Weather

On Wednesday night areas of north Alabama were hit with strong storms including some tornadoes. My neighborhood survived damage however, we lost power Wednesday morning and have been told it could be a week before power is restored.

My in-laws graciously allowed me to bring the contents of my deep freezer over to their house. It will be challenging to grill this week if the blackouts continue. We did have plans to grill kabobs on Wednesday...stay tuned to see if that happens.

Leftover Barbecue

My travels take me all over north Alabama to small towns where I try to visit local barbecue restaurants. There is one place in Winfield, AL that has fairly good barbecue. Car Lots Barbecue, who does not have a website, is located on main street and is a great location for me to meet with families considering college.

One of their unique barbecue dishes is a stack of french fries covered in barbecue. With plenty of leftovers from my smoked butt this was a great and different meal.

Smoked Boston Butt

On a recent weekend I decided to smoke a Boston butt. For those that are wondering, a Boston Butt is the upper portion of a pork shoulder. I had friends who had cooked all night. Deciding that I had no desire to pull an 'all-nighter' I decided to smoke the butt all day!


The starting product at 9:00 am. The pork (need to use a word other than 'butt') was rubbed with:

4 teaspoons Kosher salt

2 teaspoons Brown Sugar

2 teaspoons paprika

.5 teaspoons pepper

.5 teaspoons garlic powder

.5 teaspoons dry mustard

I wrapped the pork in foil and, like my rib recipe, poured a cup of apple juice/shot of apple cider vinegar. Around 4:00 pm., after adding lump coal four times, I opened the foil to check on the process. I also added a few ears of corn. In my opinion, smoked corn was not as good as grilled corn. I cooked this corn in the husks for twenty minutes then removed cooked directly on the grates for another fifteen.

This is what the pork looked like at 5:00 pm. The pork as very tender and was falling apart as I removed it from the grill. The pork made several great meals....check the blog in a day or two for other uses for the pork.

Chicken and Twice Baked Potatoes

Grilled chicken breasts are often on sale and there are many ways to prepare them. Though I hate to admit it, Italian dressing by itself makes a fairly good marinade. These breasts were soaked for about an hour and cooked for about twenty five minutes.

The potatoes were the more interesting side. I nuked two potatoes for about five minutes then wrapped them in foil with an olive oil rub to cook. (Olive oil to attempt to crisp the skin a bit more.) After about twenty minutes on the grill I removed them and let them cool.

Once cool, I cut the two potatoes in half and used a spoon to scoop out the insides. The insides were placed in a bowl and combined with:

1/2 cup milk

1/4 cup sour cream

4 slices of bacon (One for each half)

1/2 cup sharp cheddar cheese

salt and pepper to taste

Once these 'guts' were combined I put them back into the scooped out potato halves and placed them on the grill with a foil bottom for an additional 15 minutes. Delicious!

Complete Meal on the Grill

This weekend I decided to cook an entire meal on the grill. It turned out good! For the main dish I made burgers. I used a generous sprinkling of a season salt. Though I have plenty left over, this is what I mixed.

6 tbs salt

2 tsp paprika

1 tsp dry mustard

1/2 tsp marjoram

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp onion powder

1/4 tsp celery seed

For the side dish I made a grilled potato salad. I had a rub (maybe too spicy) and a dressing to go over the cooked potatoes.

I cooked and crumbled (inside) five pieces of bacon and dumped the six diced red potatoes into the bacon grease. I then added the spices:

2 tbs Kosher salt
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp garlic powder
1/4 tsp thyme
1/4 tsp celery seeds

Potatoes were cooked in a throw-away tin on the top rack of the grill. They cooked for about 45 minutes. They were the first thing placed on the grill!

The dressing, something I often mix for dipping sausage, was a mix of mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, and Worshestershire sauce. For this recipe it was a total of about 1/2 cup. Dressing was added once potatoes were removed from the grill.

For the dessert I grilled individual angel food cakes. In the top picture you can see the small cake tins. Since it was my first attempt to bake on the grill I used a box cake mix. I used Crisco in each of the tins and filled them each about half-way. Cake cooked on the grill about 45 minutes. I also pureed a bag of thawed mixed berries with some lemon and lime juices to top the cake. Cake turned out light with a slight smoky taste. Cake on the grill may become a regular thing now!

Cedar Plank Hot wings

In an effort to try something different I decided to grill some wings on cedar planks. Another significant change from my previous wing grilling experiences is that I removed the skin. Typically the skin does not grill very well and can make the chicken a little slimy.

In the middle is a French bread pack.

Wings were marinaded for a couple of hours in Moores Hot Sauce. The grilling process on the planks too longer than I anticipated. I cooked them for about thirty minutes turning them once. For the final few minutes I did remove them from the planks to dry out a little more. Once removed from the planks more hot sauce was added.