As @bbqpro told me on Twitter today, healthy eating is a state of mind. And since Pigdog helped pick the menu tonight, a healthy state of mind existed after dinner and I won’t have to field to many complaints about all the veggies that keep showing up lately.
We were at the lake again today, and once again were lucky enough to be here on one of those rare days where the sun comes out during the winter. Old WSM was fired up with a load of Kingsford and some apple smoke wood.
Smoker beans were on the menu and went in the lower grate of the grill so they could catch drippings from the meat. Here’s a shot of them before they went on.
The meat drippings were supplied by a fatty and a meatloaf on the top grill. I did the fatty a bit different this time around, using a couple of ideas I learned from the BBQ Brethren. The first trick involved sacrificing a gallon size Ziploc bag to prep the sausage. I tossed in two Jimmy Dean hot sausage chubs into the bag, let out as much air as I could, and then flattened it out in the bag until I had a nice even square of meat.
The bag was then split up the sides and the fatty loaded up with fillings. Today was onion, green bell pepper, bacon, shredded Colby and Monterey Jack cheese, and a couple of string cheese logs.
The plastic was then used to roll up the fatty and transfer it to a grill plate. I decided not to put any rub on this one today just to see how it would turn out.
It was joined on the grill by a meatloaf. I decided to go with hand-chopped veggies (onions, bell pepper, mushrooms) instead of chopping them up fine in the food processor. Other than that it was the standard meatloaf recipe (that I suppose I should post in the recipe section one of these days).
The food went on the smoker around 2:00 PM, and dinner was ready by shortly after 4:00. Pigdog called late in the afternoon and wanted to know if it was safe to bring his contractor and one of his workers by; I laughed and asked him when not enough food was ever a problem.
As you can see, we ate well and had a healthy state of mind after dinner. Now I just hope Pigdog’s contractor is willing to give me a good price on some work we need done in return for more meals…
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I love the beans, you are the bean king ZP. Did you punch holes in the bottom of that meatloaf pan?
The meatloaf pan was an Entenmann’s pastry pan in a previous incarnation and had several holes punched in the bottom of it with a steak knife so that drainage happened in the bottom as well as off the sides.
This meatloaf finally turned out to be the desired consistency; I think I finally got the correct moist stuff to not-moist stuff ratio. Not grinding the veggies into mush helped, so now I will have to figure out how to get them very small without turning them into slurry in the food processor. The wife really doesn’t like them as big as they are when I chop them by hand, and I’m too lazy to chop them real fine with a knife.
Those beans look wicked good! The fatty looks great too, but the beans have my heart. (They are good for your heart, after all!)
The beans were tasty, and they also make you… oh, never mind. I’ve taken to leaving out the can of “baked beans” from the last few cooks and haven’t had any complaints, although I need to figure out how to do a side-by-side comparison to see which version I like better.
Pigdog did point out last night that those cooked under pork ribs are somewhat better than under other meats. Didn’t stop him from eating several helpings, though…
Yum! I want to try this sometime!