Funny boy

Audra, Zane and I had a wonderful family laughter time this evening before bed (Zane) and P90X (Audra and Zach.) Little Zane is starting to smile and laugh in more situations, not just when he sees Audra and I for the first time in a while, but when he sees something funny or we have a funny conversation. We learned this evening that we must keep the flip handy at all times, the attached video is only the end of our silly little evening. Zane is laughing pretty hard in this picture to the left, but on the one below, he is just trying to talk.

Here is the video that we made, enjoy!

Salmon on Cedar

I have been wanting to try grilling salmon on a cedar plank, and today was the day.


For starters, I could not find a cedar plank at the store. It is important to use untreated wood for anything to do with food. I was able to find cedar wood sheets. I assume these work the exact same, only these are not reusable. I soaked the sheets in a 5:1 water to apple juice mixture with a pinch of salt. Total soaking time was about one hour. I used the first thing I could find to hold the sheet underwater, it happened to be a wine glass, pretty classy. I timed all of my cooking based on this one hour soak. Personally, I could not taste any apple flavor in the food so next time I think I will either leave it out or halve the ratio of water to apple juice.



I got the salmon at the store. Per the fishmonger, my choice was between steelhead and Norwegian salmon (both farm raised.) I chose the Norwegian for no particular reason.

For seasoning, I chose as simple as possible, sea salt and and cracked pepper. Both of these are from Penzey's Spices. I liberally applied four peppercorn blend for the pepper and just a pinch of the salt. There were plenty of different suggestions online for rubs, but in-general, I find that simpler is better. This is especially true when trying something new for the first time. I did take some of the suggestions on the web and put some sliced onion and lemon on the top. I used lemon that we got from the farmer's market in the Soulard (2 for $.50) and onion from our little
failure of a garden. I started the seasoning part about half way through the soaking process. This let the fish come up to temperature a bit before going on the grill. I let everything sit while I prepared our side dish, grilled asparagus. Pretty simple preparation on this one: sea salt and lemon pepper (again from Penzey's.)
By the end of the hour of soaking, everything was ready and the grill was hot and ready. I took the cedar sheet out of the water and put it on the grill. The sheet was left on the grill for five minutes, then flipped to the other side. At this point, I put the salmon on the plank and closed the lid. The grill temperature was at about 325 to 350 degrees with the coals all the way to one side. The salmon was just barely over the coals. I left the lid closed and did not open it until the 15 minute mark. At this point, the asparagus was put on, right above the coals for a quick sear. After the asparagus was done, everything was take off the grill, roughly 30 minutes total grill time. I brought the salmon back inside for a five minute rest before cutting and plating.



Here is a close up of the finished product. You can see some of the fat has bubbled up to fill the middle crevice. You can tell that the fish is done when you can flake off pieces easily with a fork. I went for a split down the middle to give Audra and I a nice healthy piece. For plating, I surrounded the fish with the asparagus on three sides. The lemon was absolutely delicious on the asparagus and the fish, giving both a nice, light citrus taste. The salmon flaked apart nicely in perfect, fork sized portions. The asparagus was very flavorful, but could have used a bit more pepper and more of the bottom trimmed to keep it soft and easy to eat.
Overall, salmon on a cedar sheet with grilled asparagus was one of the tastiest and easiest thing I have grilled in a while.

Little Guy/Rambling late at night

Well the little man is up late tonight, having some difficulty with the shots. He has a little bit of a fever that Tylenol is taking care of. He does not really want to be held so he is alternating between the swing and bouncy seat (thanks Grandma Korenak).
This makes me very concerned for the upcoming post-surgery. If he has trouble with four shots, how bad is it going to be with his sternum split in two?
I was unable to make it to the last cardiologist appointment and was very surprised that they moved the probable surgery date up so soon. Oct.-Nov. seems like a year away, but Mid to late September is very very soon. I honestly don't know how we are going to get through that day. We may have to have a mass sedating of everyone.
Anyway, here is my take on Zane's first two months. Audra has taken care of most everything, but from my point of view I am amazed how much he changes everyday. He seems so good at holding his head up, just a few weeks ago, he could only do it for seconds at a time. (I think he may have fallen asleep, cross your fingers.) He also recognizes me, which is amazing. He is usually crabby and needing to go to sleep, but he still smiles and laughs when he sees me (most of the time.) We have invented a game where he lays in my lap and I put my thumbs over his face and he works on trying to grab them. We have played this a few times and he is getting better each time. He likes to have his nose and cheeks tickled.
I love the weekend mornings. I get up with him when he wakes up at 5ish and make some coffee and breakfast (for both of us.) We sit on the chair and drink and eat and if it is early enough we watch the sun rise. Zane snoozes and I can look at him be peaceful, enjoy my coffee and let Mommy sleep in a bit.
I am ready to get this surgery over with and get him recovered. I am tired of constantly tamping my happiness by thinking of this difficulty ahead. (He made a noise, but still asleep, I think.)
We appreciate the prayers and words of encouragement. I am getting tired (Plyometrics was tonight) so I am going to try and lay him down.

Back to the weight loss journey

Back in April/May I began a diet/exercise program from Men's Health called 'Belly-Off 2010'. I also added in 'Three Weeks to a 30 min. Running Habit'. I had some pretty good results, losing about 15 lbs. Well then I took a trip to see my brother Adam and the wheels fell off. I kept up a bit of the running, then Zane joined the party and the diet and exercise completely stopped (understandably, I hope.) Well now that Zane has begun at least a bit of a schedule, in that he is typically asleep by 8:30, I have started a new program P90X (I dont want to miss any time with little man, so I will only work out after he goes to sleep). This has both a diet portion and an extreme exercise portion. I purchased a pull up bar and some resistance weight bands to use. The exercise is on average one hour per day, six days per week.

I had my first work out yesterday, Chest-Back and Ab Ripper X. This was the hardest workout I have had since sophomore year in HS when Chad Allen made us do so many pushups that I could not lift my arms for days. This evening was Plyometrics, lots of jumping around, I had to crawl upstairs. I am not quite able to do everything for the entire time of the DVD, but I will get there.

I know I am going to be challenged by this and I struggle with motivation. But I will keep with it, because I feel so much better the next day. It is amazing how much more energy you have the day after a workout, especially a cardio workout like Plyometrics. I plan on keeping a fair log here.

More info on the Smoking

So there has been some desire expressed to know more about the equipment, condiments etc. used for the recent smoking extravaganza. We will start with the main component, the smoker.




I own a Char-Griller Super Pro with optional side fire box. My parents bought this for me two years ago for my birthday. I believe they got it from Lowes'. To the right is a picture. Now this smoker is not the greatest out of the box. The factory paint came off almost immediately. I had a cover, but it ripped up in some strong wind. The fire box drawer does not seal well with the box. However, after an easy paint job using CAT exhaust paint (grill paint with a CAT label on it), and some gasket rope around the drawer makes this a very great smoker. The next picture is the fix of drawer.

So for a very long time, I was a Kingsford charcoal and lighter fluid guy. I would not be swayed from this combination for anything. Until Schnucks was out of Kingsford one afternoon and I had to buy the store brand. I found that this worked just as well in smoking as the Kingsford. I have tried the lump stuff, but was unimpressed by the performance vs. the briquettes. See my previous post for how I was turned off of lighter fluid, never will I return. The chimney is where its at, especially for smoking.

A bit more about the hickory. Real logs are the only way to go. I have used the bag stuff you get at the store; worthless. It has no good smoke, is way too dry and under performs even if you soak it in water for days prior to smoking. The natural moisture contained in real logs is the key to good smoke. If you do not have access to logs that you can split yourself; you should be able to buy some from restaurants and grocery outlets that sell house smoked meats. For those of you who live in the Saint Louis area Kenrick's will sell you 10 decent sticks for $10. This may seem expensive, but if used judiciously you can get about 8-10 hours out of them.

Finally, the rub was furnished by Able. He got them at Savory Spice Shop in Boulder, CO. We used two different kinds, one on each section. The first was Pearl St. Plank Rub; a very good rub, but after the smoking one could just barely taste it. I liked this because you could taste so much of the natural pork and smoke. The second was 'Team Sweet Mama's Kansas City Rub.' Now normally I am opposed to anything that has the word Kansas in it, but this rub is extremely good. It has a wonderful sweet beginning and a bit of kick on the back end. I think this was definitely the favorite. We served the pulled pork dry with some Head Country on the side if people wanted.

I hope this satisfies the curiosity of the group.

Big Blog of Smoking

Okay, so it has been a while since the last post, lots of company and very busy. On July 24th, the day before Zane's baptism, my brolaw Able and I embarked on an epic smoking adventure that this post will chronicle.


I started this outing with a visit to Sam's club. My boss, Jeff, knew about my goal for the weekend and took me to Sam's so I could take advantage of the great deal they had going on Boston Butt. I ended up with the largest one I could find; a 16.8 lb. beast. It sat in the refrigerator until Friday night. Able got in at about 11, I picked him up at the airport and we got home at about 12:30. We pulled out the pork and found that it was already split in half. This saved us quite a bit of work. Able had bought two different kinds of rub so we used one type on each part. By 1:30, we had everything rubbed up and ready to go. The pork was left out on the counter to come up to temperature.

We got up at 5:00 to get going. I made some coffee and started the fire. We debated a bit on how much charcoal to use to get started. Able's thought was to use more, and put it in less often. I, who enjoy the labor intensity of messing with the fire, had to come to terms with the fact that if we did things my way, we would go crazy since we were expect upwards of 20 hours. Here is a picture of how we had the charcoal chimney set up. Now this was key, since it was set off to the side and we could fill it and light it without having the chimney in our way.

The charcoal chimney holds the perfect amount of charcoal. You put the charcoal in the big upper portion and a few pieces of newspaper in the lower section that is sitting on the grates. You light the paper and all the heat energy is transferred up the chimney and into the charcoal. I am a late comer to this method, but love it and fully endorse using the chimney instead of lighter fluid.

Once we had the charcoal lit, the smoking was under way. We put the meat on the grill and off we went. I chose hickory for our wood. My father has an infinite supply and last time I went home, I split a couple of logs and brought it back. Here is a photo of the wood:

Our procedure for the smoking was pretty simple. We had the temperature set for 240-275 degrees Fahrenheit. We would adjust the air up or down depending on if we needed more or less heat; add a log if we need more smoke. When the air was all the way open and the heat was lacking, we would light up another batch of charcoal using the chimney, again showing how awesome it was to have the chimney set up beside the grill.

The lack of intense labor gave us time to create. I had bought a cheap horse shoe set that instantly showed its cheapness, so we decided to make a bean bag boards. We decided my mother should make the actual bean bags, so we began the boards. I made a quick trip to Lowe's to get the supplies (this also included a case of Bud Light.)

At 2:00 we flipped the meat. It smelled and looked delicious.

We completed the bags boards by about 5:00. At this point we began checking the internal temperature of the meat. About this time, the family discovered a missing bag, turns out it was left at the car rental place. Abbey and I left at about 6 for the 'port. We got the bag and were on the way back by about 7:30. Things were beginning to darken up, rain was on the way.

Our goal for the inner temperature was 190 degrees Fahrenheit. This is about 20 degrees more than I typically cook anything, but several websites I had read indicated that this would make it easier to pull. The inner temperature was at about 187 and the rain was coming so we decided to go ahead and pull the plug. At 16 hours 15 min. the meat was taken off the grill. We quickly got the meat inside, wrapped it in tin foil to rest. It was given hour to cool down before Able and Debra pulled it apart.

This was an epic and extremely fun experience for all of us. I always enjoy the relaxing smoking experience, not to mention the extremely tasty results. I had thought that we would have mounds of leftovers, but due to the unbelievable taste of the meat and the general lack of self control amongst the gatherers, most notably, me; we were left with only a large Ziploc bag of leftovers. This was quickly consumed the following day in the form of pulled pork Frito chili pie featuring my mother's most excellent baked beans. What a fantastic weekend!