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Back in Italy to enjoy the lead up to Christmas. Cooked ribs on the 16 last night. Came out great. No pix. Used the heat shield/paving stone for the first time. It was a good call, the short distance between the fire box and the grate means I have found it difficult to genuinely cook low and slow without something to shield the bottom of the food from the fire. I am near Venice and in the home of bigoli pasta. Today I am trying three versions using a Chad Robertson recipe that uses up spent leaven. Here we are at the first stage: I am experimenting. Bigoli are made with buckwheat flour as the base. I made three variations. The first with durum wheat, the second with whole wheat flour ground from UK hard wheat grains and the third with Italian 00 flour. I followed the quantities for the recipe without thinking for the first one with durum wheat. It was too wet and I made the necessary adjustments for the second two. Will see how each extrudes, using the bigolaro, later today. KK action? Boiled meats are a speciality here and, as well as capons, they include beef short ribs. I have set the KK going and will do a nice slow cook in place of boiling and will see what the Italians think of it. Warming up now:

Made it, your right, I was lickin the spatula clean. It's tangy and thick, but not too thick & keeps you coming back looking for more. Your right too, there's room for addition, hot sauce, side sweet..not sure. Done and bottled, I prefer a pork pair although I won't discount beef...just thinking how it will deliver after heat in the KK as a crusty pleasure or sticky side.

Have KK will travel. OK, you must have a dolley to move that or the stand is on wheels. Nevertheless it's gotta be a touchy situation...I give you credit though, the effort is only outweighed by the food that comes off of it. He ain't heavy, he's my KK.

Hi, y'all, it's been a long time, but I have been busy cooking and growing stuff. I just want to post about Johnny Harris's barbecue sauce, which I discovered many years when we visited Savannah and Johnny Harris's restaurant was still open. Went there on a local recommendation for barbecue, and while the barbecue itself was, I guess, okay, but the sauce was, I thought, really remarkable. When we got home back to Shreveport (our home at the time) I started trying to replicate it, and never could get close. The internet was just starting to blossom with online discussion groups, and I joined a barbecue forum, and got around to a discussion of barbecue sauce and I. mentioned Johnny Harris's and failed attempts to replicate it. A nice woman on the forum gave a "cheater recipe" for it that came pretty close, and it became the base for my experimenting to make something closer to my own making. Over the years, I would experiment and tweak the recipe, gradually evolving it. It still didn't taste exactly like Johnny Harris's, which I was buying through mail order (the restaurant has closed in 2016, I think, but the name and recipe for the sauce was sold to a 3rd party, and the sauce is still produced and marketed over the internet, along with several other sauces (they do a great job on the shipping end, BTW.) Then, a couple of months ago the Johnny Harris Cookbook came out, and much to my surprise, they published the barbecue sauce recipe: sauce recipes are usually closely guarded secrets. It is not much like anything I would have expected. So here's my recipe, below, and I attached a photo of the recipe from the Johnny Harris's cookbook. Johnny Harris- Style Barbecue Sauce 2 tbsp chili powder 2 tbsp fine ground black pepper 2 tsp white sugar ½ tsp salt 4 cups catsup 1 cup yellow mustard 1/4th cup Worcestershire sauce 1/2 cup real cider vinegar (may experiment with other vinegars, like champagne vinegar or sherry vinegar) ¼ to ½ cup packed brown sugar (prefer dark) (May substitute honey, and add dark molasses. Should be to your taste. 2 tbsp butter 3 Tbsps fresh lemon juice Directions: Combine catsup in mustard in large pot. Warm on low heat. Stir in all ingredients except butter and lemon juice and mix thoroughly. Cook on low and stir frequently until well blended- 15 minutes. Remove from heat. Cool for 15 minutes. Add butter, stir until thoroughly blended. Add lemon juice to taste. Best if heated before using. Do not boil. This is the base recipe, and it is good for all meats- beef, chicken, pork, etc. I also usually use both honey and dark molasses (as above) for the sweetener. Taste at the end and add more honey or sugar or salt if needed. You could add cayenne pepper or hot sauce if you wanted it hotter- most of the heat in the recipe comes from the black pepper. I have also added several shots of espresso sometimes; tried dark chocolate once to good result; tried adding (separately orange marmalade or raspberry jam to give it a more fruit base.) You can also experiment using different vinegars (like champagne or Spanish sherry), but this is usually a lot more expensive for very subtle difference. You could also try adding a little cinnamon, Chinese five-spice, or both (not more than a teaspoon.) CDC1B288-7AE2-42F5-AA63-4AA328FF67EB.heic

Zucchini, round and deep, cheezy and cooked on the the 23. Nice attractice addition for any table. Three layers of flavor, another way to present a cook on your table as a side. Make it with just veggies or add a layer of sausage . Prep is a concern, brine the cut 1/4 in Zuc for 1/2 hr in salt brine, remove, should be dry patted and then lightly fryed afterwards. Line your bowl in parchment and layer with Zuc, sauce of your making, and topped with cheese & breadcrumbs. Add any additional spices you like for your flavor expression desired. Oh, once it's done, about an hour or so to reach a 130-40 temp, let it cool to congeal but stay warm to serve. A good cheap side presantation, but it looks like a million. Use a casserole dish, easy prep

My son-in-law, Cory, is having his office party at their place (four houses down the street from us) and has requested my assistance in making pork shoulder for what is planned to be a big taco table tomorrow. So yesterday evening I set up up with the Kamado, got the Fireboard all ready, and liberally coated the two Costco pork shoulders with Dizzy Pig's classic Dizzy dust. This morning I started preheating the smoker and put the pork on the grill a little before 10. By my calculations, they will be ready about 8PM. BTW, I don't know what anyone else's experience with Fireboard is, but mine is mine is somewhere between good and great. It does a really fabulous job keeping the temperature plus or minus 5* of where I set it. 90 minutes in: temperature is a perfect 170*, one shoulder is 102*, the other is 8o,1: I will have to switch them on the grill in another hour or so. Stay tuned. Photos of the completed project later tonight. 26AC4152-2310-4CCC-8F76-7A0CDFBC2E0A.heic EB3896C9-9E44-4614-AC14-5EB319BB13C7.heic

I think on the Johnny Harris's bottle it says "best if heated before using, and I think that is true. I put some in a sauce pan and heat it on low for a few minutes. Boiling would not help it any.Shelf life in the refrigerator, like a lot of barbecue sauces, is pretty long because of the proportion of vinegar in the mix. Different stroke for different folks- to each his own- but I think this is so good I could eat it on white bread. They also make a mustard-based sauce which I would only use on chicken, and I find it cooks off quickly, so I would apply that right at the end of a cook, or right after i take the meat off the grill. There's another mustard-based sauce from Lillie's of Charleston, though, "Hab Mussy", that has quite a kick and a little heat, so that one is work exploring, too.

I have some potential FAQs and forum folk could help with answers: 1. I'm sold, I love your product but I don't know how to convince my spouse/inheriting child/my bank manager that this is a good idea. What is a killer strategy that works every time? 2. What do new owners say surprises them the most when they first start to use their KK? 3. What do KK owners most like about the KK?

That turkey does look good, but this year I am on my own for turkey day again so I'll be throwing a tomahawk on the KK 😀