Company is coming. I’m smoking a Boston Butt and we’re mopping it up with Mango Barbecue Sauce (recipe later, if you want it). Trying these for the first time today as an appetizer. Ingredients:

12 Jalapeño Peppers, cut long ways, stemmed and seeded.
12 pieces of bacon
Cream cheese
Cumin
Garlic powder
Kosher salt
Fresh ground pepper

After cutting the peppers long ways (you will have 24 halves, fill 12 of the halves with a dollop of cream cheese. Put a dash of garlic powder and cumin on the cream cheese. Put the peppers back together. Wrap each pepper with a slice of bacon (Everything is better with bacon). Use a toothpick to hold them together. Salt and pepper the bacon. Grill until bacon is done.

I’ll let you know how they are.

Update: Quite tasty. The peppers I used (which I grew myself) are possibly the hottest Jalapeños I’ve ever had. I can eat hot stuff with the best of them and these got a bit too hot for me. I only ate three and no one else would try them. Milder peppers are a must. I do recommend them because they have good flavor but these peppers were damn hot.

The latest is up. Note to self: Send something next time.

Another blog meme. This one is for recipes.

I should point out SayUncle has a recipe section too.

Meant to post this a while back when Bubba was asking for sauce recipes. I dig Boston Butts. My usual method of preparation is to throw some charcoal in the smoker, add some hickory or mesquite logs (or chips) that have been soaking in water for a few days, and smoke the butt on about 250 degrees for 7 to 9 hours. However, when in a rush for lunch, you can do one in the oven on about 350 degrees for about 30 minutes per pound.

Regardless, to prepare the butt, I either do a rub or oil marinade. The rub consists of chili powder, cumin, garlic, mustard powder, paprika, kosher salt, brown sugar and pepper. I’ve never really measured amounts and tend to eyeball it. The oil marinade consists of 3/4 cup of olive oil, 8 fresh chopped basil leaves, two table spoons of fresh chopped rosemary and a couple table spoons of garlic. Salt and pepper the butt then spoon the marinade over it. Cook as outlined above.

One of the mop sauces I use (that I used today, in fact) is a vinegar sauce. Make this about and hour before you eat because it’s good fresh and it doesn’t keep for more than a couple of days. Ingredients:

1 cup of water
1.5 cups of cider vinegar
1 tablespoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons sugar
1 or 2 freshly chopped jalapeños (chopped thin. You can make the sauce less spicy by removing the seeds. I never do, though)
2 tablespoons red pepper flakes
2 tablespoons fresh ground pepper
1 small onion chopped
2 tablespoons garlic

Mix all the ingredients in a bowl and stir. Spoon over the meat that you pull from the Boston butt. I’ll post my more traditional (i.e., tomato based) mop sauce soon. Go ahead, fix some. It’s good, I promise. Enjoy.

One word: Yum!

1/4 cup bourbon
1/4 cup Dijon mustard
3 table spoons ground mustard
1 table spoon garlic
1/4 cup of honey
1/4 cup soy sauce

Whisk ingredients together and marinate 2 to 4 steaks in it for several hours. Grill and eat.

First, he was talking about his butt. Now, his wiener. Geez, get a room.

I periodically need reminding of my hillbilly roots, I typically do this by enjoying some fine southern cuisine. Today’s culinary selection is a true southern staple, pinto beans. Stuff needed:

Large pot
Water
Dried pinto beans
Onion chopped
2 – 3 Bay leaves
Either a Ham hock, soup bone, or some salt pork fatback

The quick method: Put beans in pot, boil on high heat for 10 minutes, strain. Add enough water to clear the beans by about an inch or two. Add remainder of ingredients and bring to a boil. Lower heat to medium and let gently boil for a few hours or until beans are tender.

Over night method: Bypass the boiling for 10 minutes and soak the beans in a large pot over night. The next morning, strain. Add enough water to clear the beans by about an inch or two. Add remainder of ingredients and bring to a boil. Lower heat to medium and let gently boil for a few hours or until beans are tender.

With pinto beans, you must have corn bread. Seriously, it’s a law or something.

Dale has a good looking stew recipe.

. . . you other brothers can’t deny . . .

I covered the basic recipe for beer butt chicken here, but Steve’s sauce sounds amazing. I would not have thought to inject it into the bird. Gonna have to try that.

I have been remiss in my recipe blogging, so here’s a good little dish that will make you popular with anyone who likes olives. Trust me, this is the one most folks ask me how to make after they have it:

Olive Salad (note that amounts need not be exact)

Ingredients (for all this chopping, I use one of these but a food processor works as well):

One can of black olives (chopped)

An equal amount of green olives (chopped)

6 or 8 stalks of celery or celery hearts (chopped)

1 clove of minced garlic

1 cup of chopped leaks (or green onions; or both)

Mix all ingredients into a bowl with a lid and shake to mix thoroughly. Serve as a side dish or on crackers.

Also good to add but not necessary: capers, pepperoni, or sprinkle feta.

Heck, it’s good on a ham sandwich too.

I gave the recipe for Mustgo a bit back. Tommy has some advice on what to avoid.

I guess it is odd to list a recipe that tells people to use their own judgment.

By grandfather used to make this all the time. Essentially, it is a soup. You make this when every thing in your fridge Must Go. It’s the end of the week and you leftovers are about to go bad, what do you do? Make Mustgo, of course.

Ingredients:

Beef stock (or beef bullion; or any sort of meat drippings)

Any meats and veggies in the fridge that you don’t want in there tomorrow. This includes cabbage, carrots, potatoes mashed potatoes, corn, beans, chicken, beef, pork, turkey, whatever. Use your own judgment. If it’s good in soup, it can go in the pot.

Bring beef stock to boil, add remaining ingredients. Let simmer until ingredients cook. Add water if necessary. Cook for at least an hour, preferably more. Eat with corn bread. It really is delicious and it’s different every time.

I was heating up some broccoli cheese soup* in the microwave here at the office and I paused the microwave to stir it. I spilled a drop on my leather shoes. I took a paper towel and wiped it off. It left a surprisingly lustrous shine on my brown shoes. Strange.

* Broccoli Cheese Soup – super easy, fast and tasty

2 cups frozen or fresh chopped broccoli

1 medium onion, diced

1/4 cup flour

1 to 2 cups milk depending on desired thickness

14ish ounces of chicken stock (homemade or from a can)

Pepper to taste

1 cup of grated American cheese (or Velveeta – am I the only one concerned about a dairy product that isn’t refrigerated at the grocery store?)

In a large pot, bring to light boil onions, broccoli and chicken broth. Reduce heat and simmer for 8 or so minutes. In bowl, combine flour, pepper and milk mixture. Stir milk/flour mixture into broth/veggie mixture. Stir regularly for several minutes to allow mixture to thicken.

After mixture has thickened, gradually stir in cheese. Cook until all cheese melts. Good stuff!

Update: Shine is gone now and I am left with a white film. Eew!

This recipe is for some fine homemade salad dressing. It has been dubbed Hawaiian Dressing not because it’s actually Hawaiian but because when my mom learned to make it, we lived in Hawaii.

Ingredients
5 tablespoons of vinegar (white)
5 tablespoons of olive oil
5 tablespoons of sugar
1 tablespoon minced garlic
2 tablespoons of Salad Supreme
3 tablespoons of mayonnaise

Combine ingredients in salad shaker or jar. Shake vigorously. Use as salad dressing. Refrigerate any unused portion.

Trust me, it’s delicious!

As the weather gets cold, my thoughts turn to soup. One of my favorite winter soups is New England Clam Chowder. This is quick and easy (for soup):

4 strips of bacon, chopped into tiny bits
1 large onion, chopped
5 6oz cans of minced clams (or 3 10oz cans of whole baby claims; or 10oz fresh clams if you can get them)
2 cups chopped celery
2 cups diced potatoes
Quart of milk
4 tablespoons of flour
Salt and pepper to taste

In a large pot, fry the bacon until it is not quite wiggly. Add all the vegetables and sauté until moderately tender. Add the flour. Be sure to stir the flour into the bacon grease until smooth. Add the cans of clams (including juice) and the milk. Cook until veggies are tender (20 – 30 minutes), stirring occasionally.

Enjoy.

P.S. Substitute another couple of cups of potatoes instead of the clams and it makes excellent potato soup.

P.P.S. Despite the last two recipe posts, not every thing I cook has bacon grease in it.

Eric tells us how to make mulled wine.

When I first started this blog, I stated I’d post recipes semi-regularly. I have been remiss in doing that. But no more. I love to cook. I went back and categorized some (ahem, three) older posts into the new Recipes category. I like all kinds of food and cook everything from southern dishes to Korean (I make my own kimchee too). So, we’ll start off with a good old southern staple, cornbread:

8 inch Iron skillet
2 cups cornmeal
1 piece of bacon
6 tablespoons of sugar
1.5 cups of milk
2 eggs

Preheat oven to 430 degrees. In iron skillet, cook up the bacon and give it to the dogs (my dogs love cornbread night) or eat it yourself. In a bowl combine all the other ingredients and mix until smooth. Stir a tablespoon or two of the bacon grease into the mixture. While your skillet is still hot from cooking the bacon swirl the remaining grease around in the skillet to coat the bottom and sides for good flavor and it keeps the cornbread from sticking. Pour mixture into the skillet, which should still be hot (this will crisp the bottom of the cornbread). Cook in oven on 430 for 20 to 35 minutes. Outside should be brown and crispy and a knife inserted into the center should come out dry.

Good with soups, pinto beans, and almost everything.

Enjoy.

Take one whole chicken (3-5 pounds), one can of beer, and your choice of spices (I like garlic, cumin, diced cayenne pepper, fresh rosemary, salt, and freshly ground pepper).

Step 1: Drink one quarter of the beer (important later).

Step 2: Use an old style can opener to poke holes in the top of the can.

Step 3: Put spices into can (if you did not drink the quarter of beer mentioned above, you will now have beer foaming all over your cooking area).

Step 4: Remove innards from chicken and insert beer can top up (i.e., open part towards where the chicken’s head used to be) into the opening of chicken.

Step 5: Place chicken on grill with the top of the can facing up. Use the the can and the chicken’s legs to make a little tripod for balance (I recommend you have the fire going on one side of the grill and your chicken on the other side so it cooks slow). If you do this correctly, it looks like the chicken is standing on the grill.

Step 6: Wait 2 hours and eat.

The beer and spices slowly boil over and season the chicken.

Tasty!

I don’t have a problem with vegetarians but I have a problem with self-righteousness. A while back, a coworker went to great lengths to explain to me that eating meat was wrong and we should not harm our animal friends. I respect her commitment to her cause but, I am sorry, I enjoy the hell out of rosemary prime rib*. And her generally pissy attitude wouldn’t have persuaded me to change my ways. I will always be mostly carnivorous (I do like salads). In fact, I view chicken as a side dish. I like the red meat.

After said coworker goes to great lengths to explain to me how chickens, cows and pigs are born, raised, and slaughtered and how appalling it is; and how wrong it is for me to eat meat; I made this point:

I’m pretty sure that cows and chickens don’t naturally occur any where in the world today. So I conclude that were it not for human intervention that chickens and cows would be extinct. Here’s why:

Cows are stupid, slow-moving, herd animals. They are easy to kill. If humans had not domesticated cows, I think (given our history with stupid, slow-moving, herd animals) that humans would have caused these bovines to go extinct.

Chickens are dumber than cows. They’re also slower than cows. And they can’t even fly (longest recorded flight of a chicken was thirteen seconds and it probably involved a tall building and a gust of wind). My veggie friend claimed that current chickens go from egg to slaughterhouse in six weeks, due to chemicals and things that are fed to them. I can grow chickens faster than I can grow rosemary for my prime rib (I have no intent of trying to grow chickens as I’m pretty sure my subdivision restrictions prevent it, but rosemary is OK). If humans didn’t consume chickens (given our history with flightless birds), I’m pretty sure they’d be extinct as well.

Pigs do exist in the wild and are largely viewed as a nuisance and hunted. Of course, most pigs are feral but they are smart enough to exist on their own. And they’re meaner than hell.

I’m no biologist, but I’m certain the original animals that chickens and cows evolved from probably bear little resemblance to current cows or chickens. Also, I don’t even know that they currently exist.

We’re doing cows and chickens are great favor by eating them. We ensure the continuation of the species, which is what it’s all about.

* Recipe for rosemary prime rib

Equal parts fresh rosemary, paprika, salt, and fresh ground pepper. Garlic to taste. Chop in food processor until rosemary and garlic is finally diced. Rub mixture directly on meat (this mixture is also great on any type of beef). Cook on smoker or in oven at 250 for several hours. Yummy!

I bragged in the comments section over at SKB‘s about the best Bloody Mary’s on Earth. Here goes the perfect Bloody Mary:

In a 16.5 ounce glass of ice combine:

A shot or two of Grey Goose (to taste, women seem to like them lighter)
1 Teaspoon of McIlhenny Tabasco Habanero Sauce
1 Teaspoon of freshly squeezed lemon juice
Dab of horseradish (to taste)
1 Tablespoon of Worcestershire
Dash of celery salt
Dash of salt
Fresh ground pepper to taste
Fill remainder of glass with V8 (not tomato juice but the vegetable juice)

Stir and garnish with celery.

Happy New Year to all.

Update: I’m reminded by a coworker that some folks aren’t as into spicy things as me (based on her experience with the aforementioned beverage) so you better start out with less habanero sauce (a few dashes, this stuff is stout) and work your way up to it. That is, if you’re inclined to spicy things.

Red beans and rice is very tasty and keeps for a week or more (indefinitely if frozen):

2 cans red kidney beans (light or dark to taste)
1 – 3 jalapeno peppers sliced (again to taste, you can control the heat of these by removing the seeds. More seeds means hotter flavor)
2 table spoons of minced garlic (or to taste), that’s 4 cloves for you purists
1 package of kielbasa (or Italian sausage)
2 – 3 small sirloin steaks sliced thinly
1 large red onion, sliced
Cayenne pepper to taste
Salt & pepper to taste
3 – 4 large tomatoes or two cans of diced tomatoes
3 – 4 stalks of celery, chopped
2 – 3 green peppers, chopped

In a large pot, sauté onion & garlic in light olive oil. Add cayenne, salt and pepper to taste. Allow to sauté lightly.

Add kielbasa, sliced stake, green peppers, celery and jalapenos and cook covered until meat is done, stirring regularly.

Once veggies and meat are cooked, add both cans of tomatoes (do not drain) or add sliced (preferable squished) tomatoes. Continue until tomatoes are cooked.

Add beans (do not drain) & simmer on low hit for 30 minutes to an hour to cook the beans.

Pour over rice and eat.