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So this year I have been plagued by a problem I did not have last year, rabbits, huge rabbits.  That eat pepper and tomato plants, I didn’t believe it at first but after they ate half my crop of pepper (hot) plants completely off and were working on my tomatoes.  I had not had this problem previously so it took my by surprise.  After some quick looking online I surmised that rabbits don’t like garlic, hot pepper (go figure) and rotten egg.  Well I don’t like rotten egg either so I whipped up a potent mixture of the other two and let it stew.

I put 5 whole heads of garlic chopped finely in a quart jar with 3 tablespoons of cayenne and a bottle of tabasco.  I then filled the rest of the jar with water, covered and let it sit out and stew at room temperature for two days.  Then I uncapped it and it smelled like garlic and hot pepper, it almost smelled good enough to try it.

I then diluted it 1/4 cup of the mix to a quart of water, strained it and put it the spray bottle and applied it liberally to my remaining peppers and tomatoes.  So far it seems to be working, my sprayer is a little clogged but next time I will use a coffee filter or something else to get the chunks out when loading up the spray bottle.

Until I get somewhere where rabbits can be shot at will or trapped and released into the yards of unsuspecting victims, I will have to stick to the dragons milk until the rabbits change their taste.

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By Posted on Posted in Recipes No Comments

With all the hype about no knead bread and no knead pizza dough I decided it was time to take the plunge and give it a whirl.  Last night I started on the journey to make a homemade pizza with some no knead crust and to through a little twist I decided to cook it in a cast iron skillet in the oven.  Well it turned out to be incredible and I am glad I made enough dough to make a couple more.

No Knead Pizza

There was a slight bit of kneading required in spite of the name but the dough was awesome, but it needs to be planned for and made well in advance.

Ingredients
3 c + extra flour
1 1/2 c warm water
1/4 c + extra olive oil
1 1/4 tsp kosher salt
1 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp yeast

Instructions
Mix together dry ingredients thoroughly, then mix in water and olive oil until it is mixed evenly, it will be very wet, like sticky and not dough like wet.  Drizzle olive oil over the surface of the dough, cover bowl with plastic wrap and let set for 12-24 hours.  Once dough has raised.  Turn oven on the highest temperature possible (500°F in my case) and put cast iron skillet in the oven until it is heated well.  Punch down dough flip out onto a floured surface and divide into small balls and make individual rounds of dough, for pizza.  I made three.  Roll or stretch out the dough into thin crusts.

Have your toppings, sauce and cheese ready.  Lightly oil the skillet and then place the crust in the skillet.  Quickly put sauce, toppings and cheese on the crust.  Bake in skillet in oven until pizza is done.  Mine took about 5 minutes.

Even though you have a little more planning to do than with normal this crust is well worth the effort and advanced preparation.  I am glad I have two crusts left, I can’t wait to make it again.  This time it was just pepperoni, next time it will be much more elaborate.

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By Posted on Posted in Recipes, Smoked Goodness No Comments

After the catastrophe the first time I tried to make some chicken with this rub, I went for round two yesterday.  With the other smoker full of jerky that was smelling better by the minute we loaded up a second smoker with some chicken thighs rubbed with a Memphis Style BBQ Rub.  But I cheated in the end I ended up basting the meat with a mixture of BBQ sauce, whole grain mustard and water, so I deviated a bit from the traditional Memphis Style.

Memphis BBQ Rub Chicken

The rub however, was the important part and it was a pretty traditional style paprika based rub, all but once I forgot it was on there it married with the meat so well, but I must have had an abnormally heavy section of rub under the skin that gave me a faint paprika taste in my mouth. So here is the recipe for the rub.

Ingredients
1/4 c paprika
2 tbsp brown sugar
1 tbsp kosher salt
1 1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp cayenne
1 tsp dry mustard
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder

Instructions
Blend all ingredients thoroughly and rub generously onto chicken both under and over skin.

Once the chicken was rubbed I plopped it on the smoker at 250°F for about 2 hours over hickory and apple wood until it was cook through.  I basted the meat once which I think was unnecessary.   Usually I brine my poultry but I did not this time mostly due to oversight on my part, in spite of this it still turned out juicy and fell apart.

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By Posted on Posted in Recipes, Smoked Goodness No Comments

Was it beef or was it venison?  I don’t know but it was good.  Some people said it was venison and some beef, and I have to tell you sometimes I wanted it to be venison and sometimes I wanted it to be beef, but it was not labeled and for the life of me I cannot remember whether those were venison or beef steaks I cut up to make jerky.  But whatever they were they got me hooked, jerky is going to be an fascination until I can get it just right, every time in whatever flavor I want.  So there will be more jerky posts, probably even some this weekend.

I started out by cutting my steaks up into about quarter inch this pieces of meat at a 30° angle across the grain of the meat.  This was fairly easy to do and using a larger than necessary knife made it even simpler.

Jerky Rub Ingredients

Once the meat was cut I mixed together a rub as follows.

Ingredients
1/4 c brown sugar
1/4 c kosher salt
2 tsp paprika
2 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp ground ginger

Instructions
Blend together all ingredients in a small bowl being sure to get any clumps out of the brown sugar.

Once the rub was mixed together I then rubbed the rub into the meat, this amount of rub is good for about 1 1/2 pounds of meat.

Jerky on the Smoker

I then placed it on the smoker with NO water in the water pan at 155°F for 5 hours over a blend of hickory and mesquite using my PID controlled electric smoker.  Using the propane would have probably been too moist to get good jerky and the charcoal might have been a little tricky to maintain that temperature for such a long period of time.  The electric with the PID controller is just easy.   At this point it was still a little moist in the middle but chewy and very jerky like, it was really good.

Mystery Meat Jerky

Even as mystery meat the reviews have been good, people have liked it, most importantly I liked it so I will be making more jerky and posting about it as I learn new things.

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By Posted on Posted in Fishing Tales, Smoked Goodness No Comments

A week and a half ago we had a successful fishing adventure, we went up to Half Moon Lake here in Michigan and fished for Rainbow Trout.  As luck would have it we got one, a hair over legal size, yes merely one but it was a successful trip none the less.  Because of other things going on I had to wait to smoke him until today so he took up residence in my freezer until I took him out to thaw.  Today was the day, I brined him this morning for about an hour and a half in my standard fish brine, why change a good thing right?

Previously I had not smoked a whole fish, and that was the plan to smoke the whole gutted fish, but I decided since I had forgotten to remove his gills when I cleaned him and he still looked rather surprised I had to smoke him without his head.  In reality there is nothing edible in there anyways.

After his stint in the brine, I pulled him out, did not rinse him and stuffed him with some lemon wedges and onions and tossed him on an oiled smoker grate.  I then smoked him at 190°F over some apple wood, I usually smoke fish over alder, but had heard that trout was excellent over apple wood and I was not disappointed.  Using my PID controller for my electric smoker it was easy/effortless to maintain temperature and once the smoke was rolling it was time to sit back and let him cook.

After about 2 hours I retrieved him from the smoker and using a technique I had recently learned I grabbed the spine with on hand and the fish with the other and gently removed the spine and all the bones from the fish, it worked great.

Smoked Rainbow Trout on Rice

As if smelling the sweet smell of the apple wood smoke all morning wasn’t good enough, eating it was incredible.  It was done just right, flaky.  It was smoky but not too smoke and the apple wood complimented the lemon well and trout well, it was not fishing but it was fish.  It was in a word awesome, so trout beware I am coming for you.  If I only fish for one thing for the rest of the year it will be trout.

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