You should probably go get another beer, this might get long. When I saw that this week's throwdown was cheese, I couldn't have been happier. I usually give out smoked cheese and summer sausage to co-workers and friends for christmas, and Monday night was cheese smoking night, so I had a plenty to work with.
I had some gouda, sharp cheddar, jalepeno/habenero cheddar, pepper jack, and colby.
For cheese, I have tried to make something cheaper with the pellets I have, but I can't seem to reproduce the slow burn that these little pellet candles I've found put off, so I use two of those in my old brinkman shell. They burn for about 30 minutes, and I've found that this is plenty of smoke for my liking.
Here are a couple shots of the finished products.
I had also cured bacon for the first time last week and smoked it Monday night as well. It was too dark to get our camera to focus while in the smoker, but here is a deguerre...er...I mean blurry picture anyway.
A friend of mine is letting me borrow his vacuum sealer tomorrow night, so I'm waiting to slice it all until then, but here are a couple of knife-sliced pieces to cook up for this throwdown. Once its all sliced, I'll put a whole post up about my first attempt at makin bacon.
And here it is all fried up.
The last smoked ingredient was a whole chicken on the Traeger with a little of my own chicken rub.
Here it is done and pulled
Look, I told you to get another beer, but if you didn't or if you did and still need another, feel free to take a little intermission here and go grab one.
So now that you have seen all of my ingredients, the plan was to make some quesadillas. My wife made up a little pico and cut up some pears, and I smashed up some quacamole and candied some shallots.
To add another element of cheese, I made some dips. One for me with the jalepeno/habenero cheddar and one for my wife and daughter with the sharp cheddar. I'd never made it this way before, but I will probably not buy any more velveta again. I just warmed some heavy cream, and then threw the smoked cheeses and a little butter in there until they were nice and melted. Lastly I added a little pico to the mix.
Ok Ok, I'm getting there!
Here is the first quesadilla, smoked chicken, bacon, and lots of the sharp cheddar and the jalepeno/habenero cheddar.
And here is the second, smoked chicken, candied shallots, sliced pears, and lots of gouda.
Lastly here are a few plated pics.
These were really good. Lots of smoke flavor from the cheese, and chicken. Normally I would put a little more chicken and a little less cheese, but I really wanted to showcase the smoked cheeses which were great. As good as the quesadillas were, the queso dips were really the surprising hit of the meal. Thanks for looking.
