Dinner vs. Supper

Supper is never correct.  End of story.

My Bad...Grilling Update

So I know I have failed to update in a long while, please forgive me. We have been busy, and Audra does such a great job on Zane updates, that I have not had the desire to blog... Until today. Audra is working, so Zane and I have been hanging out, watching OU beat up on Texas. I just put him in his gym (which he loves) and he is really close to rolling over, he can get all the way on his side with one leg on top of the other, I think if he would just kick his top leg over and push his head back, he would get it done. He is too big.


Audra does such a good job of describing Zane's activities, and Fatherhood has not changed much... so how about some grilling updates.


For the first Tiger game (killing of Illinois); I smoked up some ribs. Now ribs are probably my favorite thing to smoke. They don't take a terrible amount of time - 5 hours or so, they are very delicious and everyone loves them. You can also have a lot of variety in the same bunch by seasoning the racks differently. I had four racks for this bunch, two I seasoned with Pearl St. Plank Rub (courtesy of Able) and two I seasoned with a generic rub that consists almost completely of brown sugar.
Going back a bit; I had the butcher remove the membrane from the ribs. I have attempted to do this myself in the past, and did not do nearly as good of a job as the expert. This is key to ribs, many people do not do this. Not only will the membrane make each bite difficult and chewy, the flavor does not get into the meat nearly as well. I let them sit and come to room temperature prior to putting the rub on.


Here is a picture of the ribs, post rub.





















As usual, I used the Hickory wood from down home. Smoking temperature was about 250 degrees F; time was about 4.5 hours.

After the game, the Kingrees stopped by to visit and enjoy some ribs.

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.