Shrimp, Bacon Wrapped & Smoked

Posted on by March 5, 2022

12/30/2021 – This is the first smoke with the Rectec of shrimp. Shelled, deveined, and seasoned with Creole Seasoning one lb of 16-20 shrimp. Wrapped most in Zeigler bacon and smoked them. Turned out very good and we learned a few things.

  1. Partially fried the bacon in a skillet until the meat part was becoming firm. A few pieces were too done and did not wrapped tightly.
  2. Cut the strips in half and wrapped the shrimp. The strip went around once on the larger ones and the tag ends hung out.
  3. Put them on a wire rack on a sheet pan that had been sprayed with Pam.
  4. Preheated the Rectec to 180°, Extreme Smoke.
  5. 5:30 PM – Out the sheet pan with shrimp into the smoker.
  6. 5:55 – raised the smoker to 400°.
  7. 6:10 – Smoker is at 400°.
  8. 6:50 – Bacon is done with little visible white fat.

Next Time

  • Use larger shrimp and may need toothpicks but the loose ends smoked was nice.
  • Serve with a hot bacon/garlic/pepper flakes for dipping
  • Could try with 45 minutes of Extreme Smoke
  • Could stuff larger shrimp with jalapenos and/or creme cheese with a full strip of bacon
  • Try pre-smoking bacon instead of frying.

German Sauerkraut with the First 2021 Cabbage

Posted on by December 30, 2021

12/30/2021 – Made our standard german kraut with a large head of Cheers Cabbage.

Rebuilt Spreadsheet 12/30/2112/30/2021
Cabbage1578
Caraway Seed – 2gm /1000 gm cabbage3.2
Juniper berries – 2 gm per 1000 gm cabbage3.2
Mustard Seed – 6 gm per 1000 gm of cabbage9.5
Salt – 1.6% of the cabbage25.2
Total1619.0
Projected 1/2 gallon jars at 1400 gm of cabbage per jar. But it made – *½ gallon

‘* Mary trimmed it up more after I weighted it and maybe removed 50 gms. That contributed to it not filling the ½-gallon jar as expected. So, the salt and seasonings will be a little higher than the above ratios.

Tuscan Baked Fish

Posted on by December 28, 2021

This is the recipe with the changes Mary made that was inspired by this recipe. It was very good!!

  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 1/2 large Red Onion, diced
  • Diced up maybe 6 or 8 of the tomatoes from our winter garden. 
  • 1 lb. of Cod cut into about 8 smaller pieces
  • 2 tsp. dried basil
  • 2 cloves of garlic, minced
  • 2 tsp. dried oregano
  • 2 tbsp capers
  • salt and pepper, to taste
  • Chopped green onion from the garden for a garnish we forgot to use.
  1. Heat the olive oil in the small dutch oven. Saute the red onion until it is slightly translucent and add the tomatoes. Cook for about 5 min. Add the herbs, garlic and capers, salt and pepper.  Cook for about 15 minutes.  If I had some white wine I would have added it.  Let it reduce to a thicker consistency. 
  2. The fish had been cut into pieces and had added salt and pepper.
  3. About 20 minutes before you are ready to eat. Add the fish and place in a preheated 375 deg. oven. Done when then fish is flakey.

Tom was burning one of our woodpiles so I let it bake and then turned the oven off.  Sitting like that really helped the flavors meld together.

Served with steamed broccoli from our garden.

Pork Butt Smoked on RecTec

Posted on by March 5, 2022

12/19/2021 – Bought a smallish pork butt, trimmed the small amount of fat, and cut it into thirds along the muscles. Rubbed it with Stubb’s Hot Pork Rub and let it sit out for about a half-hour.

  1. 8:00 AM – Put in into the preheated RecTec at 250°. IT temp based on Probe A was 53.
  2. 3:30 PM – Raised to 270°
  3. 4:30 PM – Pulled, wrapped in foil with more rub and ACV. Put into convection oven set to 300°.
  4. ~ 6:00 PM – Kelley, Tim, and the girls had arrived for surprise birthday visit. Turned oven off and let them rest.
  5. 7:00 PM – Enjoyed great smoky pork. Had a deep smoke ring and moist spicy bark.

Chicken Smoked on the RecTec

Posted on by March 5, 2022

Thawed a 10 lb. bag of leg quarters in late morning Trimmed away the extra skin and fat and cut the legs from the thighs. Dry brined and seasoned with Creole Poultry Seasoning for about an hour.

Set the RecTec’s PID to Extreme Smoke with the RT’s Ultimate Blend all-natural food-grade Red Oak, White Oak, and Hickory hardwood pellets.

2:30 PM – The ambient temperature was 79°. RT is about 175° with lots of smoke so put in the legs and thighs with a temp probe in the largest thigh. IT of the thigh was 52° after sitting out trimming, dry brining, and seasoning for about an hour. Let them get lots of smoke for 30 minutes.

3:00 PM – Raised the setpoint to 325° and set the probe to 175°. IT of the thigh is 176°.

About 4:00 PM – Probe says thigh is at 177°. Tested the thighs and legs with the Thermowork’s Chefworks and found them to be from 170 to 185°. Pulled them and put them into the inside oven at room temp to rest.

Overall time in the RT smoke was about 90 minutes.

The thighs and the leg were very moist and had a light smoke flavor but not much if any more than the first smoke when they were not begun with Extreme Smoke.

Next time do the ES for 45 minutes and rub the pieces with olive oil before applying seasoning in hopes the oil increases the smokiness.

Coincidentally, the RecTec recipe for smoked legs is almost exactly what was done above but included the olive oil in the rub sequence.

Tuscan Cannellini Beans

Posted on by February 20, 2025

This dish turned out great. It was easy to make and Mary enjoyed it as a thick soup and I had it beside Jasmine rice. This was the first time to cook cannellini beans but will not be the last. We found them at Rouses.

We will make this again. It roughly followed the recipe by the same name here. The original ingredients from that recipe we did not include are shown struck through. Their Directions were quite different than what we did here. If we did not have the ham bone then their process would be best but would have yielded a somewhat different dish based on chicken stock rather than ham stock.

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Smoked Turkey Gumbo

Posted on by March 5, 2022

11/26/2021 – Followed our first cook here fairly closely although began with the carcass from a turkey that, the day before, had been spatchcocked and seasoned under the skin and top with about our Creole Poultry Seasoning.  This was a bit different than before in addition to the turkey having been smoked on the new Rec Tec. It was very good.

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Smoked: Ham, Stuffed Poblanos, & Armadillo Eggs

Posted on by November 19, 2021

11/17/2021 – Bought a small Smithfield ham, ground beef, ground pork, and Rouces’ Armadillo Eggs with Butt Rub.

Set the RECTEC (RT) on 300°.

Ham

  1. Trimmed off all outside fat and split it along the muscle seam. Cleaned out the fat and junk from the seam.
  2. Shook on a liberal coating of Stubb’s Hot Pork Rub we made.
  3. Put the two pieces into the RT on the right hand end.

Rouces’ Armadillo Eggs

Chicken breast stuffed with creme cheese and some sort of sausage then wrapped in thick-sliced bacon.

  1. Shook on moderately Creole Poultry Seasoning
  2. Put them in the RT

2:00 PM – Put the above in the RT.

Stuffed Poblanos

  1. Partially browned the ground meats then added onion and garlic chopped small. Continued simmering until the onions were soft. The meat was barely done.
  2. Filled the poblanos that had been cut in half, seeded and stemmed.
  3. Put them on the RT

The Smoke

2:45 PM – Put the poblanos in the RT.

3:45 PM – Seemed like it was too hot so turned the RT down to 280°.

4:30 PM – Pulled the Aermadillo Eggs that had and internal temp of 160-170° and let them rest for about 20 minutes. Ate them for dinner and they were great.

Dirty Rice by an Opelousas Grandmother

Posted on by November 9, 2021

11/92021 – From Cajun Creole Recipe Circle on FB as made by a woman in Opelousas whose daughter-in-law said is ” a fabulous Creole and Cajun cook.”

Jane Hall Harmon Cajun & Creole Recipe Circle

Ingredients

  • 1 pound ground beef and 1 pound ground pork
  • 1 cup chicken livers browned in 2 tablespoons butter
  • 1 large sweet onion
  • 1 green bell pepper
  • 1 red bell pepper
  • 1 bunch green onions
  • 4 toes garlic
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 32 ounces beef stock
  • 1 beef bouillon cube
  • Lea & Perrin Worcestershire Sauce
  • Sugar
  • Lowery’s Seasoning Salt
  • Black pepper
  • Cayenne
  • Tony Chacherie’s or your favorite creole seasoning
  • 2 1/2 to 3 cups uncooked rice

Preparation

  1. In a small saucepan brown the chicken livers in the butter, very brown. Cool and food process until a paste. Scrape the bottom of the saucepan with a little boiling water and add to paste.
  2. Brown, very dark, the beef and pork together…no oil needed. There’s enough fat in the pork. It’s okay if it sticks a little.
  3. Add the chopped onion
  4. Add 3/4 of the green bell pepper, chopped…save 1/4
  5. Add 3/4 of the red bell pepper, chopped…..save 1/4
  6. Add 4 cloves of garlic, pressed
  7. Add the white part of the green onion chopped…save the green part
  8. Add the chicken liver paste
  9. Add the 32 ounces of beef stock
  10. Add bay leaves
  11. Add the beef bouillon cube
  12. Turn to high heat and bring to a boil, stirring and scraping bottom
  13. Turn down to simmer, lid on
  14. Simmer 2-3 hours until veggies disintegrate
  15. Next:
  16. Taste while adding seasoning:
    1. Worcestershire….2 tablespoons
    2. Salt, black pepper and cayenne
    3. 2 teaspoons sugar
    4. Lowery’s and Tony’s
  17. Remove 2 bay leaves
  18. Cook the rice using directions on package minus 4-5 minutes cooking time. Drain well and add to the meat mixture a cup or two at a time, stirring, and adding until you have the consistency that you like. Some people like it served all stuck together like an ice cream scoop was used. I like it as in my attached photo.
  19. When ready to serve sprinkle with chopped, raw red and green bell pepper and snipped green portion of green onions and fresh chopped curly leaf parsley. Check for seasonings! This is so good with a good bit of black pepper!

Note – You may use yellow or orange bell peppers. If you’re going to place in a big bowl for self-serve stir in all the chopped raw toppings.