To me, nothing says summer more than barbecue and smoked ribs is a staple in my barbecue arsenal. Stay tuned for a 16 hour smoked brisket coming soon as well.

Ever since I can recollect, there has been a hot-topic debate over what barbecuing actually is. When I was growing up, we had “barbecues” and that meant anything being put on a hot grill, i.e. hot dogs, burgers, ribs, chicken, and then cooked relatively fast. This method is actually grilling. So, in fact, when my family was to have a barbecue, they were to be actually grilling the food not barbecuing it. Grilling is tender or lean cuts of meat put on a hot gas grill or over hot coals and fast cooking.

Barbecue, is low and slow. Please do not barbecue your steak. You won’t like it if you did…getting visions of shoe leather here. Barbecuing usually involves tougher cuts of meat and can, doesn’t always, use smoke. In my case, there will always be smoke. In most circles, barbecuing uses some sort of sauce; either homemade or store bought. People have tendencies here as well. Do we sauce while we barbecue? Do we pass the sauce when it’s finished? Do we sauce at the end of the barbecue? I typically like to apply a savory rub, wrap the meat in plastic wrap, and let it sit in the refrigerator overnight. I do not sauce until the cooking is complete and sometimes not at all. I do, however, apply a mop sauce periodically while cooking. This is usually a combination of citrus, apple cider vinegar, and oil. Applying the mop sauce, or mopping the meat, keeps the meat moist during the smoke. I am using hickory and apple wood to smoke these.

First things first: ribs should never, I repeat, never, ever, be boiled. Granted, you may speed up the cooking time, but boiling washes away so much flavor. Really it does. If you are short on time, smoke the ribs for 1 1/2 hours, wrap in foil with some mop sauce, and finish in a 350 degree-f oven until tender.

Okay, when it comes time to cook, I pull the meat out of the fridge about an hour before to bring it to room temperature. I place a foil roasting pan filled with apple cider vinegar, beer, or some liquid under the grate where the meat will be to catch the juices and deliver enough vapor to help keep the meat moist. I get my smoker going with charcoal, hardwood charcoal if I can get it, and bring the temperature up to about 180 to 200 degrees-f. Then onto the rack at the farthest part of the barrel. That is where the meat will sit for the next 4 hours. I then begin loading the fire chamber with wood chunks that have been soaking in water for at least an hour. The wood will begin smoking, feeding that smoky goodness through the barrel, over the meat, then up and out the spout. Throughout the process, more fuel will be added to maintain 225 degrees-f. No peeking! If you’re lookin’, you ain’t cookin’!

After about 1 1/2 hours, I begin mopping the ribs with the mop sauce. This is done about every hour or so. The ribs get smoked for a good four hours, but mind you, I don’t baby sit them. It’s too hot for that. I sit in the house sipping an adult beverage while the smoke does its thing. I check the temp and the volume of smoke every 45 minutes to an hour. If there is no smoke, I add wood, if the temp is dropping, more charcoal goes in. Simple really. And with practice, the reward is a juicy, succulent, tasty rib. I don’t believe that ribs should “fall off the bone", but be really tender to the bite with enough structure to hold on the bone. I don’t like mushy rib meat. Typically I like baby back ribs for this application, but this time the spares were on sale. At least something is.

I have to give many thanks to Krysta over at Evil Chef Mom for snail-mailing me some of her homemade blend of chili powder. I used this on one rack of ribs and my stand-by Memphis-y rub on the other. To get her secret recipe, please stop by her blog and drop her a line. It is really tasty!

For the beans in this dish, I used Rancho Gordo’s Yellow Eyes. After a 2 hour soak, into the pot with all the molasses and speck, and into the oven for 5 hours. They came out with a not so sweet sweetness and a hint of savory. But the texture of the bean was the best. This babies really held up to the cooking.

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Have you used a recipe from Cook’s Illustrated or ATK? Did you change or modify an ingredient or two or four? Well, ahem, you are a recipe pirate in their eyes. They have a team of enforcers who comb the foddie blogosphere in search of you dastardly recipe poachers and soon the jack-booted nanny-state enforcers are coming to a blog near you! Scared yet?

No really, CI and ATK are the recipe “owners” of all the land. Read this post and try to contain your outrage.

Another salad added to my repertoire is this farro salad with grilled vegetables. I got the inspiration for this from one of Bobby Flay’s shows. It’s been a while, so I don’t remember which show it was; probably “Boy Meets Grill” since there is plenty of grilling going on for this dish. There is grilled eggplant, which yields an incredible flavor, grilled red onion, and grilled tomatoes! The veggies get tossed in sherry vinaigrette with farro.



Before this dish, I had never cooked with farro. For those of you who may not know, Google it! Actually it is a nutty tasting grain similar to spelt. If you don’t know what spelt is, it’s a grain similar to farro. I had seen it, farro that is, as an ingredient in a few blogs here and there, so when I saw a bag of it in Whole Paycheck, I snagged some. Funny thing about that, the farro had no cooking instructions! So, I Googled, and found several different methods depending on the type of farro. This was confusing! One site would have me soak the farro for 8 hours and then soft boil it for 2 hours. I kept thinking “this is grain” not beans! Turns out, I had semi-pearled farro. This significantly cuts the cooking time. It only took about 20 minutes. I started tasting at 15 minutes in. I can say that I am impressed with this grain. It is the mother of all grains; it’s the “OG", original gangster grain from which all others are derived and also fed the ancient Egyptians. Apparently on the nutrition front, farro is a powerhouse packing fiber, magnesium, and vitamins A, B, C and E! I’m diggin’ this. So, go get you some farro, semi-pearled please so you don’t have to crack, hull, and soak it yourself.

In my last post I wrote about my minor “set back” which is having gained more weight than my knees care to carry. Progress is being made. There is no noticeable weight loss as of yet as I still resemble Buddha, just with an slightly aging athletic build. I have, however, been committed to a workout plan and I am finally, after several sore body episodes, able to workout every day. The goal is twice a day, once on the morning and then after work. That plan may get altered a bit though as it is 100 degrees here and my garage has no air conditioning. Thanks to all the well wishers comments on my last post. Very encouraging.

So here is another delicious salad I highly suggest that you make. This is one of those, “hey we just grilled some whatever and don’t know what to do with all this heat leftover.” I knew I was going to be grilling steaks so I planned ahead to use the residual heat for the veggies in this salad.

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So I get on the scale. Why, I know. The scale’s LCD registers a reading. It reads, “get the hell off of me!” Yeah, I’ve had a bit of a set back. I got myself down to 217 lbs by accident when I had my last gout attack. I vowed to stay low and to actually get lower. Yeeeeaahh. Not so much. I’m back in the 240 plus club.

So the wife and I agree to go back to a regiment of working out and eating more salads and just plain healthy foods. I have to have some cream thrown in there somewhere and she is a sugar freak, so maybe we need some kind of culinary 12 step program.

I have a garage full of exercise equipment. I knew that I was getting old when 10 years ago, I bought a membership to a gym and I never went! After knee surgery, I could no longer play basketball, I couldn’t run. I don’t jog. I hate jogging. When I was in the Army, the PT test was 2 miles, I’m doing it as fast as I can, somewhere around 11 minutes. I hate to run, but I love the feeling after. Weird huh?

Anyways…

So my garage, is filled with what looks like a chamber for the Marquis de Sade. All painful, rather pain inflicting apparatuses holding car cleaning towels and flesh eating spiders. I guess what I mean is, lots of money - no usey! So we begin with the BowFlex. Of this thing de Sade would be proud. It is more painful than your best dentist, trust me! I have an elliptical and a really nice treadmill. The spiders especially like the treadmill. The treadmill has a really annoying woman on their CD which plays in the treadmill, who annoys me, and works the hell out of me; increase the incline…"work those buns!” I’ll have another donut, thank you!

So I have started working out again. I want to lower my blood pressure, loose 35 pounds, look good in a swimsuit again, NO NOT THE BORAT SUIT!!!, and feel better all around. My goals are attainable and I will get there. But I’m gonna go have another slice of Beck’s mud cake…be right back!

Okay, so here is a dish that was absolutely amazing. I mean it. People, make this! It is a salad, but more like a salsa, if you want it to be. I’m all about the salads right now. Those of you who come here often are about to experience a deluge of salads and healthier, somewhat, dishes, along with my favorite bechamel or cheese covered anything!

This salad/salsa came from Becky’s Women’s Health rag. And let me profess once again, make this! I usually hate using canned beans of any kind, but these worked out just fine.

The recipe called for a smoked tomato vinaigrette from a bottle or jar and did not provide a recipe, so you get mine. I made it up and it was good. We actually used it more than once.

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Some of you may remember, back in the mid eighties, Eddie Murphy’s shtick about the “house burger.” Well that piece really resonated with me because everything he talked about was exactly how it was in my house. McDonald’s or, as was my preference back when I was a sub 5 footer, Ginos. The now defunct Ginos made a Gino Giant that put the Big Mac to shame. Hell, now Krystal’s (or White Castle’s depending on which side of the Mason Dixon line you are) put the Big Mac to shame. Have you seen one lately? I know that it turned 40 last year and it has its own museum now, but the burger is reminiscence of a bread sandwich with some salty charred film where an actual piece of meat once ruled. I mean, this thing is no longer a desirable selection when I jones for McDonalds to keep from getting night sweats. Quarter pounder please!

I was going to abbreviate Big Mac for the purpose of this post but that didn’t read so appetizing.

Well, back then, fast food burgers in our house was a rarity and the only time there were burger buns was when we were having people over for a cookout. If it was just us grilling, we got the bread, no buns. Yes, even hot dogs were mercilessly boiled, if we were lucky split and pan fried, then placed between some Wonder bread. If there was any of the government cheese left, we’d throw that down too.

And to think that I actually preferred the fast food burger over mom’s green pepper, onion, garlic powder, house burger. Well I guess we live and learn, because there is no way in Hades that I would have any sort of fast food burger over my king-of-the-house burger. And now I grind my own beef! People let tell you ’bout my best friend, my Kitchen Aid stand mixer! This workhorse handles the meat grinding, the ice cream making, the pasta rolling, and even slices veggies; not to mention its mixing duties. I am really happy with this multitasker! No disrespect to my food processor, he’s cool too.

Some of you may ask, why grind your own. My very simple and unscientific reply is, ‘cause it just tastes better. It really does. There are other factors as well. For instance, I know exactly what is in my grind. I don’t want to sound hypocritical, I do eat scrapple, but hell, if I could make it myself, I would. I just don’t have those kinds of pig parts readily available. (thank goodness)

The truth is that most of the contamination of ground meats happens at the processing plants. And the meat can come from multiple donors including that cow leaning against the wall over there because she don’t walk so good. Don’t sweat it if you don’t have the toys to grind your own, buy the cut that you want and have the meat guy at the supermarket grind it for you. He’s usually not doing anything.

Grinding your own allows you to control everything from the cut, the fat content, and yes, the flavor. If you were to grind a beef tenderloin for your burger, you would end up with a really tasty burger that was as dry as sand. There should be a good bit of fat in your grind if you want your burgers to squirt at you and drip that burger goodness all down your chin. That’s how I like my burger. If you use chuck or sirloin, with 15 to 20 percent fat you’re going to get meat that is really flavorful and juicy. For me, the best combination, is 3 parts chuck to 1 part sirloin. The chuck brings the juicy fat as well as beefy flavor and the sirloin is just a beefy injection of flavor. I cook my burgers medium rare from time to time and I would never do that with prepackaged ground beef.

This day, I chose only a fresh, well marbled chuck roast. Preeeetty!

I diced the roast into 1/2-1 inch cubes.



Then the cubes are off to the freezer for about 30-40 minutes to firm up. You want the meat to be really firm before going through the grinder. In fact, I freeze the auger, the blade, and the plate before grinding. Everything goes much smoother when everything is really cold.

Attach the grinder and the meat tray and grind away. I use the coarse plate. Kitchen Aid recommends that you grind beef twice, I never do and my burgers are just fine.

I mix in a little salt and pepper for the basic burger. For the binder, since I have 1 pound of beef, I went with 2 eggs and just enough breadcrumbs to hold together - maybe a 1/4 cup or so. There are other variations where I will add other spices, onions, and whatnot, but for the basic burger, all I want is beef and cheese.

On to the grill for and off when they reach 145 degrees-f. They get topped with sharp cheddar slices during the last 3 minutes of grilling. Oh, and never, ever, press down on the burgers with a spatula!



See? Ain’t nothing wrong with a little bump and grind!