BBQ Brethren "From the Heart" Throwdown!

[Happy Hapgood]

OK, I guess Poodles are OK. Great cook and Pic's CD. Cute Pup too!

[campdude]

The Mrs. loves pork and prefers pork ribs to beef. I decided to make some spares and potato salad and zucchini. Some of her favorite things. Here's the cook thread http://www.bbq-brethren.com/forum/sh...d.php?t=138843 . We had some watermelon for desert. She loved it all. Please use the last pic as my entry.

[Elrik]

Please consider this my official entry in the "From the Heart" throwdown.

My wife has had a long and storied love affair with smoked turkey legs like you can get at the fair. I decided to brave the thunderstorms rolling through our area and make a meal of Smoked "Fair style" turkey legs, spinich and arugula salad with smoked onions and peaches, and hasselbacked potatoes.

Had to setup my offset umbrella to keep the storms at bay. Works pretty well. During the harder periods of rain the umbrella acted like a mister letting some through as fine particles, but it kept the keg (and myself) pretty dry which is the important part!


It wasn't until 1/2 way through the cook that the weather got nice enough to allow me to start documenting the cook. Basted with some honey and added some more rub to the turkey here and threw the peach on.






Turkey got some beautiful color on it. Pulled it off after taking these pics. They were on for about one and a half hours at 325.





Please use this as my official entry shot

The smoked peaches and onions were awesome on the salad. I love the taste and texture of a warm peach!


The Turkey turned out real nice as well. Good hit of smoke, heat and sweet (was first cooked with the onions in some sprite, chili flakes and hot sauce, when thrown on the smoker got drizzled in honey and Oakridge poultry rub). Hasselbacks were kept simple, just butter, garlic, s&p. Were good but I tried foiling them this time and next time will go back to cooking in a cast iron pan as wife said she prefers them when they get all crispy/crunchy.


The honey made a great glaze on the turkey, looks like it's sauced here, but it's not!



Was enjoyed by the whole family, which is what matters most. Thanks for looking!

[Happy Hapgood]

BAM and BAM! You Guys are knocking this one out of the park!

Stellar entries!

[fingerlickin']

My wife's uncle was hosting a party on Saturday to celebrate his 5 year wedding anniversary and the whole family was going to be there. I decided I wanted to do something for everyone that was from the heart, so I figured I would give them all a bunch of heart attacks.

Just to show a little more love, along with the ingredients, the flowers in this shot were a gift to my wife for our 7th wedding anniversary last week.



1/2" rounds of kielbasa wrapped in half a strip of bacon. I ended up with 113 of these back breaking beauties. You know there's love involved when the clock says 2am when your finished.





I whipped up a mixture of cream cheese, sour cream, cheddar, and Simply Marvelous Sweet and Spicy.





Made myself a ghetto pastry bag and filled up the shots.





Then I topped each one off with a mixture of dark brown sugar and Simply Marvelous Spicy Apple.





The pig shot army on the egg.



They came out looking good, and met rave reviews at the party. These are another thing you just can't make enough of.



Please use this shot for the TD.



Thanks for looking.

[Happy Hapgood]

Lord have mercy fingerlickin' ! MIGHTY FINE!

[campdude]

More great entries. Bravo.

[Al Czervik]

Campdude, Elrick and Jason... All killer entries!

Ribs, turkey leg and bacon wrapped snausage candy... Gotta love em'.

[Moose]

Sweet baby cheeses, we're really getting some fine entries at the home stretch! Bravo!

[Al Czervik]

Mr Bigus Bytus,

Here is my feeble entry into the "From the Heart" Throwdown. My mission tonight is two fold; first to support brother Bill's TD and second to gain entry into CD's exclusive Whiplash Club...

While my wife isn't much of a meat eater, she does love pastrami, sauerkraut, swiss cheese and thousand island dressing on marbled rye. With that in mind, I decided to make and dedicate the following meal to my better half.

Since I've never made pastrami before, I decided to follow Thirdeye's famous recipe. I started with a 4.5# store bought corned beef flat and soaked it in frequently changed water for two days as instructed. Once done desalinating , I rubbed it generously with the recommended spice mix and chilled it for 24 hours. Here it is right before going on for smoke:



Now on to the bread. I wasn't able to find and marbled rye locally so I decided to make my own. After doing a little research on the internets, I found a recipe that looked easy enough. Pretty basic bread recipe, with the addition of rye flour and molasses and cocoa powder for the dark rye.

Here are the two yeasts fermenting for the two different flours.

Adding some molasses to the yeast, plus adding cocoa powder to the flour makes the dark rye.

Dark rye ball getting ready to proof.

Light rye ball getting ready to proof.

Once they doubled in size in about an hour half and a half, they were punched down, divided and rolled into four separate sections.

Those four sections were then layed alternately and rolled up tight. Once rolled, they went into the pan to rise again before baking.

While all the bread making was going on, the flat was close to being done. Once it hit 150, I foiled it with some beer and took it up to about 175. Once done, I doubled wrapped it in more foil and set it aside to cool.


The bread baked for about half an hour at 350 at which time it was pulled and set on a rack to cool.

Cross section showing the dark and light rye.

Now time to slice the pastrami. I think I ate one slice for every two I put on the plate...

And voila... Pastrami, sauerkraut, swiss cheese and thousand island dressing on marbled rye.

Please use this shot to punch my ticket into the Whiplash Club...


By the time it was all said and done, I didn't feel like dorking around anymore with the camera and wanted to eat a warm dinner for a change. I was pretty disappointed with the final pictures , but very happy with the yummy results.

My wife was also very pleased which in the end is what this meal was all about. Thanks for looking and withholding your vote...

[campdude]

Very nice.

[fingerlickin']

Dude! That thing looks so good I'm thinking about punching you (gently of course) and stealing your sammie!

[SmokinAussie]

Holy Cow...

Those last few entries!

Man, I thought we'd have only 2 entries and then these last few have really knocked it out of the park!

Cheers!

Bill

[Kathy's Smokin']

This "From the Heart" entry has a smoked traditionally raised pork shoulder, grilled sweet potatoes, cauliflower salad and 'Rum and Butter Pineapple Boats' for dessert. My partner, Carol, and I cooked a delicious feast for good friends. It was a beautiful day around a table filled with beautiful people and beautiful conversation. Adele wanted a vegetable salad, Louise wanted grilled sweet potatoes and the pork shoulder was for both because I love how they they tear into bark with gusto! I don't know anybody who loves bark as much as them so they are my favourites to smoke a shoulder for. It was their first time eating Rum and Butter Pineapple Boats and they loooved them!

I had really full days the day before and the day of this dinner so my apologies for not taking prep shots. I smoked the shoulder overnight and didn't wake up to check temps so I ended up smoking it mostly at 300 and didn't get much of a smoke ring. It was really delicious, though. Made a rub of granulated garlic, ground ginger, ground cumin added to a spicy Cajun rub from 'The Fiery Grill" in Muskoka, Ontario, where they use it to make blackened chicken and catfish in their restaurant.






Please use this picture below for the voting thread.





Carol grilled the sweet potatoes, pineapple boats and made the cauliflower salad.











It was a lovely meal made more lovely because of the theme of this throwdown. Thanks, Bill!

[fingerlickin']

That's outta sight Kathy!