Archive for August, 2008
Throwdown on the River
Aug 24th
This weekend’s contest in Throwdown on the River in Dubuque. Nice setting at the Grand Harbor hotel. They have a water park built in and a a casino next door. Because of the drive, today we transferred everything from the big trailer to the little trailer for the drive. The competition this weekend will be as tough as we’ve seen all year, but I think we are ready for it.
Nevada Wrap Up
Aug 24th
This weekend was our first time out in a month. We headed up to Nevada for the Kiwana’s BBQ contest. The weather was great. Not too hot and nice and cool at night. This contest had a small rodeo and a carnival going on. It was kind of weird, because of the number of building for 4H and the setup, you really couldn’t see everything. It reminded me of the movies where people are at a carnival and walk 10 ft and you wouldn’t know a carnival was going on. My only complaint on the contest was the site locations. They were on this side of a hill and there really wasn’t anything level.
Saturday Lyn and Jerry came up and we filled them up with some good grub. As far as the turn ins, I am not sure what happened. Both the chicken and the pork failed to cook the way they normally do. The chicken rub just didn’t seem to want to stay on and the flavor wasn’t what I wanted. The pork did not form much of a bark at all despite a good deal of rub. I was pleased with the brisket taste and ribs were a little dry. We did manage to place 10th in chicken and 14th overall.
Nevada BBQ Contest This Weekend
Aug 17th
Finally back to competing after about a month off. We will be competing at the Nevada Kiwana’s contest located on the Story County Fair Grounds. As I understand they will have a peoples choice of ribs Friday night. Let me know if anyone plans on coming by Saturday.
Smoked Bologna
Aug 17th
I bought this “chub” of bologna. It is 100% all beef and was about 1 1/3 pounds. I scored the top and sides and rubbed with olive oil and then rubbed with some Dizzy Pig Course. Smoked this on the egg for three hours at about 250-275. When we took it off I cut out a couple cubes and dipped in some Blues Hog Honey Mustard. That was so tasty David wanted to try another sauce so we used Bob E Que. I then decided to cube the rest, add some more rub and sauce and back to the egg. Kind of like burnt ends. Made David a sandwich. I would recommend this to anyone. Easy peasy.
Gumbo
Aug 17th
Been wanting a little cajun flare lately so I decided on Gumbo. Good meal which has a lot of meat and will last all week. I started with 2 pounds of Graziano’s Andouille sausage smoked for a couple hours. Then a box of Tony Catchere’s Gumbo base and a bag of minute rice. Added some shrimp and diced ham to top it off.
Dog Biscuts
Aug 17th
Buster and Casey got into the act and made up this little treat.
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup milk
Egg (or bake) at about 350 for approx 10 min.
Flat Iron Steak
Aug 16th
Tried some flat iron steak tonight. Good cut of meat if you have not tried it. You need to cook it around 500 degrees for about 5 min per side. You want to cook it to med – med rare and let it sit for about 5-10 min when done before slicing. We alo threw some shrooms in the small cast iron skillet and put some butter in there. Pretty good meal PS. We did eat a salad before hand.
I looked up Flat Iron on Wikipedia and was pleasantly surprised by this cut of beef. The article is well worth the read as it talks about this cut being second most tender cut right behind the tenderloin. The price is good too. I got two of these for $10. About 1.5lbs.
Eden Farms
Aug 7th
One of the things this year I set out to do was get better meat. Last year I was getting pork butts from Fareway, Sam’s Club, and Costco and no two cooked alike. After a couple contest this year I was informed of Eden Farms, located in State Center Iowa. Eden Farms is owned by a group of local farmers and they raise certified Berkshire Pork. Since using their pork butts and ribs exclusively in the last three contest we have finished in the top 10 twice in pork and once in ribs. I look forward to using their product in our four remaining contest. Click here to visit Eden Farms to learn more or visit one of these locations to try their product in a local restaurant. You can also visit them at the Des Moines Farmers Market.
Meatball Sandwich
Aug 7th
Made some meatballs for David tonight and threw them on the small for about 15 min. Then I put on a hoagie and threw on some pizza sauce and a couple slices of mozerrella then into the oven to broil for 3-5 min.
