tony b

I'd truly love to say YES to that wonderful offer mk1, but I know a rabbit hole when I see one! There'd be no turning back, I'm afraid! I came dangerously close many years ago of falling into the rabbit hole of CASI chili cookoffs! I judged the Iowa state championship for several years, but didn't compete other than locally. I can still make a damned mean bowl of red, if I do say so myself!

He used efficacious in a blog post!

We're family over here, so it's OK!!

Threw some prawns into the leftover Hot Pot soup, a handful of angel hair, and big dollop of the chili garlic paste for dinner tonight. I just stopped sweating!

HI, Doc. Good to see you posting!

There's no such thing as "too much garlic!!" In fact, I just finished making a garlic & chile paste with the leftovers from a Mongolian Hot Pot soup. The recipe calls for 20 - Yes, TWENTY, cloves of garlic and about a cup of chopped asian red chiles, plus about a tbl of chili oil. I put them into a cheesecloth pouch so I can retrieve them afterwards to make this paste. I just toss the garlic cloves and chiles into the processor and pulse while drizzling in some oil. Not only is it a nice hot garlic paste, but it has the flavors from the soup - star anise, clove, sichuan peppercorns, cardamom, cumin, ginger, goji berries, and fermented black beans. I use it in all sorts of dishes. Makes a tasty mayo for roast beef sandwiches!

Great looking bread, MacKenzie!

Surf n' Turf, baby!!! Break a leg, kid, in the Guru challenge!

Thanks! I'll start there. I'll also pre-heat that new stone longer and at probably 400F. I guess that makes me the first Bistro Academy failure! Impressive MacKenzie, as always! At least my homemade tomato sauce came out OK, even if my crust didn't. Similar recipe, but mine's a cooked sauce. I used canned diced organic tomatoes, so didn't need the food mill (nice touch though!).

Tastes like chicken!

Who's toes are those??

Well, I tried the cracker crust pizza for dinner last night. I have some practicing to do. First, I used King Arthur Pizza Flour, which has some durum flour and baking powder in it along with the AP, so that might have had an influence on the outcome. The dough was super easy to work with; however, the crust tasted more like the bottom of a biscuit (or pie crust) than a crispy cracker. They didn't puff up or bubble during the par-bake either. I rolled them out with a rolling pin to about an 1/8" thick, 12" diameter (not totally round) - too thick??? Also, I was using a new pizza stone for the first time. It's a ceramic, but has a glazed surface. I think it will take longer to heat up than I'm used to with my old, uncoated ones. I heat soaked everything @ 375F for an hour before I par-baked the crusts. The stone was on the upper grate. Tried to give several minutes of rebound time between cooks, too. Every step took several minutes longer than I expected. I even cranked the KK up to 400F dome to cook the toppings on the second pie. This helped, but I still wasn't happy with the results. Hence, no pics! From an old cartoon that I enjoyed in my childhood - "Help me Mr. Wizard!!!"

on that steak MacKenzie! Second the vacuum sealer comment. I routinely run across something in the freezer that's over a year old, with no bad effects at all. Can't say that I've got stuff in there from 2012, but I haven't dug down to the bottom in a while!

"Throw me a bone here."

I've always wanted to go to MIM. One day, I'll get there! Congrats on the hardware. No shame in coming in behind Lilly or The Shed, both are top notch Q'ers!

Yeah, you can keep the snake! Not a big fan of reptiles of any sort! Otherwise, great looking food porn, as usual from the Backyard Bistro!

THANK YOU! Got me seriously thinking about pizza for dinner tonight!

I use the handle to pull mine out from its corner of the deck all the time and then push it back when I'm finished. This thing is soooo overbuilt that you shouldn't worry about it.

The Door and the Bar are always open!

Sorry, won't fit on my deck on the right side of the KK. It sits in a corner.

I move mine a couple of feet every now and then on my deck (ironwood) without any problems.

Looks like they might be out of business. Nothing on the web in a few years - website is down, no Facebook. Amazon lists it, but "currently unavailable." Did find one interesting thing - looks like they got into a trademark infringement legal tussle with Royal Oak back in 2011. Time for Plan B.

Like my favorite apron says, "I cook with Wine. Some actually goes into the Food!" I have two "sets" of liquor - the cheap sh!t in the kitchen for cooking (Rum, Tequila, Brandy, Bourbon, dry Sherry, and Marsala) and the good stuff for "marinating the chef" on the bar - and never shall the two cross paths!!!

Is there a particular reason you want mesquite lump charcoal, versus using a good hardwood charcoal with mesquite chunks for smoke/flavor? If you don't know about the Naked Whiz's charcoal database, check it out before buying charcoal that you've never used before. http://www.nakedwhiz.com/lump.htm Most of the mesquite charcoals got bad ratings - burn too quickly and produce lots of ash. But this one got an rare "Highly Rated" score.

Please tell me that you're not using your top shelf bourbon in BBQ sauce???