I've also been busy planning two food-centric trips to NYC (one of which is a pizza tour with my fellow blogger friend pizzablogger) and one to Chicago as well as our first anniversary road-trip which will include Montreal, Quebec City, Portland, ME, and Boston. Yes, lots of planning and food research is involved. Suggestions welcome. I'm leaving the non-food-related stuff to the Mrs. although I did manage to score front row center tickets to Cirque de Soleil in Quebec. I'm pretty stoked about that.
Anyway, a few weeks ago I decided to have a few work buddies over for good beer and smoked meat. I researched a few beers to go with the food and discovered a few new favorites including the awesome Kona Brewing Company Pipeline Porter (go buy this beer RIGHT NOW) and Stone's Smoked Porter and to a lesser extent Troegs Dead Reckoning Porter.
I made a batch of my favorite baked beans and also cooked up 3 racks of baby backs and a tri-tip I had in my freezer. And, of course, my loving wife made a batch of her signature pasta salad. If you know anyone who doesn't like pasta salad, this recipe will surely turn them. I'm living testament of that fact.
The tri-tip came out beautifully. Instead of using the rub featured in the article, I made my own rub of Montreal steak seasoning kicked up with some garlic powder and cayenne. This was the first time I'd used the BRITU recipe for ribs and didn't really care for it. Typically I use a 4-1-1 method, my variation on the much publicized 3-2-1 method, but since this was my first attempt at BBs (my go-to is St. Louis-style spares) I went with the BRITU recipe. The ribs came out very tough, which was no one's fault but my own. You see, the BRITU article emphasizes getting the smallest ribs possible because less mass means less time required in the smoker. Unfortunately the ribs my dad picked up from Costco looked like they were ripped from the carcass of an Ultrasaurus... or Ultrasaurus if you prefer.
Alright, time for less blabbin' and more straight up meat gluttony. Again, sorry for the neglect, you'll be happy to know that I've got a long ripping review in the works pertaining to a certain barbecue/tex-mex place that just opened up in Bel Air. Stay tuned for that. And now I leave you with the straight up MEAT:
1 comments:
I've had few pasta salads worth eating - would love if you posted your wife's recipe.
And man, that's a lot of meat!
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