Oinkions on my new Rec Tec Mini!

Hey y'all!!

So I am extremely excited. My Rec Tec Mini came in today!! I am so ready to start cooking on it.  This will be my first experience with pellet grills, but I think it will be a great time.

With that said, I needed to season the grill and I was hungry!  I figured kill two birds with one pig.

I came across this recipe for "Oinkions" over at GOBLUEBBQ.  I love their site.  Lots of good stuff.  Basically they are onion rings without batter but bacon as the outside. umm....YUM!!

First let me say, if you have kids and/or you value every second of your free time, do NOT, I repeat DO NOT, try this.  It takes forever...haha.  It's not particularly hard but its pretty tedious getting the bacon wrapped around the onions tightly.

So I started with some sweet Vidalia Onions.  These came from Glennville, GA.  Cannot go wrong there.

I cut them up into roughly 1/2" slices, give or take..ha.

I took the middles out and left two rings per slice, I read that others do 3-4 but I cannot imagine biting through 3-4 slices of onion at once, no way.  So two it is!

Here is all I used.  Bacon, Sriracha, my homemade Kansas city BBQ sauce, some long toothpicks.

I coated half of the onions in Sriracha and half in my BBQ sauce, just our of curiosity.  

I wrapped them all up, took forever.  Ok, really it only took like 45 mins or so but it felt like forever.  I also put at least two toothpicks in per oinkion, to try to hold the bacon on tightly as well as to keep the onion together.  Some of them turned out pretty good and some of them...well, did not!  I also sprinkled some of my homemade rub that I use on ribs and pork butts.

I preheated my Rec Tec mini to 300 and put those babies on!  They would go on to cook for about 90 minutes.  

Also, because I am a little weird and/or because I am a lot awesome, I like my bacon and my onion rings with honey mustard sauce.  Think alice springs chicken at outback.  So I whipped up a batch of my honey mustard.

3/4 cup mayo

1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon honey

2 tablespoons dijon mustard

Mix it all up and chill it for a few hours.  Seriously, chill it.  When first tasted, you will think, this is NOT honey mustard.  Well, after a few hours swimming with each other, the ingredients get really acquainted, fall into a love triangle and it gets awesome. 

*Note: If you even think about using Hellmans or Miracle Whip in this recipe, a kitten will die.

I also made some chicken wings to go with the oinkins...cause, I had neighbors to feed...ha..

Here is the wings and oinkins on the rec tec...starting off!!

Just about done!

I only got a shot of the oinkins...the wings were gobbled up....it was delicious!

The Rec Tec Mini is here

Hey y'all!

Just a quick post to say my rec tec mini came in today. They boxed it up nicely!

I fired her up for the initial burn in phase, at 400 degrees for an hour.  Listen to her purrrrr!!

     

Stay tuned for my first meal on the new smoker...probably chicken wings since they are quicker than Q!

Pizza night!

Hey y'all!!

Pizza night around my place is usually Friday.  With that said, my fridge seems pretty bare right now with the exception of homemade sauce, pepperoni and mozzerella cheese.  I also happened to have flour and yeast...ha!  Sooo, with all of that just sitting around, I figured it was a good time for pizza night.  I usually grill my pizza, but wouldnt ya know it, I am out of propane too. Geeezz....what have I been doing around the house to run out of everything but wine and beer :)

So I whipped up a homemade recipe of pizza dough as follows:

1 cup warm water
1 Tablespoon active dry yeast
1 tsp of sugar

Mix all that up and let the yeasties eat all that sugar....I forgot to take a picture but I left mine a little too long and it was growin' out of the cup!

I use a food processor for my dough since I do not have a fancy Kitchen Aid mixer.

3 cups of flour
1 tsp salt

I put these two in the bowl, wiirrrr it up a few times.  With the blade still running, I drizzle in the yeast mixture.  It comes together pretty quickly.  Scrape that gooey mess out of the processor and place it into a large greased (with EVOO) bowl.  I cover it with plastic wrap and put it in the fridge.  I have read that when yeast grows in cool places like the fridge, the taste is better.  I usually let this sit for a few days but today, I was too desperate to eat something other than lettuce.

Here is the dough after 5 hours in the fridge.

I let it get warm on the counter for a few mins....45 or so.

After that I put it on a floured surface and punch it down...taking out all those aggressions.  The dough is enough for two good sized pies...probably 14".  So I divide it into two and freeze one of them for later....possibly another day when I have nothing else in the fridge.


For a great pizza, you gotta get that oven screaming hot, 500 or as hot as it will go.  I use a pizza stone, but you could also use a cookie sheet.  With a cold oven, I put my stone into the oven to preheat.  Turn on the oven and let it go for a good 30-40 mins.  I also put a little flour on my stone. If you do not have a peel...get one. Cheap tools that really help a lot..even more so if you are grilling the pizza.

My stone waiting for the preheat...and yes, its supposed to be that ugly.

I take one of the dough balls and stretch it out as good as I can.  I have also read that using a rolling pin can take too much of the air from the dough, making it a very dense crust.  I have also done this...many time, and I agree! One dough ball waiting for flattening.

The other going in the freezer!

The cast of characters.  I usually use a block of mozzerella and grate it myself but hey, we are doing this desperate and do not wanna leave my house, style.

I suck at rolling out dough...its never a "perfect" shape, but whatever. it still tastes good when its oblong!  I make my own sauce using The Pioneer woman's recipe found here. I make a batch of this once a week probably cause I love pasta and sauce!  and its a great pizza sauce as well.

I spread a little sauce on my malformed dough, put my cheese and pepperoni on, slap that puppy in the preheated oven! It does not take long for this pie....5-8 minutes or so.

Here is the cooked pie ready for me to eat...right after I burn my tongue twice trying to eat it too hot.

I also spread a little basil love on my pie cause I have so much growing I cannot use it all...see!

Better late than never

Hey Y'all!

So two years after I said to myself "hey, I should make a blog about my life with BBQ and other shiz", I finally post a blog.

I figured what better way to start than with my past weekend of BBQ fun.

I went to my local butcher to fetch the butts for the BBQ weekend....35 pounds of pork!

I, of course, forgot to take any pictures of the preparation process, this blogging is hard work! This is the butts after about 12 hours of cook time.  They were all roughly the same size, they would go on to take about 14 hours to reach IT of 195.

I yanked them off of the smoker and pulled them.  We mixed some of my dad's homemade yellow BBQ sauce and it was delicious! The party goers were all happy!