Atomic Buffalo Turds – Can you say that here?

Posted on January 5, 2012 by ohernr

Admittedly, Atomic Buffalo Turd does not sound like an appealing appetizer, and explaining the name is no joy either. Around our house, we often just call these badboys stuffed peppers. I don’t particularly like hearing my little girl run around talking about buffalo turds, so stuffed peppers it is.

Whatever you want to call them, ABT’s are a hearty way to bring a little bbq wow factor to any party. With an unimaginable number of flavorful filling options, you can tailor these treats to any event.

What I’m going to give you is my goto ABT. The types of cheese may vary from cook to cook, but the overall flavor is usually pretty similar. For me, there are three constants to my ABT’s: Peppers, bacon, and cream cheese. After that, it’s wide open.

The peppers I use depend on the mood that day. I like simple jalapenos, but they vary so widely in heat, they can be a bit unpredictable. What I use most often are just little sweet peppers. They are similar in shape and size to jalapenos, but have little to no heat whatsoever. Just sweet pepper flavor. My taste in ABT’s tends to drift to the sweet side. Feel free to tailor your recipe to go a little more savory if you like. It’s hard to mess these up

Please allow me to share one of my all time favorites with you.

Italian Sausage and 3 cheese stuffed ABT’s.

Ingredients:

Block of cream cheese
1 cup smoked gouda, finely grated
1 cup mozzarella, finely grated
20 or so jalapeno or sweet peppers, sliced in half lengthwise, seeded and cored
3/4lb of bulk italian sausage, cooked and broken down to very small pieces. (turkery or pork)
1 package bacon, cut in half (so you get twice as many pieces, half as long.)
few tablespoons of your favorite bbq sauce

In a medium bowl, mix the three cheeses and bbq sauce into a big gloppy mess.

Put a layer of cheese into each pepper. I usually just put a little blob in, then run it down the pepper with my thumb. (By the way, I very much recommend latex or nitrile gloves for working with Jalepenos.

Add a layer of italian sausage, and press into the cheese mixture.

Wrap the whole thing with a half slice of bacon, and stab it with a toothpick. I like to push the toothpick through the bottom, so it creates a little stick to put between the grill grates, and keep the pepper from rolling over during cooking.

Put the whole mess of peppers on indirect heat until the bacon is cooked. If you smoke these at 225, this will probably be about an hour.

I wish I could provide you better pictures of the finished product, but usually, by the time they are done, I’m so ready to chow down, pictures wind up playing second fiddle to my belly!

enjoy!

Another Tip: If you are just using cream cheese, you can put all the cheese into a plastic baggy, cut the tip off the baggy and pipe the cheese into the peppers.

Turkey Time

Posted on December 27, 2011 by ohernr

This is one turkey that is worth the nap it will force upon you!

Smoking a turkey is not difficult as long as you know a couple of little tricks.

Food safety is very important when handling poultry (as it is with any meat).

You want your bird to spend as little time as possible in the temperature “red-zone”, the area between 40 and 160 degrees. For that reason, hold back on buying the 18 or 20 pound turkey. If you need that much bird, just buy two smaller ones.

Start with a self-basting turkey around 11-15 pounds.

Thaw the turkey according to the package instructions.
Remove all the innards they put in that little pouch inside the body cavity.
Trim away any extra skin flaps or fat (usualy some around the tail area).
Rinse the turkey inside and out and pat dry with paper towels.

Next part is optional, but it works great for me!
Make a couple of small slices on the top of each breast and the top of each thigh.
Put butter (or herb butter) inside the cuts between the meat and the skin. This will help keep the turkey moist.
Rub a light coating of vegetable oil (or butter) all over the outside of the turkey, and season with your favorite rub.
I usually use a spinoff of the Wild Willy’s Wonderful Rub with a few extra added spices. (My secret).

Time to put your turkey on the smoker.
If you are like me and use a Weber Smokey Mountain or similar water smoker, you will not be adding water to your water pan.
Foil your water pan to collect any drippings you wish to use for gravy.
Bring your smoker up to temperature, around 300 degrees.
Put the Turkey on the smoker and open all the bottom vents. Leave the top vents wide open.
Your smoker, if like mine, will likely climb to around 300 to 325. Perfectly fine for this cook.

This pic is after about an hour on the smoker.

Rotate the turkey halfway through the cooking time for even cooking if necessary.

At this point, I usually lay some foil over the breasts to keep them from drying out. It isn’t necessary, but I’ve never had a bad turkey!

Cook the turkey until it’s done. Cooking time will likely be around 3 hours.
Breast temperatures should be 160-165°
Thigh temperatures should be 170-175°

Remove the turkey from the smoker and let rest for for 20 to 30 minutes.
You should not put foil over it during the rest period, as this will make the skin soggy instead of the desired crispy skin.

Enjoy your fantastic Turkey!

Apple-Bourbon BBQ Sauce

Posted on December 15, 2011 by ohernr

This bbq sauce took 3rd place in Chicken at King of County in Martinez, and 8th place chicken in the West Coast BBQ Championships. Works excellent on pork and beef as well.

Apple Bourbon BBQ Sauce

1 cup ketchup
1/3 cup seasoned rice vinegar
1/2 cup apple juice or cider
1/4 cup apple cider vinegar
1/4 cub bourbon (I prefer Maker’s Mark)
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup soy sauce or Worcestershire sauce
1/4 cup real Maple Syrup (or you can use Molasses)
2 teaspoons prepared yellow mustard
3/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon ground white pepper
1/4 teaspoon cayenne
1/3 cup bacon bits, ground in a spice grinder
1/3 cup peeled and grated apple
1/3 cup grated onion
2 teaspoons grated green bell pepper

Preparation:
Combine the ketchup, rice vinegar, apple juice or cider, cider vinegar, brown sugar,
Worcestershire sauce, mustard, garlic powder, white pepper, cayenne, and bacon bits in a large saucepan.
Bring to a boil over medium-high heat.
Stir in the apple, onion, and bell pepper.
Reduce the heat and simmer, uncovered, 10 to 15 minutes or until it thickens slightly, stirring often.
Allow to cool, then pour into sterilized containers and refrigerate until ready for use.

The Sausage Fatty!! (My First Attempt)

Posted on December 6, 2011 by ohernr

The Sausage Fatty!!

Unfortunately, I still haven’t gotten around to getting pics of some other fillings for fatties, so here is a repost from pre-blog site. I hope you enjoy the run through.

The BBQ Sausage Fatty had it’s humble beginnings as a simple tube of Jimmy Dean’s or other breakfast sausage that was unwrapped and tossed on the cooker as is and smoked until done.

Today, fatties have taken on a life of their own. They are stuffed with every imagineable ingredient. My favorite is the simple Breakfast Fatty. It’s hard to go wrong with this one.

These are the ingredients I used in this fatty. First I smooshed out a 2lb package of Jimmy Dean Maple Sausage into a 1 Gallon Ziploc plastic bag.In the blue bowl is a 50/50 mixture of cream cheese and mozarella cheese. Also shown are scrambled eggs (already cooked), Sauteed onions and bell peppers, chives and Salsa Verde.

Once the sausage is all smooshed out nice and even in the bag, cut THREE sides of the bag. Leave the bottom fold of the bag in place. It helps to put the bag of sausage in the freezer for a few minutes to get it cold. This will make it easier to roll up. Pile all the ingredients into the middle of the fatty. Then using the bag to lift the sausage over, bring the two ends of the bag together to roll it up. This takes a little practice. But you want to make certain you have the creases and the ends sealed up well and pressed pretty tight. You don’t want a blowout on your first fatty!

My very first fatty, so I decided to add a bacon weave. Bacon weaves are not hard, and I’ll post a tutorial at some point .

Here is the bacon-wrapped fatty resting on the pre-heated smoker. In the back is a small log of plain breakfast sausage. You can add wood to your charcoal fire if you want a heavy smoky flavor in the food. My wife really digs this. I tend to shy away from the smoky flavor on my breakfast foods. For fatties, I usually use charcoal with no wood chunks for fuel.

Here’s the beautiful finished fatty. Note the bacon in the background. As this was my first fatty I made a few mistakes and tried to finish cooking the bacon by putting the fatty on my gas grill over direct heat. All the fat dripping from the bacon and sausage created a blazing inferno on the grill and I had to pull the bacon off. Lesson learned is this. Bacon cooked on the smoker, will NOT have the same color and crispiness it does when cooked in a skillet. As long as the internal temperature of the fatty is over 160 degrees, then the bacon on the outside should be done as well.