tekobo

I just wanted to refer to the post above. I ditched these extra bolts.

I ordered side tables for my 23 Ultimate and they arrived today. Thank you to @Komodo_Kamado_UK for the home delivery service. @MacKenzie was more impatient that me and sent me a message to check if I had opened the boxes after waiting patiently for precisely 3 hours and 8 minutes for an update. So, I opened the boxes. Meat hanger for the 32 Big Bad and side tables for the 23 Ultimate. I was worried when I approached the 23 Ultimate. I have the grate hanger permanently attached on the left and the rotisserie motor bracket on the right. Was I going to need to take both off because they would not fit with the side tables in place? Happily the answer was no. On the right hand side we fitted the rotisserie motor bracket over the top of the side table bracket. I texted Dennis a photo while I was doing this and he suggested the rotisserie motor bracket should go under the side table bracket. Wouldn't work for me because of the small vertical screws on the rotisserie motor bracket that you can see in the right hand side picture. I will see how things work but I may need to size and cut a new shaft to go between the rotisserie motor and the KK to take account of the extra depth introduced by the new side table bracket. I took off the old accessory hanger on the left hand side and installed the new one under the side table here: So, I get to keep all the functionality that I used to have AND I have new side tables. Very happy. Looking at the time stamps on the photos, we went from unwrapped table tops at 18:10 to fitted tables at 18:40. Not bad. How do I know that Dennis is NOT going to insert a post telling me that I have the tables the wrong way round? Because I already got that from him on WhatsApp and fixed it before posting. So there.

Thanks @Tyrus. The rabbit came from our butcher in Italy. I brought it back frozen and only just had the courage to cook it. Difficult to buy rabbit in towns in the UK. @C6Bill, I guess I am not as sentimental as you. My very first pet was a white rabbit with pink eyes called Jane. We didn't eat her but I did keep chickens that we eventually ate. A funny feeling I will have to admit.

That looks really robust @Tyrus. If you have built it right it should outlast you!

Common themes here. Italians make simple ingredients taste great and food like rabbit is common place on the continent but is generally seen as old school in the English speaking world. It is a little bony and lean but I look forward to trying it in different recipes - low and slow on the KK for instance or braised in nice stews.

I am not keen on lean meat and could never see the point of rabbit until we had a wonderful meal at Filippo's in Piedmont, Italy way back in 2017. It included rabbit, cooked slowly over fire right beside you in the dining room. It was a memorable experience. I don't have Filippo's experience or skill but my 32 Big Bad gave me a leg up in the tools department. Here is Filippos set up: Here is my husband's job of getting the rabbit attached to my KK spit. Here is the rabbit, cooked at 150C in the KK. Took under an hour and I took it off at about 70C. My father-in-law had fond memories of eating rabbit in post-war England - a source of protein when meat was still heavily rationed - and came round specially to try some. It didn't disappoint. Nice, moist and tasty. Served here with fennel forward sides. Eating the front leg was not dissimilar to eating a chicken wing.

Lovely looking space and set up!

Lovely looking cooks all. Veal steaks for lunch. Indirect most of the way with a quick sear at the end. One was thicker than the other so I was able to cook them in the same time frame with one rarer than the other. Turned out really well with home made fries, mayonnaise, peas and hot sauce. No plated pics, was too busy eating.

Gosh @Chief, my husband and I were tentative about carrying the top of a 16TT. The lid on 32 is a whole other scale! As @tony b said, I hope your arm was only bruised and not broken. Welcome to the most fun you will have in your back yard with your clothes on.

I didn't like to say, when @tony b and @5698k both said it was easy, that I have always found it hard to separate the point and flat on a raw brisket. I guess practice helps and I do this so rarely that I approach it with trepidation every time. P.S. Your results look good.

Chicken dinner, always a winner. Used the upper rack to get the chicken skin nice and crispy using reflected heat from the dome. Crisped up these potato slices while the chicken was resting. New to me recipe from Francis Mallman's Green Fire. Enjoyed by all. Worked well with chilli sauce and ketchup.

Thanks @tony b. I will set some time aside this weekend to try a few variants. In the past I thought that keeping the mash going for longer was the way to go but now realise that 6-8 weeks is long enough for a mighty fine tasting sauce. I am looking forward to this year's crop of chillis. It will be interesting to explore the different flavours that different chillis deliver in a sauce.

@Tucker I did a quick google search and it appears the sentiment is well known and available on posters and T-shirts in the US. With the growing number of vegans in the UK I don't think I'll be walking down the street in one of those T-shirts anytime soon but I might just spring for an apron.

So...after three days off the booze and eating in a restricted time window, this vegetarian lark seems to be working. I am sleeping better and have lost a little girth and a little weight. @Tyrus is right, I won't ever pass for a vegetarian with two freezers full of meat in the house but I am discovering the benefits of not loading every meal with meat and sides and washing it all down with wine at every opportunity. Baby steps. I can't be bothered with a diet but if I can make some sustainable changes I will be happy.

Yipppee! I made started three batches of Scotch bonnet ferments in early April and tried the first batch last week. At first I was worried that the heat would knock my head off but with the judicious addition of some sushi vinegar it mellowed out and is joyously addictive. I want to try different additives and wondered what others have tried with success. When you add garlic @tony b is it just whizzed in raw with the ferment? Any other interesting flavours? I tried balsamic vinegar but that wasn't as good as the sushi vinegar. Thinking I might riff on the latter with some straight mirin. I also tried with soy tonight but I think I put a bit too much in.

My husband's away for a few days and I decided to try being a vegetarian teetotaller while I was on my own. Otherwise known as drying out and slimming down. The only problem is that my Texan girlfriend was in town for just one night and I had lured her to dinner with a picture of a nice T-bone steak. She arrived with this tea towel for me but quickly got with the programme and we had a lovely evening, sober at dinner for the first time in our acquaintance. I tried out some BBQ recipes from Francis Mallman's Green Fire and they were all a success, washed down with homemade lemonade. I didn't get photos of the fennel and spring onions on the konro grill but this one, shows cooked black beans and broad beans getting some char. It made the black beans a bit crunchy and very tasty. Next came the smashed potatoes, grilled with a fennel seed and fennel pollen topping - intended to replicate the flavours of a porchetta and... it worked! The beans were mixed up with the grilled fennel and spring onions and a bit of vinegar and oil to make the centrepiece salad which we ate with our smashed potatoes. Surprisingly filling. Dessert was one of the weirdest things I have ever made. Grilled stone fruit - I used a plum, a peach and a nectarine - with grilled Raclette cheese! Texan was NOT weirded out. We considered what it might need to lift it. She suggested white balsamic vinegar. It was the perfect match. And yes, I know the picture is not the best but I promise you it was tasty. In fact, I am coming round to thinking that I can eat less meat and still enjoy a meal. Shock! Horror.

That looks sooo delicious @Adam Ag 98. I don't think there is enough time left in my life to eat all the tacos that I believe I deserve but I'm going to die trying and this recipe will help!

Two lovely looking grills. Congratulations on the 22 @BowtieBill. That is my secret favourite KK but I don't have the right setting for one. @Rob.C, you struck really lucky with that buy! Beautiful tiles. Now need to see your cooks!

Yummy cauliflower bake with harissa based marinade and peppers. I have made this at least 6 times and It is probably the only meal that would persuade me to become a vegetarian. Before and after about an hour at 180C It is another Ottolenghi recipe, this time from his Flavour book. i have no affiliation with him other than loving the things he does with vegetables. Link to online copy of the recipe is here https://www.irishexaminer.com/recipes/?c-recipeid=4124 I freestyle with the different types of pepper flakes, using what I've got rather than what he asks for and make my own rose harissa. Never disappoints.

Yummy looking food. All look great but my current trigger is @Troble's lamb. Would slice it up so that there were nice soft inside bits alongside the crunchy outside bits and I would lay them on top of a beautiful cheesy leopard skin pizza alla @Mcjudsten. I hate calling out individual cooks as, at a different time of day I would go for brisket in a burger. And it is only breakfast time. No wonder I am not getting any thinner!

Hey @Tyrus. You're right, it was fun and it wasn't that much work. That is just a selection of meals over a period of two weeks and I used the KK because I didn't have an indoor oven. The rest of the time we lived on cichetti (Venetian equivalent of tapas) in the bars we frequented. Back home sweet home, Italian chicken cooked on my 23KK. Could have been crispier but I now know, from my cooking in the 16KK without my usual clay dish, that I should leave clay top off for all or most of the cook. Next time it will be perfect.

Thanks for all your kind comments. We ate(and drank) well. I now need a drying out period with a fair bit of exercise to recover!

Had a blast with my 16KK in Italy and then had an 18hr journey home. 6:20am start in Italy and arrived home at 11:35pm in the UK. I didn't have a working indoor oven and so most of my cooking was done on the KK. Here are my cooking highlights from our stay in Italy: Asparagus mimosa from Plenty by Ottolenghi Sticky sweet and sour plums and sausages from Ottolenghi Test Kitchen: Shelf Love except I used apricots instead. Pan was on limit of its capacity. Excuse to go shopping. Best roast potatoes in the world according to our friend Francesco Cooked a couple of these beef ribs in quick succession. Top right is the Castellucio lentils with tomatoes and Gorgonzola dish from the "Plenty" book, made with orzo/pot barley in place of lentils. It worked really well. Bottom left is the roasted potatoes with aioli and buttered pine nuts from Ottolenghi Test Kitchen: Shelf Love. Francesco's opinion was that I had ruined the previously perfect roast potatoes by dousing them in aioli. I quite liked it! This dentice or bream was deeelicious. Served us for two meals. I didn't cook it as recommended which was a) to leave the scales on and peel off the skin when cooked and b) to cut a shallow incision on either side of the spine and use the colour of the flesh there to indicate doneness. I hadn't read the recipe when I chose the fish at the fishmongers and so had them take the scales off. The mat that I bought meant that the skin did not stick AND was crispy and tasty to eat. Our local butcher is a magician. From left to right - chicken wrapped in bacon (the best lollipop ever), mixed veal, pork and turkey kebab, lamb kebab and a "carpaccio" kebab which was beef wrapped with lardo. I was given strict instructions for cooking times, from 20 minutes down to 5 minutes. I staggered the timings for putting the kebabs on and they all came out beautifully. Except perhaps for the lamb which I would have had rarer. New pan and spatcocked, practically boneless chicken (dissosato). I omitted to take a photo of the finished product but can assure you that our friend Francesco declared it the "best chicken ever". He has been rude about my chicken cooks in the past but that was because I was cooking with crappy indoor equipment in Airbnbs. He was astounded by the juiciness of the chicken breast. KK magic. Day before our long road trip. Kebabs on a bed of summer courgette with tomatoes and ricotta (I substituted feta) from Ottolenghi Test Kitchen: Shelf Love Plus yummy fresh strawberries. Easy to pop in your mouth as you are driving along. Peaches and plums were banned, too dribbly. I have referred to this Ottolenghi book and the other one that I have in Italy called Plenty because I have been using them to explore veg cooking. It is easy to get stuck in a rut with veg and so I forced myself to try new recipes with the great produce available from our local market. It was a real success and I would recommend this and his other books. There can be lots of chopping sometimes but it's worth it.

Hey @Paul, you must be so proud of him! That article was really interesting. Hard to imagine how focussed, fearless and skilled you need to be to compete and win at that level.

Sorry to be late to the party. I hope you had a VERY Happy Birthday @Bruce Pearson