Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

Not really overly clever...it's just what I love to do! That is, being a BBQ'er from the North. All of my BBQ is Southern!

I "borrowed" this one from www.bbqsource-forums.com. It was a big hit at my last soiree. The root beer is an interesting twist:

Ingredients:

1 Whole onion
4 Cups Chicken Broth
1/2 Cup Dark Corn Syrup
1 Cup Cider Vinegar
1 Cup Root Beer
1/2 Cup Ketchup
1/2 Cup Tomato Paste
1/2 Cup Molasses
2 Tbs. Extra virgin olive oil
3 Tbs. - Brown Sugar
2 Tbs. - Spicy Brown Mustard
2 Tbs. Salt
2 Tbs. Pepper
1/2 Tsp Garlic Powder
1 Tbs. Hot Pepper

Finely chop up onions and sauté in pan with oil.
Mix in all other ingredients and stir. Bring to boil
Reduce heat and let simmer for one hour.

Use this for ribs, pulled pork or beef, and /or chicken. Also great to add to your baked beans (1/2 cup) at least one hour before finished baking.

Ribs: I prefer dry rub with no sauce. But I do make some homemade and put it out for guests who may wish to partake.

Steak: Marinade depending on mood. If it is a quality piece then just sea salt and fresh cracked pepper.

Poultry: I always brine before grilling or smoking. They never fail to come out moist and tender. Chicken for a couple of hours up to overnight for a turkey.

@chiff: Big Oven is OK with increasing (or decreasing for that matter) of portions. There is a menu choice in one of the pull-downs called Resize recipe. A box then pops up to tell you the current yield and a box to type in whatever yield you want. There is a disclaimer that "Scaling recipes effects recipe ingredient quantities only, not the instruction text. Please adjust accordingly." You would just have to be careful I guess.

Did a bunch of research about a year ago and decided on Big Oven. It does everything I need and is relatively cheap at $29.95 for the deluxe version. Plus they have an online community for recipe sharing.

Linky to Big Oven

Holli Golightly...away.

Limoncello

Thanks, folks. I'll look into these recommendations.

I cold smoke salmon regularly using either my monster offset firebox rig or right in my gas grill if I'm feeling lazy. I use Ruhlman's recipe from Chacuterie, curing for 48 hrs., then drying in the fridge for another 24 before smoking for 5-6 hrs. For my smoke generating I used this nifty trick : How to build a cold smoker
Total investment: about $10 for the soldering iron. Works great!

I need some 100 calorie bird feed packs. The wrens in my back yard are starting to get a little paunch.

From my nom de message board, you might surmise that I have a bit of experience with this. ;-)

OK, here it goes: I usually do mine in my smoker, but I'm sure you can get away with a regular grill or the oven. The idea is to do it as they say, "low and slow". If on the grill it needs to be indirect, i.e. heat off to one side, butt on the other. (not over the heat) You'll need a rub of some sort...here's a simple one you could doctor up if you so desire:

* 2 tablespoons salt
* 2 tablespoons sugar
* 2 tablespoons brown sugar
* 2 tablespoons ground cumin
* 2 tablespoons chili powder
* 2 tablespoons freshly ground black pepper
* 1 tablespoon cayenne pepper
* 1/4 cup paprika

The night before, rub the whole butt with yellow mustard, then generously pat on the rub all about. The mustard will help hold the rub on and provide some moisture retention, and interestingly not add much if anything in the way of mustard flavor. Wrap it in plastic wrap and chuck it in the fridge overnight.

And hour or so before starting to cook it, remove your butt from the fridge and let it come close to room temperature. Put it on the grill and pretty much forget about it for a couple of hours. The grill (or oven if using) should be at around 225-240F. If on the grill, make a foil packet with some soaked hickory chips and put it on the heat. The smoke is nice and more authentic but not necessary.

You ideally will want to monitor the temperature of the butt with a probe style digital thermometer, cause regularly opening the lid (or oven door) will cause temperature drops and extend cooking time. When the meat reaches 100F, spray every hour with a 3 to 1 mixture of apple juice and Captain Morgan's Rum (or bourbon depending on your mood)

When the meat reaches 165F, double wrap it in HD foil with a little of the spray mixture to help braise the meat. Continue to cook until the internal meat temps gets to 195-205F. Remove the foiled meat from the cooker and wrap it (still foiled) in a couple old bath towels and put it in an insulated cooler to rest for at least an hour before you pull it.

General rule of thumb is 1-1/2 hrs. cooking time per pound, but that tends to fluctuate. Go by temps and you can't go wrong. Sorry if this is a little wordy but I just did one this past Sunday and it rocked!

I'll be returning from vacation on Sunday, so I'll probably just keep it light. I'm firing up the smoker with some baby baby ribs, a fatty (chub of sausage, flattened, stuffed with veggies & cheese, rolled in rub and smoked), burgers, dogs and some Atomic Buffalo Turds.

OK, since you asked, ABTs are jalapenos sliced lengthwise, seeds and membrane removed. Stuff with cream cheese and a Hillshire Farms Lil Smokie and wrapped in bacon. Smoke or indirect grill, depending on your equipment. Yum! (it's wrapped in bacon, how can it not be good?)