July 10th, 2010 BBQ 101 Class by Professor Salt

My Four Q BBQ teammate is starting a series of BBQ cooking classes in Irvine, California.

An excerpt from his website on the class follows.

"Have you always wanted to learn how to make slow smoked, authentic Southern barbecue? Perhaps you’re not sure what type of equipment you’ll need, or how to make better use of the smoker you already own. Sure, you can learn by reading books and lots of trial and error. Or you can speed up your learning curve by taking this class, and go home with the delicious barbecue you made yourself!




•Learn from a local expert who’ll show you contest winning techniques.

•This is a hands-on class: you’ll trim meat, season it with dry rub, and cook it while I guide you through the process

•You’ll get your pick of different smokers to demo: Big Green Egg, Weber Smokey Mountain, Weber gas grills, Traeger wood pellet smoker, and an “Ugly Drum Smoker” – a 55 gallon drum smoker you can learn to build yourself.

•When: Saturday July 10,2010 9am to 1pm

•Where: Irvine location to be revealed after payment is received.

Call 949 334 7485 with questions


Cost is $95 per student, which includes lunch, and you get to take home the meat that you’ll cook. The grill shop where classes will be held is offering 10% off of the cost of a smoker, and 20% off of accessories. If you’re in the market for a nice smoker, this discount can offset the cost of tuition."

Bigmista's Barbecue empire - latimes.com

Bigmista's Barbecue empire - latimes.com

Real.Good.Meat

See article in L.A. Times July 1st, 2010.  The man to go to for great BBQ.  My Four Q BBQ teammate now on his own and doing quite well. 

Trying Out A New BBQ Sauce Recipe This Weekend

Stay tuned for how Mugs Rootbeer and these ingredients will come together for your backyard BBQ grillin and chillin events this summer.



MUG Root Beer
Southern Specialty Barbecue Sauce

1 cup MUG¨ Root Beer
1 cup ketchup
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
1/4 cup orange juice
3 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
1 1/2 tablespoons (packed) dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon mild-flavored (light) molasses
1 teaspoon liquid smoke
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon peel
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon onion powder

Instructions:
Combine all ingredients in heavy medium saucepan. Bring to boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer until reduced to 1 1/2 cups, about 20 minutes. Season sauce to taste with salt and pepper. Cool slightly. Transfer to bowl. Cover and refrigerate. (Can be made 2 weeks ahead; keep refrigerated.)

Recipe provided by MUG Root Beer. I haven't made it yet, but others who have describe it as having a "mild tangy" flavor.

Whole Hog in South Carolina

I saw this link to a story published 6-0-09 in the New York Times and I found it very interesting. Thought I'd share with all of you. Featuring Scott's BBQ in South Carolina.

The Whole Hog

Also see the article wriiten the Dining and Wine section of
the New York Times 6-9-09.

Pig, Smoke, Pit: This Food is Seriously Slow (in a very good way)

March Meat Madness Photo Slideshows

"Anything But"- Smoked Apple Crepes with Dulce de Leche Sauce. Learned that I need to include a knife on the tray.

Ribs

Tri Tip

Chicken

Sylvie's Flickr Set

Professor Salts Photos

Tim C's Photos

March Meat Madness

Four Q BBQ is Grand Champion, i.e. # 1 overall out of 10 teams competing in the March Madness Backyard BBQ Event. We are so happy to have achieved our first Grand Champiom (GC) award.

CBBQA Rocks.

Bummer- Rain Postpones Backyard BBQ

Call us Southern Californians a little wimpy when it comes to rain and I'd forgive you. The forecast this weekend has been for showers and more showers, slightly heavy at times. As a result our Backyard Super Que Saturday has been postponed until a later date probably in March.

Part of the fun of backyard events is the socializing with other teams, tasting site to site with a competitive spirit and all this outside with only an EZ Up for cover. With rain and wind added factors and cool temps (50ish), it all makes for a not so comfortable environment. Thus the decision to postpone.

Backyard At The Rocke III- Praticing My Ribs

Next weekend Four Q BBQ will be joining 14 other teams in a little get together where we all prepare three meats (chicken, tri tip and ribs) and an "anything but" category, get judged by official CBBQA judges, taste each others food, and just have a good time as one big BBQ family.

Sorry for the tease, but this one is not open to non-competitors. However, we have a number of open competitons coming up for 2008 which I will definitely keep you all informed of.

Anyway, you all know I am the pork butt queen. However, for this event, we switched things around and I will be doing the spare ribs. This is our opportunity to have constructive feedback and judging of varying prep techniques and seasonings.

Ribs with about another hour to go.


Ready to eat.



I am also going to prepare the "anything but" category. What is "anything but"? Well, just simply not ribs, not chicken and not tri tip. Could be meat, could be a dessert. To keep the other teams from stealing my idea, I can't post my practice run on this category yet, but I will say it is a "throw back" to a dessert popular in the 80's and experienciung a surge in popularity over the last year and no- it is not Fondu.

Reserve Grand Champions -La Quinta 2007

Reserve Grand Champion = 2nd Place overall. More later. Too tired to write. Go Four Q BBQ!

Kick the Tires and Light the Fires

Another successful backyard BBQ event was hosted by CRocke this past weekend. This event gave us Southern California BBQ teams a chance to receive feedback from some official KCBS judges and new teams a chance to get a taste of competition. Two of us from Four Q competed and what an experience.



Big Mista prepared the ribs

and chicken while I did the


tri tip

and "anything but" (Korean Short Ribs).


BigMista also prepared pig candy using apple cured bacon with brown sugar and cayenne smoked in the UDS (Ugly Drum Smoker).

A couple of weeks ago I posted about my attempts to perfect lemon squares/tarts for the anything but category. Well after looking at my practice results and considering who were the judges, I decidwd to drop the lemon stuff and go with Korean BBQ short ribs. Those who were there know I really didn't make a choice until the last mninute. I went from lemon sqaures/tarts to rose water creme brulee to lemon sour cream pound cake with marshmallows and lemon curd to the final choice of Korean short ribs. Yes I even had homemade marshmellows in the shape of pigs which I was going to plate with the lemon sour cream pound cake. I forgot to take pictures of the piglts but take my word, they were cute and tasty.

A number of folks took photos of the event. I have listed the links below:

Survival Gourmet
Sylvie's Flickr Photos
Leanza's photobucket

Results: Well, we got 2nd place in Tri Tip. I as well as most of the participants who tasted the chicken agreed that the chicken was also first class. We went out on a limb with presentation which seems to have not been a good thing with the judges.

For complete results see the CBBQA wiki site. Hope you all (non-members)can open this link.

I Taught Him All He Knows About BBQ

My son just turned 23. Instead of someone cooking for him, he chose to cook for his friends.

He smoked 2 pork butts, 2 racks of ribs, grilled chicken wings, hot links and hamburgers. He also made potato salad, coleslaw, salsa and macaroni and cheese casserole. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves. I tried to give him some directional assistance, but he wanted to do this all himself.

His Own Recipe For Mac and Cheese
Pulled Pork

Potato Salad (His Recipe)

Cole Slaw


Tony Grilling


Smoked Spare Ribs St Louis cut

He learned most of this by watching me, participating with Four Q BBQ Team at two competitions and experience gained as a Navy cook and currently as a student at the Culinary Institute of America.

Not bad for a first attempt at backyard BBQ'ing on his own.

Tri Tip Prices

(photo courtesy of Ralph's weekly ad)
This weekend, a local Southern California grocery chain, Ralph's, had beef Tri Tip on sale at $1.99 per pound untrimmed (regular price was $4.99/lb). Though untrimmed, there wasn't much fat. This is a great price and all you need is a Value Plus card which is available at all stores.

I was at Costco earlier Sunday morning where trimmed Tri Tip was about $6.94/lb and Smart and Final had untrimmed for about $5.99/lb (gobs of fat on their untrimmed).

Why this great interest in Tri Tip? In a couple of weeks, I'm going to join one of my BBQ team mates (Big Mista) for some BBQ backyard fun. A number of local Southern California BBQ teams will be meeting up to do what is basically a competition practice- "Kick the Tires and Light the Fires". No pressure, just pure fun. We are matching BBQ cooking technicques on Tri tip, chicken, BBQ ribs and "anything but" chicken/ribs/tri tip. In that Tri Tip is not my specialty, I will be cooking a couple a roasts prior to the event to develop my skills.

$1.99/lb Tri Tip is perfect to practice with and also good eats. I did do one roast yesterday (sorry, forgot about pictures) which though tasty and tender still needs to be tweaked so the flavor will "pop" (to quote Big Mista).

I also will be doing the "anything but" category which could be a dessert or meat except for ribs, chicken and Tri Tip. All the food just needs to be prepared on site the day of the event. I haven't formalized what I will prepare for this category yet.

La Caja China at the First So. Calif Brethren Bash 2007

What a great weekend. I got to spend some quality time with some fellow BBQuers at the First Southern California Brethren Bash hosted by Pat in Norco. This was a most anticipated event where we knew we were in for some artery clogging superb BBQ and side dishes.


The highlight of the event was the cooking of a 29 pound suckling pig prepared on the "La Caja China" by Big Brother Smoke. For me, the "pig picking" of the suckling pig was my first ever. I must say, I really enjoyed this.
We had some trouble getting the skin crisp which required a little torch action, but that didn't take away from the enjoyment of it. The meat was moist and very flavorful. Pat and BBS added a mod to the La Caja China which allowed the meat to cook with smoke infused.
A selection of ribs rubbed and seasoned using varying techniques and preps by multiple Brethren. (sorry this is all displayed after we tasted).

Food was continuously being cooked and served. Bacon wrapped pork, habanero sausage, brisket, teriyaki wings, ABTs, fatties, more ribs, cole slaw, peach cobbler, apple cobbler, cake, corn, salsa,Bagna Cauda, chips, Filipino rice, burnt ends, jello shots, margarita's and all with a helping of luv of Q.

See my flickr photos for more highlightsof the weekend. I also encourageyou to visit some of the other links below for photos taken by others attending.

Sylvie's Bash Photos
Thawley's Photos
Big Mista's Photobucket

Brethren Site Forum Thread

Bacon Wrapped Pork Loin
Peach cobbler

Father's Day Weekend 2007

Saturday- BBQ At Ron's

Ron put together a BBQ contest featuring three of us preparing varying meats.
I did ribs and pork butt. Bill did brisket and chicken, Bernie did a meat platter featuring smoked turkey and sausage. Judging by an unbiased threesome who fell in love with my ribs prepared using the technique of my Four Q BBQ team member Professor.

Ron prepared a smoked salmon platter with grilled shrimp, mango and deconstructed guacamole as the centerpiece of this bbq extravaganza. The whole salmon is layered with cream cheese, dill and cucumber.

Grilled Shrimp
Bill's Rotisserie Chicken
Bernie's Meat
Platter Featuring Smoked Turkey and Special Blended Sausage
Sylvie's Pork Butt
Sylvie's # 1 voted Spare Rib












On Sunday, I cooked a Father's Day Seafood Feast For G


Shrimp, scallops, clams, crabs, zucchini and green salad
Steamed Crabs
Zucchini

Shrimp and Scallops in garlic Butter Sauce

Clams

Memorial Day Weekend Cooking

Memorial Day weekend marks the official beginning of summertime backyard cooking. With one goal in mind for this weekend and you know that was to make sure I spent a good deal of time in the kitchen and doing backyard cooking. It's at these times that I wish I had a full outdoor kithen.

No particular menu in mind, just use what's in the freezer, refrigerator and pantry. I did pickup some things at Costco on my home from work Friday (wild shrimp U-12, some tomatoes and mozzarella cheese). I removed from the freezer a tri tip I had previously marinated (Professor's secret marinade) and then frozen for later use. For Easter, my son had boiled too much penne pasta so I froze some. This I removed from the freezer to make a pasta salad.

I find that cooking eases my mind and takes me away from all those stresses of work. No one can tell me what to do in my kitchen. I work at my pace and produce foods for the enjoyment of others. This past week at work was one of those that was hard to take. My desk was piled up with items which accumulated while I was vacation (no one to cover my workload) and to add to this, it seems everyone wanted to re-invent my priority list and bump their needs over mind. I'm thankful for a class I took a couple of years ago on how to say "no". Anyway, I'm digressing.

My daughter T is home for a week prior to moving to the location of her very first 100% off my payroll job. Friday, G and I took her to our favorite local sushi restaurant, Sushi Karen .

Saturday, T and I headed for some shopping at Ontario Mills. Girls day out and we found some great Memorial Weekend sales even for me. I guess you are wondering where the weekend of cooking begins. Well, after the shopping spree,we headed home where I began Saturday's dinner and prepared the ribs for the next days smoke.

I marinated the wild large shrimp (fyi- Costco had both farm raised and wild shrimp for the same price. I went for the wild shrimp after remembering a pod cast which supported wild U.S. shrimp versus farm raised and convincing me that wild shrimp would be more tasty and have a better texture). My marinade consisted of olive oil, parsley, salt, pepper and lots of minced garlic. I was going to grill these so I decided to skewer them.
Wild U-12 Shrimp
Marinading
Skewered and Grilled Shrimp












My pasta salad was adapted from a recipe I found in last AAA's Westways magazine. Caprese Salad with kalamata olives, tomatoes, mozzarella cheese, zucchini and basil (from my garden), roasted bell peppers, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, penne pasta, garlic, salt and pepper. This salad was fantastic. Best served at room temperature. My substitutions were the balsamic vinegar instead of red wine vinegar, roasted bell peppers instead of sun dried tomatoes in olive oil and I added the zucchini.















The marinaded tri tip was grilled over indirect fire until med rare. this is sliced and served with some of the marinade I had in the refrigerator. Can't divuldge the recipe for the marinade as I promised I would never publish it as a condition the Professor would give me the recipe. Let's just say, it is jam packed with Asian spices, sauces and herbs.




I found time to prepare some spare ribs. I cleaned them, removing excess fat and the membrane covering the ribs. I rubbed them with my Sylvie's Magic rub and then returned them to the refrigerator to smoke the next day.

















In that T is a pseudo vegetarian (she eats fish but no other meats), I also prepped some salmon filets to smoke for her.













For dessert, T requested that I make Cinnamon Bread Pudding. I used the same recipe posted previously minus the Nutella chocolate. I substituted the raisins with dried blueberries and added walnuts per T's request.






With all this food, by Monday (official Memorial Day), we are having leftovers.