Friday, September 28, 2007

Ten Pounds O'Beef

Yeah, it's a lot of meat. I bought a 10-pound brisket the other day and decided to try my hand at smoking brisket, which is allegedly pretty difficult to master, because of the temperamental nature of beef.

I had to cut the brisket into two halves because it was too large to fit onto my smoker, and also to cut down a little bit on the cooking time. I seasoned it the night before with a homemade mix of a whole bunch of different stuff (garlic, onion, spanish paprika, chili powder, cayenne, kosher salt, etc.) and smoked it over hickory for about 7 hours, basting it with some apple juice every hour and 15 minutes or so.




This is right before I threw it on the smoker.


This is how I was able to do the whole thing at once; cut it in two and put it on two different grates inside the smoker.


Hello!


This is one half (the leaner half) of the meat, post-smoker.


This is the fattier half.


*Ahem* Smoke ring.


Nice crust.


Close-up of the fatty.


Too much meat. (and that's only half of it)


Other half.


That is some professional-looking brisket.


This sandwich was glorious. 3 or 4 slices of the brisket, topped with some apple BBQ sauce, courtesy of our friend Puffy, who brought it all the way from the famous Corky's in Memphis. And of course, you must have the pickles (although these aren't the high-quality ones) with a BBQ sandwich.


Leftovers. Lots and lots of leftovers. We will not eat all of this; please take some off our hands.

Overall, despite being a little scared of smoking the brisket because of its temperamental nature, it was pretty easy and it turned out really, really well. It had a perfect amount of smoke, it was tender enough, and topping it with the apple bbq sauce was excellent.

*sorry for all the pictures; I apparently got a little carried away

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Sunday, September 23, 2007

The Seven Month Socks!



Seriously, why did it take me this long to knit these socks?
Oh, yes. I started them over Spring Break as Jaywalkers. Had to rip them out because they were WAAAY too tight. But I hate ribbing so much that I just ripped out to the ribbing and started them as plain socks. Problem solved! Then I got sick of them and start in on all the baby blankets and forgot about them. I pulled them out last Saturday and finished them in a matter of days. However, I did cause a knitting related injury to my left ring finger, since the dang thing is totally numb today. Alas.
I think these are my favorite socks that I've made so far. And I looove the star toe. Much more comfortable!

The stats:
Yarn: Knitpicks Simply Stripes
Needles: Size 1 Boye DPNs
Time to complete: For-freaking-ever
Pattern: Simple stockinette, gusset heel, star toe.



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Now to wind my yarn so I can start Starsky!

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Saturday, September 22, 2007

Chicken. . . burger?

I was pretty skeptical of eating a burger not made of a dark meat, but Pan bought some ground chicken and made burgers with them. I was inspired by Planet Sub's bbq chicken sub, so I topped the burger with pepper jack, pickles, and a rich bbq sauce (OK Joe's, in this case). It was really pretty damn good.


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Sunday, September 09, 2007

Happy Birthday!




Pan's reaction to the MS paint pics above were pretty similar to this guy's:

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Saturday, September 08, 2007

It Don't Mean A Thing, If you Ain't got that Wing

I know, lame headline. Anyway, Pan bought me a package of chicken wings, so I figured I would grill them up while she was at the KU game tonight, since she's not a big fan of bone-in chicken.

For the rub, I accidentally used a coffee rub that I had previously used on some steaks, then I basically threw the wings on the grill for about 4 minutes on each side, then basted them with a sweet chipotle sauce (store-bought) for another minute or so on each side. I was a little skeptical of the quality of the outcome. I shouldn't have been. These may have been the best wings I've ever eaten. My only regret is that I didn't make some sort of cream sauce (like a blue cheese dip) to balance out some of the heat. I enjoy some hot wings, but it was starting to get to me after about the 3rd or so wing. They were still awfully delicious, though.


Pre-grill, obviously. They were rubbed generously with the coffee rub.


This was after they had been on the fire, just after I applied the first coat of basting.


Mmmm. . . post-basting and ready for eatin'.



The aftermath. And this is what I about looked like after eating all the wings.


Overall, this experience just made me realize how I should be grilling chicken more often, and especially chicken wings, for appetizer purposes. They are incredibly easy to prepare and only take about 10 minutes of grilling, and the ease of eating them and their full flavor make the whole process easily worth it.

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Tuesday, September 04, 2007

Cinderella's Blanket

Here is the latest installment in the baby blanket knitting marathon. This is for a new niece (her sisters want to name her Cinderella!) expected in October. Hopefully nobody else gets pregnant soon, because I'm sort of sick of making baby blankets.

This is a modified version of Ann & Kay's Mitered Squares from M-D Knitting. I just sort of started knitting the pink and white miters and went from there. I didn't want to do the math to change the square size, but I think it worked out rather nicely. I used around 7 skeins of pink Ormo Atom (got online from discount brand name yarn, huge bargain!) and the remaining 3.5 left over from the Argosy baby blanket.
I knit with the yarn doubled and used my Knitpicks size 11's. The individual miters didn't take long at all, and how fun, once you build up some momentum, they just fly!

It ended up being pretty large, probably about 40"x40". Once I got rolling on it, it went pretty quickly. This was also my first project involving any sort of massive seaming. Once I got the hang of it, my mattress stitch went pretty quickly and looked nice.

Overall, I'm quite pleased with this blanket. It's soft, machine washable and PINK! Cat included for scale. And because she HAS to be included in whatever is going on. Brat!
A close up of the center square. 4 smaller miters.
Folded-up view. You can see my "picture frame" edging. Picked up stitches and used up the white, then more pink. I should have gone a few rows more, because it flips under in the middle of the sides, but oh well. Live and learn.
A view of the striped miter.
My only regret is that I didn't take a picture of the white yarn leftovers. There couldn't have been more than about 10 yards. Pretty darn perfect!

Currently on the needles, Clapotis from Knitty in Rowan Damask. I'm through 2 of my 5 skeins. I'd really like to finish it before a wedding in a few weeks, but I'm thinking that is unlikely, since my evenings are consisting of very little knitting and lots of struggling to stay awake past 8:00. Waking up at 5am is HARD!

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Sunday, September 02, 2007

Rock Chalk Jayhawk

We attended KU's 2007 football season opener on Saturday night, in nearly perfect weather. It was a pretty fun time, although the game became somewhat boring when the Jayhawks dominated the Chippewas of Central Michigan by a score of 52-7.



This shows the construction of football offices and other football-related junk on the south end of the stadium. It better be finished by May graduation, when Pan will be walking down the hill.


Pregame warmups.



Waving the wheat after one of KU's 7 touchdowns on Saturday.

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