Where There's Smoke

If grilling is cooking for men, then smoking is cooking for manly men (or really anyone who has taste buds... because smoked meat is awesome). I'd been looking for a time when I could try out my new smoker, so some friends and I picked a weekend that worked for everyone and planned a little cookout. The weekend we selected happened to be this past weekend, and somehow the weather decided to be amazing - clearly it was meant to be.

For my maiden smoke I decided to do a pork shoulder and a rack of ribs. I used one of the rub mixes that came with the smoker on both meats and then glazed the ribs with some BBQ sauce at the end of the cook. It was a simple enough process and the results were amazing! It's hard to believe what charcoal, wood chips, some seasonings, and a lot of time can do to a piece of meat.

I also decided, in order to make this an especially legit barbecue, to try making my own sauce. I followed a recipe online (with only slight variance) and it came out quite well. It's a slightly more acidic take on the classic KC style, but it balances nicely with the meat and oh man is it delicious. The recipe made a full 32oz squeeze bottle and it's already almost half gone. Apparently it went over well. I've got my sights set on something more like a Lexington style sauce used by Franklin Barbecue for my next batch. We'll see how that goes.

Somehow I managed to marry an amazing woman who supports me in my endeavors and even decided to supplement the meats of our lovely cookout with some delicious offerings of her own. Leslie made these wonderful corn muffins that really went perfectly with the meat. She also made two different kinds of mini cupcakes, both of which were great. One was a Bailey's chocolate cake with a Bailey's buttercream and the other was a lemon cake with raspberry buttercream. So freakin' good... and pretty too.

We ate in the early afternoon and then kept partying. We started off with a few rounds of BANG!, a fun little "wild west" board game. After that we pulled out the benches and had a bonfire on the back patio. Yep, a bonfire. In January. Go figure. We sat outside, taking in the (relatively) warm weather and campfire smells into the evening. We even lit up pipes/cigars, in case there wasn't already enough smoke happening for the day. But before long it got darker and colder, so we headed in and called this mid-winter cookout a success. Actually, considering the time of year, I would have called just being able to get the meat on the smoker without having to shovel a path a success - everything else was just gravy.

And there you have it - the year's first cookout. In January! Since the smoker worked so well I'm sure we'll be having plenty more of these once the weather warms up for real. I'm thinking I'll have to give a brisket a try soon... so stay tuned for that. And for more posts on here, probably.

But until then, thanks for reading and have a great weekend!