Sometimes we get slow news weeks and I have to save up items just to give people a decent-sized post. This is not one of those weeks. From food competitions to seaweed beer and Doritos Roulette, there’s a lot to talk about.
Spicy Vietnamese Spring Rolls
It’s summertime… hot and humid. You don’t want to be heating up the kitchen and cooking but would like something light, tasty and different for dinner. Try some Vietnamese spring rolls served cold with a peanut dipping sauce. While there is a bit of a learning curve to master rolling the rolls once that’s accomplished the rest is easy.
Hot News
Interesting week for news. With summer in full swing, we have three of the season’s big B’s represented: beef, beer, and boats. Having just enjoyed all three on my recent visit back home to Alaska, this seems strangely appropriate somehow.
Smoking Takes Practice
I’ve discovered that I can smoke two large slabs of St. Louis-style ribs and four large chicken breasts at the same time in about 3 to 4 hours. That beats the hell out of 16-hour briskets. Not that I have anything against briskets–it’s all about staying awake, and frankly that’s a pain in the ass when you’re a senior smoker like me.
The Return of Hot News
It’s been too long since I’ve run a news post on the blog. Well, no more, I say! Hot News is back and I’ll try to run it once a week. If you have a news item for us, please message us on the Facebook page and we’ll be happy to run it. And now, the news…
Playing with Fire: My Microfarm Experiment
If you’re a home gardener, you’ve probably experienced the dreaded Zucchini Syndrome. Over-producing squash plants make the zukes faster than your family can eat them. You try to give them away, but no one wants them because they’re now larger than your cat. Well, the same thing can happen to chile plants, which is why I wrote Too Many Chiles with Nancy and Jeff Gerlach. But at least you can dry the chile pods to preserve them—something you can’t do easily with zucchinis and large tomatoes.
A Pellet Smoker Simplifies Barbecue
I gave up smoking meat a few years ago because it was getting to be too much trouble. First I had to locate the wood, which meant calling firewood lots and asking if they had any pecan or fruit woods around. And then, during the smoking process, was the constant adding of the wood to the firebox, which interrupted anything else I was trying to do. The best time to smoke was during a football game when I could add wood during the timeouts for commercial breaks. But football isn’t on during the summer, which is the traditional time for smoking. Finally, I gave it up and just went to the Pork and Brew Cookoff and bought a year’s supply of pulled pork and brisket from my friends, the Texas Rib Rangers.
