All Iowa Dinner

The other night we decided to have and all Iowa grown dinner. We bought pork chops from Iowa raised pork, sweet corn from Adel, and zucchini from Kathy's mom's garden. We threw it all on the egg and it turned out very tasty.

I rubbed the pork chops with Plowboys Yardbird rub and a little black pepper.

I put olive oil, sea salt, and black pepper on the zucchini.

As you can tell from the look on Graham's face, he thoroughly enjoyed the all Iowa dinner!

Sunday Evening Gumbo

I like to make a big Sunday night dinner and this week's menu was Chicken and Sausage Gumbo. I started off by smoking two Andouille link sausages and 4 chicken thighs on the egg.

Once I had the egg going with the meat, I started on the roux. I combined cooking oil and flour to make the roux which cooks for 4 minutes on high heat and then you reduce it to medium heat and have to constantly stir it for 15 minutes....15 minutes doesn't seem like a long time but try stirring for 15 minutes, it seems like an eternity. Next you mix the roux and chicken broth together and then you add onion, celery, okra, salt, pepper, crushed red pepper, chicken, and sausage. Once everything is combined it needs to cook for about 5 hours.

I finished it with wild rice. Great flavor and very filling, I'm now in a food coma as I type this.

Borderline Brisket Disaster

I decided I was going to do a brisket Friday to get ready for a competition in KC next month. I got a large brisket from Costco and trimmed it and rubbed it Friday night for an overnight smoke. When I fired up the egg it was very calm outside and there was NO wind. Because of the conditions I opened up the air flow gauge more than I normally would to allow the egg to get up to 230-240. I put the brisket on about 9:30pm, checked it about 10:45, and everything was looking good....235 degrees.

I woke up around 3:30 to howling winds outside. I ran down to the deck to check out the temp and sure enough the wind had raised the temp on the egg all the way up to about 700 degrees. I have no idea how long it had been this hot but the internal temp on the brisket was 235 degrees, about 45 degrees over what I wanted it to be....boy did I have some choice words for the freaking wind.

To salvage the brisket I took it off the egg, wrapped it in foil with Head Country Marinade, and let it rest for about 2 hours. To my amazement, it didn't taste too bad although it was a little on the dry side.

Sunday afternoon pork shoulder

So after a long couple of days at RAGBRAI I decided I wanted to fire up the egg. I got a 7.5 lb shoulder from Hy-Vee and got it on the egg about 9:30 this morning. I used Smoking Guns rub and injected the shoulder with apple juice, grape juice, salt, sugar, and Worcestershire.

This sucker took forever to get up to the temp that I wanted but finally about 10:00pm it was finished....a little late for dinner I guess. Kathy thought that this was the best shoulder that I've done yet. I liked it as well but it was probably a little too spicy for a competition.

Dakota was one happy dog after sitting by the counter while I pulled the shoulder, I don't think she even chews it, she resembles a vacuum.

Albino Rhino BBQ now has it's own Blog!

After several years of backyard bbq we decided to start competitions this year. We have only competed in 2 but have a blast in both of them. The first one we competed in was Smokin in the Junction in Valley Junction(Des Moines, IA). We didn't know what in the hell we were doing but we had plenty of beer, ice, charcoal, and food. The Junction event was a non-sanctioned event and consisted of chicken, ribs, and pork loin. Overall we finished in 9th place out of 32 teams. To our absolute amazement we got a call for 5th place pork loin. I think we thought they were kidding when they called our name! We learned a lot at this contest about what not to do...Next was the Pleasant Hill Summerfest this past weekend. It was in Pleasant Hill, IA and all of the Rhino's were there--Brad, Dad, and me. This was a non-sanctioned event as well and consisted of ribs, chicken, and sausage. This was the first year of this contest but it was still a fun environment. We got there about 5:30am and got our site set up by 6. The smokers were going by 6:30 and we put our ribs on around 7. Some of our friends were competing in this contest so it was fun to have someone else out there that we knew. We met several different teams that were very friendly to the newcomers. Big Moe from Ponderosa BBQ was vending his world famous Cheese Steak sandwiches so we had to go over and try them, they did not disappoint. On to the competition, we thought that are ribs and chicken were outstanding but we did not get a call for them. As they counted down the top 10 for sausage they read off #10, #9, #8....by this point I think we all felt like we were not going to place in this category either. Then they called off #7, #6, #5, #4, #3, #2 and we had all but solidified a no place showing for the contest. Then they read 1st place sausage....Albino Rhino BBQ. I think we all about fell over from the surprise. We ended up getting 5th overall and won money, a ribbon, and a trophy that will likely be pretty lonely.

I have been amazed at how friendly all of the competition teams are. You would think that in a competition environment there would be a little animosity amongst the teams but it is quite the contrary. All teams are willing to share some tricks of the trade(not all tricks but some) and they are all there to just have a good time.

I wanted to tip my hat to Rod from Buster Dog BBQ. About a year ago he told me about the ISU BBQ class in Ames so my dad and I attended. We have been hooked ever since. Rod has been instrumental in helping us figure out the world that is competition BBQ. Thanks Rod!