May 14th. The Day of the Moms.
RIBS. baby back. 3 racks. 2 hours on the grill. Bone Sucking Rib Rub. 2 sauces. Bone Sucking Sauce, hot and regular. A smoker filled with mesquite and hickory, with a smattering of alder. The sides were asparagus and spicy potatoes (oddly enough they had yukons this week, go figure).
a little over done because like an idiot, I couldnt resist putting them close to direct heat for the last 10 minutes and the ribs ended up a bit crispy but not tough.
Because they were slow cooked, smoked and indirectly heated at 225-275 for a couple of hours, they were tasty.

Here are a few pics:
Prep....bone sucking rib rub. A good one to use if you dont have the time to make your own, which you should always do....




The ribs get going. Sauce on the left, but not on the ribs for a long time. Remember not to put on the sauce until the very end. Advice I could have taken from myself.










Is this not a beautiful site:


Indirect smoking on a weber d6 platinum.

Sunday, May 7th.

Standard Borracho Burgers. Recipe can be found in the wonderful and highly valuable Better Homes Grillin Cookbook. These burgers stand out from your regular grilled burgers, accentuated by crushed rosemary, tomato paste and a beer bath. I used ground sirloin and kept the grilling brief due to the lean meat.

Joining the burgers were spicy potatoes (recipe can be found in the same cookbook). Since our supermarket isn't carrying Yukon Gold Potatoes right now, I went with this new Ruby Gold product. It's a yellow potato with a red skin; virtually the same. This potato mix has many fans; most everyone enjoys the soft texture of the yukon golds combined with smoked Spanish paprika and thyme. As always, a sweet onion is sliced and strewn about the foil packet. Goes well with gilled steak and benefits from the smoke (mesquite today).

Rounding out the session was some grilled corn-on-the-cob, grilled directly. White corn of course, since yellow corn is not to be found around here anymore ?

I haven't found the hickory wood chunks in Lowes this year. I haven't checked Home Depot. Chunks obviously are better for longer smoking needs. The chips go quickly but are readily available everywhere.

May 5th - Cinco De Mayo.

Tri-tip with grilled zuchinni and summer squash with peppercorn garlic roasted rustic italian bread.

The tri-tip was cooked medium, and since it was thick, some of the parts in the middle turned up medium rare with some of the parts near the ends were medium-well.

With the vegetables, we did the usual oil sprinkled and herbs de provence with some chardonnay-oak smoked salt. A few zuchinnis consisted of nothing more than smoked spanish paprika.

Bread on the top rack.

A little different, but good none-the-less.

April 30th.

Today's menu was bbq chicken with grilled asparagus.
For the marinade, I used a store bought mesquite marinade. The asparagus was brushed with roasted pepper olive oil and sprinkled with jurassic salt with some herbs de provence.

The mesquite marinade worked pretty good for being store bought. The asparagus was great and not overcooked/overgrilled which can be easy to do and topped it with parmesan curls. I used mesquite wood in the smoker box.