BBQ Brethren "Summer Hors d'ouevres and Cocktails" Throwdown!

[Gore]

Curt!!!
Blue cheese stuffed olives in a martini?!?
That is over the top! I got to try that, Thanks!

Good point, Gary. Blue cheese is all wrong for a martini. The olives stuffed with anchovies would be a much better choice. :thumb:

 

[cmcadams]

Gary,

It's not a "real" martini, remember; the Islay scotch really makes it better, IMO, and the bleu cheese in the olives is nice.

I can't abide gin, but the quality of the vodka does make a difference.

 

[Gore]

Gary,

It's not a "real" martini, remember; the Islay scotch really makes it better, IMO, and the bleu cheese in the olives is nice.

I can't abide gin, but the quality of the vodka does make a difference.

Oooo, good point: The bleu cheese is a critical counterbalance to the scotch. :thumb: I think I'd better be investigating martinis when I get home.

 

[bluetang]

For my appetizers, I made shrimp empanadas, chicken drummy popsicles, and pulled pork balls. The pulled pork balls are a spin off from the PP on a stick, only a lot easier.

The shrimps were seasoned with black pepper, Creole seasoning, and cayenne, the popsicles were seasoned with black pepper and cayenne. The pulled pork was rolled into balls and frozen. The shrimps and chicken were grilled on my homemade kettle.

The shrimps were chopped, and mixed with cream cheese, more black pepper, cayenne and cumin. The mixture was place in an empanada dough disc and formed into empanadas and fried.

The frozen pulled pork balls were dipped in corn dog batter and fried.

For my cocktail, I made an Orange Crush. 4 Orange vodka, distilled from Florida oranges, simple syrup, club soda, and muddled orange and lime slices and mint. Quite refreshing!

All plated and poured, An Orange Crush cocktail, shrimp empanadas, drummy popsicles, and pulled pork balls. BBQ and hot wing sauce for dipping, no fork necessary! Please use this shot and thanks for looking.

 

[Gore]

Looks absolutely killer! I don't know what I want to dive into first. Shrimp look fabulous off the grill. Almost a shame that was only the prep. I hope you had a few chef's treats. First cook on the new kettle?

 

[bluetang]

Looks absolutely killer! I don't know what I want to dive into first. Shrimp look fabulous off the grill. Almost a shame that was only the prep. I hope you had a few chef's treats. First cook on the new kettle?

Thanks! There was that second skewer of shrimp that seemed to disappear:-D. Yup first cook on the new grill. Got some tweaking to do, but pretty happy.

 

[cmcadams]

And for my final cocktail... a Smoked Tomato Bloody Mary.

1.5 ounces vodka
3 ounces tomato juice
as much horseradish as you have the cojones to take
dash or 4 of chipotle tabasco
a bit of celery seed
sea salt
black pepper
tsp of all-purpose bbq rub
2-3 slices of smoked tomato
ice

Wet the glass rim and dip in bbq rub. Fill with ice.

Shake the drink in a shaker full of ice, pour over ice. Top with slices of smoked tomato, garnish with grilled poblano and peppadew peppers.

Enjoy while growing hair on chest.

With the garnish, this is both cocktail AND hors d'ouevres!

 

[FattyMac]

Here's my entry: (Forgive the phone pics. Wife went to see her mother and took the DSL)

We started with some bison steak and some split turkey wings

The wings were dusted with some simply marvelous cherry

The steak was sliced and put into a marinated of whatever looked good/had in the fridge but the main ingredients were soy, garlic and lime.... and I forgot to get a picture of that.

Any one know what this is?

Never thought I would ever use a melon baller but it came in handy

Everything getting happy on the egg

And the final product

What about the spam you ask? Well what's some appetizers without a cocktail? How about a rum and cola? or a spam, rum and cola? or a Spam, rum and spam and cola?

While I was prepping everything my father arrived to steal my wifi. He is too cheap (or parsimonious as he would say) to get his own. He was however wearing an almost perfect t-shirt.

If only it had been the spam skit!

And here is everything together

Thanks for looking!

 

[Gore]

I just came from the Spam thread. I was afraid there might be some overflow here. It's not as bad as I feared though. Toss me one of those wings and I'll pretend it didn't even happen. In the meantime, .... Chris, we need a Spam clean-up on page 6!

 

[colonel00]

Wait wait wait wait, you used the SPAM as cups?!?!?! Owww, my brain just came to a screeching halt. I just...I...well I guess this was the natural progression after the SPAM bowl that bigabyte made. Man, I am starting to sound like Gore.

Everything looks great. I would definitely attend that party. Maybe I would BYOC though.

 

[caseydog]

The last for tonight, which doesn't really fit the category potentially. A Smoky Bleu "Martini"

2 1/2 ounces single batch vodka with a dash of Islay Whisky (I used Ardbeg instead of Laphroaig, which is more traditional). Shaken with ice and garnished with 3 bleu cheese stuffed green olives.

This should be the standard martini like drink for bbqers. No, it's not really a martini, as it doesn't have vermouth, but it's good! For those of you not familiar with Islay scotches, the southern shore distilleries are known for very smoky whisky, and Ardbeg is the smokiest of them.

Those are some good looking cocktails. Now all you need to do is make some horse dovies, and pick one cocktail to go with them. :thumb:

CD

 

[bigabyte]

OK, there have been some amazing entries posted here this weekend, and my head is spinning after reading them all!

Team e-Gore...wow...I think the fact that you actually were able to smoke in an OptiGrill and even show the process in such detail is worthy of many bonus points. Then of course the UBS is always a hit!:becky: Your potato-mojito cocktail pretty much won me over without saying. There is a lot of stuff in there that just screams win!:thumb: Bigabyte the foodie loves it!

Bigabyte the fascist Throwdown moderator however has some issues to point out though, which bigabyte the foodie apologizes in advance for, but bigabyte the fascist Throwdown moderator got tired of hearing that foodies whining so he beat the crap out of him and threw him in the basement. Will bigabyte the foodie regain consciousness and save the day?

Until then, Bigabyte the fascist Throwdown moderator would like to point out the following:

Rule #12. The only time a team entry will be accepted is when the team entry is made by Brethren at a Brethren Bash, and the team name must also be submitted with the entry. Otherwise only individual entries will be accepted.

OK, so now that I have recorded your details in my notebook, we can continue.

Lo and behold, bigabyte the fascist Throwdown moderator has blow the whistle again!:shock:

Here is the grand vision for this Throwdown as relayed to me by casedog...

Summer Hors d'oeuvres and Cocktails

The theme is a summer cocktail party on the patio. You must create at least one appetizer, but not more than three, and make one cocktail that complements your food. Normal TD rules apply.

CD

(this thing's rigged I tells ya)

Naturally, the fans from Spain are upset and going wild!

 

[SmokinAussie]

I'm now officially SPANISH!

 

[bigabyte]

 

[bluetang]

Look closely now, some of that is merely garnish.:becky:

 

[bigabyte]

Ummm.....perhaps I should go into hiding....

 

[colonel00]

wow, that was a shoe-in for the win and the refs are throwing the game. Perhaps the governing body should conduct an investigation. Oh wait, the governing body (since this is a dictatorship) is the ref. So, so sad :tsk:

 

[bigabyte]

Time to get this under control methinks....

 

[caseydog]

wow, that was a shoe-in for the win and the refs are throwing the game. Perhaps the governing body should conduct an investigation. Oh wait, the governing body (since this is a dictatorship) is the ref. So, so sad :tsk:

As the one who chose the rules for this throwdown, I back bigabyte up 100 percent. Five food items and three cocktails is way outside the rules, and as good as the food is, it isn't fair to the people who entered within the boundaries.

Bigabyte and I consulted on this before the DQ was issued, so you can put me in the crosshairs, too.

Besides, I can't imagine that Gore would want to win by breaking the rules. And, he is going to win plenty of TDs in the future. Plus, he and his family got to enjoy some awesome tapas.

So, as much as I enjoy seeing bigabyte get beaten up, I gotta' step in and back him up.

Now, I figure both of us are headed for zeros on this TD.

CD

 

[bigabyte]

You better hurry and get behind the blockade CD!