We had Thanksgiving at a friend's house this year which meant that I didn't get to cook a turkey or enjoy working my way through a big pile of turkey leftovers.

I am not sure if that was a curse or a blessing.

All the same I had the hankering for some bird so I fired up the smoker and put on some turkey legs and chicken thighs.

The poultry was brined overnight before smoking and was seasoned with some Traeger Poultry Seasoning.  I smoked them up at around 265F with apple wood.

​It took about two hours for the poultry to hit 160F and that is when I sauced it with some Sweet Baby Ray barbecue sauce.  After another 30 minutes the sauce was set and the chicken thighs were done!  I thought they came out pretty nice!

The turkey legs were done about the same time and they also looked pretty.

Looks can be deceiving though....I have to tell you that I am just not a big fan of turkey legs.  I don't understand it.  When I get smoked turkey legs at the state fair they are meaty, juicy and delicious.  

Every time I try making them I get a big mouth full of tendon and cartilage that I have to sort through.
​

I've tried smoking both small turkey and large turkey legs and they always have the same problem. 

I ended up using these legs  to season a pot of bean soup...now that turned out awesome!

So how about it?  Have any tips on where I can find some turkey legs that are not a pile of tendons???

Useful Links on Smoked Chicken Thighs and Turkey Legs

smokingchicken.wordpress.com/2018/11/28/butter-bath-smoked-chicken-thighs/

amazingribs.com/tested-recipes/turkey-recipes/disney-style-smoked-turkey-legs-recipe

Our first adventure in our Steak Week was a flank steak.  The next new steak that we tried was picanha!  We have been watching the YouTube channel "Sous Vide Everything" and have had fun watching those guys go crazy over picanha.  

The weather had cleared up and even though I really liked the pan searing technique that I used on the flank steak I really wanted to grill these steaks instead.

They steaks were seasoned with salt, pepper, onion powder and garlic powder.

I grilled the picanha steaks with the steaks on the cool side of the kettle grill for about 30 minutes.  When the steaks were still at the rare stage they got placed directly over the charcoal for a few minutes to put a little char on them.

Grilling these steaks directly over the charcoal was fun but hard!  There is a big fat cap on these steaks and it caused a lot of flare ups.  That's okay though...playing with fire is fun!

When the steaks reached Medium Rare I took them off the grill and let them rest.  I think they turned out pretty.

We ate these steaks with some sauteed mushrooms, baked potatoes and a Ceaser salad.  

Te meat was incredibly juicy and flavorful.  I can understand why the Sous Vide Everything guys are so nuts about this steak.  

Another nice thing about picanha is that despite the fancy name it is really just a special cut from the sirloin.  This means that it is pretty cheap compared to ribeyes!

Here are some useful links about picanha.

Picanha: What is it, How to Grill and Where to Buy
Tenderize Picanha with Beer
Sous Vide Picanha

It has been steak week at our house...(not on Meatless Monday though!)..and I have been cooking up some steaks that I don't usually use.
I figured it was time to learn a few new tricks and expand my steak routine to go beyond ribeyes.  The first steak we cooked up was a beautiful flank steak.

This was a one and a half pound flank steak with a well defined grain pattern.  Being able to easily see the grain is important because you will need to slice against it to get a tender steak.  The high end steaks like  ribeye are so tender that it really does not matter which way you slice it.  On cheap tough steaks the grain matters!

I had planned on grilling this steak but the weather was rotten and I didn't want to stand around in the rain.  I figured that as long as I was trying new things that I might as well try a new cooking technique.

I got a cast iron skillet scorching hot, added a tablespoon of oil and then put the flank steak (seasoned with salt and pepper) into the pan.

I kept the steak moving and flipped it every minute to get a nice crust on both sides without burning.  I liked the technique and the crust on the steak!

After nine minutes the steak was at medium rare.  It came out of the skillet and rested for a few minutes before carving against the grain in thin slices.  The center of the steak was absolutely amazing!

We ate the steak fajita style with some tortillas, peppers and onions.  I wish we had some sour cream on hand but I hadn't planned ahead!

All in all we really liked this change in routine.  It was fun trying a new steak and a new way of cooking!

Here are some more great resources for pan searing steaks and flank steak recipes!
How to Sear a Steak
Garlic Grilled Flank Steak
Cajun Flank Steak

Meatless Monday is off to a glorious start today and I wanted to share a simple but spectacular salad!

I first had a version of this salad at a local vegetarian restaurant.  There salad was baby spinach with walnuts, feta cheese, diced apples and a balsamic dressing.  It was awesome...LOVED how well feta cheese and apples work together.

I changed it up just slightly by adding some arugula into the greens but other than that mine was a blatant copy :) 

While I loved the feta/apple combination the real stars of the show are the walnuts.  This might sound silly but I have always thought of walnuts as an indulgance.  Heck, depending upon whether you are buying pieces, whole, organic, etc it is easy to pay up to $15 a pound.  That's in the same territory as Prime ribeye steak!

I tell you, when I am munching down on a big bowl full of walnuts and feta cheese this whole Meatless Monday thing sure doesn't feel like a sacrifice.  

Meatless Monday Shoutout!

I wanted to give a shout out over to Patricia at Grab a Plate!  She has a lot of great recipes but the one that caught my eye is this Sweet Potato and Black Eyed Pea Curry...looks awesome!

If you know of a meatless Monday blogger who deserves a shoutout let me know in the comments!

While I was at Wal-Mart looking at the Pit Boss Smokers I also spent some time looking at the Akron Kamado smoker from Chargriller.  I have to tell you, this was one sweet looking cooker!

The Akorn looks like a ceramic cooker like a Big Green Egg but is actually made of triple walled steel.  Apparently the triple wall construction provides insulation similar to what you get with ceramics.

The grill has a cast iron grate (314 square inches) and a removable upper swing grate (133 square inches).  The grill comes standard with two side tables.

​You control the airflow with upper and lower vents.  Both the top cap vent and the lower slide vent are numerically marked making it easy to reproduce temperature settings.  This is a really nice touch.  

The grill also comes with a high temperature gasket around the inside of the lid which ought to make the grill pretty tight and greatly increase the ability to control airflow.

Another nice feature on the Akorn is the ash removal system.  There is a detachable lower bowl that is held in place by two clamps.  Unlatching the clamps just takes seconds and the ash bowl simply slides right out.

Two concerns that I have about the Akorn are the ability to add charcoal during long cooks and the absence of a heat deflector.

The only way to add more charcoal is to remove the cooking grate and pour more in.  I would have too imagine that if you were in the middle of a 14 hour cook with 15 pounds of pork butt that this would be a GIANT pain in the neck!

And speaking of slow smoking pork butts I realized that while the Akorn has three tabs to hold a heat deflector in place that it does not actually come with one.

I am assuming that there are some after market accessories that you can buy that will work here but still....I wish it came with a heat deflector.

Overall the Akorn looks like one heck of a cooker for the price.  I know it wont last as long as a Big Green Egg or a Primo ceramic smoker but at under $300 I just don't care!!

Here is a great forum dedicated to everything about the Akorn if you would like to learn more.

​I am still on the hunt for a new smoker and found some interesting options at Wal-Mart.  Pit Boss has a bunch of new smokers that look sweet and are pretty inexpensive.

​Pit Boss had three pellet grills that were pretty much identical in design but differed in size.  The three grills are the Austin XL, Classic and Tailgater.

​The Austin XL has 1008 inches of grilling space compared to 700 on the classic and 341 on the Tailgater.

The three grills also have different sized pellet hoppers.  The Tailgater only holds five pounds of pellets which would be good for about 2-3 hours worth of cooking.

​A nice detail on the Austin XL is that it has a stainless steel side table that can also be used as a serving tray!

All of the grills come the "Flame Broiler System"  I was reading David's review of the Pit Boss Austin XL and he didn't think that the flame broiler was worth the hype.

​Overall I thought that these were good looking grills at a pretty decent price.  What do you think...has anyone used one of these?  Are they as good of a deal as they seem?

I am in the market for a new smoker and had the chance to put my hands on two very different options the last time I was Bass Pro Shops.

The two pits I was looking at were the Masterbuilt Sportsman Elite propane smoker and the Smoke Hollow  40 inch digital electric smoker.

The Masterbuilt propane smoker looked like it was solidly put together and was about $150 cheaper than the Smoke Hollow electric.  Masterbuilt electric smokers get great reviews and that gives me some confidence in their propane fueled products.  

My two concerns with the Masterbuilt is the size of the Sportsman Elite and the inability to dial in a temperature for smoking.  Here is a picture of the Sportsman Elite with a shaker of bbq seasoning on a shelf to give you some perspective on the size of this cooker.

All of the components in the smoker look solidly built and I think this one actually had a nice solid seal around the door.

Still, it just has a single burner with a crude knob.  I imagine it would take me a while to get my target temperatures set.

By comparison the 40 inch Smoke Hollow electric smoker is massive and would let me set an exact smoking temperature with ease.

I am not sure how I feel about electric smokers though.  They are quick and easy to use but not much different than simply using an oven.  

I am also nervous about having what is essentially an electronic device sitting outside and being exposed to the weather.  I know that they have the controls sealed up but it just seems like a bad idea. 

Maybe getting an electric smoker will be the excuse I finally need to build that covered outdoor kitchen that I always wanted!

Yeah, I know...I am one more person posting pictures about grilling wings for the Superbowl.  It's not very original and hardly worth a post.

So why am I even writing this?  

These wings were the end product of the simple act of starting a fire.  Starting a fire is a thing of beauty and also something that we take for granted.

When I was getting ready for this cook I realized that I was out of paraffin starter cubes and lighter fluid and that I had thrown my rusty charcoal chimney away a few months ago.  I started to have a small panic attack because I had no way to light my charcoal.

That is when I realized just how far I had drifted away from the simple things in life like building a fire.  I went into the yard and picked up a big pile of twigs and used them to build a roaring little fire in a charcoal basket.

As soon as the fire died down some and I had a nice bed of embers I simply added my charcoal and gave it about 20 minutes to get lit and properly hot.

The rest of the cook was pretty simple.  I seasoned up the wings and grilled them with indirect high heat for about 45 minutes then sauced them and let them finish cooking.

We tend to make things in life so much more complicated than they need to be.  These wings helped pull me back to the simple pleasure of building a fire and listening to the crackling of burning wood.

​It was a fine day for grilling.

Here are a few links to get you going with your smoked chicken wing recipes:

New York Times
Barbecue Biblebarbecuebible.com/recipe/smokehouse-wings/
Epicurious

I don't have a standard meatloaf recipe...I am more of a "seat of my pants" and "whatever is in the pantry" kind of guy.

For this batch I used:

• 1 pound ground chuck
• 1 pound ground pork
• 1/2 cup Italian breadcrumbs
• 1 cup caramelized onions
• 2 eggs
• 2 Tablespoons A1 steak sauce.

If I had planned better I definitely would have ground my own meat for this.  Grinding your own meat is really easy and you will know exactly what is going into your meatloaf.

If you don't have a meat grinder then you can pick one up for not much money.  Here is a review of the best meat grinders that my buddy put together.

Mix the meatloaf ingredients together and then form the loaves into small aluminum loaf pans.  I poke holes in the bottom of the pan so the grease can drain out. 

Smoke the meatloaf with indirect heat on a kettle grill for about an hour.  After the meatloaf has taken up some smoke you can start painting the surface with your favorite bbq sauce.  I used Sweet Baby Ray.

The meatloaf is done when it hits an internal temperature of 165 F when measured with a digital thermometer.

The meatloaf is delicious straight off the grill but slices much easier after it has cooled in the refrigerator for a couple hours.
If you want a different recipe for smoked meatloaf then here is one from Traeger grills.  Not Your Mama's Meatloaf!