Labor Day Weekend Cookout

Yes, it is once again another blog post about me slav­ing over a hot grill to pro­duce some mouth-watering vit­tles for unsus­pect­ing guests (well ok, maybe not so unsuspecting).On the menu for this evening was the basic smok­ing meats that I usu­ally cook, those being pork spare ribs, beef brisket, and a 4 lb. roast­ing hen. The ribs were rubbed with Jamaican Jerk Rub, Chipo­tle rub and my own spice mix (3 racks, 3 dif­fer­ent rubs). The chicken was brined using basil, thyme, gar­lic, onion, black­pep­per, paprika for about 6 hours prior to plac­ing it on the grill. Cook­ing started at 5:00 a.m. in order to get the meat ten­der and deli­cious as all prop­erly smoked meats should be. The guests were sched­uled to arrive at 6:00 p.m.

Wes and Nancy showed up bear­ing gifts of a pasta salad, a scrump­tious chocolate/peanut Texas cake, and a bot­tle of Jaimeson’s Irish Whiskey (a nice touch as I have not had any good Irish Whiskey in a long time). Marty and Tish showed up shortly there­after with Marty’s spe­cialty tuna/pasta dish (not real sure what all was in it but it was good) and a bot­tle of wine. Jean had fixed a fruit pizza to go along with the meal as well so you can see that we had plenty to eat. The meat still had a bit of time left so we vis­ited and admired my newly re-built firepit in the back­yard, catch­ing up with each other’s hap­pen­ings and lives.

Soon it was time to unveil the meats and to apply the bbq sauce. This time I opted for the sim­ple and easy choice of Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ Sauce (the orig­i­nal). I am still work­ing on devel­op­ing my own sauce but it is not quite ready to unveil yet. The ribs and the chicken both were of good color and won­der­fully ten­der. The brisket unfor­tu­nately was not to the qual­ity that I have been known to pro­duce in the past. I believe that it was due to hav­ing to open my smoker in order to add the ribs and the chicken at the proper time to get them all done on time. Next time I will get the brisket on a cou­ple of hours ear­lier in order to ensure the ten­der­ness that I know I can obtain.

Over­all though we had a won­der­ful evening. Although it had been sprin­kling just before the guests arrived, we had a good cou­ple of hour win­dow of good dry weather and great con­ver­sa­tions. Lord give me good friends, good food, and a nice fire to make my evenings com­plete. Below you will find some links to some recipes and other sites to whet your appetite and your cre­ative side of cook­ing! Enjoy!!

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