BBQ Bar Mitzvah Shabbos

This past Shabbos was 13 years in the making as we celebrated the bar mitzvah of our son. This also meant 13 people for Friday night's meal and another 11 for Shabbos day. An oppurtunity like this could not be passed up as I decided to use both the smoker and the grill for this Shabbos.

The first chimney getting lit

12 Pounds of Flanken Ribs to be smoked with cherry wood

3.5 hours later the ribs were ready for phase 2. They were given a light brushing of BBQ sauce and wrapped and placed in the oven for another 1.5 hours to finish.

A very important beer run was made for the part 2 of the Shabbos Bar Mitzvah BBQ

Finally at 6:30 PM before heading to shul I put the Beer Can Chickens on that were pulled off around 8:15 PM

Starting off BBQ Month properly

You know that your children are being brought up properly when they wake up in the morning and before they have even had breakfast they are asking if they are going to get BBQ for dinner. Little did they know that May is the office BBQ Month. In this house, every month is a BBQ Month.

Earlier in the day when I went to go get some BBQ supplies, I overheard a boy ask his father, what do you call a cow with no legs? I couldn't help it and jumped in and responded, we call it BBQ.

I had a little lump charcoal left over to add a bit of wood flavor to my BBQ

While the grill is warming up after pouring the charcoal, I like to put down the onions to start cooking

Next came the burgers

And the spiral hot dogs

While I still have some heat coming off the charcoal, I like to throw on some chicken so that I have dinner for tomorrow covered also.

It finally feels like Spring!!

Waking up this morning with the hopes and dreams of playing golf and instead seeing it snowing was not a happy feeling. As the day wore on and as I checked off more and more things around the house, I noticed the sun come out and temperatures outside finally become seasonal. After going to the range and hitting 100+ golf balls, I came home and knew I was going to making this day of March a true EIBG day.

For this smoke I decided to use lump charcoal and apple wood

For the actual smoke I went for chicken thighs and sweet potatoes.

My target temperature for this endeavor was 250-260 for 3+ hours

Getting a little smokey

After 3.5 hours

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.