Tonight I will roast a pork tenderloin with an Asian sauce applied at the end. Also prepping garlic, ginger, baby bok choy, onion, broccoli, and Chinese broccoli for stir fry. My wife will make that. She said she was getting some shiitake mushrooms at our local Asian market as well.
Leftovers. Tomorrow rump roast starting out hot and then low and slow in the oven. On the rack with a drip pan below for making gravy later. Salad and mashed potatoes.
Another hot day here in the Panhandle with both of us working in the yards and taking “smart breaks” when we felt the need. Tonight we’ve got another lighter supper but it really fits this time of year with our activity levels. Ms. Jan has made her homemade chicken salad which we both enjoy. Besides the chicken she puts mayo, a touch of mustard, boiled eggs, her homemade sweet pickles, small bits of fresh cut up Gala apples, and thin sliced almonds. Fresh lettuce and vine ripe tomatoes are on the side. Homemade French fries are the side. Ice cold longnecks are cooling off the day’s efforts. Life is good in Gator Nation!
Well, between yesterday evening and today we’ve had a couple of good size thunderstorms push through our area. The rowdy weather has changed plans of working in the yard into an inside day so we’re catching up on the laundry. Tonight we’ll have an inside supper. The menu will be fried cubed pork steak, fresh green beans & new potatoes, fresh bi-color cob corn, and fresh steamed yellow squash and onions. Ice cold longnecks for me and Ms. Jan will enjoy her pick of chilled wine for our afternoon/evening. Life is good in Gator Nation!
I also was going to do some yard work today. Went to use my really old Stihl FS36 string trimmer on some shaggy stuff I have been ignoring and the primer bulb was cracked. This has happened before. Super easy to change out, but will have to order on-line and wait. Fired up the oven to start the rump roast. Still warming up. I salt it and let it sit out for a couple of hours with pieces of garlic stuffed inside. About 30 minutes at 375 F and then about 2 hours and 30 minutes at 225 F should make it medium rare and juicy. Then a nice rest before carving.
Wear item. With all the hand-held power equipment I have, I buy and try to keep on hand those primer bulbs a dozen at a time. Along with fuel line and fuel filters. Had one break on my chainsaw and did have to order that one because it was proprietary to that model.
Last Saturday was prime rib night. I took the bone in hunk of meat, rubbed w/ touch of olive oil. Then covered it all with salt, pepper, dried basil, dried oregano, dried/crushed rosemary. Put it in preheated 500 deg oven. Let in go for 20 minutes. Turned oven off, do not open. Let it slowly cook in heat that is declining slowly. Pulled out at right time...perfect. 15-20 per lb without oven on, depends on how you like prime rib and your oven's abilities.
I have to admit I got the prime rib recipe from a famed Ga Bulldog player's Mom who we know. Nice people even if the son played qb for uga.
Summertime heat/rain/heat continues to prevail— So we’re going with grilled wings and a cold tray one more time— Afternoon ice cold longnecks have earned their place on the back porch one more time— Life is good in Gator Nation!
My MIL wants to buy us take-out for dinner tonight. She feels guilty that I make dinner every night even though I love doing it. I have about a dozen Cedar Key clams in the freezer. I am thinking about incorporating them into a paella.
Using leftover pork tenderloin for escarole soup tonight. Maybe rock the paella tomorrow. I have been thinking about trying my hand at smoking beef ribs soon.
Tonight we’ve got an inside supper as thunderstorms are moving into the area now. Ms. Jan’s working her magic with a pan of smothered fried steak and gravy, I’ll have fresh steamed yellow squash and onions, rice to go with the gravy, and we will finish up the big pot of green beans and new potatoes with fresh bi-color cob corn added in. We will maintain our afternoon/evening thankful for the day with ice cold longnecks and chilled wine. Life is good in Gator Nation!
Paella tonight. Had to buy mussels frozen so I have more than I need. Sometime in the future I will make the rest as an appetizer. Or over linguine with a very buttery sauce and a sprinkle of flat leaf parsley and lemon zest. The extra large shrimp I bought at Northwest Seafood look awesome. The head butcher wasn't in at my Publix (he knows his stuff) so I had to deal with his underlings. It took a while to get across what I was asking for as they never heard of plate ribs. It sounds like they do not have them regularly as they are not a real butcher shop where they have half of a steer hanging from a hook, but I was able to get chuck ribs (not as big as plate, a little less fat, but also good). I told them that I could use was what they use for short ribs but not cut up. After trimming the cap it was five and one half pounds. And not as pricey as I thought it would be. And more than enough meat. Not perfect, but I can work with it.
^^^^ Lurk— I’ve seen the chuck ribs before but I’ve never cooked them—this will be interesting to see how they turn out. Looking forward to your follow up opinion on the outcome of your efforts.
But no pressure, right? LOL. While I have eaten Texas smoked ribs at some really good smoke houses in Texas, I have never made my own before and I am sure there is a bit of a learning curve. I have done some online study and I have experience in doing a smoke, but that is mostly "book learning" for this and I will need to go around this block a few times first. For one thing I have read that testing for the doneness is more by feel than temperature and I need to learn that. I am pretty sure that what I make will be fine, but I aspire to more than that. I want it to be awesome.
I agree it’s a learning curve. If you’re going to basically go by the Franklin’s recipe if you’ve got a 5—5.5lb rack and going indirect at his temps it’ll probably be about 5–6 hour cook. Internal temperatures are pretty useless because of the bones running through the meat. But at around 5 hours just use a long pronged fork to check your ribs—easy sliding in/easy pulling out is the tender you’re looking for. If you’re using say applewood for smoke , then my water pan is half apple juice/half water. Then I will also have a generic spray bottle filled with half & half apple juice and water. Franklin says to open the smoker @ 5 hours and spritz your ribs. I prefer to start that process at hour 3, repeating the spritz at hour 4 and 5. To me it helps put a better crust on the ribs rather than just doing it one time. But again, your fork will pull very easy or smooth when they are ready. Let us know how they turn out and what you think. I would recommend apple, cherry, or pecan wood myself.
I was going with apple wood for the smoke and using my Thermopen both for testing the doneness by feel and the temps. They are probably correlated, but not perfectly. I will try a smoke at around 275 F to 285 F as he does as it probably gives a better bark than lower temps. I figure I should start there for my first time and adjust as I develop my own techniques. The one thing that bothers me about the time is that even though it is chuck ribs it is about two inches thick so it might take a lot longer to get where it needs to go. I think that an early start where it rests longer is better than smoking until late in the evening and not resting long enough with very hungry people asking when it will be done.
