Camping...

With the long Memorial weekend coming to an end, it's time for most people to head home and back to work.
Sounds like a good time for me to go camping. I plan on being back next weekend. :)

A Breakfast Fatty on the Memphis Pro

The Memphis Pro came in handy for me this week. I assembled this fatty the night before and when I had the chance to smoke it the next day, the wind was howling.... gusts to 40mph.

There is no way I will chance lighting my horizontal wood burner in that kind of wind and the thought of standing in the wind to light coals for my drum didn't appeal to me... :)
The pro sits in a protected area of my patio, so the wind didn't effect the performance at all.

I heated the Memphis Pro and selected a cooking temperature of 375 degrees...



This is one of my favorite fatties....
I fried cubed potatoes, onions and cubed ham in butter....then added cheese.

Stuffed my fattie piston and chilled the filling...









Rolled out my sausage inside of a one gallon baggie, slit the baggie open and topped with the potato, ham filling....




made my bacon weave.....




rolled the bacon around the stuffed fattie...





into the Memphis Pro... using apple for the smoke...



the high temperature of the Pro make it possible for me to get the bacon crisp...















I topped a hot waffle with a slice of the ham, potato, onion fattie...



Added a poached egg and some creamy pepper gravy...





The combination of the waffle, smoked sausage... stuffed with ham, potatoes, onion and cheese....crispy bacon....poached egg and pepper gravy was sooooo tasty. :)

I love the Pro... it's quite a grill!

Goose Valley Wild Rice -n- Game Hens

I finally had the chance to try some of the Goose Valley Wild Rice sent to me by Nicole.. (thank you again!)

Goose Valley Wild Rice from
Goose Valley Natural Foods

I tried the Fusion package of a brown and wild rice blend....




I brined my hot tub hens in a mixture of water, kosher salt, sugar, onions, garlic, pepper and bay leaves....



fried a few pieces of bacon....





sauteed minced onion and garlic in the bacon drippings...



added chicken broth and the Fusion wild rice blend...

I let the rice simmer on low until almost all of the broth was absorbed...

then placed the pot of rice in my drum with the hens....
I smoked the hens and rice with some hickory and stirred the pot of rice about every 20 minutes, keeping an eye on the moisture content. I didn't want to let the rice dry out.

The rice smoked for about one hour and the hens took one hour and 15 minutes...

had to smoke some brown sugar/cayenne/whiskey spam...again...

















The Goose Valley Wild Rice Fusion was sooo tasty!! I'm really fond of wild rice but had not tried this brand before. It was great!


topped with the crispy bacon...

Thank you again Nicole for introducing me to your products. I'm sure I will be buying Goose Valley rice in the future. :)

Goofing off...enjoying the yucca and clouds

I love this time of the year. Maybe not the tornados but I enjoy the green pastures and blooming yucca.
The aroma in the air is incredible. :)

A thunderstorm was slowly moving into the area, the clouds were pretty amazing...









My favorite pasture for taking in the blooming yuccas...



they seem to go on forever....














my favorite little hilltop for cloud watching and star gazing....







a workover rig...

I really enjoyed the evening. :)

Shrimp Stuffed ABTs and Beef Fajitas

It had been awhile since I made stuffed jalapenos and I really do like them... so this weekend I whipped up a batch. Filled the split jalapenos with a cream cheese, onion, garlic mixture then topped some of them with poached shrimp...

then wrapped the abts in bacon..

into the horizontal using indirect heat this time instead of logs.... ( I was in a hurry :))













they didn't make it into the house... they seemed to disappear fast!












I marinaded two flat iron steaks for several hours in Andrea's steak sauce, then grilled them over some hot coals along with a few peppers and onions drizzled with olive oil and seasoned with kosher salt and cracked black pepper...

I remember being watched the last time I made fajitas...

Not sure if you can see the deer standing in pasture...

Heating the tortillas...




Served with some fresh pico de gallo, and a squeeze of fresh lime juice...




They were tasty!!