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Any Time is Grillin Time

Back from a week at the cabin. With guests in and out all week made for a lot of grilling and smoking. It was fun and well received. I smoked out pork loin one day. I smoked and reverse seared some ribeye steaks. I smoked out fresh corn on the cob. I smoked out three racks of ribs. I smoked up a huge tin of baked beans. I grilled burgers, my local market's special beef hot dogs, some German, Polish, Italian, jalapeno and cheddar, and Cajun brats. Needless to say, the cookers were busy all week and I had a great time. I hope everyone had opportunity to enjoy the holiday with some patio time.
 
A new idea for grilling :)

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I haven't smoked or grilled anything this week and everything sounds good. I tried once again to purchase some beef short ribs. I found some at my local Sam's club but they had cross cut the racks into strips. They might be good for grilling but not smoking. I was very disappointed.
I decided I'd cook some country style spare ribs. Basically generous slices of pork loin. I'm going to grill them up with a bit of rub then wrap them up with some sweet bbq sauce. I'm more fond of smoking them but my wife prefers them grilled. I'll let her have her way this time.
 
Three dads and their sons at the cabin this weekend. I plan on butterflying a pork loin and stuffing it with cheese, onions, and peppers and wrapping it in a bacon weave. I'll smoke some corn and have a big veggie platter to top it off. If it doesn't kill us we'll have bacon and eggs and hash-browns in the morning.
 
Not really grilling, except for a couple ribeyes, but steaming up 8 lobsters and 3 lbs of steamers. I'll be honest, I call the lobsters ocean cockroaches and I'm not a real fan, but the rest of the family loves them.

Protip: Don't fill your trash with smelly steamer shells. Toss them in the fire, they burn great.
 
The butterflied pork loin was a hit. It was a bit on the spicy side but not too hot. I will tie my weave with some butcher twine next time. It tried to unravel and a lot of my cheese ended up in the smoker. :( There was still enough to make a nice sauce... lesson learned.
 
olbriar said:
The butterflied pork loin was a hit. It was a bit on the spicy side but not too hot. I will tie my weave with some butcher twine next time. It tried to unravel and a lot of my cheese ended up in the smoker. :( There was still enough to make a nice sauce... lesson learned.
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Did you smoke the whole thing, or just a portion? It almost sounds like a porketta...
 
I smoked the whole loin. It was a smaller cut. Similar to porketta. Cut length wise and laid open, Filled with cream cheese, onion rings, and cleaned jalapenos. Put back together, rubbed with pork rub, and wrapped in a bacon weave. Probably smoked four hours at 225°. I didn't pay much attention to the time to be honest. I turned the temp up at the end to finish the bacon when the roast was nearing 145° internal temp.
 
olbriar said:
I smoked the whole loin. It was a smaller cut. Similar to porketta. Cut length wise and laid open, Filled with cream cheese, onion rings, and cleaned jalapenos. Put back together, rubbed with pork rub, and wrapped in a bacon weave. Probably smoked four hours at 225°. I didn't pay much attention to the time to be honest. I turned the temp up at the end to finish the bacon when the roast was nearing 145° internal temp.
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I may have to try that. I usually cut them into rib roast, centercut chops, etc. but they are cheap enough to give it a whirl.
 
I have always done chops as well. Smoke or grilled they aren't bad. Especially for the price.

My son was over last night and we were talking it (his concoction). We discussed trying butcher's twine to hold the wrap together. The cheese sauce always weeps out in some fashion or another it seems. His thought was to smoke the loin.. wrapped in a weave if you care.. and simply make up the cheese sauce to pour over the roast. Saute the onions and peppers and then add the cream and cheddar cheeses and garlic. Maybe add some heavy whipping cream to make into a sauce. It might be better than seeing half of that good stuff on the smoker ramp.

I'll likely try the twine route next.
 
Does pan frying count? My fried pork chops sauteed with salad dressing, onion salt and garlic powder are tasting tangy with instant mashed potatoes and french cut green beans. Makes a tasty paper plate.
 
Good eats are good eats bobby! I replaced one of the grills on my old Jen-Air grill with a cast iron griddle. It was originally designed to sit over two gas burners on a stove. It worked great for frying goodies as well as serving as a sear station for my grill. I cooked breakfast on it a number of times but mostly used it to sear steaks or to stir fry a veggie medley. It also worked great for toasting buttered buns for burgers and dogs.
Dang, I do miss that grill. No way I'd drop $1300 for another but it grilled up a lot of great meals in it's time.

I never tried pan frying anything on a grill though I have a fleet of cast iron cookware. A little accident with the oil would make for a heck of a grill blaze!

I suspect it was 35-40 years ago that my grandfather hand fashioned a propane fryer for me. It was made out of a five gallon metal paint can with both ends cut out of it. Legs were fashioned onto the bottom and a shepherds hook affair on top. Centered in the can was a propane torch. You hung a cast iron pot with cooking oil from the hook and fired up the torch. Much like the turkey fryers of today. It was a great tool for cooking out fish and fries. He was ahead of his time. :)
 
It's been a while so I'm hungry for flatiron steaks. I put them on the smoker about an hour ago. It's around a four hour smoke and I like them to rest about an hour. I'm going to bake some sweet potatoes to go with them.
Mmmm.

Been so long since I smoked a flatiron that I was uncertain the temp. I had to go back though a gazillion texts to find how my friend suggested I cook them. I just finished putting the cook in my Cave Tools app that @Unforgiven turned me onto. Great app/tool. Especially for people like me that can't remember anything.
Highly recommend the app and thanks again Unforgiven!
 
Smoked meat loaf is on the smoker now. I made the loaf with two pounds of Bork (80% beef/20% pork) I diced up a bell pepper, a few jalapenos, two banana peppers, and a small red onion and added them to the meat along with an egg and some cracker crumbs. I added some coarse ground pepper and some garlic salt. I mashed all of that out into a huge patty and added 6oz of shredded cheddar and then rolled it all into a loaf. At 225° it reached my target temp of 170° in three and a half hours. I have it resting on the smoker now with the smoker off.
Some fresh corn and mashed potatoes will finish out the meal. Just waiting for Mrs olbriar to get home to try it out.
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The loaf turned out great. I think next time I'll do without the cheese or try a different cheese. It was a little too cheesy and really didn't compliment the loaf. It was plenty good however. The jalapenos were delightful. The onion (sister's garden variety) was small but stout. It proved to be just the right onion taste. The Bork proved to make a tasty loaf. I'll definitely be doing another.
 
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I did finally get to do a couple T-bones on the grill this weekend. The wife and I both like them only cooked enough to show evidence that they made actual contact with the grill :D so as I was getting the grill to a good temp we also made pickle spear size slices of zucchini, added asparagus spears, and then sprinkled them with minced garlic and olive oil. I had put par baked skin-on potatoes on the grill the moment the grill started up so they were done when the rest was done. I put the veggies on as the grill was getting near temp and gave them what I hoped was exactly the right amount of time. (I hate mushy veggies) Nailed it! Took veggies off, threw steaks on, took veggies into the house and grabbed a can if swill beer. (The wife slapped me for reaching for the Shiner. Ever since she tried it she now buys it for herself! You can probably guess who got the smaller steak that night!) Ran back out, flipped the steaks, grabbed the potatoes and took them in. Grabbed a plate, thru the steaks on and it came out perfect! I didn't get the chance to let the steaks get to room temp like I wanted but it still worked out ok.
I am definitely gonna try Olbriar's meatloaf experiment coming up soon, that sounded awesome!!!
 
I'm doing a flank steak.. my normal smoke and I'm doing a reverse sear on a 3" cut sirloin steak. I'm just getting ready to put my spiced flank steak on and will smoke it at 225° for three hours(145°-150°) . At that time I'll wrap the flank steak and add my sirloin cut. It will only take the flank to reach my target temp of 190° around 45 minutes. At that time I'll remove it to rest in a cooler while I wait for the sirloin to reach 125°. I'll wrap it at that time and rest it for 30 minutes. I'll raise the temp in the smoker to 500° and then put a minute sear on each side of the steak. The flank steak is for tomorrow. No reason to waste smoke :)
 
Funny, I'm doing a reverse sear on a sirloin tonight myself. I heat up a cast iron skillet for the sear, add a pat of butter and let them go about 90 seconds a side. Makes a really delicious meal out of a $3 / lb hunk of cow. :)
 
I'm trying something different tonight. I fixed a box of that instant chicken dressing and put a spoon full in each boneless skinless chicken thigh. I used toothpicks to hold the roll ups together, I seasoned the outside with coarse pepper and a bit of Grill Mate chicken seasoning.
I'm smoking the thighs at 225° and I'm looking for a 165° internal target. I'm guessing a couple of hours but we'll see. I may turn the smoker up to 450° and put some grill marks on them before serving. I haven't made up my mind yet. :)

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The thighs turned out ok but not great. My wife is not a fan of the store bought stuffing and honestly it wasn't that great in the chicken. It was plenty eatable but not nearly as good as it sounded. They took longer to cook than I thought as well. Being rolled up, it took three hours instead of two to reach my target.

I'm thinking about doing the same smoke again but stuffing the thighs with the cheesy broccoli and rice medley made by Knorr.
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