Peeling Tomatoes

You may ask, why would I want to peel a tomato? If you are making salsas or sauces, sometimes the skin adds a bit of unpleasant texture or taste. If you have ever just grabbed a tomato out of the garden or off the store shelf, and tried to peel it, you probably ended up cursing the poor thing out. To easily peel tomatoes, you will need the following:

• Tomatoes
• A freezer
• A pot of boiling water
• A cold water bath
• A knife
• A bowl for the peeled tomatoes
• Someplace to put the skins

Freeze the tomatoes. Bring a pot of water to a boil. Dump the frozen tomatoes in for about 30 seconds. Then transfer them (a kitchen spider works great for this) to a bath of ice water and let them sit for another 30 to 60 seconds. At that point, the skins will slide right off, or perhaps need a little prodding by slitting one side of them with a knife.

Two Random Cooking Things

1. In my previous posts about gear I neglected to mention an apron. Get an apron. Wear it. It comes in super handy.
2. Keep a bag in the freezer for items that go in stock. When chopping carrots, onions, celery or other aromatics you'll have parts that are normally discarded. These can be put in a bag in the freezer and kept for making stock and broth. Most recipes ask you to simmer for some amount of time and then remove the meat, bones, vegetable bits, etc. Might as well get some use out of some tasty bits that are destined for the trash bin or compost pile.

Neither rain, nor sleet, nor snow...

... shall stop BBQ. First 'Q of the year is on the smoker. Drumsticks for a post New Year's feast.

Taking It To The Next Level

Once again Parade Day was on us, and I had a lot of food to cook. I had almost 30 people at the house, plus had to do some cooking for the people parking cars at the church. And I was, as always, hoping to send people home with leftovers, because that's what I do :-)

So I had 3 pork shoulders, 3 racks of ribs (those were graciously provided by a guest) and 15 pounds of drumsticks. The 3 pork shoulders alone take up almost an entire 22 1/2 grill grate. I needed another level for the other food, and I wanted to add it quickly, with a minimal amount of work. How to go about this?

1. Another 22 1/2 inch grate
2. 3 S-hooks
3. A dome lid from a 22 1/2 inch kettle grill

Hang the 3 S-hooks approximately equidistant from each other around the lip of the smoker. Put the grate on the hooks. Put the food on the grates. Put the lid over the food.

The lid doesn't fit quite snugly, but it does the job assuming you aren't dealing with high winds that might blow the lid off. In the future I'll drill holes in the side of the smoker to feed the S hooks into, but in the meantime this is a great way to very quickly rig up a 2nd level of grates in an upright drum smoker, should you have the need.

The ribs and chicken drumsticks normally don't take as long as pork shoulder, but they would be that much further from the heat. So I put the ribs and drumsticks on earlier than I would normally, but not at the same time as the pork shoulder. The ribs and chicken were in the smoker for about 4 1/2 hours instead of the usual 3 - 3 1/2 I would do them for. Everything turned out great. Especially the drumsticks. People that aren't normally drumstick fans were devouring them 3 at a time, or so it seemed.

Using A Stick Blender Without Creating An Unholy Mess

They go by many names. Stick blender, immersion blender, motor boat and perhaps there are others. No matter what you call them, they all possess the power to create one hell of a mess. When making hot sauce, barbecue sauce or some other thing on a sauce pan on the stove top the requires the stick blender, you can cut way down on the splatter factor with aluminum foil..

1. Cut a piece of foil big enough to cover the pot.
2. Cut a slice in the foil from one of the sides to the middle.
3. Put the dormant stick blender into the middle of your sauce pan.
4. Slide the foil around the blender.
5. Fire up the stick blender and blend away.

This cuts WAAAAAY down on the splatter factor.

C'mon Baby Light My Fire

This is unashamedly lifted from Alton Brown.

To light a charcoal chimney you need the following

• Newspaper
• Vegetable Oil
• Shot Glass
• Matches
• Charcoal
• Chimney

Crumple up 3 to 4 pieces of newspaper. Whatever will fit comfortably in the bottom of the chimney. Put the chimney, newspaper side down, on a flat surface that won't ignite. You can do this in your grill, if you are grilling. I have a portable backyard firepit that works perfectly for this. Pour yourself a shot of vegetable oil. Drizzle the shot into the chimney over the newspaper. Fill the chimney with charcoal. Light the paper. Wait 10 - 20 minutes until the charcoal at the top of the chimney is starting to go white, then dump the chimney into your grill or smoker. You are now ready to get cooking.

One Reason to Keep HItting the Gym

Meijer had Kingsford Charcoal on sale. The 2x20 packs were just under 10 bucks, which comes out to less than 5 bucks for a 20 pound bag of charcoal. I came home with 160 pounds of charcoal in the car. I shouldn't need to go shopping for fuel anytime soon.