Creamy corn casserole is one of my favorite side dishes.  I’ve never known how to make and and never thought to find the recipe.  This recipe was found last week on the BBQ Brethren forum.  Audrey was loving the corn with some creamy Italian chicken with bow tie pasta.

1 can regular corn
1 can cream style corn
1 package of Jiffy cornbread mix
1 stick of butter (How can anything with a stick of butter be a bad thing?)
8 ounces of sour cream
1/4 cup of milk

Drain the regular corn. Melt the butter. Combine all the ingredients into a large mixing bowl and mix well. Grease a glass baking dish (8 x 11 or 9 x 13) and add the mixture to it. Bake at 350 degrees for 45 - 60 minutes or until the top begins to split and brown just a bit.

Been wanting to make salsa verde for long time. I’ve made tomato salsa, but never green salsa with tomatillos. Tomatillos, seranos, jalapenos, one whole onion, lots of garlic, and a poblano were coated with olive oil before smoke roasting in the Big Green Egg.

Once roasted, everything was placed into a pot with a glass of water, salt, sugar, a whole bunch of cilantro, Mexican oregano, and the juice of one lemon.  Everything simmered for 30 minutes.  Had a bit with my brisket enchilada.  Very good salsa verde.  The smoke roasted added another layer of flavor to the dish and took a lot of the heat out of the peppers.

Been wanting to make enchiladas for a long time. Love the enchiladas, but have never made them myself. It is so damned easy, why have I never done this?

I’ve got so much left over brisket and pork from comps, it is starting to fill my freezers. So here comes brisket enchiladas. Just had one with my smoked salsa verde. Whoa, Pepe! Delicioso.

Sweet corn season is upon us! The two great memories of summer as a kid was sweet corn from the farm and my grandmother’s strawberry bed. Both of my boys love sweet corn on the cob. We got our first dozen ears from the farmer’s market this weekend along with some fresh made bread. Served with a side of melted butter with garlic, salt, summer savory, thyme, tarragon, and red pepper flakes. The burnt ends were left overs from the contest this weekend.

The herb, garlic butter gets “painted” on with a basting brush. Yum-oh!!!  For dessert, rhubarb pie.

The site has been missing some cooking.  Lot’s of competition, but not a lot of cooking at home.  This dish was inspired by my friends at the BBQ Brethren.  The pork is left over from our competition this last weekend.  The cornbread pancakes came from a box of Jiffy with a dozen or so dashes of Tabasco.  Topped with some BBQ sauce and more Tabasco, you have a lunch ready for a hungry Jack or Jill.

For Breakfast, top with a fried egg.  Over easy of course.  Gotta love that yoke breaking and making everything extra yummy.  (Did I just say Yummy?  To much Rachel Ray 30 Minute Meals.)

Home today with a bad cold. I hate summer colds. I’m good for one about every other year. The congestion is a killer. For lunch today, I thought I’d open up my sinuses: Hot Sausage Pie.

I had to use what was available, so here goes…

• 1 pound Jimmy Dean sausage, browned with one medium onion, diced
• minced garlic, black pepper, thyme to taste
• add flour to browned sausage mixture like you would for sausage gravy until flour is absorbed
• whisk in 16 oz of milk (the anticipated result is a very thick sausage gravy)
• mix in diced carrots, pre-blanched
• simmer briefly to allow thickening
• add hot sauce to taste

Pour mixture into pie plate. Cover with pie crust. Bake at 375 for 10-15 minutes until crust is slightly brown and firm to the touch.

Corn and bell peppers would be great in this, but I was without today.

Mmmmm… sausage. I’m breathing better now.

I get asked a lot if we use Yardbird on other categories besides chicken. The answer is, “Everything but brisket.” IMHO, Yardbird is by far best on Pork Butt/Shoulder. We admit that the product was named too early. It was our initial chicken rub. It wasn’t until we started selling it that we tried it on anything else. DUH!!!

Here’s a picture of our first place ribs this weekend with Yardird Rub and Blues Hog sauce.  Ignoring the black spot, I’d kill for ribs that look this good each week.

My ribs are rubbed the night before I plan to cook them for a contest. They usually get rubbed down before I go to bed. Mostly around 11p-12a. My ribs go on at 8a. They NEVER turn out “hammy” or taste cured with that length of time. However, I got my ribs prepped at 10am at a contest once. Two of the three ribs definitely tasted cured. Learned my lesson not to depart from my process. The cause of “hammy” or cured tasting ribs is the presence of salt in the rub. Don’t be afraid of salt in rubs. It can be your best friend just as sugar can be. I’m convinced that judges taste salt as “flavor”. But if you don’t respect the salt and either watch your amounts or rub times, it can be your enemy. For ribs, our rub seems to be fine overnight, but I wouldn’t push it past 10-12 hours.

Hope this helps those of you using our product and trying to find your own signature flavor profile.  Don’t be afraid to mix rubs or sauces as well.  Another rub can change your color and definitely change your flavor. The same is true with sauces.

“I’m the king of omelets, there is none higher!”  An homage to Run-DMC, the kings of rock.  One that that most people don’t know about me is that I make a mean omelet.  While looking for some lunch today, I came across some leftovers from “taco night”.  We’d already done the Mexican version of the sloppy Joe: Sloppy Pepe’s.  Didn’t want to do that again.  Then I saw the eggs.

Two eggs were whisked with milk and mexican oregano.  The filling consisted of taco meat and pepper jack cheese.  Queso Fresco or chihuahua cheese would be great in this as well as black olives, onion, and jalapeño.  Topped with my favorite chipotle salsa, this omelet was, as the Taco Bell commercials say, “good to go”.

“All you sucka MC’s can call me sire!”

For Father’s Day weekend, we took a short, very short, camping trip.  We are fortunate enough to have two beautiful lakes within a couple miles of our house: Blue Springs Lake and Lake Jacomo.  Both have campgrounds.  This weekend, we secured a spot less than 50 feet from the playground at Blue Springs Lake.  Mom and I were able to sit and watch the boys play and communicate with them right from our campsite.  Camping a couple of miles from home has its advantages.  Mom and Christian slept at home Friday night and we all took naps at home on Saturday.  Since the dog stayed home all weekend, we would make trips home to check on her and let her out to do what dogs do.  Back at the campsite, while the boys played with the other camping kids, I got to play with fire.  The site had these awesome fire rings that had a grill that you could flip over onto your fire.

Saturday night was NY strip steak, ribeye steak, pit beans, stuffed fresno peppers, and baked potatoes.

Who needs a pot?  These beans were made cowboy style… right in the can!

For quick biscuits that taste so close to homemade, I gotta give two spatulas up for Grands! Southern Style Biscuits.  These frozen biscuits go from hockey pucks to fluffy rich biscuits in 17 minutes in a 375 degree oven.  The resealable bag means that you can prepare two or three biscuits now and have more for later.

I’m a huge biscuits and gravy fan.  Growing up in Northwest Iowa, it wasn’t a staple breakfast.  Now I, it is my go to comfort food.  So, I have to admit, that my Grands! Biscuits were put to good use under a bucket of sausage gravy.  All is right with the world.