DerHusker

Thank you ck. A cheeseburger and fries. Not exactly boring but far from exotic.

Thank you Family_Cook. No I did not use a softbox or a remote trigger. What I used was my Canon 70D with a EFS 18-135 lens and a tripod. (Tripod being the single best and easiest way to improve a still photo) I stage the picture scene before I actually plate up the food. (so the food doesn't get stone cold while I'm taking the photos) I then use the camera's "Live View" LCD screen to frame the picture as well as the 2 second delay self-timer. This gives the camera time to settle (reduce any vibrations) after I touch the Live View screen where I want it to focus. (Much like a remote trigger would) It's very simple and easy and lets me eat the food while it's still warm.

It’s been hot this last week here in Low Cal (Upper 90’s to low 100’s) but today it cooled off, so I grilled a few Cheeseburgers. I started out by cutting 2 russet potatoes up into 1/8th and then tossed in some OO and seasoned with some fresh ground salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper and some thyme. I then seasoned the patties with Primo Chicago Stockyard rub. Here they are on the grill ready to be flipped. Flipped them. I then removed the patties and toasted the buns. While they were toasting I added some cheddar cheese slices to the patties. Once the buns were done I put the patties back on to melt the cheese. Here it is plated up with the Steak Fries and a Modelo Especial. YUM! Thanks for looking.

Sent the long weekend off in style with a Double Meat Double Cheese Burger. Fired up Jr. for the patties. Flipped and removed them when they were done so I could add the cheese. Toasted the buns. One more time of the grill to melt the cheese. Plated this up with some watermelon, potato salad and a Stone Brewing Xocoveza. (Yum!) After a few bites of this monster. So good! Thanks for looking.

For the long weekend we started out being invited over to our neighbor’s house for hamburgers. I was tasked with grilling up some corn. Once these started getting some golden-brown char marks, I put them in a large rectangular pan and covered them with foil. We took this over with two each, 3 portion plates of fixings. One plate had a stick of butter, salt and black pepper for traditional American style corn of the cob. The other plate had some mayo, Tajin seasoning and come Cotija Cheese for Mexican style street corn. Didn’t feel like I should be taking pictures at their house so that’s all I can share from the 4th. Today I grilled up some hamburger patties on my Akorn Jr. for some cheese burgers. After they were done I removed them and toasted the buns while I added the cheese to the burgers. One more stop on the grill to melt the cheese. Here is mine plated up with some potato salad, some watermelon and a Stone Brewing Vanilla Bean Porter. There nothing quite like enjoying a good cheeseburger on the 4th of July weekend. Thanks for looking.

Thank you KK. Thank you ck. This was an Indoor Grill plate I picked up at the thrift store for $2.17. A few more parts from Lowe's and I have what you see.

Thank you gotzero. I'm thinking next time I'm going to substitute some expanded metal mesh for the C.I. charcoal. There was plenty of heat but I could've used some more direct flame exposure for some better charring. Thank you keeper. It's good to be seen again. Thank you Rob. It was.

Chicken is my wife’s favorite and I like to cook things she’ll like, most of the time , so I cooked up some Chichen Shawarma. Started out by skinning and de-boning some chicken thighs that I had thawed out. I cut each in half and set them aside in the fridge. I now got out the ingredients for a yogurt based Sharwarma marinade. Everybody in the pool and gave it a good spin with the whisk. I then put the chicken thighs in and stirred it up to get complete coverage on all surfaces. I then covered the bowl with plastic wrap and placed them in the fridge to rest overnight. Now I made up a batch of Tzatziki. Link to recipes: The next day I broke out my vertical spit. And loaded it up with the Shawarma and topped it with a nice thick slice of red onion After I had preheated my kamado up to 325 for 1/2 hour I put the Shawarma in. I checked on it after about 25 minutes and knew it could go much longer. After about 1 hour I started getting everything ready. I cut up my veggies and got the Tzatziki out. I also set up my craving station. Once the Shawarma developed some char on it, I removed it and sliced off the outer layer and then placed it back in the kamado. I warmed up some flat bread and spooned on some Tzatziki and then made up some Shawarma Sammi’s. Here they are served street food style with a Ballast Point Grapefruit Sculpin and some mandarin orange slices. SO GOOD! Thanks for looking.

Thank you gotzero. I like it. Thank you Bgosnell. No the cheddar didn't overpower the shrimp. the first flavor you get is the bacon followed by the shrimp and chile. The cheese taste is in there but only slightly.

Thank you ck Thank you Rob

With the “Just Stuff It!” Challenge going on I searched for what might be on sale at one of the local stores. Sprouts had U15 shrimp on sale for $7.98 per lb. so I purchased a pound. I decided to prepare them my two favorite ways of cooking shrimp. The first is what I call Atomic Shrimp. (Which is bacon wrapped shrimp stuffed with cheddar cheese and a slice of jalapeño. As the jalapeño doesn’t make it very “Atomic”, I switched it out for slices of serrano chilies. Here are most of the ingredients. I peeled and deveined the shrimp and then butterflied them. I also sliced the cheese and serrano chilies. I carefully placed the cheese and serrano in the shrimp and wrapped them with a slice of bacon. Once I had 10 of them done I placed them on the preheated kamado. I grilled them for approximately 5 to 6 minutes per side and once the bacon looked crispy I plated the 5 biggest ones up with a cilantro garnish and a Negra Modelo. Here are those pics. Delicious!!!!! I had 9 shrimp leftover so I skewered them, sprayed they with some EVOO and sprinkled them with some Tajin seasoning. Grilled them for approximately 3 minutes per side. Here are the plated pics with the Negra Modelo. These were also delicious but not quite as good as the bacon wrapped ones. Thanks for looking.

Yes you can go the horizontal route. The problem going horizontal route are you need to press it together tight to hold the meat in. This pressing together pushed out much of the marinade. then as it turns and heats up the juices also will leak out more than a vertical spit might. Regarding my spit: the juices still leak out but definitely not as much as a horizontal spit might.

Thank you &riod. I started it out slow, like at 250. I slowly ramped up the temp to mostly 350 but it once got as high as 415 and hear the end was down to 300. I didn't put any wood on the coals as a Mexican Taquero using a real trompo doesn't have any smoke. Just using the charcoal briquettes was cheating enough.

I love Tacos al pastor but have never made them myself. They are a popular street food here in SoCal and Mexico and I finally decided to try my hand at making some. Forgive me as this is a long one. I started out by thawing a Pork Butt I had in the freezer that I had purchased on sale for $.99 a lb. (7.93 lbs.) I unwrapped it and found there was still some ice crystals on it. (which is what I was hoping for to make cutting it easier) I cut it in half and deboned the other half. I proceeded to cut it all up into approximately 3/8” slices. I placed this into a large container, covered it and placed it into the fridge. I now gathered up the ingredients for the al pastor marinade. Here’s the recipe I used. (It’s a combination of several recipes I watched on YouTube) Not shown in the picture are the pineapple juice and the vinegar. 8 lb bone-in pork shoulder (deboned) 4 tablespoons achiote paste (I used 1 – 3.5 oz. brick) 2 guajillo peppers (seeded and re-hydrated) 2 ancho peppers (seeded and re-hydrated) 3 Chipotle peppers + all the adobo sauce from 1 - 7 oz. can 5 garlic cloves ¼ small white or yellow onion 1 oz. Piloncillo (substitute brown sugar if you can find it) 1 tbsp. dried oregano (preferably Mexican) 1 tbsp. cumin 1 tbsp. salt 1 tbsp. pepper 1 tsp. cinnamon (preferably Mexican) 1 tsp, cloves ½ cup pineapple juice ½ cup white vinegar ¼ cup OO ¼ cup of the water from re-hydrating the peppers ¼ cup orange juice ¼ cup lime juice 1 pineapple, skinned and sliced into 1-inch (2 cm) rounds (for the spit/trompo) (Note: I only had some small guajillo chiles so I used 6 of them) Everybody went into the pool for a spin. I poured some marinade into the bottom of a very large bowl and then some pork slices. I repeated this process until all the pork was in the bowl and pour the rest of the marinade over the top. I then stirred it until everything had a nice coating. Now how will I cook this? Tacos al pastor is a dish developed in central Mexico that is based on shawarma spit grilled meat brought by Lebanese immigrants. It is traditionally cooked on a vertical spit known as a trompo. I don’t have such an exotic grill, so I had to improvise. I had found this indoor grill plate at a local thrift store for $2.17 and used it to create a vertical spit. I now peeled and sliced up the pineapple And started my vertical trompo stack adding a slice of pineapple and red onion after every 6 or 7 layers of meat. I place the stack in the center of my weber redhead with coals all around it. I then setup my craving station. Here it is after approximately 30 minutes. After approximately 75 minutes I removed the trompo and craved off the outer charred layer. (The char is an important part of the taste profile) I then placed the trompo back in the redhead to char the outside again. So pretty! I then repeated the process another 3 times. After I had trimmed off the outside 3 times I set up my taco cart errrr bar and started to assemble my street taco plate. Oh Yum! Here it is served up with a Modelo Especial. This was a little on the spicy side but oh so delicious! Thanks for looking.

The same day I cooked my Ribeye I also grilled up some chicken thighs for my wife and sister in-law. I had purchased a 1.5 cubic foot bag of almond wood. I pulled out 5 nice looking pieces to make the fire with. I lit up a small chimney of smallish lump pieces and dumped this into my fire pit to start up the almond logs. I then placed the almond logs on top and waited for them to start burning. While I was waiting I seasoned up some chicken thighs and some asparagus spears. I placed the potatoes on first. Then the asparagus over the fire for a while to give them a little head start. I then moved them back into the foil tray to finish up and placed on the thighs. Flipping the thighs every 3 to 4 minutes until they were at 160 it. No plated shots as I was eating the steak. Thanks for looking.