Leaderboard

Knotty wood plum pellets using the KK external smoker unit and Meat Church Holy Voodoo seasoning on this bird produced the best turkey I have personally had to date. Cooked at 275-300 for approx 2-3 hours until both breasts probed at 157 internal. Breasts were both injected with butter and I finished it by brushing the skin with butter. Rested in Oster at 160 degrees for 3 hours before serving.

In my fantasy world I would make fresh pasta every week. It is so simple, and therapeutic, to get your flour and eggs on the table, knead them and turn them into beautiful home made dishes. That said, it is messy and time consuming and it is much faster to open a packet or grill a steak. Only two bits of advice from me: 1) don't go hand cranked. It is so much easier to have an electric roller helping you. Leaves you with two hands free to handle the pasta. I went to my local Kenwood outlet store and got the roller and cutter attachments at a good price. 2) find a local class with someone who has made a lot of pasta in their life. Having them show you how easy it all is and the tricks for particular types of pasta is worth a lot in time spent on trial and error on your own. Above all, have fun!

I experimented with curing bacon the other day and it turned out amazing. I can never go back to store bought. Recipe and photos below for those who want to try. Dry Curing Rub Pork Belly (2.5kg) 40g salt 40g brown sugar 5g curing salt 5g ground white pepper 5g coriander seed 5g ground mace (nutmeg as a substitute) 5g onion powder 5g garlic powder 5g ground ginger 5g ground fennel seed DAY 1: Remove skin from pork belly. Mix the curing powder and rub pork belly thoroughly. Place in a Ziplock or vacuum sealed bag. Place in refrigerator. DAYS 2-6: Turn the bag over every morning. Day 7: Remove from bag and rinse pork belly thoroughly with cold water. Pat dry and place on drying rack in refrigerator for two days to rest/dry. Day 9: Smoke on KK at 200-225f to an internal temp of 150f. Hickory is great, but other woods are too. Let the pork belly cool for an hour and them place it back on the cooling rack in the refrigerator overnight. Day 10: Slice/portion/eat

Nothin’ quite like some quick butt. [emoji6] Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I'm happy to see that you cook those wing "tips" that most people throw away. I love those things when they get crunchy.

Bingo! I once made 5 different colors of ravioli for a fundraiser banquet for 60 people. Not a walk in the park.

Just two flat sheets of pasta, dollops of filling on the first sheet, wet slightly between the dollops, lay the second sheet on top, press and cut apart. Then cross your fingers that the pockets don't come apart when boiling.

Hot and fast pork butt - 5.5 hours at 350° with hickory pellets in both the small MSR smoke pot and the KK cold smoker. Like the last butt i cooked, this one didn't stall - that's two turbo butts in a row. Both were bought at the same time.

I have the hand crank version and thought that's not too bad why would I need electric. Then I bought the electric pasta version for my Ankarsrum mixer and now I know why I needed electric. It is so much easier and as tekobo mentioned you now have 2 free hands.

Love the color on that bird !!!!

Start with the Atlas hand cranked pasta roller, with a couple of cutters for fettucine and spaghetti. (The Kitchen Aid mixer attachment is WAY overpriced!) You'll also want to get a drying rack, unless you plan to cook it immediately. Use good flour made for pasta. You'll need a sizable workspace, too. Rolling out pasta takes several feet in length of workspace. And, it's easier if you have 2 people - one to feed in the dough and turn the crank; and the 2nd person to catch the pasta coming out of the rollers and lay it out flat. It's really not that difficult, once you get the hang of it, to make basic pasta shapes. Ravioli - well, that's a different ballgame altogether!

On the longer cooks, lightly spritzing the meat with a liquid (apple juice, cider vinegar, water, wine, bourbon, etc.) periodically (hourly) will help promote a bit more smoke adherence, as the moisture will attract smoke and the evaporation process will cool the surface of the meat and help, as well. Just be careful not to overdo it and wash off your bark.

For pasta that starts with flat sheets of dough, we use a simple hand cranked adjustable roller with a couple cutting attachments. Dough made by hand. But for extruded pasta (tubes of various shapes), you would need a machine.

My gosh, @MacKenzie, those photos! They are always just gorgeous!

I have a poor man's Santa Maria grill...the Kudu. They recommended an 80/20 mix with 20 being wood and 80 charcoal. Of course I broke the rule and usually make a 100% wood fire on it to cook chicken wings, burgers and whatever else I've cooked on the thing. You'd think the smoke flavor would be "in your face" but it isn't. There's no restriction to the amount of air burning the splits I used and they burn very clean. Also, the smoke is not contained like in a KK...it's scattered everywhere. The flavor is good, but not deep down smoky flavor like a smokehouse. The KK can't take this amount of wood simply because there isn't enough to air in it to keep the wood burning. It would smolder and create bad smoke. In the Komodo Kamado, for longish smokes like ribs, butts or brisket, I've always filled the coal basket and "cleaned out" a space on the side or back or it to dump X number of hot coals...a fairly small amount. Picture a bundt cake pan and dropping the hot coals in the center hole. But I move that hole over to one side. A modified Minion method. Now I place wood chunks from the hot coals to the other side of the basket. You'll generate a good amount of smoke for the duration of the cook as the lump slowly catches fire and burns the wood chunks along with it. The size wood pieces I use are about half a bar of soap. What's so great about cooking or BBQing is that there's no hard and fast rules to create good food. It's a constant experiment. If there's was one way, we'd all place first in BBQ competitions.

I would add that a wood log fired Santa Maria grill clearly should produce much more wood smoke than a KK with the typical amount of wood chunks. If you lit the same amount of wood fuel in a KK (which Dennis clearly states you SHOULD NOT DO), I'd imagine there would be plenty of smoke for the equivalent size and shape of meat. Also note that Amazingribs.com has said in the past that the amount of smoke that binds to the meat is affected by the temperature and moisture of the surface of what you are cooking. I think they recommended putting your meat in the freezer for a few minutes before you cook so that more smoke will bind to the outermost layer of your meat.

The chops have a lot of surface area to total weight getting smoke. The butts have the surface area but the majority of the butt is getting zero smoke. Peel the outer layer off and you have a ton of meat not getting smoke. One trick I've seen tried is cutting the money muscle out and smoking it along side the rest of the butt. You now have much more surface area getting smoke. Making pulled pork gets a bit more smoke flavor since you're chopping up the smoky exterior and mixing it with the interior. Good luck guys.

So back in the day little Timmy decided he would tip over their outhouse just for the fun of it. He did it and ran to his friend’s house. When he came home hours later, his father was waiting for him. Father: Tim, did you push over the outhouse? Tim: No sir Father: You remember when George Washington cut down the cherry tree? And then told the truth? He didn’t get in trouble. Tim: OK, I admit it. I pushed it over. Father: Then come over here so I can tan your ass. Tim: Wait a minute. What about the story of George Washington telling the truth? Father: George Washington’s father wasn’t in the tree when he cut it down.