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.

The local Coffey County newspaper ran this picture and an article on the front page of Monday’s news paper.  This was after Andy and I won Grand Champion at the 4th Annual Wild Blue BBQ contest.

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.

Wild Blue BBQ - 35 teams

Overall: 1st - Grand Champion

Chicken: 2nd
Ribs: 1st
Pork: 5th
Brisket: 8th
Sausage: 2nd
Chiefs Choice: 1st

This was another contest with my good friend Andy Groneman.  This is the fourth contest Andy and I have cooked together this year.  It is our second Grand Championship this year and our first ever in Kansas.  Since we have already qualified for the 2008 American Royal Invitational and 2009 Great American BBQ, the most important thing this win provides us is one more draw opportunity for the Jack Daniels Invitational in Lynchburg, TN.  As it stands, we have two draws in Missouri for our 2007 Kearney win and 2008 Pleasant Hill win.  We now have a draw in Kansas.  The Jack Daniels draw for the invitational is the first week of September.  We have all fingers and toes crossed.  There are a lot of teams hoping for the lone invitation from both Kansas and Missouri.  It is safe to say that 25+ teams are hoping for the spot from each state.

“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!”

This is where it all started in 2001, Alma, Missouri. This was the first ever contest for Randy and I. We’ve been coming back ever since to support this tiny, non-sanctioned contest. We’ve been there when it was 104 degrees and when it rained the entire contest. In the beginning there have been as many as 14 teams, then seven teams for a few years, but the last five or six years have seen only five teams each year. Hopefully, we can get more teams to come and grow this little contest. The contest is always the Saturday of 4th of July weekend and is part of the Alma Independence Day festivities. They have some of the best fireworks displays around.

Overall: Grand Champion

Ribs: 1st
Brisket: 1st
Chicken: 2nd
Beans: 2nd
Bratwurst: 2nd

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!

One of our pictures from the Great American BBQ is prominently placed on the Cookshack Winners Circle.  Cookshack is the maker of the Fast Eddy series of cookers.  We have two Fast Eddy 100 models on the back of my trailer.  We’ve been using a Fast Eddy (FEC-100) since June of 2007.

225 Teams

9th Overall
1st Pork
11th Brisket

The second round of the Great American BBQ weekend ran like a well oiled watch.  Randy and I were working hand and glove together.  Cookers ran well.  Timing worked out perfectly on everything. We were happier with our Open entries than we were with our Invitational entries.  No matter how we finished, we had a great time.  The judges kind to us as well.
First place in pork among 225 of some of the best teams in the country was awesome.

Next step for Randy and I is our 5th appearance at the World Pork Expo next week.