After having a bowl of Campbell’s condensed cheddar cheese soup, I knew I could find something better that I could make from scratch.  Through the search, I found Dr BBQ’s Mac n Cheese Soup.  This is a recipe from Ray Lampe’s (aka Dr BBQ) NFL Gameday Cookbook.  Ray is a friend and fellow competition BBQ’er.  Among many things, Ray is the executive chef at Justin Timberlake’s Manhattan restaurant: Southern Hospitality.

continue reading "Dr BBQ’s Mac n Cheese Soup"

The 2nd Annual Blue Ribbon Bacon Festival in Des Moines, IA begins this weekend.  The day long tribute to bacon kicks off at 10am today with bacon bloody mary’s and caps off with a 3:30p bacon eating contest.  Though the agenda contains lectures such as “Baconology part II”, it looks more like an opportunity to drink beer and eat bacon.

I wonder if the “Bacon Press” will be there to cover the event.  LOL!  Mr. Bacon Pants will be there.   Jason Mosley, Mr BP, joined the organizers to help promote and coordinate this year’s event.

Jason and Aaron from BBQ Addicts were invited to share the Bacon Explosion with the hundreds of Bacon Festival participants.  The guys are preparing 30 Bacon Explosions so that everyone can have a “healthy” sample.  In addition to some tasty smoked bacon and sausage, folks will get to taste some Plowboys BBQ Yardbird Rub and Blues Hog BBQ Sauce.  Jason and Aaron grabbed a few cases of Yardbird Rub and Blues Hog pints to take with them to use for their samples and sell to festival goers.  Here’s a picture taken at the event this morning.  Looking forward to a full recap at BBQ Addicts when the guys are back.

Andy Groneman, Randy Hinck and I are putting together the 2009 Pork Pullin Plowboys contest schedule for 2009.  It is certain that jobs, sponsorship and funds will determine how many contests we get to do this year.  Andy, Randy and I will cook the GAB Invitational together.  Randy and I will be back for our 6th year at the BBQlossal in Des Moines, IA in June.

Andy and I will be certainly going back to Burlington, KS where we won our second Grand Championship last year.

BBQ Addicts is now selling 5 lb bags of bulk Yardbird Rub in their new online store.  Plowboys BBQ is the first product line available a the new BBQ Addicts store.

Bovine Bold rub is also available in bulk through BBQ Addicts.

BBQ Addicts, creators of the famed Bacon Explosion, are starting a Monthly Rubdown.  The first Rubdown features Plowboys BBQ rubs.  We’ve hooked them up with some shirts and coozies for giveaways to their buyers and readers.  BBQ Addicts will be selling Plowboys Rubs as their first products in their online store.

We are very excited to be partnering with these fellow Kansas City BBQ Addicts!

This weekend I competed at the Kansas Winter Q in Great Bend, KS.  Friday night was an appetizers contest.  Out of 28 entries, this one came out in 7th place.

The inspiration came from my friend and fellow competition BBQ cook Clint from Long Island, NY.  Clint has a great blog and comes up with a lot of interesting dishes.  I talked to Clint this week about my upcoming entry.  He suggested the Jenga style presentation.  I think it works great.  These were good.  Not entree worthy, but is something fun and interesting for an appetizer.

My fried ribs were first dredged in flour, dipped in milk, dipped in egg, and then dredged in Panko bread crumbs.  They were skillet fried in shortening at about 350 degrees until I got the color I wanted.  The spare ribs were precooked in my smoker and then cooled in the refridgerator.

The 2008 BBQ season was, in a word, amazing.  I got to cook with my friend Andy Groneman and my friend and brother in law Randy Hinck.  So many memorable moments.  Randy and I tore up the Great American BBQ contest placing in Chicken, Ribs, and Pork (4th) in the invitational and brisket (11th) and pork (1st) in the Open out of 225 teams.  Randy and I finished 6th in our first ever Invitational and 9th in the Open.  My grandfather passed away the day before the GAB, so it was an emotional weekend all the way around.
Andy and I cooked six contests together this year scoring two Grand Championships, two Reserve Grand Championships, another top 5 finish, and 1st place pork at the American Royal Invitational.  Andy went on to place Reserve Grand Champion (2nd overall) out of 500 teams at the American Royal Open as his team, Smoke on Wheels.

All of our collective efforts this year earned our team, Pork Pullin Plowboys, our first ever KCBS Team of the Year award.  The top 10 contests finishes by a team are scored and compared against all teams in the country.  Bonus points are given based on the number of teams competing at each contest.  There were approximately 4200 unique teams scored this year.  Here are the top 10 finishes that got us into the top five in the country for the pork category.

1st Place - Great American BBQ Contest - Kansas City, KS
1st Place - Sugar Creek, MO
2nd Place - Pleasant Hill, MO
2nd Place - BBQLossal - Part of the World Pork Expo - Des Moines, IA
2nd Place - River City Roundup - Omaha, NE
3rd Place - Garden City, MO
5th Place - Blue Springs, MO
5th Place - Burlington, KS
6th Place - Excelsior Springs, MO
13th Place - American Royal Open - Kansas City, MO

Our team finished 27th overall, 35th in Brisket, 36th in Chicken (Go Andy!), and 47th in Ribs.  Audrey and I traveled to Nashville, TN to receive the TOY award presented at the KCBS annual banquet.

It is no secret that our Bovine Bold rub is  my ground beef seasoning of choice.  During the 14 months it took to create the final formula, all I cooked with Bovine Bold rub was brisket.  It wasn’t until after it was on the shelves that I learned what a great ground beef rub it is.  We love it in meat loaf, tacos, and especially shepard’s pie.  Well, I think Bovine Bold may have found its ultimate calling: Bolognese.  A little ground beef, veal, tomato and Bovine Bold rub makes an excellent dish.

Often during weeknight cooking, I tend to look at what I have and put it together.  Not necessarily creative and definitely not high end cuisine.   I tend to look around the pantry for things I like and think, “I wonder what that would be like together?”  Tonight was such an odd creation.  A cross between a tamale pie and a shepard’s pie: tomatoes, red potatoes, peas, ground beef, topped with corn bread.  The little surprise inside is diced Serrano chili’s.

Finally broke down and signed up on Twitter.  Follow me at http://twitter.com/PlowboysBBQ.