Sunday #BBQFest

Over the weekend, my ever so thoughtful son decided to remind me of the BBQ foods that we have not had in a while and he decided that Hot Dogs and Hamburgers were at the top of the list.

There is just something about hot charcoal on a cold night

Cottage Fries

Sriracha Aioli

Caramelized Onions

A sign of spring

Today, with snow and ice on the ground, we actually broke 45 degrees in NY after experiencing another rediculous snow on Thursday. This meant as my son put it, time to do something other than smoked chicken for dinner. My rule of thumb is that I don't attempt to grill anything on high heat unless its at least 45 degrees because I can't get the grill hot enough. Tonight I went with the classic Hamburgers and Hot Dogs with Cottage Fries.

#PIBB

A few weeks ago my wife who has been under a tremendous workload at work asked me to take over this year's Mishloach Manos planning and creation. I replied, I would do it but she should understand that I am not going to be baking a single cookie or cake. This project would be done completely on the Weber.

Unfortunately as the week's weather began to develop, a plan had to come together, and it was decided that Monday night would be the only night I could pull this off. Unfortunately the LIRR and PATH didn't want to play along and created a 2.5 hour trip home and a late start.

Fresh aluminum foil for the water pan was how I started this #SmokeFest

4 hours later the smoked chicken was done

Thursday morning when I went to pull it out from the fridge, the whole house had that smokey smell. Now the fun part, the assembly of the Mishloach Manos.

Winter Grilling

Hard to believe its been a couple of months since I have been able to BBQ. In the Northeast we have seen record snowfalls where it seems that my kids have been home at least one snow day every week. This past weekend we saw temperatures soar into the 50s degrees Farenheit which meant that I was not going to let that oppurtunity pass me by. Considering that it had been a while, I decided to go to Loews to restock on some charcoal and fire up the Weber Smokey Mountain and my One Touch Gold.

For this smoke, I decided to go with some hickory wood chunks that I had picked up.

If you recall, I recommended adding bricks to the bottom of your smoker to help maintain and retain heat inside the smoker. I then put down about 60 unlit briquettes and lit about 30 briquettes in the chimney.

After pouring the charcoal, I added the woodchunks and covered the smoker to bring it to temperature.

For this smoke, I did sweet potatoes and chicken with a spice rub and a little olive oil.

I let the smoke go for about 3 hours....

On the Weber One Touch I made burgers

And now as I sit and wait for the snow to come back this week, I have had to cover my grills again and set them for hibernation until the warmer weather arrives.

Winter Culinary Sundays

On Sundays in this house, I like to refer to them as #CulinarySundays. Its an oppurtunity to flex my inner gourmet self and put some thoughts towards making something that I don't usually have time to make during the week.

On Friday we had a some weather come our way and as you can see, there is some serious snow outside on my BBQ backyard and the temperature is too low to have a successful BBQ/Smoke.

I decided to make Chinese Potstickers (AKA Pan Fried Dumplings).

While these were not done on a grill, I have been thinking (as I watch the snow melt outside) how to do a smoked version of these when the weather gets warmer.