The Nugget has arrived and the dust has settled...a bit.

Well, my loyal followers, it's been nineteen days since the last installation made to my blog.  I apologize but we've been making moves around this place.  Our little bundle of joy arrived, a bit unexpectedly on March 19th, 2011.  He is healthy weighing in at 7# 10oz. and 20.5 inches.  Chicken legs and all, he looks pretty darn good.  For those that want to get to the food portion of this post skip to (Section II).  For those that are curious as to how the birth went down, keep reading.

So, Mrs. K. was watching the UK Wildcats vs. Princeton University Tigers during the first round of the NCAA Tournament.  And it was a true nail biter.  So much so that Mrs. K was so wound up that she felt like she couldn't come back down from all of the excitement.  She came home feeling the anxiety but thought that she'd just try to sleep it off.  Well, it couldn't be slept off so we made an appointment with her OB/GYN for the very next day.  Well, it turned out that the baby was fine, still kicking around but Mrs. K's blood pressure was a bit elevated.  We waited around so that they could check it again and it was a little lower but still high.  We met with our original OB's partner who went ahead and checked Mrs. K's BP once more and said, "It's still high, we should induce today!"  "Okay, no problem, but would it be possible to run home to get a couple of things and to straighten up a bit?" I asked.  She said, "No, she's gotta go right now in a wheel chair."  Okay, no problem, the house is a disaster, Mrs. K's family high tailed it out of Kentucky to get down here and they were going to see how Mrs. K and I really live.  Oh well, they'll get over it.

Time lapse.....Mrs. K on Pitocin, a plug ripener of some sorts, (don't ask, I ripen produce in a brown paper bag, I don't know how they do it in a hospital), and  a well placed epidural.  We wait....and wait, almost 24 hours later and she isn't dilating beyond 8 cm.  Our OB says, it's time for that cesarean section.  Off to the OR she goes and I follow shortly.  I walk in to see Mrs. K on the table and the entire OR staff taking jabs at me already.  Okay, so it's going to be like that.  I get it.  No, in all seriousness, we all were having some fun in there.  Our OB is of Asian descent so we were trading Asian mom stories.  She apparently has more of a spark plug of a mother than I do.  The Techs were making sure I didn't botch the announcement of whether it was  a boy or a girl, etc. etc.  So, a mere fifteen minutes later, a boy is born!  5:30 PM March 19th, 2011 to be exact.  I didn't mess up the announcement.  Whew!  He was healthy and still is, actually.  Mrs. K was healthy and still is, actually.  She's healing well and is getting more and more mobile every day.  Now, let me just tell you, I never thought that I'd get emotional at my child's birth but, really, I've never been more emotional in my life.  Now, I didn't cry or nothin' but....ahem.  Okay, I got pretty choked up.  We'll leave it at that.  So, there you have a bit of a Cliff's Notes version of what happened the day my boy was born. 

So, three days later we come home to a cleaned house, from top to bottom.  While we were in the hospital, Mrs. K's mother and sister took the liberty to clean our house.  I don't know if they were trying to be nice or couldn't stand staying in a dusty, dirty house.  But seriously, they are awesome.  It was so nice to come home to that.  Not to mention, Mrs. K's mother cooked for us while her father kept us entertained and the sister-in-law looked after the baby.... a lot.  It was great!  Thank you so much you guys.  Okay, again, I ramble.  Now that the dust has settled a bit and the in-laws are gone it is my turn to cook for us.  So, today, I decided to do a little bit of Bar B Que.

(Section II)

Here goes:

A couple of days ago I was at Costco just cruising the aisles to get out of the house for a few.  I came across some boneless beef ribs that looked really good.  Perfect excuse to do some smokin'  I really like to age beef for a few days so I went ahead and applied a dry rub to the meat and stashed the meat in the meat drawer for a day.  I only did it for one day because of all the salt and sugar in the rub.  Had I left it on for any longer, I would be a little concerned that too much moisture would be pulled out of the meat and too much salt would be absorbed.  So, on day two, I fired up the charcoal chimney, soaked some Hickory and let the meat come up to room temperature and apply a little more rub before putting it on the smoker.  Grill, actually, but there is plenty of space in there to smoke a whole pork butt in indirect heat so there was more than enough room to smoke a couple of pounds of ribs.

I like using lump charcoal like the kind found at Publix.  It seems to burn a bit cleaner and doesn't have any chemical smell to it at all.  Because there are no chemicals, you can add raw charcoal throughout the smoking process without fear of the fire putting off any noxious odors:

Once the chimney gets things nice and ashey, I dump it out and add some more charcoal to "feed" the fire for a while along with those soaked hickory chunks:

Actually, add the wood chunks and raw charcoal just before putting the meat in the "Smoker"

This is the meat coming to room temp. Trust me, it's okay to let raw meat come up to temp.  I've been doing it for years in restaurants and I've never poisoned anyone:

This is my dry rub mix.  I seem to have lost the recipe so when this batch is gone, I've gotta come up with another one, sucks, oh, by the way, this batch of meat formed a really nice pellicle on the surface.  What this is is when the protein comes to the surface of the meat when moisture is drawn out by aging.  This forms a tacky surface that really grabs the smoke while in the smoker.  It gives the smoke particles something to stick to:

Applied liberally to both sides:

Be sure to press it into the meat:

Meat placed away from the fire and  a little heat shield made from a disposable hotel pan.  This keeps the meat from burning on the edges:

The carb is opened 50% on a windless 48 deg. day.  This yielded a smoker temp of around 225.  A little cool so I opened up the carb a bit more to achieve a temp of around 250-300.  So, these ribs have a flavor and texture very similar to brisket but is a lot less picky about smoker temp and meat temp.  In other words, it requires a lot less baby sitting:

Right where I want it, but it takes a little bit of maintenance to maintain.  Not too much though.  A little addition of wet wood and a tweak of the carbeurator:

With two to three hours to kill while the meat was smoking I started on some cole slaw.  I mean, slaw and barbecue is like peanut butter and jelly.  I can't have one without the other.  The recipe I have is one that I found on the net transcribed by someone that pretty much figured out the slaw recipe from KFC.  Man, I love that stuff.  Their chicken has become so bad that I go to KFC just for their cole slaw.  If anyone wants the recipe I can post it.  Just let me know:

I forgot how much I love this knife.  I haven't used it in months.  It's a 10" Whustoff Classic.  Just perfect shaped and weighted for heavy duty chopping like cabbage.  A little clunky for fine knife work like mincing carrots though:

I learned this mincing trick for carrots by watching my mother when I was young:

Everything combined.  Oh, by the way, I make the slaw dressing separately and mix it in with the veggies:

Done and packaged.  You can get these quart containers from a Sysco Cash 'n Carry or you can ask the deli department at your grocer for some.  They'll usually give them to you for free because they don't know how much to charge you for them.  Sweet deal.

Did I mention that Mrs. K was taking a much deserved nap while me and the boy were cooking away?  I miss having someone to cook with in the kitchen.  Mostly, I miss the kitchen banter.  You know, stuff like commenting on the "new" server, how much we drank the other night,  how bad the guy on sautee sucks at what they do, etc, etc.  In the case of my "sous chef" I got no reciprocation.  I was talking to myself, it turns out:  (baby was posed for the sake of the photo.  No one was injured during this exercise).

"Hey, shoemaker, hook me up with a carrot!"  "Git your own, sucka!"  Nope, nothing:

Look at that mahogany goodness:

Pull meat off the smoker after a few hours and wrap it up tightly to rest before slicing:

I can just hear Guy Fierri now, "Would you look at the bark and smoke ring on that?" "Ground Chuck, 80/20?"  Okay, so the next time you watch Diners Drive-ins and Dives notice that whenever anyone, I mean, every time some one cooks a hamburger or a meat ball, anything that involves ground beef, Guy always, always, always asks in statement of sorts, "80/20?"  I mean, every single time.  So, 80/20 refers to 80% lean meat to 20% fat.  It truely is the best ground beef for burgers.  Whenever you buy ground chuck check the butcher's label and it will tell you the ratio or lean to fat.

On a bun with some slaw.  I didn't realize we didn't have any pickles or they would've definitely made an appearance these sandwiches:

 So, there you have it.  An easy exploration into barbecue, the new boy and the beginning of my own personal kitchen brigade.