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It's been almost a month.. of very much needed family vacation in the US. We had not been there in 4 years and so had much to do and many people to catch up with. We've been staying with my momma in Corona Del Mar CA most of the time, beautiful place but not really the real world.. LOL Highlights.. We visited a close friend in Montecito just a week after their neighbors were evacuated for the fire but 10 days before the mud slides.. Talk about just missing two huge disasters. I set my son up in Las Vegas to study at CSN and then he'll transfer to UNLV. He's studying hospitality so that's the place.. Took the family to Big Bear where they all saw snow for the first time (and skied) Communication blip.. My momma gave me an iPhone X for Christmas but the install left out some passwords and I may have missed mail in some of my email accounts.. My staff has been wonderful in covering emails and I've been taking calls and handling mails they are unable to.. but I'm guessing there should have been more. Happy Belated New Year to you all.. Going to be great to sleep in my own bed again, sometimes holidays can be soo much work that you can hardly wait to get home to get some rest..

KK Rotisserie Cornish Hen, served with honey balsamic, rosemary, carrots and NY Salt Potatoes. Awesome meal for sure. An interesting boiled potato cook. The salt as supplied was super fine ground. Wasn't overly salty.

Tried two rubs and one marinade, all good. Finished with White balsamic mixed with a little honey. Scallops sauteed in butter and garlic, sweet potato fries with broccolini. Hey, I like salmon with just salt and pepper but always looking for something different

We missed you - WELCOME BACK! Glad to hear that you had a great time back in the States and missed those ugly disasters in So Cal. Also glad that you're breathing better and it's OK back home. Don't go visiting Aussie in Perth right now!

I'll make up a post on tricks I've discovered to keep the chips burning.. in the mean time please give me a call to discuss this issue.. The Smoker should keep puffing without issues.. First thing I'd check is the moisture content of your chips. Second is how well it's lit..

When you all were giving me advice about my KK purchase, a few of you said you mainly use your ODK and not your IDK and so needed more than one KK to deliver a total meal. I'd read your posts out to The Husband and we'd tut about the mad Americans. I now know you are not all Americans but you are certainly mad and I seem to have joined your number. Here I am, in an English winter, cooking most of my meals outdoors! On to the business at hand. When I was googling to find out about the relative collagen content of different types of meat a couple of weeks ago I came across this recipe for 48 hour cooked beef https://www.washingtonpost.com/recipes/48-hour-beef-ribs/11890/?utm_term=.28849b63b32b. I was willing to devote my oven to this experiment for two days but wondered if I ought to try it out in the KK. And then I remembered that this sort of cooking is what the water bath does best and so I googled further and found this sous vide recipe: http://www.instructables.com/id/Beef-Ribs-Cooked-En-Sous-Vide-135-F-for-48-Hours/. It was easy to do - file the short ribs in your water bath and forget for two days. I didn't have the opportunity to eat them straight away so I kept them in the fridge, still vac packed, for a few days. I thought it would be fun to cook a "typical" English roast dinner in the KK and so started with some veg in a Chinese clay pot and potatoes rolled in goose fat. Here they are part way through cooking. While they were cooking, I warmed up the vac pack with the ribs in warm water. Here they are in their "boil in the bag" format. I cranked up the KK to about 350 degrees C to brown the ribs quickly - approx 3 mins in total. They came out nice The cabbage with red onion was good too A very brown but very satisfying meal. The sauce was made with home made veal stock and the juices from the sous vide bag - very rich. And just perfect for watching the Philadelphia Eagles, against all the pundits' predictions, beat the Atlanta Falcons. Hurrah!

I have not rigged up my rotisserie yet but have been dying to use the flat rotisserie basket that I bought from @Keith OctoForks. The basket depth is adjustable and so could imagine using it to hold and flip fiddly chipolata sausages and small, delicate fish like these red mullet. Here they are, ready to go and in the basket. At the end of the cooking period I lowered them down directly above the coals to get a bit of blistering on the skin. These peppers got a little bit closer earlier - they were actually cooked on the coals for ten minutes to get the skin black and ready to peal off. Delicious Sunday lunch! Did I say I was loving my KKs?

Thought I would try the keylime white balsamic ckreef sent me decided to marinate some hanger steaks with it mixed some orange juice and lime juice and blended the key lime with some olive oil ..prepared the hanger steaks..and marinated them.. I then got on to the salsa .chopped up some red and green capsicum ,red onion,some corn and a jalapeño with some purple Crack and salt ..I then added some thyme..chopped up a couple of peaches..mixed it all up . .then poured some of these over it. ..and left it in the fridge to meld together with the marinating steaks later on I decided to cook the steaks on max . ...and plated lol. .the key lime marinade worked a treat and the peach salsa was awesome I had to stop eating it or I would not have had any left for the tacos lol. Outback kamado Bar and Grill

Cheers Jon B .nice artical Outback kamado Bar and Grill

Had to smoke some thighs after seeing Mackenzie’s smoke at 310 to get bite thru skin using apple and cherry wood my own rub and sauce

It will actually. The worst part of the fallout is breathing it in. Staying indoors (especially in a basement) is about the best thing you can do, unless you have an actual fallout shelter with filtered air intakes. But, given how they build houses in Hawaii - very open because of the nice year-round weather, they might not be as protected as a tightly sealed house on the mainland would be. https://www.ready.gov/nuclear-blast I plan to hide out in my wine cellar in the basement.

Sorry, I'll pass on this one, Aussie. Snakes are NOT my thing at all.

I intend to share some of mine. We're just your street corner hustlers, Aussie!

Sad, but there's some twisted folks out there that get off on this stuff.

Make love to your woman. Start taking shots straight from the bottle. Fire up the KK and cook the very best protein you have. Even if it's not a direct hit on you, I doubt hiding in your house is going to save you from the fallout.

To add to what Jon said: The bag of salt supplied with the potatoes was about 1 1/3 cups. I used 3 quarts of water, 2/3 cup of salt and a little over 2 lbs of potatoes. Pulled after cooking left a fine film of salt on them. Served as is and fork mashed them on the plate with some butter.

There is a history of the Syracuse "Salt Potatoes" and of course there are many versions of the story. Syracuse was called the Salt City years ago because of the salt mining industry. The poor immigrant workers would put new/small potatoes into the salt evaporation tubs and cook them for lunch. They could only afford the small, bitter potatoes. The salt bath would turn the inexpensive potatoes into really tasty potatoes.....and the legend lives on in this area. A local company brought them back and made them famous serving them at outdoor clam bakes. Now all the area grocery stores carry them along with the bag of fine salt included. You can use small red potatoes or "new" potatoes with the salt and get about the same effect / taste. HISTORY OF SALT POTATOES

The smoked fish rub in your last picture...my Son-in-Law owns King Kooker. His parents started the company in their backyard 30 years ago. I highly recommend their deep fryers, other cooking equipment, and seasonings.

That is what I did. Thank you.

I've never made this before and Mrs skreef has never even tried brie so after some Guru inspiration I figured I would try it out. I started by straining out some berries. I cut the brie in half and scooped some out making a pocket to hold the berries. I'm about to wrap it in puff pastry. After wrapping it I gave it an egg wash then put it in the freezer for an hour before baking. Baked in the oven (Yea I was being lazy) at 425* for 25 minutes. Not a bad first attempt. Will do this again.

That looks spool good. [emoji4][emoji4][emoji4][emoji9]

Unfortunately mail does not deliver on Monday due to Martin Luther King holiday. Should have it on Tuesday. UPS did send me a delivery email for Monday. Not sure what package that is (I'm expecting a few). This should be a fun week.

I would have to say brie is sinfully good on it's own...mixed with something sweet and you enter a dangerous area. If your wife has never had it well that will soon change. My wife and I buy brie when we vaca in Stockbridge Ma {Norman Rockwell's home} from local farmers that have knack for making this delicious cheese. A good mix, don't eat too many...they have a tendency of staying with you

Looking forward to those "tips," Dennis, as I've often struggled to keep mine lit, too. Tried your suggestion to place a lit chunk of charcoal just above the tube - with only moderate success. Best thing that I've discovered so far, is to blend pellets for those style of smoker grills with my wood chips. The combo seems to stay lit a bit better than chips alone.

Looks amazing, Aussie, but inquiring minds like ours would like to know - with all that lemon myrtle sailing about, how come none ended up in that salsa or marinade??

Great idea. I bet it was tasty, nice of you to stop and save some for others. I also was thinking along the same lines and thought about a sweet chili and lime sauce for some salmon I bought yesterday. The colors look fantastic with the added veggies and white balsamic is a plus and sure to please. Thanks for the idea, I will use part of it today

And here I thought the only ones who purchased a KK with seeing one first were the ones who purchased their second or third KK. Bought mine sight unseen. No regrets so far.