by
Sunday Dinner – 25 March 2018
This week for Sunday Dinner we prepared one of our favorites, Rotisserie Chicken with Drip Pan Potatoes. Aunt Pat was having problems with her knee, and I seem to have come down with the flu, so it wasn’t the most festive meal, but Grammy and Grampy did join us, and everyone seemed to enjoy the food.
I have been cooking on a Weber Kettle for decades, but it’s really only the past few years that I’ve had any clue what I was doing. My education came in the form of a rotisserie attachment that Claudia gave me one year for Christmas. Since I had no idea how to use it, I had to do quite a bit of research. Luck brought me to a guy named Mike Vrobel, and his excellent book Rotisserie Grilling. By learning to cook with the rotisserie, I became a better outdoor cook all around. For instance, I had never used a thermometer to test for doneness before. No wonder I had inconsistent results for thirty years.
Dry brined chicken was one of the first things I learned to prepare on the rotisserie, and, though simple, it remains one of the most delicious dishes I’ve ever tasted. Prep involves seasoning the bird, inside and out, with kosher salt, ground black pepper, garlic and onion powder and Herbs de Provence. Then we leave it, uncovered, in the refrigerator for a few hours (or overnight).
The grill is set up with a full chimney of charcoal, distributed in a horseshoe pattern around a foil drip pan. This time around we used a couple chunks of apple wood for smoke. The bird is trussed and skewered, and placed on the rotisserie with the legs pointing toward the closed end of the coals, breast toward the open end. This helps to cook the thighs well while not overcooking the white meat.
Claudia prepared about three pounds of potatoes, cutting them into 8ths, coating with olive oil, salt and pepper, and par cooking in the microwave for five minutes. After the chicken had spun for about half an hour, the potatoes went into the drip pan, soaking up all the nice schmaltz dripping from the bird.
This was a fairly large roaster (about 6 1/2 pounds) so I figured it would need to cook about an hour and a half. I began checking the temperature in the breast after the first hour. By the time the coals were mostly gone, it had still only reached 145 °F, so I placed it on top of the potato pan and moved everything to the Genesis gas grill to finish cooking over indirect medium heat. Once it hit 165, we brought it in and let it rest under a tent of foil.
We served this meal with steamed broccoli and lemon, and Wulff Salad. The wine was a Scott Peterson Rox Chardonnay.
Roast chicken is a Sunday Dinner classic, and you’ll never taste any better than what comes off the rotisserie. I’ve often said that if I had ever opened a restaurant, I’d want to have called it “The Spinning Bird.”
Ribs for Fathers Day 2016
posted by
For Fathers Day this year I did another long cook. Our Jewel store had St. Louis Cut Spareribs on sale two racks for the price of one, so ribs it was.
I started the Weber Kettle early in the day, setting it up with ten unlit coals on each side of a foil pan filled about halfway with water. I added four or five lit coals to each side, along with some apple and hickory chunks. One bottom vent was wide open, one completely closed and one open about halfway. Top vent was wide open as well.
Once the temperature stabilized at around 250 F, I put the slabs on a rib rack over the drip pan. I’d seasoned them the night before with my usual rub recipe. From then on it was a matter of monitoring the temperature and spraying the ribs each hour with a mist of apple juice, cider vinegar and coffee. After three hours, I wrapped them in foil and moved them to the Genesis to finish.
There’s something magical and Zen-like about a long cook. The smell of the smoke and the sight of it wafting over the patio is an experience unto itself. It’s satisfying to know that you’ve acquired the skill necessary to maintain an even temperature over several hours of cooking, and the other fairly specific skills needed to turn out a perfect plate of ribs. The pace of the cook affords time for relaxation and proper anticipation of the delicious meal to come.
We’re in the Gray Farms CSA this year, and one of the cool things about it is that we get a lot of produce that we likely wouldn’t think to try otherwise. It’s like this lovely surprise package every week. This week, we had both turnips and collards, which neither of us had ever cooked before. We diced the turnips and roasted them on the plancha, and the collards we cooked in a Lodge cast iron Dutch Oven on the Genesis. I cooked up some onions and garlic in the pot for starters, then added the collards, a dried cayenne, some stock and a couple of smoked ham hocks and let them simmer for a long time.
-
- Collards and Ham Hocks
-
- Collards Cooked
These turned out really delicious and they’re something we’d definitely make again.
I also melted some Brie on a cedar plank with a little blackberry jam drizzled over the top for an appetizer.
It’s always a pleasure to cook for the folks on Sunday, but it was especially fun to do a full day of cooking for my wife’s dad on Fathers Day. Since my own father passed away when I was very young, I feel especially grateful to have a wonderful father-in-law in my life, and appreciate every chance we have to spend time with him.
Memorial Day Weekend 2016
posted by
-
- Roast for Sloppy Joes
-
- Red Pepper, Onion and Garlic Sauté
-
- Braising on the Genesis
-
- Sloppy Joes
-
- Hidden Valley Potato Wedges
-
- Plated Memorial Day Dinner
Memorial Day is the day when Americans honor the fallen, and it’s also the unofficial beginning of Summer here. This year, as usual at our house, it was a weekend of cooking outside.
On Friday evening, we had some friends over and I cooked New York Strip steaks, baked potatoes and roasted asparagus on the Weber Genesis. For an appetizer, I baked a wheel of Brie with herbs and a wedge of Havarti with Blackberry Jam on a cedar plank.
Saturday we took a break from cooking and cleared out some of the delicious leftovers. Sunday morning, we drove down to Friends Creek Cemetery where my parents are buried, leaving some flowers. It was nice to see that the place is still well kept.
Sunday afternoon Claudia’s folks joined us for dinner. I used the rotisserie on the Weber Kettle for the first time this year to roast a chicken. It turned out tasty and perfect, with lots of hickory smoke flavor. The drip pan potatoes were a hit, as always, and I also grilled some roastin’ ears on the Genesis.
Monday, it was cowboy cooking. First, there was my wife’s favorite baked beans from her Aunt Nancy’s recipe. Wolfe Pit cole slaw and Hidden Valley potato wedges cooked on the plancha rounded out the side dishes. The more I cook on the plancha, the more I like it. It adds a crispy crust to everything from potatoes to burgers, and it helps to hold the heat steady on the Genesis which is great when you’re using it as an oven.
The star of the show was Grownup Sloppy Joes from Weber’s Big Book of Grilling by Jamie Purviance. This time, I seared then smoked the roast with Cherry and Hickory on the Kettle, and did the braising in a Lodge cast iron dutch oven over on the Genesis.
By the time everything was finished, I’d been on my feet all day and was pretty beat, but a nice glass of Petite Sirah from Lodi served as a fine restorative. The bold flavor was a perfect match to all the smoke and char of the barbecue. The folks joined us again and we had a lovely time. We’d been expecting my sons to join us as well, but they weren’t able to make it. I wish I could have emailed the smoky smell of the patio while the roast was on the Kettle.
The only dish from the entire weekend that needs work is the cole slaw. We eventually added some additional cider vinegar and sugar, because it ended up a little flat and salty tasting. I doubt that it’s the fault of the recipe. I cut it in half, and may have screwed up the proportions along the way.
It’s one of the joys of life to turn out a decent meal to share with people you love, and cooking outdoors is a feast for the senses from start to finish. I can’t think of any way I’d rather spend a long weekend.