• Ezra Pound Cake:  Squash Puppies with Roasted Jalapeno Mayonnaise
• Bo’s Bowl: Monte Cubano
• Cooking By Seat Of My Pants:  Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Bacon
• Ang Sarap:  Grilled Pork ala Pobre
• Culinary Cory:  Grilled Steak House Pizza with Chunky Blue Cheese Dressing
• Pork, Knife & Spoon:  Italian Sausage with Pepper Sandwiches
• Sunshine & Smile: Zucchini: Zucchini & Avocado Cold Soup with Crispy Sticks
• Burnin’ Love BBQ:  National Chicken Wing Day
• AlbuKirky BBQ: Pizza on the Big Green Egg
• I Hope You Are Hungry:  Carolina Style Pulled Pork n’ Slaw

*If you visit in any of these great blogs would you leave a comment you read about them on The BBQ Grail?

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Larry Gaian

I stopped at The Fatted Calf yesterday on my way through Napa to pick up a little bacon.  The Fatted Calf produces some of the most amazing cured meat products in Northern California.  Their slab bacon is simply…amazing.

I sliced off a little bacon to just cover the bread.

I used the Char-Broil RED to cook the bacon.

When it was all done I added some mashed up avocado, some heirloom tomatoes and lettuce.  A little slather of mayo made this a nice little sandwich for my entry in the Bacon Throwdown.  I’m not sure if my sensible little B.A.L.T. will be good enough to win, but it sure did taste good.  (No I didn’t eat the whole thing…in one sitting.)

St. Louis style ribs are prepared by removing the cartilage from the “top” of each rib rack.  If you go to a BBQ restaurant and order “rib tips” this is where they’ve come from.  Some meat processors sell these “rib tips” by the case.  It can be an economical way to serve ribs to large groups.

When you trim lots of racks of ribs you end up with quite a few freezer bags full of trimmings.  One of the most common questions asked on BBQ forums is “what do you do with your rib trimmings?  There’s a lot of different techniques/recipes for rib trimmings.  Here’s one of the ways we utilize rib trimmings at are house. (Click each picture to enlarge.)

Place all your rib trimmings in the crockpot.

Add a can of green enchilada sauce and cook until tender

Shred the pork. Make sure you discard all fat and cartilage

After straining the liquid and removing the fat reduce on the stove.

Reduce the liquid from the crockpot down to a thick "syrup" consistency.

Add the reduced liquid back to the shredded pork and mix well.

Take your uncooked tortillas and poke holes all over them.

Place your tortilla over a small bowl and bake at 400 degrees until brown

Now you've got a bowl. Fill it with the pork and all the fixings.

**I use Tortilla Land uncooked tortillas.  These tortillas can be purchased at Costco and provide a great fresh tortilla that compliments your food.

***The rib tips were in the crock pot on low for about 8 hours.  Make sure you get all the fat drained out of the meat.  One great way of removing the fat is to cook the meat the day before and put the liquid in the refrigerator, after it cools.  The fat will congeal on top and you can easily remove it.

]]> http://thebbqgrail.com/2010/rib-trimmings-awesome-taco-salads/feed/ 4 http://thebbqgrail.com/2010/smoked-and-fried-chicken-wings/ http://thebbqgrail.com/2010/smoked-and-fried-chicken-wings/#comments Thu, 21 Jan 2010 20:35:27 +0000 Larry http://thebbqgrail.com/?p=2307 I love chicken wings.  They are small bite sized morsels of poultry goodness.  I’ve smoked wings lots of time and wanted to give something a little different.

I cranked up one of the Weber Smokey Mountain smokers with some avocado wood.  Avocado wood is a somewhat hard wood that goes great with chicken and pork. 

Continue reading ... Smoked and Fried Chicken Wings

I love chicken wings.  They are small bite sized morsels of poultry goodness.  I’ve smoked wings lots of time and wanted to give something a little different.

I cranked up one of the Weber Smokey Mountain smokers with some avocado wood.  Avocado wood is a somewhat hard wood that goes great with chicken and pork.  It’s a mild wood that should be treated like you would a fruit wood.

The wings were seasoned with Simply Marvelous Season All and smoked at 225 degrees for about 2 hours.  Because it was a busy day I let the wings cool and put them into the refrigerator for eating at a later date.

After sitting in the refrigerator for a couple of days I took the wings out of the refrigerator and let them come up to room temperature.

After the wings warmed up a little I gave them a little milk dunk and a dust of flour.

After letting the flour set into the Masterbuilt Butterball Indoor Turkey Fryer they went for about 10 minutes.  They came out nice and crisp.

The wings got a coating of Sweet Baby Ray’s new “Original Dipping Sauce”  The sauce has a mild horseradish flavor and complimented the season all and avocado wood.

]]>