Three-Letter Acronyms & Four-Letter Words

After having spent two fabulous days in the sun at the end of the dock Gina and I are ready for a break from sun worship and are going to be heading out for a little adventure. We are going to find out what Charlevoix has to offer.



Last night we had dinner at Pearl's, a very tasty Cajun joint that happens to be hidden away up here in Elk Rapids. I had the Etouffette with the crawfish and blackened shrimp, it was excellent. We shared the red bean cake appetizer. Gina had the sirloin and a side of cheese grits. Their cornbread was spicy and excellent.

We rented a couple of movies from 'The Corner Store' that is over near (or in) Central Lake. The first movie we watched 'The Fountain' was horrible. I mean seriously, I sort of knew what the movie was supposed to be about given that I had seen the previews before, but I figured the previews were so disconnected because of the fact that they were previews. By which I mean, the storyline in the previews jumps around, I thought they did that to keep you interested in the story.

Nope, the whole movie is that way. In my opinion it was a beautifully shot movie, good cast, but the storyline presented in the movie was horrible and extremely hard to follow. Both Gina and I agreed that the movie was bad.

The second movie was excellent, Miss Potter. Which was about the author who wrote Peter Rabbit and a variety of other children's books.

I popped popcorn on the stove, it turned out OK, but not as good as usual. Not sure if that is because of the popcorn, or if it was because maybe I put too much in. I am sure that I will be doing more popcorn before we leave, so I will figure it out, by putting in 1/4 less the next time. Not to mention that we had plenty of extra popcorn.

It appears that one of the neighbors up here has finally gotten broadband with wifi, there is a network up here called HagoodNet. It is open, but our connection is low. I am sticking with dial-up to complete my blogging for today, but tomorrow I might try out the connection.

I will be grilling pork loin tonight and corn, not sure what else we are going to be having for dinner. Gina's dad bought a brisket for me and while we were at Meijer's in Traverse I found some Mesquite chunks. So sometime before the week is out, I will be smoking a brisket.

We will need to pickup some sausages and I think I would like to smoke some chicken while I am at it. No pork this time. Next year.

Laterz

We sample the pork last night for dinner.

As per usual I was late getting the smoker started, by about an hour and a half.

Needless to say an hour difference, even after 7 hours of cooking means quite a bit. The pork we ate last night was definitely tasty, but the texture wasn't quite right. It wasn't just falling apart like it should, the meat was still more steak like and less pulled pork like.

Luckily, the big pork shoulder I bought came in two pieces. I had left the other piece in the oven to finish cooking for an hour and change. At first I was just going to let it sit in there for another 30 minutes or so. However, after cutting into the first one I decided it was better to leave it in a little longer.

And from the looks of it when I was packing it up into bags to put into the fridge, it definitely was falling apart. Perfect.

Oh yeah, I changed up the way I was cooking it.

I did about 4 hours in the smoker. Then I wrapped the meat in foil and moved it to the oven, I set the oven for about 275 degrees. The first hunk of meat came out of the oven after about 3 hours. The second hunk of meat came out after about 5.

Why did I do this?

1. With the temperature being about 50 F out, it is harder to keep the smoker at a consistent temperature.

2. With it drizzling (light sprinkling) it is even harder to keep the smoker at a consistent temperature.

3. After you wrap the meat in foil, the burning of wood and coal is really just a heat source, your not gaining any benefit of the smoke it produces. It is effectively an outdoor oven. And since it is cold out, using the oven in the kitchen actually warms up the house to a normal level. Whereas in the summer, using the oven in the kitchen makes the house uncomfortably warm.

I would have to say that it turned out pretty good. John enjoyed it, as did Gina. If they could have held out for another hour (or had I been able to wake up an hour earlier) the first hunk of meat out of the oven would have been magnificently perfect vs pretty good.

I think I might start trying to work on a good brisket next.

Back to the grind.

Laterz

At the NetworkIP's xmas party there is a raffle with fabulous prizes. It is called the Angle Tree raffle. You buy tickets and give the money goes to help needy families in Longview. A good cause. I try to buy about $100 in tickets every year. The more tickets I buy the better chance of Gina and I winning a prize right?

Well, This year the Angel tree prizes were pretty good. However, the big prize on the Angel Tree was a stainless steel grill (we already have one, thanks to my Pops, as a wedding gift), needless to say not something we need. One year it was a Lazy Boy, now that is something I can use.

The CEO and Managing Partner also tend to help out the 4H kids, by purchasing livestock at the annual auction. One year they did cows and another it was cows and chickens I think. This year, Pete, CEO, decided to go with a "Grand Champion Hog". And in doing so, he had lots of extra meat. So as a bit of a gag prize, you could win 50 lbs of pork. Roasts, Ribs, Sausage and Chops.

Well, I won 50 lbs of pork on the Angel Tree. Given that the average price of pork is about $2. I broke even on the raffle. Well, I got some good looking chops and Pete was kind enough to throw into my bundle 2 racks of ribs (they feel like baby back ribs) and quite a number of chops. So all in all I likely got about $120 worth of meat.

However, the raffle isn't all about the fabulous prizes. Course, it sucks to win nothing at all. That has happened. But in the end I still get that wonderful feeling of giving money to a good cause.

We also "won" $150 in toys r' us gift cards. However, we don't have much of a use for those really. So we traded them and some cash to a co-worker who had a $500 home depot gift card. Which, obviously we can always use.

The game last year was sort of like "White Elephant" which is where you get a gift, but you can then play the game and take the gift of the person before you or keep yours. This year, it was "Deal or no Deal". It looked fun. However, it took quite a while for a game to be played.

Back to the point of this post. The Pork!

Word got out that I won some meat. I had plans already to smoke some of it this weekend for dinner for Gina, John and I. However, since word got out and Eryn (graphic artist) had enjoyed it when I smoked pork for the Dallas office, for the Jaduka Launch, she asked if I was going to bring some in.

This request sort of snowballed from left overs into a potluck luncheon.

Unfortunately, I didn't take the pork out of the deep freeze in time for it to thaw out. This meant a trip to Cost Co. I am sort of kicking myself though, I should have checked the ads. HEB had pork shoulder (Also known as Boston Butt) on sale. I could have saved $0.20/lb. Which would have been about $3.50 or so. None the less.

The smoking is just about done. I am going to wrap it in foil and put it into the oven in a few minutes. The temp outside is making it a little bit more troublesome to keep the smoker at a constant temperature. I might have to revive the plan to build a brick smoker. Be easier to trap the heat in a brick one vs a metal one.

Anyway.

The x-mas party was a great time. I enjoyed meeting a few new people and seeing some coworkers that I don't see as often these days. The drive to Longview is a bit of a pain, but getting together for some food and fun is always a good thing.

Laterz.

I think I might have managed to wish the rain away until tomorrow.

It was raining this morning, actually more like sprinkling. This was happening while I was trying to start the smoker.

I bought a pork shoulder earier this week to smoke this weekend. We got a big bag of mesquite chunks and also found a decent sized beef roast. I didn't want to do a full brisket this weekend.

Anyway, after a few false starts of the fire, it was finally smoking.

I put the pork shoulder into the tinfoil about an hour ago. That means in about 2 hours it should be done.

I brined it this time a little diferently. I boiled the brine (salt & water) along with some spices and a TON of chopped garlic. Last time i just did salt, water and some spices in a bowl and mixed it.

After drying it off I put some rib rub on it and put it into the smoker. I used "fajita spice" on the beef.

I will give a post on how it turned out later tonight.

I am going to through in the sausages at about 6pm.

laterz