A childhood favorite, also great on hot dogs

The key to eating sloppy joes is soft hamburger buns and lots of potato chips.

Sloppy Joes – (From Mom)

• 1 lb ground beef (I use 80/20)
• 1 can tomato soup
• 2 stalks celery or 1 tbs celery seed
• 1 medium onion
• 1 bell pepper
• 1/4 cup ketchup
• 1 tbs brown sugar
• 1 tbs prepared mustard
• pinch salt

Preheat a fry pan and place the ground beef and a couple of pinches of salt in the pan.  Brown the meat.

Place the meat in a preheated pan with a couple of pinches of salt

While the meat is browning slice up the green peppers into equal sized chunks.

Dice up the onion into chunks that are about the same size as the green peppers.

If you have celery, dice it up into equal sized chunks.  I forgot to get celery at the grocery store so I used 1tbs of celery seed.

When the meat is almost all browned place the vegetables into the pan.  Stirring frequently finish browning the meat.

Add the veggies when the meat is almost browned

When the meat is browned, drain the meat.  Then stir in the tomato soup, ketchup, mustard and brown sugar.  If you don’t have diced celery add the celery seed at this point.

Add the tomoto soup, ketchup, mustard, and celery seed (optional).

Bring to a boil then lower the heat and let it simmer for 20 minutes or until the sauce thickens.

Thickened and ready to eat

Serve on soft hamburger buns with a side of chips.

Extremely tasty and sloppy

These sloppy joes are awesome and 10x better than the canned stuff. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

I have been on a quest for the best chocolate chip cookies for a while.  After a while I have figured out the ingredients needed to make a really good cookie.  You need to use both butter and shortening.  If you use all butter your cookies come out flat and crunchy.  If you use all shortening your cookies come out fluffly but don’t spread out.  A perfect balance of the two gives you a light and fluffy cookie that is not too thick and not too thin.

Chocolate Chip Cookies – (Adapted from The Worlds Best Chocolate Chip Cookies from Chef2Chef.com)

•  3/4 Cup Granulated Sugar
• 1 Cup Brown Sugar
• 1/2 Cup Butter
• 1/2 Cup Shortening
• 1.5 Tbs Vanilla – 1 Tbs if you are using mexican vanilla (it has a stronger flavor)
• 2 Eggs
• 3 Cups Bread Flour
• 3/4 tsp Baking Soda
• 3/4 tsp Salt – (Preferably Kosher or Fine Sea Salt)
• 1 Bag of Chocolate Chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Side Note – I just want to take a minute to let you know that if you have a kitchen aid mixer you should get a beater blade.  The original blade that comes with the mixer works great but requires that you scrape the edges of the bowl so that everything is incorporated.  The beater blade has silicone scrapers on the edge of the blade that scrape the edges and make it so that you do not need this step.

Back to cooking.  Add room temperature butter, shortening, sugar and brown sugar to your bowl.  Mix at medium speed creaming the butter and sugar. 

Now add the eggs slightly beaten and the vanilla.  Vanilla is a compliment to chocolate, so by adding the vanilla you are going to enhance the chocolate flavor.  Who doesn’t want more chocolately chocolate.  I know I do!

While that is mixing sift the flour and baking soda onto a piece of wax paper or parchment.  This step can be skipped but if you want the perfect textured cookies, I recommend that you sift your flour.  Then once your flour is sifted you can use the wax paper or parchment as a funnel to get the ingredients in the bowl.  This makes less of a mess when incorporating flour.  Otherwise you might end up looking like casper the friendly ghost. 

I used a strainer to sift the flour. It works great. No need to buy expensive equipment.

The wax paper makes pouring the flour into the mixer easy.

Mix until the flour is incorporated.  Then fold the chocolate chips in with your favorite wooden spoon or spatula.

Now portion the cookies out onto a baking sheet covered in parchment or a silpat.  I use an ice cream scoop to portion out the cookies.  I have found that I could get six cookies per sheet.

Using an ice cream scoop makes sure that all of the cookies are the same size.

The silpat is reusable and thus saves money in the long run.

Bake the cookies at 350 degrees for 12-14 minutes.  Remember to take them out when they get stiff.  If the cookies look done they are probably over done.  That is one of the biggest mistakes most cooks make.  An overdone cookie is a crime.

When the cookies are done, remove them from the oven and let them cool on a wire rack. 

It might be the simplest and greatest sandwich ever.

The French Bacon Sandwich (As seen in South Park Complete Season 2 boxed set)

• 1 pound of bacon
• 8 slices of white wonder bread
• 1 bottle of French dressing

The first step is to cook the bacon.  Unlike the cooking segment I like to bake my bacon in the oven.  It comes out looking nicer.  Set your oven to 400.  Then you need a sheet pan lined with aluminum.  Then put a baking rack over the foil. 

Then put the bacon in strips on the rack.  If you have a rack with grates you can push the bacon between the grates for a nice rippled look or else you can lay it flat.  Put in the oven for 20-30 minutes or until it is the desired crispyness. 

I left mine in for 25 minutes.  Then remove and let it cool.

MMM Bacon

Meanwhile grab your white bread and lay it out.  Layer with the bacon and drizzle it liberally with french dressing. 

Doesn't that look amazing!!!

Add the top layer of the bread, cut and serve. 

The French Bacon Sandwich - Quite spectacular looking, if you could only taste it.

That is it.  I know what you are thinking, yep it is solid bacon.  Who wouldn’t love that.

Above is some freshly shredded pork, you can see the nice pink smoke ring.  Doesn’t it look delicious.

Before you can dust the meat with your rub, I always like to brine the meat.  Why brine you say?  Well brining helps the meat retain moisture, become more tender, and overall can help impart nice flavors if you spice up your brine. 

To make my brine I used:

• 3 cups water
• 1/2 cup non-iodized salt (kosher or sea salt)
• cayenne pepper
• seasoning salt
• 1/2 pound of ice cubes

Start with the 3 cups of water, salt, cayenne and seasoning salt in a non-reactive pan and bring to a boil.  I know it seems like a lot of salt but once the mixture boils, remove from the heat and add the ice.  The ice will melt, cooling the brine immediately down so that you can use it right away.  This is why there was so much salt.  We needed it as the ice was going to dilute the mixture.

Next inject the meat with the brine.  You could just let the pork butt soak overnight, but since it is a thick cut of meat it would never fully absorb.  I always inject as much brine as the meat will take and then let rest for an hour.  Make sure to put the meat in a dish as some of the brine will leak out.

Once the meat is fully rested,  remove it from the refrigerator and pat it dry.  Now it is time for the rub.  Remember once again, it may seem like there is way too much seasoning and salt in the rub, but it is only on the outside of the meat.  For it to penetrate the flavors have to be strong.

The Rub – In a bowl mix

• 1 cup light brown sugar
• 3 tbs paprika
• 1 tbs dry mustard
• 1 tbs chili powder
• 1 tbs seasoning salt
• 2 tsp onion (powder or granulated)
• 2 tsp garlic (powder or granulated)
• 1 tsp white pepper
• 1 tsp celery salt
• 1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper

After you pat the meat dry and liberally shake the rub over the meat.  I then pat the rub into the meat and let the meat rest for the rub to set.  After it sets, rotate the meat and rub the other sides.  Then let the meat sit while you get your fire started in your smoker.

Once you have your smoker going steady around 210-230 degrees, insert a thermometer into the meat and place it on the smoker in the warmer part of your smoker.  If your smoker is anything like mine, it has hot and cold spots.  Since the pork butt is a thick cut of meat I usually place it on the grates near the firebox.

I had a 6lb pork butt cooking at 215 degrees.  So it would take approximately 10 hours to cook.  So I set the smoker, closed up the vents so that it stayed at 215 and barbecued it for 5 hours.  At the 5 hour time I opened up the smoker flipped and rotated the meat.  While the cover was open I basted it.

Above it the meat halfway through cooking.  As you can see the rub is set and it is looking amazing.

Barbecue Mop – (All purpose Memphis Basting Sauce  from Paul Kirk’s Championship Barbecue)

• 3 cups water
• 1.5 cups red wine vinegar
• 3/4 cup Heinz 57 steak sauce
• 1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce
• 1/2 cup ketchup
• 1/4 cup prepared yellow mustard
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
• 1 tbs seasoned salt
• 2 tsp liquid smoke

Every 30 minutes open the lid and mop the meat.  If you don’t have a mop you can go to the hardware store and grab a clean spray bottle.  This works very well.  A word of WARNING.  The only problem is that you need to strain the mop sauce before you put it into the spray bottle.  I have lost of few good spray bottles by not properly straining the mop sauce. 

When the internal temperature reaches 200 degrees remove from the smoker and wrap in aluminum foil.  Let sit for 20 to 30 minutes to let the internal temperature rise to 205 degrees.  This is the perfect temperature to pull the meat.

As you can see above, the bone is falling out of the meat.  I have also added a picture of the perfect smok ring.  It penetrated the meat, hardened the rub and made some delicious meat.

Using two forks shred the pork butt to make nice pulled pork pieces.  Serve meat as is or add your favorite barbecue sauce.  Perfect side for pulled pork include potato salad and cowboy baked beans.

One of my passions is barbecueing and this outing was nothing but spectacular.  The meat was perfectly cooked with a kiss of smoke.  The meat was juicy and tender.  It made some of the best pulled pork sandwiches that I have ever had.  If you have a chance to barbecue I hope you try this method.  Brining makes all of the difference.

The baked beans were soft, tender and delicious.  As you can see from the picture above the beans are laced with smokey bacon and some of the trimmings from my pulled pork.  Pork and beans is the best combination in the world.

Ingredients: (adapted from the boston baked beans recipe from Allrecipes.com)

• 2 cups navy beans or pinto beans or any other bean you have in the house 
• 1/2 pound bacon
• 1/2 pound burnt ends from brisket or trimming from pork butt
• 1 onion, finely diced
• 1/4 cup favorite barbeque sauce
• 3 tablespoons molasses
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 teaspoon liquid smoke
• 1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
• 1/4 teaspoon dry mustard
• 1/2 cup ketchup
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 can of only the finest american beer.

If you know that you want to make these beans it is preferred that you soak them overnight the night before.  If you are short on time let them sit at least 6 hours. 

Preheat the oven to 325.  This works in ovens from 325-375.  So if you have other dishes that need to bake, it is alright to turn the heat up a bit.  I would not go over 400 as that will cause all of the sugars to burn.

Next dump the beans and soaking water into a large pot and place on the stove.  If the beans have swelled you may need to add a bit more water.  Make sure that the beans are fully submerged.  Turn the heat to high and once it starts to boil turn down the heat and let the beans simmer until soft.  This usually takes between 2-4 hours.  Depends on soak time. 

Now drain the beans and reserve the liquid.

In a sauce pan, combine the beer, molasses, salt, pepper, dry mustard, ketchup, bbq sauce, Worcestershire sauce, liquid smoke and brown sugar.  Bring to a boil.  While the mixture is heating up, dice the onion and cut the bacon into managable sizes.  Then in a large baking dish or caserole dish, add the beans, bacon and onion.  Once the sauce pan mixture is boiling, remove from heat and pour over the bean mixture in the baking dish.  If the mixture does not fully cover the beans add some of the reserved bean liquid until the beans are fully covered.  Cover with a lid or aluminum foil and bake for 2 hours. 

At the 2 hour period, remove the lid, add either the burnt ends or some scraps from the brisket or pulled pork.  Mix well and return to the oven.  This time bake for 2 hours uncovered or until the beans are super soft and tender.

These beans definately took a lot of time.  They were worth it.  A little tip, make sure you boil beans till tender.  I was once again in a rush and I took them out after about an hour.  They were not soft and or tender in the four hours that I baked them.  I actually had to add water again and bake for another two hours.  Otherwise the recipe and the beans are amazing.  I hope you enjoy.

First things first you are going to need the following ingredients:

• 1 Box Mac N Cheese
• 3 tbs Butter
• 1/4 cup milk
• 5 Jalapenos
• 1 large tomato
• Salt and Pepper

Start your water with a little salt and bring to a boil.  Once it is boiling add your macaroni.  I usually boil it for about 6-6.5 minutes.  Any longer and it is not al dente.

Next using your grill, a indoor grill pan, or even a frying pan roast the peppers.  Get them nice and black all the way around.  Should take about 5 minutes.  Once they are roasted, remove them from the heat and place them in a zip top bag.  This will loosen the skins so that you can peel them easily, otherwise it is quite a pain in the you know what. 

Make sure to leave them in the bag for a couple of minutes.   Remove the Jalapenos from the bag, hold them by the stems and slide the edge of a knife against the skins.  They should easily peel off.  Then cut off the stems and at this point you can remove the seeds if you do not want your mac n cheese too spicy.  I leave the seeds in as I like it hot!!  Then dice the Jalapenos.

Now dice the tomato.  I like mine finely diced as I like to get a little bit in each bite.

Remove the pasta from the water and strain.  While the pasta is in the strainer add the butter, milk and cheese sauce.  Then add the macaroni and stir.  Finally add a bit of freshly ground pepper, the jalapenos and the tomatoes.  Stir and plate.  The fire of the jalapenos and the cooling of the tomatoes as a perfect complement to the creamy cheese sauce.  The perfect 20 minute meal for the family.

If you have any suggestions for modifying mac n cheese, I would love to hear them.

I picked up this book last year and it is the best barbecue reference that I have found. Paul Kirk is the Baron of Barbecue and it shows. I have personally used his brining methods for pork butt and every pork butt since has been perfect. I have also tried his rubs, slathers and mops. Every single recipe that I have tried produced a winner. Even if you do not have a smoker he has hundreds of recipes in here for grilling, side dishes and making sausages.

Paul Kirk writes with pure confidence as he has the hardware to back up his boasting. Paul “The Baron of Barbecue” Kirk has won the highest awards in American Barbeque including: the American Royal, the BarbeQLossal, teh Great Lenexa Barbeque Battle, the National Lamb-B-Que, The best Brisket at the Terlingua contest and the Jack Danial’s World Championship Invitational. So yes, the man knows barbecue.

Introduction to Barbecue

Kirk teaches advanced techniques but also brings everything right down to earth for the home cook with a backyard smoker. He teaches the difference between grilling (hot and fast) and barbecue (low and slow). He even goes into getting your feet wet in the barbecue circuit. His many tips and tricks are what makes this book great. He even includes a packing list of what to bring when you compete. This list even includes duct tape. As a MacGyver fan this really made me want to barbecue.

The Basics of each type of Meat

Kirk goes through every detail of how to barbecue each type of meat. Be it pork, beef, chicken, lamb or even sausages. He includes tips and tricks like brining the pork butt to increase the flavor and moistness of the meat. He then suggest heat, times and woods that go with each type of meat. This type of information is invaluable to a newbie and turns you into a master overnight.

Recipes

His recipes are what makes this book awesome. I made the “Barbeque Pork Rub” on page 124 and “Doug’s Barbecue Rub” on page 128. Both produced a great crust that permiated the meat. Leaving the meat moist, tender and full of flavor. The book includes surprises including recipes for grilling and great sides. His recipe for smoked chicken quesadillas is to die for. Luckily you won’t have to as all you need to do is turn to page 352.

Reading this book is like picking through the mind of a barbecue master. I found an answer to every question that I have ever had regarding barbecue in his book. Honestly, I had a lot of questions. Did you know that a whole turkey takes 7 ot 8 hours to barbecue? Well if you had this book you would have known as the smoking timetable is right on page 29. I would recommend that you pick up this book if you are going to be grilling/barbecuing at all this summer.

Ahh the elusive 10 minute pizza.  I love homemade pizza but it just takes too long to make for the average individual.  Dough usually needs to be rested, proofed, and formed usually taking up to and over 2 hours.  Below I tried a recipe based on a recipe from Cooks.com for a 5 minute pizza dough that you just mix and put in the pan.

• 1 pkg. Quik Rise dry yeast
• 1 c. lukewarm water
• 2 tbsp. olive oil
• 1 tbsp. sugar
• 2 1/2 c. flour
• 1/2 tsp. garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2 tbs cornmeal (for under the crust to help it not stick)

• 10 oz can of crushed tomatoes
• 1 tsp sugar
• 1 tsp basil
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp oregano
• Pinch of salt

Just mix all of the ingredients and lightly spread over the formed dough.  Remember not to coat to thick or else you will have one saucy pizza, and you don’t want a saucy pizza.  Trust me.  Saucy pizza’s are just trouble. 

I then topped my pizza with ham, red onion and sliced orange bell peppers.  (Why orange bell peppers, well that is all that I had.  You could use any type of bell pepper.)  Then I topped toppings with low moisture mozzarella and freshly grated parmesan reggiano. 

As you can see the pizza looked great, but how did it taste?

Quite honestly, the dough was grainy and had the flavor of eating raw flour.  In other words the dough was not that good.  But man did it look good or what. 

The solution:

I would let the dough sit for 15 minutes (I know, 20 minute pizza but it would be worth the wait trust me) and I would add a bit more sugar and garlic to the dough.  The sitting time would allow the flour to absorb more moisture and not taste like flour.   With these few changes i would have to say that it would be good (maybe even 3.5).