Tim's Grilling and BBQ Pit

What I got (or didn't get) for Christmas 2011

2012-01-14T09:49:00.000-08:00

Well, truth be told I didn't get anything for BBQ for Christmas, at least not directly. But I did get some cold hard cash from the in-laws (Thanks!!). Always a welcome gift. I have purchased a few items so far. I got a nice carving knife at the Costco Business Center. Have never had one - big gap in my knife collection. Haven't BBQ'd anything to try it out with yet, so I totally used the wrong...

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New BBQ Joint - Mike's BBQ in Escondido (mobile)

2011-09-04T20:45:00.001-07:00

Grabbed a quick full rack of baby back ribs to go after an afternoon with friends at Stone Brewery & some shopping. Will report back later with a mini-review. Will go back again later (unless this rack totally sucks) for a more traditional meal & full review. I can report that this place is huge. Plus a bar where you can eat off the full menu while watching the 15 foot (yes, 15 foot -...

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Map the BBQ

2011-09-03T23:48:00.001-07:00

I'm going to play around with adding a map to this blog. Figure I will include locations of all the BBQ joints I know, links to my reviews, etc. Hopefully this will be useful for folks looking for a place to eat some good Q. I was going to focus just on San Diego. But decided to go further since I am lucky enough to travel a bit too.

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Phil's BBQ - San Marcos, Our First Time

2011-08-13T15:58:00.000-07:00

OK, so Phil's BBQ has been open in San Marcos for a number of months now. Finally had a chance to get in there and check it out a bit. Was returning home from running some errands with Jen, and decided it was time. My standby, go-to meal at any new BBQ joint is the Pulled Pork Sandwich. It is what I judge a BBQ restaurant by. I have loved the BBQ Broham pulled pork from Phil's since the first...

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It Has Been WAY Too Long - Time to Smoke

2011-06-26T12:02:00.000-07:00

Well, we are in the new house. Still have a bunch of boxes to empty. Still trying to figure out just where it makes the most sense to put things. Still trying to pick which painting/photo to put on which wall. Still trying to figure out the irrigation system and fix broken PVC pipes. Good thing we have many years left to figure this all out! Have been doing a fair amount of grilling - mainly...

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Some Game Day Tri-Tip

2011-02-06T19:47:00.000-08:00

It's Super Bowl Sunday. I only state that because most of you will know what day it is, not because it has any bearing on anything. We didn't host a bowl game, we didn't go to a bowl game - heck - we didn't even watch the game! But we did have two tri-tips in the refrigerator, and this was the day to cook them up. Early in the day I skinned about 6 cloves of garlic, and cut them into somewhat...

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Bacon Jam – the quest continues

2011-01-22T14:31:00.001-08:00

OK – SO we are loving the Bacon Jam. Took some to a friends house and we all loved it on yams. Really good. We are using it a lot on burgers – the original use always seems to be the best. We are working on finding the best mix of ingredients. The first batch we made (in the post below) has been the best. But even the “bad” stuff is really good. For example – we made a batch and split the...

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Bacon Jam Burgers

2010-12-28T20:40:00.001-08:00

So you know we made up this recipe from the show FoodCrafters on the Cooking Channel. Just over 1 pound Bacon (cut up – about finger width) 1 Large Onion (sent through food processor – about 3/8’s pound) 1 T Brown Sugar (Packed) 1/2 Cup Balsamic Vinegar 1 T Jen’s Secret Sauce (sorry, can’t tell you what this is… – but it adds sweetness) Cook bacon in large cast iron pan...

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Tri-Tip on the Grill with Favorite Marinade from Our College Days

2010-08-22T09:27:00.001-07:00

We happened upon some trimmed Tri-Tip at the local store, and Jen has been craving it since we had a tritip sandwich at the local Major Market (they do some food vending at the lunch hours in the parking lot). Package was about 4.3 pounds, two pieces, highly trimmed. Back in the old college days at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (around 1989-1995) we learned about Tri-Tip and Santa Maria BBQ and all...

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Way Too Long…

2010-05-24T17:20:00.001-07:00

It has been way too long since I have fired up the smoker, and even longer since I have posted anything to this blog! I will take care of the first issue this weekend – going to clean out the pit Saturday, prep some ribs and a big pork butt, smoke them on Sunday and feed them to family on Monday – the Memorial Day holiday. Posting to the blog is something I want to be better about too. I...

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First Smoke of 2009 – Pork Butt / Pulled Pork

2009-01-18T11:52:00.001-08:00

We finally got our entry cards for Restaurant Depot so just had to wander around a bit. Hit heaven when we walked into the cooler – that’s a lot of meat in there! Pork Butt was on sale, OK, force me – I’ll grab 14 pounds and see if the smoking gods let me make some smoke this weekend. As you see below, it all worked out. Got the smoker and all out in the open and ready to go… Did not get...

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Two Pork Loin – 8 and 6.5 Pounders

2008-12-07T10:37:00.001-08:00

We stopped by a Vons on the way home from Thanksgiving dinner. I’ll tell you what – this is a good time to shop for meats, right after Thanksgiving. We picked up a 22 pound turkey for under $7 and about $100 worth of pork loin for about $30. Good prices! The turkey is for a dog club holiday party in a few weeks. The pork loin for a Loin’s Club Christmas Party a week after Thanksgiving. The...

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Hard to go wrong with a Ribeye on the grill

2008-10-11T01:13:00.001-07:00

We usually get the nice, big, think ribeyes at Costco - and have always really enjoyed them. But, we weren't going to Costco and we wanted beef, and these ribeye's at the grocery looked pretty good. So... Some kosher salt, a little pepper... Put some oak chips on the grill and... Time for dinner! As you would expect from ribeye's - nice and juicy and flavorful! This is our favorite...

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My First Pulled Pork

2008-09-21T02:15:00.001-07:00

And the first time using the "new" smoker. Actually lugged it up to my friend Mike's place. Turn's out they had a family wedding the day before we planned to smoke, so we were going to be feeding about 17 family members. I pulled two pork butts out of the freezer. They were just over 13 pounds together. Didn't get them out quite as soon as I had hoped, so turned to the...

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Review: BJ's Barbecue (Sparks, Nevada)

2008-09-20T13:41:00.001-07:00

I happened to be in Reno at the International Association of Assessing Officers (IAAO) annual conference a few weeks ago. Myself and two coworkers piled into a rental car with the Neverlost GPS system and took off for old Reno in search for food. We cruised the main drag a few times looking at the odd sights. I tossed out the idea of BBQ and Brent thought that was a great idea. We tried a few...

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Enter the Team Pork Fiesta Bowl Sweepstakes!

2008-09-04T23:50:00.001-07:00

[ Here's a contest that folks will like to enter for a variety of reasons. ] Fire up the grill and bring along the mega phones, foam fingers and team jerseys. The Other White Meat® and Ray Lampe (a.k.a. Dr. BBQ), tailgating expert and author of newly-released The NFL Gameday Cookbook (Chronicle Books) will be partying in the parking lot with lucky "Team Pork" fans as...

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Porterhouse over Flame

2008-08-24T10:24:00.001-07:00

Well, the smoker has been way too underused. Heck, I haven't even used the new (used) one I got. Once we are back from vacation that has to change. But until then we are making good use of the gas grill. That lamb was different and very good. Also been doing a lot of burgers for lunch mostly. Mixing in some pork. Salt and pepper for the wife - I've been mixing in some D-Dog's in a few of mine....

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Want a Free Grill & $10,000 Backyard Makeover??

2008-08-11T01:10:00.001-07:00

Crisco and Coleman have teamed up to bring us a "Grill-A-Day Giveaway". 100 Daily winners of a Roadtrip LE Grill. And one Grandprise winner, who will get a $10,000 backyard makeover - with a Coleman Series 8200 gas grill. Enter daily for a chance to win at: http://criscogrilladay.amgpromo.com/ Good luck!!

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Can a Hamburger be Gourmet?

2008-06-15T00:09:00.001-07:00

Why not? You see enough of them in restaurants for $10 or more! My wife read an article in a food magazine that had a fancy recipe for hamburger patties - we took parts of that and modified a little. We minced sweet onions, mushrooms and yes, even carrot. The original recipe calls for roasted garlic too - that sounds fantastic, but we didn't get that far. Although, the first...

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Grillin' Some Lamb

2008-06-03T00:57:00.001-07:00

We got a lamb shoulder chop (0.6 lbs) to bring out to my dad's for Father's Day to grill up - give him something special while the rest of us ate burgers and hotdog's. Well, it was a good plan, but we left the darn thing in the fridge at home! So I finally got around to it tonight. Wasn't sure what to do, so I popped onto the BBQ Brethren site and did a search on "lamb" - found a...

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Review (not mine) - QN4U BBQ House

2008-05-15T23:21:00.001-07:00

Fellow CBBQA member Professor Salt was able swing by the restaurant on his way home from a BBQ Competition and was nice enough to post some photos and a review of his meal.

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Wishland's Que'n for Kids BBQ Competition

2008-04-22T18:23:00.000-07:00

Well, for various reasons I won't get into here I was not able to attend this event after all. Which is too bad, since I was really looking forward to it. But some things do take priority over BBQ - not many, but some do... Twenty two teams turned out for this event - including a lot of rookie teams. It sounds like the turn out by the public was good too, and that the location was very nice...

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How to Pitch a BBQ Sponsor

2008-03-20T21:23:00.001-07:00

This post comes from the BBQ Brethren forums where Ray Lampe (Dr BBQ) was kind enough to post this letter that he had recently used to pitch an event (in this case the American Royal) to a potential sponsor. Ray only asks that you don't use it word for word, but do feel free to borrow from the ideas it contains. I certainly don't need this right now, but who knows, maybe down the road a bit!...

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ThermoWorks – Plug Mount Thermapen – Use any Type K probe. Small and Accurate.

2008-03-14T18:14:00.001-07:00

This Thermapen is pretty nice - you can swap out the probes so that you can use the right tool for the job without having to have a full second (or third or...) unit. Not the cheapest piece of equipment, but very handy and fast. Thermapen with Socket for Interchangeable probes Available with 1° or 0.1° resolution -50 to 1472°F (-50 to 850°C) ...

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Freezing and Food Safety

2008-03-06T23:39:00.001-08:00

This information is from a USDA website. There is much more than I have posted here so please follow links to the site to get more great information. This is a common area for questions - what can I freeze and for how long? Take a look at the site for a lot of helpful info! What Can You Freeze? You can freeze almost any food. Some exceptions are canned food or eggs in shells. However,...

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