Tonight we are going with bone-in country cut ribs grilled indirect over cherry wood smoke. Ahh, yes—Pat’s Homade on the last two turns. Inside we’ve got fresh green beans and new potatoes and BBQ baked beans for our sides. The back porch is well equipped with ice cold longnecks and chilled wine. Please enjoy the evening. Life is good in Gator Nation!
LOL—we will socialize and grill out there but we will take advantage of the inside comforts of central heat and air for our meal......
I made some killer baked potatoes last night. Oven set to 450......smother taters with butter, season, poke with fork....cook on rack for 20 minutes. Remove, turn over, smother again with butter and seasoning and cook for another 20 minutes. Done! Tomorrow I'll pick up some stuff to make skins.....
Made the classic onion soup meatloaf recipe. For variety I use two types of ground beef—this time chuck and round (@ 1 lb of each). Oatmeal instead of breadcrumbs. By far the best part—cold meatloaf sandwiches for lunch for a couple of days
We were well pleased with our newest local pizza parlor (Fat John’s) when we tried it out a couple of weeks ago—so— we are going to try them on again this evening. They are on the east side of town which makes them very convenient to us—it’s only two miles from our house. This means the back porch longnecks will be ice cold and Ms. Jan’s wine chilled and ready to go. Life is good in Gator Nation!
Sesame noodles with Thai basil and chopped peanuts. Lots of ginger, garlic, sesame oil, soy sauce, chili oil, balsamic vinegar, scallions, and a little bit of salt and sugar.
Tonight it’s going to be fresh fried catfish, cheese grits, and Ms. Jan’s homemade coleslaw. Typical panhandle weather today—5:30am this morning it was 32* with heavy fog. Now at midday it’s sunshine and blue skies and 60*. The very first thing I remember about the weather here when I moved here in 1970 from local folks was “If you don’t like the weather here in the Panhandle—just hang around 15-20 minutes, it’ll change...... That still holds true today. Back porch time today will yield a beautiful sunset with all the pleasantries of our adult libations. Life is good in Gator Nation!
Picked and shredded the remains of one smoked chicken and one whole smoked chicken for chicken mole enchiladas. The two carcasses are being used to make chicken stock. Using smoked chicken this way makes a very earthy stock, so not appropriate for use in all dishes requiring chicken stock. But is a bonus for some dishes like posole adding yet another layer of flavor depth.
I grew up with mayo based coleslaw but am now a convert to vinegar based Carolina style slaw. What kind of slaw does Ms. Jan make?
I don’t have her recipe in front of me or know it from memory, but as honestly as I can answer you Lurk—I’d have to say both. She uses some Mayo, white vinegar, fresh squeezed lemon juice, celery seed, and sugar among other things I’m sure.
When I made the rice with datil peppers I should have added that I added a lot of butter and some sea salt to the boil along with half of the datil peppers thinly sliced. Late in the cook I added finely chopped cilatanro. When done and starting to rest I added the other half of datil peppers and lime juice. It was really good. A very good balance of spice, sour, fat and salt. Kind of a take on the Chipotle lime cilantro rice, but with datil peppers. But with a bit more finesse. I am not a fan of sweet so I don't miss that part of the flavor profile. Maybe add some tupelo honey, though. It isn't the sweet that makes me love it. It is the other flavors. Probably will knock it up a notch. I hope that the next time I make it it works out as well.
Watching "Beat Bobby Flay" some more tonight. That guy has a great personality - especially perfect for this show. If not for his personality it wouldn't work. Of course, you never know how a person's TV personality compares to their away from TV personality. But he seems like he'd be a cool dOOd to hang out with for a few minutes. How cool is it having a a restaurant named "Shark"? I wonder how much influence he had in coming up with that. Probably a story on the Net somewhere about it. Fun show!
Tonight we have enchiladas again. I am going to make the rice, datil peppers, and black beans again as well. Tomorrow is an early day: 6 and one half pound pork shoulder to smoke for pulling. That should be around ten hours in the KJ, one hour for the KJ to come up to temp, one hour to rest, and it is always prudent to plan for an extra hour just in case the meat gets stuck on a stubborn temperature plateau. Extra rest never hurts, but undercooked does. Dinner at 7 PM means I need to be lighting at 6 AM. Also I have beans soaking for baked beans and will make Carolina slaw, too. I will get the KJ prepped today so all I have to do first thing in the morning is light it.
I live in North Central Florida. In the early summer if you don't like the weather just hang around six months. I used to get chit from my family that still lived up North about missing out on four seasons. I told them we had four seasons: Fall, Spring, Summer, and Summer again.
