Smoking on the Gas Grill

I am a Grilling is Happiness Ambassador for Sears and @Flipgrillman. They are having a contest

http://www.flipgrillman.com/index.php/grilling-is-happiness/  

You can also follow @flipgrillman on Twitter and use these hash tags #GrillingIsHappiness #Sears

Make sure you tell him @waylandcook sent you.

I won one of the Weekly prize packages. I got this lovely smoker box and wood chips as part of the package. (The rest will be unveiled as I use it.) So I decided to make smoked pork chops.

I took the chips and soaked them for around 30 minuets. I drained them really well and placed them in the box. I placed the cover on it and put it on one of the burners under the grill rack. I turned that one on high to make the wood chips smolder. It took a few minuets but I started to get smoke.

 

You can see the smoke coming out of the box. The pork chops are off to the side on low heat in the middle and no heat on the third burner. This way I can control the heat. This gave the Pork a wonderful smoky flavor. The cutlets that were cubed like cube steaks picked it up more than the pork chops but they both tasted really good. The important part is to keep the grill closed as much as possible or the smoke escapes into the air. While this makes the yard smell good it doesn't do any thing for the meat.

This post was inspired by the Sears: Grilling Is Happiness Ambassador Program at http://www.flipgrillman.com/index.php/grilling-is-happiness/

Grills are not just for grilling

Most people think a grill is for cooking meat and veggies on the little grate. That is not at all true. I have cooked a lot of different things on a grill. That is my gas grill and the cinderblock and hard wood grill. Here are two pictures of things I have fixed on the grill. I will list more below.

 Homemade Baked Beans. This was on the wood grill.

Hobo packets. This was on the gas grill. These are what ever you want to put into one. They can be individualized and marked before cooking.

Here is a small list of things cooked on a fire here at Byrd farms: Cobbler, Fried chicken, fried vegetables, rolls, biscuits, chili. I have fixed breakfast on a cast iron griddle on the grill. I want to try to bake homemade bread on the grill.

Give it some thought and let me know what you have or want to try on the grill that is not ordinary.


Please do not for get the @flipgrillman Grill contest. http://creativecookingonanbudget.blogspot.com/2011/06/grilling-is-happiness-contest-breadless.html

This post was inspired by the Sears: Grilling Is Happiness Ambassador Program at http://www.flipgrillman.com/index.php/grilling-is-happiness/

Buttermilk Pork Shoulders

Tonight I made Buttermilked Soaked Pork Shoulders. I soaked the shoulders in butter milk over night. I washed them off and then put them on the grill. I seared them on the out side then turned of two of the burners. This way I had indirect heat. I slow cooked them for several hours.

I made my own BBQ sauce to put on them. Tonight's was chili sauce. I start out with grated onion and garlic. I add ketchup, honey, soy sauce, chili powder and Cajun seasoning. All of this is to taste.  It comes out a little different every time. I sometimes use molasses or brown sugar. If I leave the onions and garlic chunky I saute them before I put them in the sauce.

Tonight I did share again. My neighbors came over and ate with us. We had BBQ pork, Mashed taters, Rolls and Green beans cooked with ham hock. I love sharing meals with friends.

http://creativecookingonanbudget.blogspot.com/2011/06/grilling-is-happiness-contest-breadless.html Dont forget to check out the grilling contest that @flipgrillman has going on.

This post was inspired by the Sears: Grilling Is Happiness Ambassador Program at <a http://www.flipgrillman.com/index.php/grilling-is-happiness/

Farm Animal Wordless Wednesday

Grilled Steaks/ Date Night

Tonight was the first date night hubby and I have had in a long time. Since he worked all day we decided to cook steaks on the grill at the house. Since I was gone over half the day I cheated and went to Pete's Meat in Loretto Tennessee. This is where I love to go to get my fresh meats. This is also where we had our hogs processed. Today I went in and asked for two marinated steaks. (I think he marinates them in Gorge Jones Steak Marinade.) They are always in a huge tub in the meat case. He out did his self today.

 Here are the two steaks I got. They are about an inch thick. I told hubby that he gave us half a cow each.

Here is mine when finished. All I added was a little steak dust to them. You did not even need a knife to cut them. Notice I did not put any side items with mine except the mushrooms. That steak was enough for lunch and dinner.

And no I did not share these at all. I was very selfish tonight lol.

Also do not forget the Grilling contest that @Flipgrillman has going on. The link to the blog post is below.

http://creativecookingonanbudget.blogspot.com/2011/06/grilling-is-happiness-contest-breadless.html

This post was inspired by the Sears: Grilling Is Happiness Ambassador Program at http://www.flipgrillman.com/index.php/grilling-is-happiness

Also to share the thrift store find of the month. A brand new Lodge 15 1/4 inch Cast Iron Skillet for $20. They are normally $64 on their site. I can not wait to use it on the fire while camping.

Grilling Is Happiness Contest/ Breadless Meatball Subs

Do you enjoy grilling? Do you want a chance to win a new grill? Do you have unique ideas for food on your grill? Then you need to go to

http://www.flipgrillman.com/index.php/grilling-is-happiness/   They are having a contest.

You can also follow @flipgrillman in Twitter and use these hash tags #GrillingIsHappiness #Sears

Make sure you tell him @waylandcook sent you.

We love to grill and cook out side when the weather warms up. If I am not grilling on the gas grill I am grilling on our homemade wood grill.  Today we got a load of apple wood too so that makes me even more excited.

On the grill tonight I made Hamburgers for Hubby. Now every one knows I can not just have hamburgers so I made grilled stuffed zucchini. I stuffed it with meat ball filling. I grilled it until the meat was almost done in the middle. I then moved it to a casserole dish with a little marinara sauce in the bottom. Placed the zucchini on top, poured the rest of the sauce on top and baked until the tomato sauces was bubbly. I then added shredded cheese to the top and melted it in the oven and served. They were like bread less meat ball subs. I could have finished it on the grill but I just stuck in the oven. If you do this on the grill cover the casserole dish with foil.

 Here are the stuffed zucchini. I scooped out the seeds in the middle. The stuffing is hamburger meat, one egg, bread crumbs, onion, garlic, chives, parsley and salt and pepper to taste. The amounts depend on how many you are making and how big the zucchinis are.

Here are two pictures of the finished product. What really made my day was when a neighbor stopped by I shared them with them. They were surprised at how good they were. They were the ones that called them bread less Meat Ball Subs.

This post was inspired by the Sears: Grilling Is Happiness Ambassador Program at <a href="http://www.flipgrillman.com/index.php/grilling-is-happiness/

Chilling And Grilling

 Here are Rebekka's newest pets. The Turkit and the Ducken. They are so spoiled they have to be carried around in an Easter Basket during the day. If they know she is around they holler for her. It drives me insane. It is peep peep peep peep all day. If she turns out the light at night they are quiet. The turkey gets out of the pen to come to find her if she is in the house and he can hear her. I have no clue what to do with these two when they get bigger. The turkey is to small to go in with the bigger ducks and the duck has a bad leg. I guess they are pets but I don't think they will be staying in the house.

I slow smoked some chicken over a hard wood fire this afternoon. The burgers were ranch burgers and they slow cooked also. I made my own ranch powder. I used the following recipe all but the dill. I put in two tablespoons of pickle liquid (yes I am still out of Dill) and about 2 tablespoons of milk when mixing.

15 Saltines

2 tablespoons Dry minced parsley flakes

4 tablespoons fresh minced onion

2 tablespoons Dry dill weed

1/4 cup Onion salt

1/4 cup Garlic salt

1/4 cup Onion powder

1/4 cup Garlic powder

When they are slow cooked on the smoke fire they had an awesome taste. Even hubby like them and he is my pickiest eater.

Extracting Honey the First Time

Today is the first time in three years of bee keeping we actually got honey. We didn't expect to get it today. Hubby went to work the bees and had frames in the lower boxes full of capped  honey. He had to remove them to give the bees room in the brood chambers.

Here is a step by step explanation of how we extracted the honey. This is on the small side of equipment. This is for a hobby bee keeper. We have 5 hives but hope to keep growing. We started out with 2 hives. We try to double each year using our own bees. hubby will start atleast 5 nucs this year. That will give us 10 hives by next year if they all do well.

 Here is a capping knife. It plugs into the wall and heats up. It then is able to slice off the wax caps that are over the honey.

 Here are filters that go over the food grade 5 gallon bucket that we put the honey into. We use the medium filter. It keeps all the bad stuff out.

 This is the basket for the extractor. The frames fit down inside it.

 Here is the out side part of the extractor.

 Here is the extractor chained down to the legs. If you did not chain it down it will walk off of the legs while extracting.

 Our extractor is a hand crank kind. You can buy a motor to go on top of it. I like the hand crank type but if you get it going to fast it tries to walk off. We had to hold it down when I got it going really fast.

 Here is the inside with the basket in it. It works like a centrifuge.

 This is called an uncapping tank. It has two layers. The first one has holes in it. To hold the wax and let the honey go thru.  The extractor, capping tank, and 5 gallon bucket have honey gates on them. That is a valve that lets the honey out. You lock them down when in use and when you want the honey to flow just open it up. Like a water faucet.

 Here is a pretty frame of capped honey. The yellow is the wax cap the bees use to cover the honey. This can be used to make lip gloss or candles.

 Here is hubby putting it on a board above the capping tank. This is how you hole it when you get ready to cut the wax off.

 You take the heated knife and cut off the top of the wax opening the honey up. The wax falls down into the uncapping tank and the honey goes to the bottom holding tank. The uncapping tank has a lid so when you let it sit bugs and lent can not get into it.

 Here is a frame that has been uncapped. The wax is hanging on for dear life.

 Here is some capping wax in the uncapping tote.

 This nifty tool is a capping scratcher. It works just as well as the knife. We used it to scratch the wax the knife could not get. Some of the wax was short and under the frame and the knife can not reach it.

 Here is the extractor turning and the honey collecting on the side and the bottom.

 Here is the first honey out of the honey gate. This is after 4 frames. If the honey gets up to high it is hard to turn the extractor.

Here is a full filter of honey.


We take the used frames and put them in a hive with the top off. They then go to the bee yard for the bees to clean them up. We will then freeze them for a few days to make sure there are not wax moth eggs in there. Then we will give it back to a hive to clean up and use again.

The hardest part of this project was a little 6 year old wanting to stick a spoon into every drip. He had a blast helping but I think he ate a pint all his self. Rebekka loved the wax cappings and honey. She chewed on them for a while until all the honey was out.

Now we wait a few days for it to filter and settle. We may filter it again depending on the amount of wax in it. The we bottle it and store it. Don't worry to the people I promised some to. Your will be out the door as soon as it is ready. I know yall have been waiting for a while. :)

Our favorite way to eat the honey is on homemade butter milk biscuits with real grade A butter mixed with the honey into a paste then spread on warm biscuits.

Today the all but one duck and baby turkey moved out side. We kept the turkey inside because the bigger ducks were picking on him. We also have a baby duck with a bad foot so he got to stay inside too. The two of them will be spoiled beyond belief. The turkey was already leaving the tote to find me today. I hollered at him to quite down and he got out and came to me all the way across the house. Rebekka is proud to have such a smart turkey for a pet.

Knowing where your food comes from

It is important to us as a family to know where our food comes from. We try to raise alot of our own food. We have raised vegetables, chickens and hogs. Now we are raising ducks and turkeys. I am proud to say if I raise them I know what they have eaten, been injected with, and how they were treated.

We try very hard to raise a huge garden every year. We raised hogs and are planning to get more. We are also planning on getting a milk cow and a beef cow in the near future. If I can not grow it I read labels, study my GMO foods so I try not to buy them, and try to buy local. Localharvest.org is a great place to look for farms near you.

Today we have 4 additions to the Byrd Farms Line Up. (Pics below.)

We got two turkeys. One male, one female. The kids named them Mr. and Mrs. Gibble Gobble. They are brood stock. They are tame and love to be petted. (This is good when you have children) We had fun this afternoon watching the male run the old rooster around the pen. The new rooster fluffed up once and backed down. The Turkeys are waiting for their new pen.  We also got 2 mallards. I think they are named Mike and Sally Mallard from Point Mallard Water Park in Decatur AL.

We already have 14 other ducks (Peking and Mallard) we have raised off the eggs from the Mallards and some Pekings from the same people we got the Turkeys and Mallards from. These are going to be our egg layers. We also have one Turkett from the turkeys we raised in the incubator. Rebekka calls it Turkett. If it is a boy she will name it Turkit. It is also being tamed. It loves to be held.

 Mrs. Gibble Gobble

 Mr. Gibble Gobble

Mike and Sally Mallard