Nice Skirt!!!!

Is that a rip in my pants?  Yes, yes it is!  What started off as a little rip during a conference call ended up being my crotch... :(

 

 Then, I had to change into my gym shorts :(  Once the little rip got going.  It was like a crack in a damn. 

Oh well it is Friday!  So, I say Fuck!  Be Happy :D

With or without pants on =)

14 hour smoke, a quiche, and my first date with....

Yesterday I smoked my first Pork Shoulder.  I worked that smoker for 14 plus hours until my meat was done.  Below is the tale about my adventure in smoking, making a quiche in my down time, and keeping my first date with myself tonight by writing this blog =)  Hey, you have to start some where right.

Step 1: Feed the beast

"There's a dragon with matches that's loose on the town
Takes a whole pail of water just to cool him down."

Fire! Fire on the mountain, The Grateful Dead

It is like a fiery dragon when it starts.  The smoke rolls out in waves and you stand and wonder just what in the hell are you really doing playing with such a machine.  However, you push on because after all there was meat to cook.

Step 2:  The Meat

Remember on Saturday I told you I wrapped my mustard and rub covered meat up in plastic and stuck it in the fridge.  I got up at 6 a.m. on Sunday morning and took said meat out of the fridge and let it warm up for an hour, well ok, it was an hour an 15 minutes, i slept thru the 7 a.m. alarm, and shiner woke me when she realized breakfast wasn't served at 7 a.m. sharp.

Take picture of pellets you are using so El Beav can go pick some up.  After all this was  a 14 hour process, one can't rely on the pellets on hand.  This really serves point in what I was doing but, wanted to throw a shout out to el beav.

Unwrap meat and marvel at it in all of its glory.  The rub crusted up really nice.  I mean really nice.  I give it to thumbs for appearance along.

Take the meat outside and introduce it to the smoker.

Meat is on 7:30 a.m. only a half hour late.

Shiner ready to go get coffee and go on her morning ride.  Yes, that is what happens ever Saturday and Sunday she goes ape shit for a ride.  She loves to go out Meridian to Camden and go over the hill.


Step 3: Mop

1st mopping, 9:30.  Until yesterday I had never mopped anything.  It helps crust up the meat and keep the thing moist, or so I learned by googling mopping meat.  The directions say Mop, I mop.

She sat there most of the day as the pig smoked.  Even when we were in the bed room, her nose was at the door the entire time.  I bet the smells drove her crazy, because they pretty much drove me crazy!

Second Mopping, 11:30

Third Mopping, 2 P.M.  Did I mention I did this after walking five miles.  That is right 5 miles, I kicked ass.  I was over 3 mph the entire time.  I walked strong and had not pain in the legs.  It was the best distance I have done in a while.  I am doing my distance for sure.  I am not going to lie and say I felt awesome on Monday but less sore from the last time I did back to back mileage.  My ankle hurts but I will manage.  Although, I am falling asleep as I blog, but then again it is Monday and I am tired, but hey 5 miles whats up!  The kid is back baby!

Forth Mopping 4 P.M.  I didn't do anything this tim like walk 5 miles but I did laundry, dishes, prepped for quiche, and walked the dog.

Fifth Mopping 6 P.M.  - at this point I think I stopped taking pictures of mopping.


Step 4: The Beav and the Quiche

El Beav and Puppy chilling on the couch.  But only after I put Beav to work helping me pet the quiche.  After all I needed some to chop the peppers and cook the bacon.  Although the grill totally exploded on him.  My grill is turning evil perhaps I should stop talking trash about it and talking about great the Smoker.  Or maybe a jealous grill is just a good idea for  Stephen King Novel.  

So, I made my quiche.  Looks good doesn't it!  This is what I did.  I took 8 eggs, 1 chili pepper, 1 red onion, 1 thing of chedder cashew cheese, fire roasted tomatoes, and 8 strips of crispy bacon and I mixed into a 9" pie pan, mmmmm pie, and 45 minutes later, we have quiche. now I had this shit for breakfast this a.m. and I may never eat anything else but quiche again for the rest of my life it was fucking awesome!  I give it two thumbs up I must say.


Step 5: Pulling my meat

7:30 and I hadn't reach the desired temperature of 190.  So, I mopped it again and let it keep going.

at 9:30 and a 170 degrees, and discussions with el beav, we decided to pull the meat.  It was cook. It looked good, and 14 hours on a smoker is a long as time.

I am not going to lie the meat looked fucking awesome.  Really awesome!  I was so excited.

So after 14 hours I finally got to pull my meat.  It was really, really good pork.

It is up there with the 16 hours hawaiin pig, but you can taste a difference.  One isn't better or worse than the other, you can just tell they are prepared a lot differently.

I am thinking the next time I do this recipe though, I m going to inject the meat some honey butter or something to keep mixing it up.

I have to myself two thumbs up for the cooking this weekend I was very pleased.  Very pleased with the food all was good!

Well this completes my first date with myself.  Where I set time aside and not matter what or how tired I am, I go sit down and do what I said I was going to do and what I enjoyed.  I will spend some time reflecting on it now and then it is time for night nights.

what am I going to do for myself tomorrow.  I am not sure..  either a date in the gym with some weights, or swim sounds nice, who knows... also what is next up on the smoker?  ham? chicken?  Turkey boob?  pizza?  I Can't say.  Then again I have 6 days to think about that.

happy Monday!

Saturday Night and I am playing with my meat...

Here it is a blog that is 2 hours late.  As part of my new therapy I am supposed to make dates with myself 1 a day and keep them.  My date tonight was supposed to be writing at 7 P.M.  which was just piss poor planning on my part.  First 7 PM is when the dog gets here food.  It is also the time when the Billy gets his food.  So, when 7 came and went today I was working the grill trying to keep the remaining arm hairs intact after last weeks little flame up.  

For anyone who missed it on Facebook last week.  My grill has never ever flamed up on me.  I think she is getting jealous because she has been regulated to a warming oven, and a counter top when needed.  I am sure ever since my smoker showed up she has been feeling a little neglected.  

And if you don't believe I was outside cooking at 7, her is the puppy waiting to her yummies

Stupid Uncle Billy makes me sit here while he cooks good smelling stuff and I have to go eat Dry Kibble.  

What the hell I am cute!  Why don't I get meat!  

Anyway... so I Was going to write after i ate, then i remembered, I had to wash out my new camel back.  I got the Mule, because it is time to get into some mileage.  Well 5 miles for me tomorrow at 3 miles today is some mileage.  We are going to go out in the a.m. and kick a little ass!  Then i realized I hadn't played with my meat yet.  So, I had to do that. 

Tomorrow at 6 a.m. i am getting up and setting my meat out.  I am going to let it warm up for an hour and get to room temperature and then at 7 I am going to start smoking it.  

We have the usual suspects were called in to make a rub.

Ya, it is a good rub!

That right there is a 5 pound boston butt!  Which apparently is the shoulder, so I don't know why it is called a butt.  However, that is the meat I am playing with tonight.

Following the guidance at Civilizedcavemancooking.com I first lubed my meat up with a little mustard.

Then I used my rub on it.  I worked my meat over and over again.

Made a bit of a mess with all my rubbing.  wasn't the first time and it won't be the last.

Damn that is some good looking meat!

I am terrible at wrapping my meat.  I mean I hate cling wrap.  I can never use easily.  It is sticky and it turns over on itself and I used way to much.  I mean really, I hate this shit, I dropped it twice.  I had to wrap my meat over and and over.

Finally we got my meat all wrapped up and put into the fridge where it will rest until six a.m.

Well 6:15 a.m. see if you read till the end you would have caught me in a  lie.  Then 7 a.m. we start the smoking.  

9 a.m. I go out for five miles...

11 a.m. I curl in a ball and cry from walking 5 miles.  

make a BLT Quiche after that...

listen to some AC/DC and make another date with myself.

So far I like this doctor.  She gave me some new meds and some home work.  I see her again in three weeks.  she used to specialize in eating disorders in over weight children, which works well for me because I am an over weight 40 year old child =)

Even though I was flat at the scale today, this was my best week in a while.  I don't think I had any episodes of AFIB until just now when I said that.  Fishy.  I am feeling on the up.  

I think a lot of it goes back to breaking the machine.  breaking the cycle.  looking at the coin from the other side. 

Anyway... tune in tomorrow to see how my smoking and meat turned out!  

Has this man finally lost his mind and is now going to inject Sweet Lady H into his vains - or -

The question that has to be asked is a simple one.  Did the man in the photo above finally loose his fucking shit and go insane and start shooting large amounts of heroin?  Or he is going to attempt to inject meat for the first time with a meat injector that he had to stop at four places before he actually found it?  I am going to cation on the side of this is a man who takes his meat very seriously and when the recipe called for injecting honey butter into the brisket he was not afraid to rise to the challenge. However, it does make for a pretty scary fucking picture or a pretty funny one depending on your point of view. 

 We start with a 5 lbs beef brisket....

 We cover that shit with yellow mustard.

 We then take our favorite meat rub.  Ya, I could have a field day with meat rubbing comments, but I don't have time for them right this second.

 I think fill my meat injector with the honey butter, well ok, I didn't use honey.  I am trying to stay off the sugar as much as I can.  So, I decided i would inject the meat with real grass fed butter, plus apple juice.  The recipe called for basting with apply juice regularly, so I figure why not just fully inject that shit in. 

The thing about a meat injector is there are no instructions.  So, I pulled the little pusher down thingy you find on syringe, pulled my marinade in and then tried to push the stopper thingy back in and that is when my butter apple juice mix exploded all over my face and shirt.  I didn't did get a picture of that because I was covered with butter juice.  However, I can tell you that my glasses were splattered and today sitting here recounting this I can still smell butter.  It is like I am wearing o'day movie popcorn cologne or something. 

Anyway, back to my meat...

As you can see I injected butter directly into the brisket.  The meant wouldn't hold the entire marinade, but I got in as much as I could.  Now they say in order to smoke a proper brisket you need 10 to 16 hours.  I started this process yesterday morning at like 12 or so, so I was not going to have time to do a full smoking the way I wanted to.  So, I used what the BBQ Pit Masters Call the Texas Cheat

 I have no idea why those people call this the Texas cheat.  I really don't, but you basically employ a Texas Cheat by wrapping your meat in Tin Foil.  I would much prefer to wrap my me.... ok ok I am not going to get side tracked here with that talk...
 

 Then you get the smoker ready to go... and then you wait... you cook your chili.  you cook you sweet tator mash.  you make your mayo.  you sliced your lettuce and tomato.  you make your breakfast (non-oat oatmeal).  you walk the dog.  you do laundry and then you wait some more.

 7 hours later you have a smoked brisket texas cheat style and it is the moistest thing you have ever put in your mouth.  My god... this thing was, well it was awesome!

 It didn't develop the crunchy exterior i wanted but i think that was because the texas cheat just kept it to moist.

 It fell apart as I sliced.  I mean I have never had such an easy time cutting a hunk of meat. 

Half way through it just started to fall apart.

See it would have made a mean shredded brisket sandwich.  

 Yes,  I used my charbriol grill as a cutting table.  So what of it.  It has to be used for something now that I have the Smoker!

Shiner watching El Beav eat some Brisket, she got nothing but kibble. 


so that is how I spent one of the hottest sunday's I can remember.  at least there was good meat at the end of the day =)