What's cookin' boys?

[RCW]

Got 6 kids/significant-others coming for Christmas, along with mom and I, and 3 grandparents. 4 of them are travelling long distances, and will be here a few days.

Future son-in-law from California is a great cook, almost as good as me. Can help me out with it, as I work both 24th and 26th.

Working on menu...see what you think. The kids (age 19-26) are all great eaters, and they're all carnivores. No vegetarians in this bunch:

Sunday PM - apt to be late (late for me is 7pm ):

1. Homemade Pizza..my twin daughters always loved Dad's homemade pizza.... Usually hot sausage/peppers/onions. I use their great-grandmother's sauce recipe she brought with her when immigrating through Ellis Island. (I'm the redneck farmer side, Mom is the Italian).
2. Chicken wings...my homemade Redneck Chef Medium (coff, coff medium) sauce. Got 13 pounds of beauties for raw wings....love chicken wings.....I could bottle that sauce in retirement...it's good stuff...
3. Vension speidies...maybe. Sounds kind of cold/windy Sunday. Have them cut and marinating just in case.


Christmas Eve Dinner:

1. Shrimp scampi
2. Broiled scallops
3. Fresh pappardelle pasta with prosciutto, tomatoes, mushrooms, spinach in champagne sauce


Christmas:

1. Whole grill-roasted beef tenderloin - 2 of those...big eaters... 1 is ~8#, other is ~4.5# peeled
2. Turkey breast - bone-in oven-roasted...Grandma bitches if there isn't turkey....
3. Ham - oven-roasted...because I like it better than beef tenderloin
4. Maybe venison backstraps/tenderloins if I don't do speidies Sunday...my daughters will be looking forward to venison sometime.....

My Best Wishes for Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to You All!!

 

[SidecarFlip]

I'm getting hungry......

 

[RCW]

Fiipster - these are from last Christmas.
I’m not bragging, but I’m better than your average bear at cookin’.. I HAD to do it to pay for college, but really enjoy it still 30+ years later.
As I get older, wish I was better at welding, but several guys here on OTT have helped me with that too!
Great bunch we have here.

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[RCW]

Super Bowl Sunday....Just the Mrs. and me.

Fried shrimp, scallops, chicken tenders and Onion Rings on the side. (I cheat and buy the onion rings...)

Real simple, but a favorite for 30 years.....

 

[skeets]

RCW... man that looked like it must have been one super supper there,, outstanding

 

[sheepfarmer]

RCW, you got any good recipes for lamb hearts you'd like to share? There are a couple at the top of the freezer that I am wondering what to do with..

 

[skeets]

Lamb hearts,,,, you know you might be able to stuff them like you do a beef heart with apples and raisins and maybe some sweet meats like maybe a mincemeat, or maybe something like a pepper pot soup

 

[Daren Todd]

Got a new toy Actually I was given half of it. For a 10 year gift at work I had a choice of multiple things, but they weren't really anything I was interested in. So I ultimately chose the Char Grille table top grill.

What I found out later was it was also a side fire box for Char Grille's full sized grill to turn into a smoker

So...... I conned my wife into letting me get the larger grill. Hey, we had both been discussing getting a smoker anyway We just managed to get one for half the price figured that was a good bonus.

So today after a small learning curve and a couple false starts, I'm trying my hand at smoking a chicken Figure that's a cheaper screw up then ruining a turkey if I bomb big time on it.

I injected the chicken with some barbecue sauce since my wife can't do the cajun injectors due to the butter

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[skeets]

Think Im going old school and make cabbage and noodles with bacon,, yeah that will work

 

[Fordtech86]

Any pellet grill users here? Things you like or don’t like about them? Picked up a new pit boss yesterday, only cooked burgers on it last night because of the storm. Hope to experiment this weekend with smoking on it.

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[Ramos]

We bought a pellet grill two Summers ago. Played it safe and saved the propane grill 'just in case'. Have not used the propane grill AT ALL. If there is a drawback to the pellet grill, it would be the time between turning it on and being to temperature as well as shut-down and remembering to go back out and kill the power later.

We grill a large variety of food and I truly believe the flavor is noticeably better with pellets. Even take-and-bake pizza. It's way better than the oven and keeps the heat outside.

I do think it is a wee bit more expensive to run, pellets vs. propane. However, the control and flavor is more than worth it to me.

 

[Fordtech86]

We bought a pellet grill two Summers ago. Played it safe and saved the propane grill 'just in case'. Have not used the propane grill AT ALL. If there is a drawback to the pellet grill, it would be the time between turning it on and being to temperature as well as shut-down and remembering to go back out and kill the power later.

We grill a large variety of food and I truly believe the flavor is noticeably better with pellets. Even take-and-bake pizza. It's way better than the oven and keeps the heat outside.

I do think it is a wee bit more expensive to run, pellets vs. propane. However, the control and flavor is more than worth it to me.

Do you use it as a smoker to or mainly just to grill? Guy at the store was telling me not to run straight flavor pellets (hickory,apple, etc) in it but to mix it with the “standard” pellets for lack of better description lol. He said the flavor is so much that you can’t even eat the meat. What he couldn’t tell me was what percentage to mix at.

 

[RCW]

Ford -

I've looked at pellet grills a few times, but just can't give up propane.

We do everything from very quick weekday meals to multi-hour roasts/turkeys on weekends.

I've probably had 10+ grills in our 30 years of marriage. I like a BIG grill.

Early on, our "cheap" ones ($350) lasted 2 or 3 seasons after 1 burner change. I've melted a couple of the cheapie castings, both top and bottom.... I'm aggressive with the heat. [emoji41]. Not sure I can get that with pellets, and I burn pellets for heat, so we usually have them.

Then I got a HUGE Vermont Castings for$1,000 that lasted 11 years, and I wasn't replacing burners or other parts.

Our current Weber is nice but small to me. Look forward to another BIG one....

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[Fordtech86]

Ford -

I've looked at pellet grills a few times, but just can't give up propane.

We do everything from very quick weekday meals to multi-hour roasts/turkeys on weekends.

I've probably had 10+ grills in our 30 years of marriage. I like a BIG grill.

Early on, our "cheap" ones ($350) lasted 2 or 3 seasons after 1 burner change. I've melted a couple of the cheapie castings, both top and bottom.... I'm aggressive with the heat. [emoji41]. Not sure I can get that with pellets, and I burn pellets for heat, so we usually have them.

Then I got a HUGE Vermont Castings for$1,000 that lasted 11 years, and I wasn't replacing burners or other parts.

Our current Weber is nice but small to me. Look forward to another BIG one....

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I’m coming from charcoal grills, never had propane. I like the speed of propane. I was really looking to get a dedicated smoker until I stumbled into the pit boss lol, wasn’t even at Lowe’s for a grill but I came home with one.

As far as heat I’m sure you can get it from the pellets. Don’t know how others are set up but mine has a sliding piece in the center that will give you an open flame. When I did the initial burn off I was pushing 600 degrees on the dial thermometer, which is right above the flame tho. They recommended setting the control to 450 to burn it off, I turned mine down once it started getting around 600.

I’m now expert either, but I’m not sure if there a difference between heating pellets and cooking pellets but they warned about only using “cooking” pellets.

 

[Ramos]

Do you use it as a smoker to or mainly just to grill? Guy at the store was telling me not to run straight flavor pellets (hickory,apple, etc) in it but to mix it with the “standard” pellets for lack of better description lol. He said the flavor is so much that you can’t even eat the meat. What he couldn’t tell me was what percentage to mix at.

We have a huge, ancient upright freezer converted to a smoker. I built a fire box that sits underneath where were all the mechanicals used to be. This still gets used for large batches. The pellet grill has smoker duties for batches of jerky up to 8 pounds, wet. Does a nice job and is closer to the house than the big smoker out in the shop. For pellets, we usually use Green Mountain's Texas Blend. My understanding is that home heating pellets often have formaldehyde or other nasty chemicals that act as binding agents. Bad mojo for our health.

 

[Fordtech86]

Sauces for the wife and I,plain for the kids


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[RCW]

Whatcha' cookin' for your mom, or a mom you live with or know?

For us, the mother of my children loves BBQ shrimp. I added some broiled scallops and strip steaks (steaks are from the store...new beef comes next Saturday).

Yuuummm...

My son is home from college and eats pretty good...add a couple pounds of garlic sautéed asparagus and salad, we’ll be good...

Part of this guy will be in my freezer next week.

Best wishes to all the Mothers and “Mothers” out there on OTT...[emoji41]

 

[Daren Todd]

Daughter is having a crawfish boil today. But for those that don't care for crawfish. I got a couple pots on the stove. These two pots are for shrimp pots on the stove have the same veggies, but are seasoned with Bay seasoning and beer

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[RCW]

Daren - - that looks awesome!!

Never had crawfish....people would not like crawfish, but eat shrimp?

Is the flavor that much different, or is the way you eat them?

 

[Daren Todd]

Daren - - that looks awesome!!



Never had crawfish....people would not like crawfish, but eat shrimp?



Is the flavor that much different, or is the way you eat them?

The seasoning was pretty close to the same as the crawfish. I've had crawfish many times. My issue is the work to get the little bit of meat out. I feel the same about crab legs as well. I like the meat, not the work. For my wife, and quite a few other people, the thought of eating a crawfish gross them out

We can get fresh shrimp, deveined and shelled at the local grocery store. So all you gotta do is cook them up

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