Bubba Ho-Keg changed his name to Bubba Tow-Keg yesterday and took his act on the road as a mobile pizza kitchen.

Once mounted, off we went over the river and through the woods to LizBob’s house, where I turned the photography assignment over to Bob as he has much better skills than mine. Besides, I was too busy making a complete mess of their kitchen to stop and take pictures of it.

In addition to taking Bubba Tow-Keg on the road, there were some other new stuff going on again last night. Among other things, we learned how to use a pizza peel properly (about darn time, and not without a couple of near disasters) and that extremely high heat (above 600°F) cooks with the cast iron pizza pan will blacken your pizza crust long before the rest of the pizza is done cooking.

Here’s an example of how to save a pizza from becoming a complete disaster when it sticks to the peel: turn it into a calzone/stromboli/whatever…

Notice how Bob has done an excellent job of capturing all the fine details in this picture. The burnt cornmeal, wayward mushrooms, flour on Bubba Tow-Keg’s tables, and the hint of char around the bottom of the not-pizza. This was actually the second not-pizza that was cooked; here’s what the first one looked like before it got turned into a pop-tart.

As you can see, a pizza peel is in use. I finally broke down and put some of those Bed, Bath, and Beyond coupons that keep showing up in the mail to use and picked up this synthetic monster made by Epicurean. Not cheap, but I’m real please with it now that I’ve had a chance to practice with it. Here’s an action picture of a successful pizza launch.

Pigdog and his family were over as well, so we made a variety of pizzas, all using an Olive Oil dough from the “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day” book I mentioned the other day. Here’s a finished version of the pulled pork, mozzarella cheese, pineapple, and cashew pizza.

We also had gourmet style pizza for those with more discriminating palates. Here’s a sun-dried tomato with mozzarella and fresh basil leaves ready to go on the grill.

And a pulled chicken with mozzarella, onions, bell peppers, and olives. As you can see, these pizzas actually made it from the peel to the grill without coming completely apart. We think we know how to make this work now…

In spite of a few accidents, a floured kitchen, some charred crusts, and 8-plex (inside joke) the evening turned out quite nice. Bubba Tow-Keg is safe back home and had returned to his normal Bubba Ho-Keg identity, and hopefully my wayward pizza pan (not the cast iron one; it came home safely) will find its way home this evening as well.

Many thanks to LizBob for allowing me to trash their kitchen in the quest to use up birthday leftovers, and to Pigdog and his family for joining us and eating a year’s supply of blackened crusts while claiming to enjoy the pizzas. Also, I would be remiss if I didn’t ask you all to take a minute or two and check out Bob’s website where more examples of his photography live. Who knows, you might even see a glimpse of pizza in the wild there someday…

Tonight’s offering consists of several firsts for No Excuses BBQ. It was the first time the cast iron pizza pan was used, the first time I made artisan bread, the first time bread was cooked on Bubba Ho-Keg, and the first time MOINK balls were incorporated in a calzone.

Before I go any further, I realize that the MOINK ball dish could qualify for the 2010 MOINK Ball Challenge. However, by sharing the dish here first I’m violating a couple of the competition rules. No problem, as I had no intention of using this dish as my entry (although it will likely go into the BBQ Brethren throwdown currently in progress). There were too many new things going on tonight for me to consider this as a viable entry; besides, I have something else in mind for that one.

On with the story. I made up a batch of the basic artisan bread recipe found in “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day”. Then I prepared several MOINK balls using the traditional recipe, but substituting Cajun seasoning mix and Italian seasonings for the usual rub mix.

They went onto Bubba Ho-Keg for about 90 minutes at 250°F. I didn’t glaze this batch as they would get sauced when stuffed in the calzone.

The next step was to spread out some of the bread dough and layer it up with some homemade pizza sauce, shredded cheese (this was a Mexican blend, because that’s what was in the refrigerator), MOINK balls, sliced onion, and sliced mushrooms.

This all got folded up, the edges pinched together, and thrown on the cast iron pizza pan that had been sprinkled with some corn meal. After about 30 minutes, it was ready to eat.

The crust didn’t brown up as much as I would have liked; this was likely due to not getting the temperature back up as high as the recipe called for (450°F) before putting it on the grill. It didn’t seem to affect the taste much though, these were pretty good (and very filling).

Since I had sauce leftover and still had plenty of dough, I made up a second calzone using leftover pulled pork instead of MOINK.

It looks pretty tasty, but I won’t know until tomorrow as I am way too stuffed from eating the MOINK calzone.

Last but not least, I took the rest of the bread dough and made up a small artisan loaf. It didn’t rise as much as I had hoped; I assume I screwed up something when making the dough (besides the cooking temperatures). I broke off a piece of the bread and it tastes pretty good, so it wasn’t a total loss and I learned quite a bit.

The cast iron pizza pan is a wonderful addition to the armory. Nothing stuck to it tonight, and that included the corn meal which was looking pretty toasted by the end of the evening. I have a feeling we’ll be getting a lot of use out of it, especially as I continue to explore new bread recipes. There is something really nice about having fresh bread in the summer without heating up the house to get it…

I had some swiss chard and corn left from yesterday’s visit to the Farmers’ Market and wanted to use it up while it was still fresh. Then I got involved at work and before I knew it dinnertime had arrived and no meat had been removed from the freezer to go with the veggies.

So I put on my thinking cap, pulled out a couple of frozen chicken breasts, and proceeded to prepare a meal I’m not sure my kids would eat. Each breast was split into quarters and then wrapped in a chard leaf with a slice of onion, a bit of salt and pepper, and a couple of leaves of fresh basil. Italian squash (think zucchini, but much lighter in color) was split in half, brushed with EVOO, and given a liberal coating of a no-salt onion and garlic seasoning mix and Parmesan cheese. The corn was dunked in water and then onto to Bubba Ho-Keg for about twenty minutes, then joined by the squash and chard-wrapped chicken. After about 5 minutes per side for the chicken, dinner was ready.

The chard-wrapped chicken looked a little lonely without any topping once it hit the plate, so I sprinkled a little Parmesan cheese over it to dress it up a bit.

The results were actually very good albeit somewhat unusual. The fresh basil combined with the sweetness of the onion had permeated the chicken, and there was a bit of bitterness imparted by the chard. I think this might have been improved by a bit of sweetness to offset the bitterness of the chard; perhaps I’ll add some balsamic vinegar when I eat the leftovers tomorrow. The Italian squash was also very good, and the corn was excellent.

Not bad for a Monday…

Curt at the Outdoor Cooking Guild has started up a new monthly “challenge” centered around a different theme each month. The idea is to cook something around the theme, and bragging rights will go to those that submit the entries judged to have the best use of the theme, the best photo of the theme, and the most imaginative use of the theme.

This month’s theme is Farmers’ Markets. The rules as stated in the announcement are:

Farmers markets and farm markets are different things, so keep that in mind… A farm market is a market at a farm, with one cash register, etc. A farmers market is where several farmers set up booths, usually in a community based market and usually 1-3 days a week to sell the stuff they produce. So the challenge is to get stuff at a farmers market and cook with it outside!

Between previous commitments and limited hours of local Farmers’ Market, I found myself up against the deadline today and figured I better get off my butts and get going. Actually, the deadline for submission was today, I was actually supposed to do this before last Monday; my hope is that Curt will forgive me and take the submission even though it’s a bit late. After all, he didn’t send out the challenge until July 11th…

So off I went to the Vancouver Farmers’ Market, the closest one to home that was open today.

There were a lot of people at the market right around noon when I arrived. I’m guessing most wanted to get there early before the temperature got up in the 90′s. For a Farmers’ Market, there were a lot of booths that screamed “carnival” or “county fair” rather than “farmer”. I didn’t take pictures of these as nothing set them apart from any other county fair, and as usual, the few booths that had the nerve to put the word “BBQ” on their signs were either Asian-style grilled meat on sticks or completely devoid of anything resembling a smoker or grill. I didn’t bother taking pictures of these, and won’t name any names as I wouldn’t want to embarrass anyone. But don’t go there looking for BBQ.

There were some booths with local produce. I picked up some tasty onions and scallions from this place.

Then I found a really great booth stuffed way in the back of the market. They had great swiss chard (both red and white), fresh corn (3 ears for a buck, best price I’ve seen anywhere this summer up here), and large bunches of fresh cilantro. Oh, and blueberries too.

The one thing that was missing the most was any sort of fresh meat. The only decent thing I could find was some fresh albacore a couple of booths over from the swiss chard place. Seems all the best stuff was stuck way in the back…

So the menu was set. For starters, I mixed up a batch of blueberry salsa to go over the fish and stuck it in the refrigerator to chill. For those of you that simply must have the recipe, it’s below the picture.

Blueberry Salsa

Ingredients

• 3 cups fresh blueberries
• Juice of 1 lemon
• Juice of 1 lime
• 4 tablespoons diced fresh cilantro
• 2 jalapeno peppers, diced
• 1/2 cup bell pepper, diced
• 1 medium red onion, diced
• Dash of sea salt

Preparation

Coarsely chop 2 cups of the fresh blueberries (a couple of seconds in the food processor works best and preserves the juice) and mix with all other ingredients. Stir well, cover, and chill until ready to serve.

Once the salsa was in the refrigerator chilling, Bubba Ho-Keg was fired up and on went an ear of corn. My favorite way of cooking this is to soak the corn (while still in the husk) in cold water while the grill is coming up to temperature, then put it on the grill away from the direct flames for about 25-30 minutes, turning at least twice during the cooking process. Tonight I went one step further and sliced the cob into 1/2 inch sections that went back on the grill with the fish, onions, and chard.

The chard was grilled for about a minute per side; by the time I got 5 leaves done the rest of the food was ready to come off the grill.

The fish was joined on the plate by the blueberry salsa, and the chard was chopped and sprinkled with balsamic vinegar. It made for a tasty meal.

So there you have it, a visit to the Farmers’ Market followed by some time outdoors with Bubba Ho-Keg and a bounty of fresh food. Now if I can just convince Curt that I wasn’t too late for consideration…

Yeah, I know, everyone likes big butts, but it turns out that there is something to be said for small butts as well. Yesterday I cooked for a small (around 25) gathering to celebrate Bob’s (he of the delicate palate) 40th birthday. What I thought were going to be two enormous pork shoulders in the cryovac package turned out to be five much smaller cuts. The majority of the fat had been removed and what was left were five very dense hunks of nice looking butts.

This did create a bit of an issue; I was concerned (rightfully so, as it turned out) about the smaller cuts cooking faster so I ended up putting them on the WSM much later than I had originally planned to. The butts were prepared in the usual fashion and put on the WSM about 23:00 Friday night.

By 07:30 the next morning, they were already registering over 170°F internally, so I lowered the WSM temperature and sopped them a few times over the next hour until they were ready to come off. As you can see by comparing the pictures, they shrunk a bit, but not a lot.

Now this by itself was probably enough to feed the crowd we were expecting, but when did I ever go to one of these events with only one tray of food? Pulled chicken was on the menu as well. Gotta have some thighs to go with that butt…

I should probably apologize for all the shadows in that picture, but my skills with a camera are average at best. Bob will attest to that; he is a very skilled photographer and I hear he is relaunching his website in the very near future (shameless plug here in return for some link love). One of these days I ought to drag him over here and have him take pictures of the food so I can concentrate on the cooking. Oh, and actually get a hot meal as soon as it hits the plate instead of standing around messing with a camera while my family shakes their head and looks at me funny.

At any rate, I took over a big batch of pulled pork…

And a not-quite-as-big batch of pulled chicken…

And some hot dogs that jumped on to the WSM when I wasn’t looking…

The guests all seemed pleased with the results, and it appears I’ll be joining LizBob for dinner later this week to help them deal with the leftovers. I believe Bubba Ho-Keg may be making a roadtrip and that pizza will be served. Who knows, there might even be homemade artisan dough for these…

Ok, this might not be BBQ either, but I cut the fat out of the ribeye trimmings from yesterday and cooked up a batch of ribeye chili in Bubba Ho-Keg. After all, I had to break in another one of the new cast iron pots…

The chili went on around noon and cooked for about 5 hours. I’d tell you the recipe, but it is sort of a family secret (this is code for I throw a bunch of stuff in it until it tastes the way I want it) so you’ll just have to try and identify the ingredients from the picture below.

I’m really enjoying the cast iron cooks on Bubba Ho-Keg, but tomorrow we will return to our normal programming; pork butts are on the WSM as this is being written and will be joined by some other tasty treats tomorrow. It ought to be interesting as I got a bit of a surprise when I opened the package of pork shoulder…

… because we had them again for dinner tonight. I was picking up supplies at the local Cash & Carry for an event next week and scored a boneless rib roast for a great price. And since it had to be sliced into steaks before going in the freezer we figured we might as well have the end pieces for dinner.

The steaks were sprinkled with a dash of sea salt, pepper, granulated garlic, and Cajun seasoning mix before making their way to Bubba Ho-Keg, and were joined on the plate with some leftover brown rice from Tuesday’s cast iron stir fry and some fresh broccoli. No coma’s tonight; I have to get up early tomorrow.

I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves, tonight’s meal was wonderful. Even if it didn’t induce a coma. And tomorrow? Another cast iron pot will be christened and put on Bubba Ho-Keg to make ribeye chili. Did I mention that there were trimmings from the cutting of the steaks?

I recently scored some new cast iron cookware to use on Bubba Ho-Keg. Among the various pieces was a 14″ wok that can also be used as a diffuser (yeah, I’m still looking for alternatives here since the In Zone distributor is taking forever to deliver the “official” Bubba Keg version). But I figured I’d break it in properly by using as a wok. Especially since I’d received more than one complaint from family members that I don’t stir fry as often now that most of my cooking is done outdoors.

Tonight’s cook started with a mixture of sliced chicken breasts with minced garlic, fresh grated ginger, and sesame oil. Once the meat mixture was browned, it was joined by onions, carrots, broccoli, mushrooms, snow peas, and a mixture of hoisin sauce, Yoshida’s Gourmet sauce, water, and cornstarch.

You’ll notice I had the wok sitting on the grill; next time around I’m going to dispense with the grill and set it further down so that it is closer to the fire. The whole process took about twice as long to cook as I expected in spite of getting Bubba Ho-Keg up over 600°F before throwing the chicken on. In spite of the longer cooking time, the stir fry turned out real well, especially served up over some nice brown rice.

Dessert was also on the menu and it was crumble again, only this time with some fresh blueberries.

Every one of the crumbles we’ve had recently have been outstanding, but this one might be my favorite (even though the blueberries were store-bought rather than fresh picked from our bushes; they aren’t ripe yet). As usual, it was served up over vanilla ice cream.

We’ve had some great fruit this summer, and I certainly hope the trend continues. And stay tuned for more fun with cast iron utensils; it’s been so long since I cooked on it I’d forgotten how much fun it can be. Might not be “traditional BBQ”, but it’s my site and I’ll post it if I want to…

My son and I came home after spending a few days at the lake engaged in frivolous pastimes and various meat comas. We were greeted with family size take-and-bake pizzas from Papa Murphy’s that SWMBO purchased on sale. It had been awhile since I’d cooked one of these on Bubba Ho-Keg and I quickly discovered that something had changed since the last time I’d done this.

All of the pizza stones were broken. And we have no pizza pans that are big enough for a family size pizza. Undeterred, I forged ahead and put the pizzas on the BGE diffuser using the coated paper that they get cooked on in the oven. First up was a Hawaiian pizza. Can someone explain to me what Canada has to do with Hawaii?

I purposely kept the temperature down to about 500°F in the hopes that the paper wouldn’t burn. Didn’t work. The edges that hung out over the BGE diffuser turned to char in less than 8 minutes and ruined a portion of the pizza that was about the difference between a family size and a large. The rest of the pizza crust wasn’t even crispy; it’s a good thing we have kids around that will eat almost anything.

The second pizza went on while still in the paper and at about the 4 minute mark was removed from the paper and put on the largest pan we have. The edge of the crust hung over the pan by about 2 inches all the way around. Here’s a picture taken right before I pulled it off.

As you can see fro the pictures, portions of the pizza are drooping into the fire; trust me when I say that those parts were charred beyond my ability to enjoy them. Once again, we lost pretty much the difference between the family size and a large.

But not to despair, the meal was saved by dessert. Peach crumble (same topping as the cherry and apple crumbles but with fresh peaches as the star attraction) was being prepped, and after overcoming some misgivings from the spouse, I finally convinced her to not heat up the oven (and the house) since I had a perfectly good fire going on Bubba Ho-Keg.

As you can see, this turned out pretty good, and since I didn’t wait around for Bubba Ho-Keg to get the heat turned down it was ready to eat in about 20 minutes. 500°F fires will do that for baked goods…

As usual, it was spooned over vanilla ice cream and made a wonderful end to an otherwise disappointing dinner. The moral of this story is either buy pizzas that fit your pans or get bigger pans.

Notice I said pans. We try not to think about buying more stones around here. They don’t seem to last very long…

Having recovered from yesterday’s ribeye steak and baked potato coma with a leisurely day of fishing, mini-golf, and hanging with the 8-year old boy, we found ourselves in the local grocery store looking for something to throw on the grill for dinner. And since one good food-induced coma deserves another, tonight it was meatsicles and taters for dinner.

The slab of ribs were dusted with granulated garlic, Cajun seasoning mix, and some Kirkland sweet mesquite seasoning mix and put on the OTG away from the coals for just under 2 hours. They finished faster than I expected them to; I guess one of these days I ought to modify the OTG with a thermometer so that I can get actual grill temps rather than guessing at them. Like I have done for years.

The ribs were joined by more of those enormous and tasty russet potatoes, and treated the same way once they hit the table (sour cream, butter, and shredded cheese; there wasn’t any leftover bacon from breakfast or it would have gone on them as well). Some sliced watermelon at the insistence of a certain 8-year old red-headed boy, and dinner was served.

I haven’t had dino bones (meatsicles) in a long time, and had been craving them for quite some time. Now that the craving has been satisfied, I should probably spend the next week eating something lighter and healthier.

Or not…