Smoked Butternut Squash Soup. Awesome on a cold Winter's Day.

Start of with one butternut squash. skinn it and cut into cubes about 1 1/2 x 1 1/2 inches. Set them in large foil pan or you can make a tray out of some foil. Set the pan in your smoker and give the squash a good dose of smoke. These were in for 1 1/2 hours. Any wood will work for these, but as always, stronger woods will impart a stronger flavor. Alder or Maple work well for this dish.
Here is the squash after it was smoked. No color change, but the aroma was great. I also added a dash of ground rosemary on top of them before I smoked em but forgot to take a pic of that.

After the smoke, we need to dice one very large or 2 medium onions and saute them in a large pot with 3 tbls butter. While this is sauteing, take one red bell pepper, cut in half and roast it on an open flame till it's slightly charred. When done, dice and add to the onions along with 1/4 tsp of finely ground rosemary. Cook all this until the onions turn clear.

Next, add 1 1/2 quarts of chicken stock and add the sauteed onions and roasted peppers along with 1 1/2 cups of diced potatoes and 2 tsp of paprika, 2 tsp of black pepper and 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper.


Brought this to a boil then turned down to a simmer for 30 minutes.

Next, remove from heat and run 2 separate batches in the blender. (CAUTION. This is going to be HOT HOT HOT.) Once done, return to stove, bring back to a near boil and add 3/4 cup of heavy cream.

Here is a bowl I had for lunch. I tried to get creative with bit of cream in the center, but the design didn't turn out the way I wanted it to. I was never good in art class when in school.


A very good soup with a moderate smoky taste and aroma, and a rich, creamy and velvety texture.
For a subtle variation on taste, try substituting the regular taters with some sweet taters.

What to do with homemade sausage, venison, mushrooms cheese & bacon?

Well make a fatty of course. A fatty for those who don't know, are a 1# chub of breakfast sausage rolled flat and have ingredients placed inside then rolled up and smoked. Some place a weave of bacon over it, some don't. There are countless ways to make these and the recipes are only limited to your imagination. I do however suggest you stay away from making these with skittles, gummy bears or sardines. 

Started with 1# of homemade breakfast sausage (eat your heart out Jimmy Dean), then added 1/2# of sausage from some cheese brauts I made and 1/2# of Italian sausage. 2# total. This in an extra fat fatty. Usually, just a pound of good breakfast sausage is used. Into a gallon sized zip loc bag and rolled it out.


Slice the sides of the bag and open it up.
Added a nice piece of venison backstrap to it, cut down the center lengthwise.


Added some "Hen of the Woods" mushrooms I found this year while setting up deer stands along with some minced garlic. Any good "Edible" shroom will work, but I am very partial to the wild ones. (KNOW your shrooms or you'll know your mortician lol)


And of course, CHEESE.


After all the ingredients that you like are added, use the bag to help make a cylinder out of the meat so everything is wrapped up inside. Tapper and pinch down the ends. When done, the shape should look like one of the Jimmy Dean sausage tubes you buy in the store.

Keep the sausage on the plastic and lets start your bacon weave.
Start by laying out strips of bacon on wax paper lengthwise. Next, start weaving the other strips into it until you have a woven square. Now, take the sausage that is on the plastic and roll it off onto the center of the bacon square. By turning the wax paper so the bacon square is a diamond shape, that will give you the weave that I have below. Either way will work. Now, take one end of the wax paper and bring it over the top and help the bacon off of it. Do the same with other side and sorta smear the pieces together and tuck in the ends. Keep it one the wax paper till your ready for the smoker as it makes it easier to handle. When time to smoke it, simply roll it off onto the grates.
You can also make this in the oven if you do not have or choose not to smoke it. If the bacon is not crispy, turn temps up a bit to 300-325 until bacon starts to crisp.

Made a nice diagonal bacon weave. I find the cheaper the bacon, the better it works. It makes for a crisper crust than the thick cut stuff.


After about 4 hours in the smoker.


Cut in half.


A nice view of a cut piece.

Now allot of folks makes these for breakfast but this one went for dinner. Can't you just see something like this platted with some country gravy over the top???
Usually, I find that the smoke overpowers the already smokiness of the bacon. This time, I used a very neutral wood, Oak, with no additional flavor wood. Came out perfect. Next time I make something like, MORE CHEESE, MORE SHROOMS.

Making your own deli meat

Everything is going up in cost and food is no exception. Priced meat lately? Take a stab at making your own deli meat. Its easy to do, tastes great, your in control of the ingredients and if you find a nice piece at a reduced price cuz it's getting closer to the "sell-by" date, it's even more economical. Plus, it's fun.

First, the victim. A nice lean chunk of beef round bottom.

After a good rinse, I gave it a light coat in some EVOO and covered fresh dried ground rosemary, granulated garlic, CBP and onion powder. Equal amounts except for the CBP, a bit more of that.

All rubbed up.


In a foodsaver bag for an overnight nap. A large zip loc will work as well.


Just about to hit the smoker.

Smoked this one for 3 hours with a mix of Apple and Alder. That's all I had on hand

but would have like to use a nice aromatic Cherry.

Now here is the good part. I finished it in THE OVEN
Yeah that's right, I said it, the OVEN.
I used my Big Chief for this as I really just wanted to get a nice smoke on it. I actually planned on using the oven to finish. Now when it comes to slicing, you can't beat a good slicer. I use an old Rival chrome one that I won on a ebay auction. All steel gears and it doesn't bog down. A good quality "graton" style knife works good too.

Sliced up and packaged. Allot cheaper than store bought and it was fun.

Bone In Pork Loin, Braised Red Cabbage, Walnuts & Apples with Apple Cider/Baslmic Vinegar reduction sauce.

A couple months ago, I entered an online BBQ contest. Yup, they have such a thing. Came in third. Not too bad considering the competition. 
Stated with a 8# bone in pork loin.

Let sit at out for approx 30 minutes to relax the meat and let it come up to room temp.

Next was a nice hard sear to brown all the sides, minus the bone side as it is concave in shape. Did this in my Dutch Oven.

After that, I scored the top thru the fat and slightly down into the meat and applied a good slather of mustard. For those of you that may not know about applying mustard to meat like this, is totally melts away and leaves ZERO taste behind. Use it to hold the rub to the meat.

The herbs used were as follows.
5 cloves of Garlic minced.
1 Tbl ground Fennel seed.
3 Tbl Fresh garden picked Parsley.
2 tsp Kosher salt.
1 Tbl ground black pepper.

Onto a 230 degree smoker where it sat for approx 5 hours. Smoked to an internal temp of 163 degrees. I did not spritz or mop at all the whole time. I had a pan below which I added approx 1/2 gal of apple cider to to help keep things moist inside.
Removed and foiled and let rest for 30 minutes.

The end results. On the platter with Cabbage and Fresh sprigs of Rosemary and Parsley.

Reductions sauce was 1 C Apple Cider and 1 C of Balsamic Vinegar.
Brought to a boil and stirred constantly until reduced down to around 2/3 C. Let it cool down slowly where it stated to thicken up. An absolute must for any pork dish. A real nice sweet/tang that really compliments the pork.

Forgot pics of the cabbage
The red cabbage was pretty simple. 1 Med/Large head quartered and sliced thin. I used my mandolin slicer.

Stared by toasting the Walnuts in a pan. Set them aside. Next, melt 2 Tbl of butter in pan until it starts to foam up. Add 1 thin sliced medium onion and stir until soft.
Add cabbage and cook, stirring often until it starts to tender up a bit.
Add 1 bay leaf, 1/2 C Apple cider 1 T red wine vinegar. Reduce heat to low, cover and cook, stirring every now and then for approx 45 minutes. Watch towards the end as the liquid can cook out and it can burn.

The last 5 minutes of the cook, take 1 sweet apple, I used a Fireside from our tree. Peel it, and cut into small pieces about 1/8” thick by 1” x 1”. Cook approx 5 minutes or until they start to get tender.

Serve cabbage onto plates and top with toasted Walnuts. Season to taste with salt and or pepper.
Slice pork and serve with a good drizzle of reduction sauce over it and on the side. Delicious.

Romanian Pastrama??? Yup!

A smoke I did a few weeks ago. Pork Pastrami, or Romanian Pastrama.

Off all the pastrami like meats I have made, this is by far the tastiest........So far. Packed with flavor,

the taste is HUGE. Allot of things going on when you bite into it. A very multi- dimensional flavor to it.

The meat used. Pork shoulder 9# after trimming the fat away.



The spices being used on this one. Not pictured is the Tender Quick.

Black pepper
Granulated Garlic
Onion Powder
Brown Sugar Paprika
Ground Juniper Berries
Ground Clove
Cinnamon
Rosemary
Ground Fennel
Ground Allspice
Mace
Ground Coriander
Ground Mustard
3 Small ground Bay leaves

Just like the Buckboard Bacon, remove the bone in the meat along with the gland. For some reason, the pics of this step vanished. If I find them, I will post them. For now, refer to the Buckboard Bacon post on this step.

Rubbed in the Tender Quick (1 Tbl per pound of meat)

Tied the shoulder up and rubbed in the spices.


Into the food saver bag where it will take a nice long nap. Make sure to flip the bag twice daily to ensure juices eistribute evenly and don't pool in the bottom of the bag.


14 Days later, time to wake it up. Just out of the foodsaver bag.


After a good rinsing.


I had to retie the should a bit tighter. Then added the final rub for the smoke.
I measured everything out Whole, uncracked, then added to my coffee grinder and and ground up.

3 Tbl Whole melange peppercorns
1 Tbl Whole Mustard seed
2 Tbl Whole Coriander
2 tsp Whole juniper berries


On the smoker at 180 degrees for about 2 hours with a good steady stream apple smoker. I used Apple chips on this, not dust, not chunks, but chips. Filled the charcoal basket about half way then added a layer of chips, more charcoal, more chips and so on until I reached the top. I might stick with chips when using the UDS as this smoke there were no temp spikes or drops and the smoke was neither pumping out or fizzling but very steady. Then raised the temps to 235 where it hummed along all day and pulled it out when the internal hit 177 degrees. Total smoke time was 9 hours.


Out of the smoker and about to wrap in foil where is will sit on the porch overnight to rest and chill. About 30 degrees on the porch so no need to take up space in the fridge.


After a night of rest, time to start slicing.


On my buckboard bacon I did the other day, I sliced the meat the short way as I could not fit it on my slicer tray. This one I wanted to slice lengthwise, but first I had to cut it in half to do so.


Rival did it's job. So much easier to cut this stuff when it is chilled.



And into foodsaver bags and off to the freezer.
Have some sauerkraut to can up and can't wait to make some Rubens with this stuff.


And that concludes another smoke. Hope you enjoyed it. All I can say is making pastrami from pork shoulder rocks. Give it a try sometime. Any questions on this smoke or others, all ya gotta do is ask.

Wild Game. The Original Fast Food. Venison Pastrami.

Are you a hunter? You know a hunter? If so, then this a must try. Venison Pastrami.


The satisfaction of harvesting a wild animal goes beyond description. Being at one with the outdoors, learning the behavior of the game you pursue and bringing it home to the table, free from hormones and antibiotics. Just pure protein. From the field, to your plate.
We will start with 3 cuts from the hind quarters of 2 deer we harvested this year. Each weighing in around 2#.


First step in this was to make my brine. This consisted of the ingredients in the following photo with 1 1/2 cups water, brought to a near boil and simmered for 30 minutes.
Spices are as follows starting at the top going clockwise.
1 Tbl Crushed Juniper Berries.
1 1/2 Tbl Cracked Peppercorns (I used the colorful mixture of peppercorns for this)
1/2 Tbl Cracked Mustard Seed
1 tsp Fennel
1 tsp Rosemary
1 Tbl Pickling Spice
3 Bay leaves
Not pictured because I forgot was.
1/2 Tbl Brown Sugar
1 tsp Minced Garlic


After the simmer, this was set to let cool then added 1 Tbl Tenderquick.
Used my brine needle and pumped each piece several times while they say in a small glass cassarole pan. (Sorry, forgot the pics of this process) After they sat for a while, the liquid that leaked from them was spooned of and reloaded my brine needled and injected them once more.


Now it’s time to add the first rub.
Again, starting at the top going clockwise, the spices are.
1 1/2 Tbl Black Pepper
1 tsp Granulated Garlic
1 tsp Granulated Onion
1 1/2 Tbl Brown Sugar
1/2 Tbl Paprika
1/4 Tbl Ground Juniper Berries
1/4 tsp Ground Clove
1/4 tsp Cinnamon
1 Tbl Tenderquick per pound of meat


Next step was to coat all 3 pieces of meat with the rub. I sprinkled it lightly at first, giving the moisture in the meat time to wet the spices and hold them to the surface. Then I sprinkled the remainder on, rubbed it a bit till it stuck.


Next, into zip lock bags sealed up tight, then all 3 individual bags were put into a 1 gallon bag and into the fridge for a week. (1 day for every 1/4" of thickness measured from the center out on the thickest piece) During this time, I turned the bags over 2 times a day so any liquid that was at the bottom would be at the top and baste the meat, so to speak.


After a week in the fridge, it was time to take them out. Here you can see just how dark they became.


I then rinsed off the rub that had been on there for the past week with cold water.


Patted dry, its now time for the final rub. This consists of, starting at the top, going counter clockwise this time.
3 Tbl Ground (Melange) Peppercorns. (Would cut in half next time)
1 Tbl Cracked Mustard Seed
2 Tbl Cracked Corriander
2 tsp Ground Juniper Berries.


Same things as before. Sprinkled it on all 3 pieces of meat until the moister darkend it, then added the rest.
Here they are, all ready for a good smoke.


Smoked for 9 hours at 195 degrees with Cherry Wood. At roughly the 7 hour mark, internal temps were 145. I pulled each of them out, sat them in a double layer of heavy foil and added 1 Tbl of beef broth to each one. Wrapped up tight and back into the smoker.


At 9 hours, internal temps were 164 degrees. Removed them and let them rest for one hour. Here is one of them out of the foil.


I know I should have let them go to the fridge before slicing, but I couldn’t help it. I had to try some. Took the smallest one and cut it open. Color was great. Very very moist with wonderful flavor and texture.


Only thing to do now is to let them cool in the fridge overnight, slice thin and freeze in serving size portions in foodsaver bags. This pastrami is a delicacy and eaten on homemade Rye bread with home canned sauerkraut and some Swiss. Well let's just say that makes for a very memorable lunch.
Any questions on this, as with any of my posts, all you have to do is ask.


Hope you enjoyed this post. There are several ways to enjoy wild game, but pastrami has to be the best !!!