We spent this past New Year's in Kansas City celebrating with Justin's college roommates. Jabin, our host and son of a grocer, works in the milling industry and knows his food inside and out...And yes, there are days I secretly wish some of Jabin's tricks of the trade would have worn off on Justin when they lived together. For example, when the guys came to stay with us back in October, Jabin took over the kitchen and had a HUGE breakfast whipped up--and cleaned up--in no time. Like I said, why didn't that rub off on my husband?!
Anyhow, back to the story. On New Year's Eve, Jabin introduced my husband to his smoker. He had received the smoker as a gift from his parents and this thing was a gift from God...it was an electronic smoker AND had a digital thermostat! All you had to do was load up the wood chips, throw in a pan of water (IF you wanted, it wasn't necessary), put the meat inside, shut the door, plug the baby in and set the temperature. It was that easy!
The husband and I were never into smoking. We bought a large Brinkmann grill several years ago and it has a smoker box on the end--but that just seemed like too much work.... In fact, back when the guys came to visit in October, we were sitting around the firepit when Jabin asked my husband, "What have you been smoking lately?" We all sat there and our jaws just fell to the ground...and then I asked, "What the hell do you mean by that?!" Turns out, Jabin had spied our grill/smoker box and was referencing THAT. Not wacky tobacky....but we all got a good laugh out of that!
After we returned home from Kansas City, bellies full of smoked chicken wings, Justin decided he wanted a smoker just like Jabin's. We priced them and they were actually fairly affordable. Being the middle of winter, I decided I would buy him one for his birthday in June and it would be a HUGE surprise! Because, really, would he even remember wanting a smoker for that long???
I was wrong. For the past three months, my husband has been asking about the smoker. Finally, I agreed to go to our local Ace Hardware just to "look" at one. We got to the store, only to find out the company is discontinuing them--and as a result, Ace couldn't even order a floor model for us to look at! We went to Home Depot--they didn't have any. We went to Tru Value--they couldn't access the smoker, either.
So, what does a good wife do? I went on Amazon (duh!) and found an incredible deal on one. Knowing the smoker wouldn't be around for much longer, I ordered it and told J-Money that his birthday gift was on its way!
If this isn't proof that my husband was a wee-bit excited about the smoker, I don't know what is...they had cut down a hickory tree at work, so they chipped it up and brought home 7 gallons of chips! That's enough to last us, well, forever.
The first weekend, we smoked some chicken quarters that we had in the freezer...we had no idea what we were doing and looking back, I feel bad for Jabin. Little did he know that we would be calling him every 5-minutes about how to do this, how to do that...thankfully, he was a good sport and got us through the basics.
Because we were smoking chicken, we needed a brine to keep the meat from drying out--we eventually figured out a recipe for the brine and and got the chips soaking in beer. After 3 hours in the smoker, this is what we had!
After plating up my food, I took one bite of chicken and couldn't help but laugh! Justin gave me a puzzled look but once he tried the chicken himself, he totally understood. I couldn't believe we were responsible for such delicious chicken! I was frankly surprised that we didn't kill the whole tray of chicken between the two of us, but it sure made for good left-overs :-)
That was two weekends ago.
This past weekend, we tried smoking a pork loin. Again, we had some pork in the freezer (I promise I'm not a food hoarder!) that we defrosted and rubbed. I had no idea how to smoke pork, so this time I went online for some information. Luckily, I found a super awesome website full of tips and recipes. We had struck gold!
We ultimately decided on a Memphis dry rub and a Western Carolina mop sauce. They weren't identified as "matches" on the website and the dry rub was for pork butt (not a loin, like we had), but based on the ingredient list, I figured they'd go well together!
Much to my surprise, I was actually correct for once! 5 hours later, we took the pork out of the smoker, pulled the meat and warmed up the mop sauce. Justin thought he had died and gone to heaven! I can't even imagine what the mop sauce would be like drizzled over a pile of good ol' pulled pork!
For sides, I made fried cabbage and gluten-free Cheesy Garlic biscuits. The fried cabbage was a new--and super easy--two ingredient recipe. Cabbage and bacon. Anything with bacon is a guaranteed hit, right?! The directions said to serve it hot, so I did...but once it cooled off, I liked it even better. Next time around, I'll just have to remember to make it early enough to chill it in the fridge for a while! As far as the biscuits were concerned, I used the gluten-free Bisquick mix. J-Money was CONVINCED they were something quite special--or, "off the chain" as he so Southern-ly put it. I'm still not sure why he thought they were so great...??? Maybe he was just trying to suck up?! Who knows! But one thing that I thought was funny--he had no clue they were gluten-free! I love tricking my husband :-)
So, what's on the menu for this weekend? Smoked brisket! I bought one at Sam's yesterday and I got the smallest piece available--it weighed in at 14 pounds! That's a ton of meat! But, the husband was excited--he will be eating on smoked brisket for several meals...and that excites ME--I won't have to do any cooking for a while!
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