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Kevin has written his first post. Scroll down to see more. . .

BBQ in a Flowerpot

I've become a big fan of Alton Brown over this last year. (Alton Brown is the host of the Food Network show "Good Eats" for those of you who don't know) I have long been a big fan of barbecue over the years. Some people may argue over which state makes the best BBQ, but in my opinion any BBQ is good BBQ as long as it is done well. Interestingly enough, I have never tried to make BBQ of my own...until Alton Brown showed me the way. Sometime over the summer, I watched a Good Eats Episode entitled "Q" (follow link for you tube) which is all about, you guessed it, pulled pork BBQ. On this episode, Alton introduces the plans for the ceramic terracotta pot smoker. Once I saw that episode, I knew that juicy, smoke flavored tender BBQ was in my future.

The basic formula is one terracotta pot for the base of the smoker, a terracotta bowl for the lid of the smoker, an electric hotplate at the base of the pot to provide heat, a pie plate to hold the wood, a grill grate to hold the meat, and a grill thermometer in the top to help regulate the temperature. I also bought some terracotta pot feet to lift the pot off of the ground enough to run the electric cord out of the bottom hole in the pot.

The first step was locating all of the necessary components. After a few weeks of frustrated looking for a few missing items and nearly driving Bonnie crazy,I finally had all of the pieces I needed. I had a hard time finding the right hot plate until I realized that you could get one at Walgreen's for $9.99. The terracotta bowl was also difficult to find. I had to go to a local nursery supply because they didn't have ones big enough at Lowe's/Home Depot. The rest was pretty easy. Overall, I ended up spending around $50.

Once I had gathered all of the pieces, the next phase was construction. I had to saw off two little handles from the side of the hotplate with my miter saw. The rest went together fairly easily. One problem with the design is that the hotplate is buried deep in the smoker which makes adjusting the temperature difficult. I got around this by drilling a 1/2" hole at just the right height with a masonry bit and slicing a groove in the plastic heat adjustment knob for the hotplate. The hole was just right for a flat head screwdriver. After a few dry runs to find the optimal settings for the temperature control, I was ready to go.

Here is a picture of the assembled smoker on my back porch. I had to use the flash on this picture because I took it before 6 a.m. when I started cooking the Q.

Here is a view of the inside of the smoker with the hickory chips, previously soaked in water of course, in the pie plate. The electric hot plate is underneath.
Here is the pork at the start of cooking around 7 a.m. Notice the smoke billowing from the depths of the smoker. The meat was half of a boneless Boston Butt pork shoulder. The pork was brined overnight and a spice rub applied before smoking. The recipe I used can be found here.
Ten hours at 225 degrees and a couple more batches of wood chips later, I opened the smoker to behold this little black beauty. I wish I could post smells to this blog so that everyone could experience what my nose did. My mouth is watering just remembering that delicious smell.
The pork was very tender and juicy as you can see below. We ate the pork on hamburger buns. and had enough leftovers for another go at it.

A week later, I tried my hand at BBQ chicken. I prepared the chicken in pretty much the same way as the pork. A brine and a spice rub. I butterflied the chicken and rubbed the spices under the skin. The chicken only took four hours of slow and low before the internal temp reached 180 degrees and this little chicken was a nice mahogany brown. I de-boned and chopped the meat and discarded the skins. The meat was tender, juicy, and full of smoky goodness.
Writing this post has really made me hungry for more BBQ. I think it is safe to say that there is more Q in store for me in the very near future. Is your mouth watering yet? All of this could be yours with a few items from your local hardware store!

Sugar

Today I gave Andrew a pb & j sandwich and an orange for lunch. He ate the orange. Then he managed to get a lollipop. Then I heard the sugar jar clinking (I know that sound well). And here he is:


After I took away the sugar spoon, he tried to stick his fingers in the sugar jar. I moved it out of reach. Then he asked for a vitamin (which is really just a gummy bear that happens to have few micronutrients). I looked at the kitchen table and saw that he had only taken one bite out of his sandwich. Aaagh! But you know, what should I expect? His mom spent her entire sophomore year of high school eating only Snickers bars at lunch time. And a bowl of ice cream after school. And no dinner. Unless it was macaroni and cheese. And no breakfast, either. He'll survive, right?

Poor Kevin. He gets so frustrated at dinner time because nobody will eat real food (unless it's macaroni and cheese) and I just look at him wide-eyed and tell him that I don't know where they get it from.

Well, I must go and take away the vitamin bottle (he can't open it) and insist that he finish his oh-so-healthy lunch before he can have any more unadulterated sugar.

New Game

For the first time in months, the humidity has dropped below 50%. It it wonderful to go outside and feel a pleasant breeze and to be able to send the kids outside without constantly shouting "Close the door!" after them. For the last couple days, I have actually been closing the screen and leaving the glass door open while they are outside.

Yesterday when Kevin came home from work, I was making dinner while the kids played outside. He looked out the screen and saw that the kids had invented a new game.

Here it is in 10 easy steps:

Step One: Andrew wears size 3 shorts (which he's still too skinny for).
Step Two: Jump on trampoline until Andrew's shorts fall off.
Step Three: Squeal with delight because you can see someone's underwear.
Step Four: Take Andrews shorts and throw them in the air.


Step Five: Wait a minute, there's a tree right next to the trampoline. . .
Step Six: Throw shorts into the tree.
Step Seven: Go get the pool skimmer.


Step Eight: Fish shorts out of the tree with net.


Step Ten: Repeat for hours of fun.



P.S. Now that it's almost dinner time again tonight, they're out there playing this game once again.

Is Summer Over Already?

Obviously, time flies when you're having fun. This is the time of year when we are always wishing we lived somewhere other than Florida. All over the country temperatures are falling and catalogs are coming out with warm clothes for fall. But here, summer will last another month or two. Since I haven't put up a post in a while, here is a summary of the last few weeks.

Matthew discovered a box with some packing peanuts in it. This is something to get very excited about and he promptly sat down to line them up and count them. There were 44 peanuts in the box.

Matthew counts incessantly. We played a game of Sardines (aka family hide-and-seek) last week and he insisted that we count to 109, because that is how high he can count.

Sunday night Andrew was sitting on Daddy's lap counting the buttons on his shirt. There were seven of them, I think, but Andrew didn't want to stop there. He got up to 10 ok, but then he gets creative. "Eleven, thirteen, eighty-two, eighty-three!" So now we know, Kevin has 83 buttons on his shirt.

Every time Andrew sees the camera, he says, "Take a picture of me Mommy!"


Maggie had her seventh birthday a few weeks ago. It was a nice, girly luau. She got to invite all her friends and they ran around squealing in their swimsuits. But the girls were much better than I had hoped. It was fun.


One of her presents was "The Daring Book for Girls". Here is a video: http://www.amazon.com/gp/mpd/permalink/m1A05L5AABEA60

Maggie opened it up and read about tree climbing. We have one tree that is semi-appropriate for climbing. So here she is.


Matthew had to get in on the fun too.


Andrew just said, "Take a picture of me, Mommy!"


Matthew started soccer again a couple of weeks ago. His team is the Orange Rockets. His uniform hurts my eyes a little.


He is just about the only one on the team who will play. So his first game was "interesting". The little boy behind him in the orange shirt was actually borrowed from the red team so that Matthew would have someone to play with. The second game was a little better--we didn't have to borrow any players at least.


Monday night we went to the beach to watch the harvest moon rise. We were running late, so it had already come up when we got there, but we still had fun. We told the kids to stay out of the water since we did not take swimsuits or towels (and sharks come out at sunset). You can guess how well they listened to that. Especially since the family that we went with did have swimsuits.


"Take a picture of me, Mommy!"