tony b

Yes, it is!! I thought that I had posted this already, but who knows what I did before?? So, here's my 1st contribution of my "home style" - South Carolina low country (aka Charleston) Shrimp & Grits. The recipe is one from a dear friend that I've known since high school, with some added notes by me. Mary Carr’s Fabulous Shrimp & Grits recipe Shrimp (for 6-8 servings) 2lbs medium (25 count) shrimp (peeled/de-veined) 1 Tb butter 1 cup minced bell pepper (a mix of red, green, yellow, orange) 1 tsp Sriracha Hot Chili Sauce Saute peppers in butter until soft, add the shrimp and chili sauce and cook until the shrimp are just pink. (Cook shrimp sous vide w/o peppers, just butter poach with seasoning. Put peppers in gravy along with Sriracha.) Place shrimp on top of cheese grits and smother in the red-eye gravy. Garnish with chopped chives and/or parsley. Red-eye Gravy w/mushrooms 1 Tbl butter 8 oz country style (salt cured) ham (Andouille and Spanish Chorizo work, too) ½ cup Shitake mushrooms ¼ cup minced onion ½ cup Madeira ½ cup strong brewed coffee (french/italian roast or espresso) 1 Tbl cornstarch 6 oz V-8 juice (spicy) (Can use Bloody Mary mix, just be mindfull of the extra salt) 1 Tbl minced thyme Melt butter in large pan over high heat, sauté ham until beginning to brown. Add the mushrooms and onion, continue to brown. Pour in the Madeira, followed by the coffee. Simmer until the liquid is reduced by ½ (about 15 minutes). Dissolve the cornstarch in the V-8 juice and whisk into the gravy. Return to boil and allow to thicken. Add thyme to finish the gravy. Cheese Grits 1 stick butter 2 cups water 2 cups half & half 1 cup grits (it is essential that these are stone-ground white grits – my choice is Carolina Plantation Stone Ground Grits - http://www.carolinaplantationrice.com) 1 cup sharp cheddar cheese (Vermont white cheddar is also good) salt (be generous in salting the water for the grits, similar to pasta). Melt butter in large pot. Add the half & half, water and salt. Bring to a boil. Slowly add the grits. Reduce heat to low and simmer until done (texture should be similar to polenta). Add the cheese and stir until melted.

HOLY CRAP!!!

Thanks for the tip El Pescador! Hit up my Costco today to score the cowboy ribeyes. It's a Father's Day special, so folks - get to Costco NOW!! Prime grade bone-in cowboys for $12.99/lb!! I didn't see any out in the general meat section with the other Prime cuts, so I had to ask one of the butchers. Quickly 3 of them set to work on a couple of full ribeye loins, sliced them and frenched them on the spot! I came home with 3 of these beauties! So, if you don't see them in the meat counter, ask for it!

Has all the earmarks of a POSK with the gas insert. At least this one is a plain one, so you won't have to worry about tiles falling off in large sections! Good luck restoring it. Best advice - do not, repeat, DO NOT, do any direct business with Robert Johnson (aka RJ). His a notorious charlatan and will just take your money and you may or may not ever see any product/parts, etc. Most likely - not.

Cool stuff. I've used that pasta before - it's good. Fingers crossed, your package finally arrives in good shape! No leakers this time! LOL!

I like his style. He keeps it fun.

I buy my actual wood chunks from Fruita (great source) and they typically come with bark on them, so if the pro's leave it on, enough said!

@Alohapiggy - I miss Wicked Good as well. It was my "go to" for many years. Then their facility had a major fire and they were out of production for a long time. Didn't come back at full capacity, so their distribution is cut way back. My local shop said they can't afford the shipping anymore and won't carry it. I get my Rockwood from them, and being a BBQ specialty shop they don't manhandle the bags of charcoal like the gorillas at the big box stores! @ckreef - I just opened my bag of Fogo Brazilian Eucalyptus wood charcoal. This stuff is like cocochar - burns a long time and almost as hard to light! But, I'm liking it as much as the Cuban Marabu stuff, if not more.

Nope. That's a new one that I had heard of before??

Some brands are worse than others about large amounts of chips & fines in the bag/box that you're paying for but can't use. Check out the Naked Whiz's charcoal database for recommendations, as one of his rating criteria is % of the bag that's unusable. http://www.nakedwhiz.com/lump.htm The smalls and fines will clog everything up quickly and block your airflow. Now, ckreef claims he just dumps his bags of Royal Oak straight into the basket with no problems, but I'm not that cavalier. I actually built a strainer (1/2" wire mesh on a 1" x 1" wooden frame) and dump my bags onto that and sift out the smalls and fines.

As noted, goes inside on the draft door rails, curved side up. It protects the wooden knob(s) on your draft door from the heat and helps keep ashes from getting in the door frame and causing air leaks after shutdown.

Get one of these, they are magic! https://smile.amazon.com/Kotobuki-190-803-Earthenware-uncooked-resulting/dp/B00C7SIGUO

So, I FINALLY got around to using my new half rack last night. Works great, as expected! Grilled corn on the cob and a nectarine (w/Pineapple Head), with a nice sirloin below. Direct - 350F with a chunk of mesquite. Nectarine went on the salad, with arugula, spinach, red onion, toasted almonds and feta cheese. Grainy mustard and basil vinaigrette. (Sorry, this one was a bit fuzzy!) Plated. Mushrooms with a balsamic glaze on the sirloin. Was disappointed in this corn - very starchy, which tells me it wasn't very fresh.

Not a big deal to slightly bend your angle probes to go through the port. Many of us have done it successfully. Just take it nice a slow and bend gradually. @Alohapiggy - consider building yourself a smoker pot out of a cast iron dutch oven. Works great and no worries about "bad smoke." A couple of key tips - holes in the bottom of the DO, not the lid, and second - only takes 3 small (1/16" - 3/32") holes. Some folks drilled way too many or too large holes and it doesn't work as well.

Glad your daughter alerted you to the problem and you were able to save the cook!

They are amazing grilled with a bit of char on them. It really does change their flavor in a good way. Fingers crossed that I can find bags of them at my Costco.

I like using my Guru on really long cooks, just for the piece of mind, especially if I have to leave the house for a while. While it's not foolproof, it might have saved your cook.

Nothing wrong with that!

@MacKenzie - roasted shishito peppers for breakfast - you go, gurl!! I will have to look for them during my next Costco run. I really like them, especially with a dipping sauce of white soy sauce (Shoyu), sweetened rice vinegar, and sesame oil. I tried to grow them, but I only got like one or two peppers at time, which never was enough. I'm trying again this year, but with 4 plants instead of 2.

I've had fires go out mid-cook before, but it's rare. The one time that I can recall the reason was that my smoker pot was sitting on top of the burning coals and when they burned up more, the pot slide down and blocked the fire from getting to the unlit charcoal in the basket. I now make sure that my fire is started at the front of the smoker pot and not completely under it.

As noted, this part is just to help keep ashes away from the draft door and as a secondary heat deflector so you don't burn up the wooden knobs. Good advice from others to only bend the tubes in the draft door, never the rods on the door themselves. It's a bit counter-intuitive, but you put the screwdriver into the tube and slightly bend it in the OPPOSITE direction of where you want to put more pressure on the draft door.

Someone's running the show over there, as I still get a random email from them same as ever??

He makes it looks so easy - LOL!

Dennis can weigh in with the definitive answer, but my recollection is a FULL pallet is 120 boxes. This order was just a 1/4 of a pallet.