Made a Shepard’s pie for dinner tonight and had more filling than would fit in the casserole dish. The Hot Shepard’s Sandwich was born!!!

I’m pretty sure three wise men will be showing up in a few days.

I understand that this is a big statement, but this may be the best pork I’ve ever made or ever had.  Then again, may be it is something different than the same old pork I’ve made a thousand times for catering and competition.  Either way, my wife and I just licked our plates clean.

The Injection

• 1/2 cup of pineapple juice
• 1 T Dizzy Pig Jamaican Fire
• 3 good shots of Pickapeppa Sauce

The Rub

• Dizzy Pig Jamaican Fire - applied liberally

The Wrap

• 1 cup of Apple Cider
• 1 T Dizzy Pig Jamaican Fire
• 3 good shots of Pickapeppa Sauce
• A little somethang-somethang   (aka Secret Ingredient)
• Topped with brown sugar

Smoked on the Big Green Egg at 300 with apple wood and lump for about 6-7 hours flipping occasionally.  Wrapped at 175 so as to have a good crust.  Pulled at 190 and set to rest for one hour.  The money muscle was mine.

The Rice

• Bacon rendered with half yellow onion, two cloves garlic, 1/2 habanero pepper (de-seeded and de-viened)
• Basmati Rice
• Black Beans

• 1 18-1/4 ounce yellow cake mix
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons milk
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1/4 mini choc chips
• 3 eggs
• 1-teaspoon maple or vanilla extract

• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/3 cup chopped, toasted pecans
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour tube or 12-cup Bundt cake pan. Mix cake ingredients in a large bowl. Pour half of the batter in the prepared cake pan.

Mix filling ingredients. Sprinkle half on batter in pan. Add rest of batter to pan and top with filling.

Bake for 45 to 50 minutes. Cool for 30 minutes on wire rack. Remove cake from pan and serve warm.

36 Teams
Overall - 6th
Pork - 3rd
Brisket - 8th

An average contest in size, but not in competition.  Of the current top 50 teams in the country, ten were at this contest.  Placing in any category at this one was going to take some skill.  In talking with the other teams, they all recognized this fact.  I was pleased at my two calls in Pork (3rd) and Brisket (8th).  Ribs were a very close 11th place, just one position out from an award.

The chicken turned out great, in my opinion.  The flavor, moisture, and color was all there.  I thought they were worthy of a top 10 finish, but it was not meant to be.  Instead of the normal Yardbird Rub, I thought I’d try our new Plowboys BBQ Bovine Bold rub.  It works!  The flavor was there.  I left my normal sauce at home.  I like to mix Blues Hog with another sauce.  If I had to be disappointed in anything, it was the sauce.  I should have stayed with 100% Blues Hog.  Next time I’ll know.

Speaking of next time, the season is over in this part of the country.  It will be four and a half months until we do it all over again.  Looking forward to a lot of practice this winter.

For my dessert entry this weekend at Kurzweil’s Fall Fling BBQ contest, I made pumpkin dump cakes. Followed the same basic dump cake approach, but used pumpkin pie filling instead of fruit pie filling. I made them in small personal cups. They were delicious, but presentation wasn’t up to par with some of the amazing desserts that get entered… oh, and it wasn’t cheese cake.

The only change I made from the directions on the side of the can of pumpkin as reducing the evaporated milk in half.

48 Teams

2nd Overall (Reserve Grand Champion)
1st Sausage
1st Ribs
2nd Pork

Andy and I teamed up once again for the River City Roundup in Omaha, NE.  The contest was organized by our friends, Tom and Char Manhart.  We got to see some of our friends from Nebraska once again.  The weekend was great fun and the contest was very well run.  There was a lot of help for the teams for whatever they needed.  The Grand and Reserve Grand Champions recieved a real western brand with the River City Roundup logo.  What a unique prize!

Without a doubt, this is the best dog I’ve ever had… hands down.  If I owned a restaurant, this would be on the menu tomorrow.  It was so good, that I’ve had them again for the last three meals.  Now I’m out of green chili.  Damn!!

The Dog
Nathan’s All Beef Hot Dog
Two strip bacon
Green Chili
Shredded Cheddar Cheese

The Chili
This recipe comes from Wayne from Playing with Smoke and Fire.  His green chili is pretty famous and has won numerous chili cook offs across the country.  This was my first attempt at green chili for a cookoff at work.  I didn’t win the cook off, but I came home with some great chili.  Check out Wayne’s Green Chili recipe.

Using the ground CAB brisket, we grilled up some burgers for Sunday supper.  They were topped with our new Bovine Bold Rub.  Delicious!

This Shepard’s Pie is made with ground brisket trimmings.  When we cook for competitions, we do a lot of trimming on our briskets to get them to cook just how we want them and fit in the turn in box.  From the American Royal contests, I brought home six lbs of brisket trimmings from Certified Angus Beef (CAB).  It made for some great ground beef.  How many Shepard’s Pies have you had with CAB beef?

The ground brisket was seasoned with salt and pepper.  Then it went onto the Big Green Egg to smoke for a bit.  The smoked ground beef was then mixed with a can of tomato paste, corn, peas, and carrots.  Garlic, thyme, onion powder, and celery salt were added for flavor.  Everything was combined into a casserole dish, topped with mashed potatoes and cooked on the gas grill using the Grill Plate by Grill Innovations.

Grill Innovations contacted me asking if I’d try out their Grill Plate. It amounts to a heavy piece of aluminum used as a deflector plate on a gas grill. Their Web site says to not to use on a charcoal grill, but I can’t see why not.

The bottom of the plate has a second piece of aluminum slightly bent into a V shape and spot welded to the top piece. The idea seems to be that the direct heat is pushed out to the side of the deflector instead of building up underneath aiding to the convection properties.

We used it for the first time to make brisket enchiladas in a pyrex dish. Then again for cheesy potatoes. I’ll probably make a corn bread in a metal pan to see how the different backing dishes perform.  So far, I really like it.  It provides very even heating.  I want to try it on my little pellet grill to see how it performs.

Frankly, my gas grill gets pretty lonely and neglected. This is a good excuse to burn a little propane. Hank Hill would be proud.