I like tacos because each guest can pretty much decide how much meat or veggies they want wrapped in their tortilla. A tortilla with just the pork would be great, better with a little slaw, but still good. For the non-meat eater the black beans and slaw will make a tasty and hearty meal.

Normally, I will cook beans with ham or salt pork to kick up the flavor but this time around I decided to just try seasonings and stock. In this particular case I used chicken stock but substituting vegetable stock would work also if you’ve got vegetarians at the table. Depending on the black beans you’re using you may have to pump up the spices. If you can find and afford heirloom black beans get those, they are much more flavorful and require less seasoning to make the taste pop.

The Avocado Slaw was, simply, one of the best things I’ve come up with. This slaw uses green and red cabbage, red onion, avocado, red bell pepper, radishes, carrots, jalapeno and cilantro. I really enjoy this combination of tastes and color. The red bell pepper adds a nice sweetness that works well with the acid in the slaw vinaigrette.

Don’t be afraid to adjust the veggies in the slaw to suit your needs or produce availability. You can easily use green bell pepper, green onions. Drop the radishes if you want. Maybe use a Serrano chili instead of a jalapeno for more heat. Toss in some Jicama for extra crunch. It’s really up to you. Recipes should only be a guide, take them a make them your own.

We ate the slaw wrapped up inside the tortillas but it’s good enough to stand up as a side dish. One of the keys to keeping this on the healthier side is to keep the dressing to minimum. The vinaigrette is packed with flavor so you don’t need much. If you want more flavor just add more seasonings to the vinaigrette, don’t add more vinaigrette to the slaw. You just want to wet the vegetables not drown them. This will also help to keep you tortilla from getting soggy.

What made this slaw especially tasty was the vinegar I used.  A couple of weeks ago I made a trip to Napa to have lunch with some friends.  When I’m in Napa I always stop at Rancho Gordo for some heirloom beans.  This time I left with my favorite Yellow Eye beans and some banana vinegar.  I was thrilled to find, real banana vinegar.  A couple of years ago I went searching for banana vinegar because I wanted to cook an Elvis Presley inspire pork belly.  So, it was pretty much a given that I would be leaving the store with this stuff.  The flavor is sweet and with a very mild vinegar tang. It’s perfect for a vinaigrette and was perfect for this dish.  And since it’s made in Mexico it was an ideal addition to this Mexican inspired dish.  This vinegar isn’t cheap, actually it’s expensive in my book, but it’s good and if used for special dishes will last a long time.

The beans from Rancho Gordo are so good and thanks to the employees the store is fun to visit.  For that reasons I don’t mind giving them a little plug for the banana vinegar.  Here’s the description from their website:

You don’t come across something as wonderful as this everyday. Our mild, fruity vinegar comes from the Casa Stivalet plantation in the beautiful state of Verazcruz. Unlike some flavored vinegars, this isn’t plain vinegar with banana flavor added; it’s made from fermented plantano machos, a breed of bananas somewhere between a regular banana and a plantain.

Most people flip when they taste the vinegar. Of course it works as a key player in a salad dressing but I’ve been having fun with ceviches, in particular. A local Napa pastry chef mixed two parts banana vinegar with one part piloncillo (kind of like brown sugar) and drizzled it over vanilla ice cream. it may sound odd but if you’re like me, you’ll hit High C.

The flavor is fruity, and while it’s clearly banana, it’s not too sweet or cloying. The acidity is 6%. Mixed in salads, there’s a vague but wonderful tropical quality that trancends cuisines.

This vinegar isn’t cheap, actually it’s expensive in my book, but it’s good and if used for special dishes will last a long time. (And just for the record, I bought this bottle myself)

As wonderful as the banana vinegar is it’s not going to be available for everyone.  In the recipe below feel free to substitute apple cider vinegar, rice vinegar or any other vinegar you might normally have around the house.  Or for that matter just use all lime juice.  I really like the combination of vinegar and lime juice so I’d recommend staying with that, but if all you got is limes then just use those.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2012 Larry Gaian

I love meat.  There’s just no getting around the fact that for many people meat is BBQ.  Over the past year or so I’ve been trying to expand my grilling horizons with some Meatless Monday dishes and the mushroom tacos were both easy to fix and quite filling.

All you need to do is slice and remove the seeds and veins from two poblano peppers, slice some red onion.  Also remove the gills from a couple portobello mushroom caps and cut them into large, thick slices.

Place all the veggies in a bowl and drizzle them with a little olive oil.

Place them on the grates and grill them until done.  Don’t worry about the darkness of the poblanos.  Once the veggies are done rough chop them and put them in a bowl. Sprinkle with a little cumin and cover while you heat the tortillas.

When the tortillas are done fill them with the veggie mixture and your normal taco toppings.  I used a little cilantro and some salsa.

Simple…simple…simple!  Give them a try.

Copyright secured by Digiprove © 2011 Larry Gaian

For some strange reason I had the urge to create a meal in “honor” of Black Friday.  I have no reason other than sometimes cooking has to be fun and I just needed to do something different.  The only way to represent Black Friday properly would have to create an all black meal.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to find foods that are black?  It’s not all that easy.  So I decided that black beans would do the trick.  And when I was able to locate some black sweet rice at the asian market I knew I had the right formula.

First a little about Black Sweet Rice.  I bought the rice because it was black.  I had no idea what it tasted like or how it would work.  Once I got home I did a little research and learned that Black Sweet Rice is mostly used in Indonesia and Thailand to make sweet deserts like puddings and cakes.  It’s rarely used as the primary rice in a meal.  Black Sweet Rice has a nice nutty flavor and I thought it might still work as a compliment in the black bean recipe I was going to make.

Black Sweet Rice is hard as a rock.  You’ve got to soak this stuff for up to 10 hours before actually cooking it.  It take a long time to make it soft enough to actually eat in a meal like I was preparing.  So if you find yourself wanting to use it leave yourself plenty of cooking time.

This is my standard Red Beans & Rice recipe, except this time I used black beans.  I also normally use a smoked ham hock but I found some smoked pork necks at the store and used them instead.  They worked out great.  I put the whole mixture in the Traeger on the smoke setting for a couple of hours to see if I could get more smoke flavor.  Not really sure how much that worked.

All and all it tasted amazing.  I really liked the sweet rice with the beans.  It actually was a good combination.

BBQ Grail’s Red/Black Beans and Rice

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups green onions, chopped
• 2 cups onions, chopped
• 1 cup celery, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/4 cup bacon drippings
• 1 pound dried beans, traditionally red (but black works)
• 1 ham bone, ham hock or other smoked pork product
• 1 pound smoked sausage, sliced in 1/2 inch slices
• 3 bay leaves
• 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon pepper
• 2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
• Hot Sauce to taste
• 1/3 cup cilantro, chopped (or parsley if you prefer)

Directions:

The night before put the beans in a large bowl and cover them with water.  Soak overnight. 

The next morning rinse beans throughly.  In a large dutch oven saute onions, celery and garlic in the bacon drippings until softened.  Add all other ingredients, except cilantro, to the dutch oven.  Add enough water to cover everything.

Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat to low and simmer, partially covered until the beans are tender.  Plan on 2 or 3 hours.  Remove bay leaves and add the cilantro just before serving.  Serve with hot rice.

My good friend Frank at We Got Burgers  was kind enough to send some burgers up for the recent BBQ Brethren Bash.  I’ve reviewed a couple different flavors in the past and was surprised to see a couple new flavors in those he sent up.  So, I kept a package or two for myself. 

On the day after the Bash we needed to eat but wanted something lighter so I came up with a little different take on eating one of Franks burger patties.  I took the Teriyaki/Pineapple pattie and grilled them up on the Weber kettle.  I then sliced the patties like I would a steak, and since the beef used in the patties is first rate it wasn’t that far off, and served them with some rice and glazed carrots.

The carrots were cut into long slices and par-boiled for 5 minutes.  They were then dunked in ice water to stop the cooking.  Brush one side of the carrots with BBQ Grail Asian Glaze and grill.  Glaze the tops and turn over. 

Plate your rice, slice your burger patties and drizzle the remaining glaze over the whole thing. 

The glaze complimented the seasoning and pineapple in the burger patties and created an overall nice light, yet flavorful dish.  Perfect for a Sunday night after coming out of a BBQ’d Meat Induced Coma from the day before.

BBQ Grail’s Asian Inspired Glaze

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons Rice Vinegar
• 2 tablespoons Soy Sauce
• 3 tablespoons Sesame Oil
• 2 tablespoons brown sugar
• 3 tablespoons Ginger, finely minced
• 2 large Garlic Cloves, finely minced

Directions:

Whisk all ingredients in a bowl until combined (or use a blender).  That’s it, ready to glaze veggies, meat or whatever you have.

Grilled Sweet Potato Fries

Ingredients:

• 4 sweet potatoes or yams, peeled and cut into “fries”
• 1/4 cup cilantro or any other fresh herb, finely chopped (Todd’s Dirt Seasoning works well too!)
• 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1/2 cup  olive oil
• Kosher/Sea Salt
• Pepper

Directions:

Pre-heat your grill to medium-hot.

Mix all ingredients together.  Make sure sugar is some what dissolved with no clumps of sugar.

Grill potatoes on all sides until done.  About 15 minutes.

Serve immediately.

The memory of eating frog legs for the first time is still etched in my memory.  It was at the NCO Club on the Naval Base in Yokuska, Japan.  My dad had just been transferred to Japan to become the Chief Master at Arms on the USS Oklahoma City.  We were living in the base hotel waiting for out housing to be ready and the paperwork processing to take place.    One evening at dinner I noticed fried frog legs on the menu at the NCO Club and decided I had to have them.

My dad was THE stereotypical Navy Dad.   He may not have come up with the “take what want, but eat what you take rule,” but he sure did live by it.  And if this was a meal out that he was paying for that rule was doubly important.  So I knew ordering frog legs was a risky move.   I only remember two things about that meal, 37 years later, the frog legs were huge and they tasted good.  Now, it’s entirely possible my memory has failed and I don’t correctly remember how they tasted, but over the years I’ve eaten frog legs several times and they have never made the same impression on me.

For over almost 40 years I have eaten frog legs whenever I’ve found them on a menu (which hasn’t been very often).  A recent “throwdown” on a BBQ forum I belong to prompted me to give cooking them myself a try.  The result wasn’t what I would call a success.  The funny part of all this is while I’m marinading my frog legs I flipped on the DVR to watch the most recent episode of BBQ Pitmasters and what to my surprise do I find is the special “sidewinder challenge?”  Sure enough, it’s frog legs.  I don’t feel all that bad that my frog legs weren’t all that good.  If these experienced BBQ cooks can’t do them right, then what chance do I have.

The frog legs were marinaded for three hours in a mixture of cilantro, garlic, oregano and lime juice.

I grilled the frog legs on the infrared grill. They don't take very long to cook. Make sure you oil up the grill good so they don't stick.

I served the frog legs with a black bean & rice side dish I came up with.

Even with a marinade that had lots of flavor the cooked frog legs lacked any flavor at all.  The texture was tough and chewy, not pleasant at all.  And let me put one myth to rest, they don’t taste like chicken.

I’m not sure if there is a difference in frog legs, if farm raised is different than wild?  These were frozen, farm raised and imported from China.  There aren’t very many options for buying frog legs in Sacramento so I had to get what I could get.

This wasn’t quite like the great beef shank failure but it sure didn’t rank very high on the “I’ve Got To Try Again” list.

Maybe someday if given the chance I might cook them again, but only if I could bread and fry them like chicken.

So much for childhood memories…

When I purchased the pasta I had no idea what I was going to make with it.  But I knew when I saw and tasted this pasta that I had to come up with something.  In addition to the protein I wasn’t quite sure what sauce to serve with it.  After some thought I decided to go towards a more Mexican style dish.  I picked up a couple of Tomatillos and a bunch of cilantro.  What I came up with is a Tomatillo Chipotle Cream Sauce served with a grass-fed chicken I purchased at local farmer’s market.

I cut the chicken up into 6 pieces and seasoned them with Todd's Dirt. They were grilled on

BBQ Grail’s Tomatillo Cilantro Cream Sauce

• 3 Tomatillos, husked and chopped
• 1 bunch Cilantro, finely chopped
• 2 cloves  garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup cheese, shredded (I used a 4 cheese Mexican Blend)
• 2 tablespoons sour cream
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 tablespoon olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste

Combine all ingredients in a blender or food processor.   Make sure you drain as much juice from the tomatillos before putting them in the food processor.  Blend until smooth.  Pour mixture in a saucepan and reduce until thick over low to medium heat.

If using a regular pasta add minced jalapeno or other chili to the sauce when blending in the food processor.

Plate the pasta and chicken a spoon the sauce over both.

Mrs. Grail’s B.T.P. Salad

Ingredients:

• 12 ounces Whacky pasta or other pasta of your choice
• 12 ounces lean bacon
• 3 medium ripe tomatoes, cut into chunks1
• 1¾ cups frozen petite green peas, defrosted
• 3 tablespoon fresh cilantro, chopped
• 1 clove garlic, minced
• Kosher salt and freshly ground pepper
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 1/4 cup sour cream
• 1 tablespoon apple vinegar
• A pinch of sugar
• 4 tablespoons green onions, chopped

Directions:

Cook pasta per package instructions and set aside.

In a large skillet cook the bacon over medium high heat until crisp.  Or bake the bacon on a rack in a 400 degree oven until crisp.  Drain on paper towels.  Reserve 3 tablespoons of the bacon drippings in the pan.  Add tomatoes and garlic to the pan and cook just until warm.  Season to taste with salt and pepper.  Drain tomatoes and garlic and discard bacon drippings.

Crumble the bacon into bite-size pieces; set aside 1/4 cup for garnish. Toss the remaining bacon and the tomato mixture with the pasta.  Add the peas and 2 tablespoons of cilantro.

Combine mayonnaise, sour cream, apple cider vinegar, green onions and sugar together until well mixed.  Pour mayonnaise mixture with pasta until evenly combined.  Season again with salt and pepper if needed.

Allow to refrigerate for a few hours until cold.  Garnish with the reserved bacon and the remaining 1 tablespoon of cilantro.

Start with a 1lb chub of Jimmy Dean Pork Sausage and some Dinosaur Bar-B-Que Cajun Foreplay rub.

Coat the sausage chub with the rub.

Smoke your sausage chub at 225 degrees (or so) until it reaches 165 degrees internal. What was a sausage chub is now a FATTY!

Slice and fry up a couple pieces of fatty, add a toasted English Muffin, poached egg and some Cilantro Chipotle Sauce and you've got a breakfast to be proud of.

Add some fruit, canteloupe so you've got a balanced meal

What I came up with was Pork Belly with Peanut Butter & Banana BBQ Sauce.

There are plenty of ways to incorporate peanut butter into a BBQ sauce but coming up with a way to get bananas into the sauce was more of a challenge.  The banana challenge lead to some very interesting exchanges with owners of the Asian markets in the Sacramento area.

Vinegar is often times a key ingredient in BBQ sauces.  A quick googling of “banana” and “vinegar” let me to the discovery of a product found in Japan and the Phillippines–Banana Vinegar.  Banana Vinegar was just the ticket I needed.  Since the product was all over the internet I figured I would have little trouble locating it.  However, after getting laughed at in several of the largest Asian markets in the Sacramento area I asked my BBQ buddy “Landarc” to find me some Banana Vinegar.

Since Landarc is Japanese and knows every Asian market in the San Francisco Bay Area he’d have no trouble finding it.  Well, after also getting him laughed at in several markets I gave up the search and decided to make my own banana infused vinegar.

Banana Infused Rice Vinegar

• 1 12 oz bottle Rice Vinegar
• Peels from 2 bananas

Slice the banana peels into thin slices that will fit through the neck of the rice vinegar bottle.  Grill the banana peels on a medium hot grill until the peels start to turn brown and the oils from the peels start to come out.

Empty the rice vinegar into a small sauce pan and warm the vinegar slightly.  Fill the empty bottle with the grilled peel slices.

When all the peels are in the bottle fill the bottle with the warmed vinegar.  The grilled peels along with the warmed vinegar should allow the banana flavors to infuse into the vinegar.

Put the lid back on the bottle.  When the bottle has cooled to room temperature store in the refrigerator for a couple of weeks.  Does it really need a couple of weeks?  Who knows, I’m winging it all at this point.

I used rice vinegar because I figured it would allow the banana flavors to stand out a little more than if I used the stronger apple cider vinegar or white vinegar.  I’m not sure if it worked because the flavor of the vinegar did change but it didn’t taste like banana.  But the thought was there.

But wait!  There’s more!

After going through the whole banana vinegar process it dawned on me that there was a much easier way to get the banana into the meal.  Banana Sauce!  What a simple solution that is.  And to make matters even worse I had a bottle of banana sauce in my pantry the whole time.

Banana ketchup or banana sauce is a popular Filipino condiment made from mashed banana, sugar, vinegar, and spices. Its natural color is brownish, so it is often dyed red to resemble tomato ketchup. Banana ketchup was made when there was a shortage of tomato ketchup during World War II, due to lack of tomatoes and a comparatively high production of bananas. –Courtesy of Wikipedia

And since the Peanut Butter BBQ Sauce contains ketchup I knew this would be a great way to get more banana into the meal.

Peanut Butter BBQ Sauce

• 2 tablespoons creamy peanut butter
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons honey
• 1/4 cup Banana Sauce
• 1 tablespoon of your favorite BBQ rub (I used Plowboy’s Yardbird Rub)
• 2 tablespoons Banana Infused Rice Vinegar

In a medium bowl stir all the ingredients together and set aside until ready to use.

Now that I’ve got the banana and peanut butter covered I decided that instead of bacon I would use pork belly.  Since pork belly is what bacon is made from I figured it was the perfect meat to use.

After removing the skin from the belly I lightly seasoned the belly with Yardbird Rub.  I put the pork belly into my Traeger with cherry pellets for 2 hours at 190 degrees.  I wanted the pork belly to take on some smoke but didn’t want it to cook much.

After taking on some smoke I put half the BBQ sauce on the pork belly and put it in a covered foil pan with some apple juice and braised it on my Char-Broil infrared grill for another two hours.  After two hours I turned the grill up to high and seared the belly to crisp it up and caramelize the sugars in the bbq sauce.  I brushed on the rest of the sauce and got a nice sear on it.

I served the Elvis Belly with grilled sweet potatoes and Cilantro Sauce.

Get yourself some sweet potatoes and wedge them into nice big hunks.  Brush the potato wedges with some olive oil and season with salt and pepper.  Grill them on all sides until they are done.  Sounds pretty easy…because it is.

Cilantro Sauce

• 1 cup low-fat plain yogurt
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1 fresh jalapeno, finely chopped
• 1/4 cup fresh cilantro, finely chopped
• 2 tablespoons raw onion, grated
• 3 tablespoons salsa

Stir all the ingredients together until smooth.  Cover and refrigerate for at least 15 minutes.

Serve over the grilled sweet potatoes or as a dipping sauce.