DerHusker

Thank you. Your dog must have a strong stomach if it can eat peppers.

Thank you KK. Just to clarify, the patio, retaining wall and redoing of the irrigation was done in 2009. I included pictures of it only to explain what I was needing to fix and why I was dreading doing it if I had to dig it up to fix it. I also used to do some landscaping in my youth. The patio we had when we moved in was less than half the size of the new one we had built. I built the retaining wall (with the help of a laborer) as well as redoing the irrigation, adding the planter edging, planting the plants, the new lawn turf and adding the fountain. But without the laborer helping I'm sure I would have had to make a trip or two to the hospital. The project was a ton of work but it was so worth it when it was done.

This weekend I decided to put in an herb and vegetable garden again. I’ve been lazy the last 2 years and didn’t plant anything in the garden. One of the reasons why I didn’t was we had an irrigation valve go bad. We had to turn the backyard irrigation water off most of the time or the sprinklers would come on by themselves. I needed to replace it but I was really dreading doing this due to how much work it was (I had to completely dig up the valve box like I was starting over) replacing a valve servicing my hill, downhill lawn, garden and fruit trees. You see when we expanded our patio I had to also expand our yard. Here it is before the new concrete was poured. In the pictures above you can see my expanded patio was occupying most of what used to be my original yard. So to expand our yard I had to also put in a retaining wall. (A few pics of that) 1st course. Drainage pipe and rock to control expansion. Due to all this I had to completely redo all the irrigation, so I decided to put in underground valves in valve boxes. (A few pics of that) Underground valves / manifold connecting to lawn sprinklers and drip irrigation for planters. Valve box being positioned. Lids on and waiting to have soil filled in around them. Here it is once most everything was finished except putting in the fountain, the plants and the rock ground cover. And here it is after the fountain, the plants and the rock ground cover were done. Here you can see why I didn’t want to have to dig them up. Well I finally decided to fix it. Here’s the valves as they looked before I fixed them. (The valve on left is the bad one) As it turned out I didn’t have to dig everything up (thanks to a pry bar) but it still took around 90 minutes to complete. (The new valve was like 1/8” longer than the old one) Now that I can water everything via the time-clock controller again I started out with some herbs, (From left to right is Sweet mint, sweet basil, chives, lemon thyme and sage) peppers and tomatoes. The peppers were a variety pack. I started out by planting the herbs in pots. I divided the basil and chives into 3 different pots so I can rotate them inside the house and outside the house. Here are one of the basil's, one of the chives and the thyme in our kitchen garden window. I planted the peppers in 3 half wine barrel planters. Serrano and Jalapeno. Anaheim & Cayenne And the hot stuff - Habanero & Bhut Jolokia These are all up the hill on our side yard where I’ve already planted some larger tomatoes. I planted the sage and the smaller tomatoes in my downhill garden beds. Here’s a picture of the overall downhill garden. Sage. This is some Oregano that comes back every year. (Since 2013) Big Boy Tomatoes. The Waaaiiting is the Hardest Part! Thank for looking.

Thank you Ted. Thank you zero. The Mediterranean Tomato Salad is a mix of Tomato, Cucumber, Parsley, Mint, Feta cheese and what ever else you want to include. In this version I had some orange bell pepper I included. Last time I made it I included some red onion. You could include both or something else. The following amounts are approximate as I never measure them: 1 medium / large red tomato 1 cup chopped grape tomatoes (I use anything other than red to add color) 1 cup chopped Cucumber 1 cup minced Parsley 1 cup minced Mint 1/2 to 3/4 cup Feta cheese (to taste) 3/4 cup red / orange / yellow bell pepper or red onion or both. I don't do this but if you want to add some lemon juice and / or EVOO that's up to you. (I don't feel it's necessary)

Thank you MD_Ag. I made almost the exact same plate for the Shawarma Challenge and didn't win. Maybe you can talk to ckreef and retroactively change your vote, although I still wouldn't win. Thank you gotzero. Shawarma is different than gyro so I'm not sure what you have in mind for that. Thank you shuley.

Thank you Jack. My wife and guests pretty much said the same thing. Thank you Gerri. I love this recipe for chicken shawarma and the other items just really make this meal pop.

In a reply to shuley, when I introduce my new Red Kettle, I stated “I use the kettle mostly for fast grilling style cooks (Hot Dogs, Hamburgers, Carne Asada, shrimp) So I haven't really tried to control the temperature to much” Well I decided to try a longer cook and see how it held a temperature. Chicken is my wife’s favorite and I like to mix it up so for this Kettle Experiment I went with Chicken Shawarma. Started out the night before making some Tzatziki. Here are the ingredients: (From Chef John on FoodWishes.com) 2 cups Greek yogurt 1 large cucumber, peeled, grated, tossed with 1/2 teaspoon of salt 4 cloves garlic, very finely minced juice of half a lemon or vinegar to taste 3 tbsp. chopped fresh dill and/or mint salt, pepper, to taste Here is the grated cucumber that I tossed with the salt. The salt leaches out the liquid from the cucumber that I rung out using a flour sack towel. Here’s the yogurt, the lemon and the minced mint ready to be mixed together with the garlic and cucumber. The next day I made up a yogurt based shawarma marinade. Here are the ingredients: 1 cup plain whole milk Greek yogurt 5 cloves of garlic ¼ cup of freshly squeezed lemon juice ¼ cup of apple cider vinegar 2 tbsp. of olive oil 2 tbsp. of ketchup 1 teaspoon cloves 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon paprika ½ teaspoon cumin ½ teaspoon caraway (ground fennel) ½ teaspoon cardamon ½ teaspoon of oregano or thyme ½ teaspoon cinnamon ½ teaspoon nutmeg ½ teaspoon crushed peppercorn ¼ teaspoon of cayenne pepper ¼ teaspoon ground ginger Everybody in the pool and then thoroughly mixed. I then broke out the boneless / skinless chicken thighs I got that were on sale. I cleaned these up and then cut most of them in half but some were larger so they were cut in thirds. The thighs now went into pool for a nice long rest. Next up was the Hummus ingredients. One 15-ounce can (425 grams) chickpeas, also called garbanzo beans 1/4 cup (59 ml) fresh lemon juice, about 1 large lemon 1/4 cup (59 ml) tahini (we used Krinos) Half of a large garlic clove, minced 2 tablespoons olive oil, plus more for serving 1/2 to 1 teaspoon kosher salt, depending on taste 1/2 teaspoon ground cumin 2 to 3 tablespoons water Dash of ground paprika for serving Here is the start of the blending process. Then some Persian Rice. 2 cups of basmati rice 3 ½ cups of chicken stock/broth 2 tbsp of butter ½ tsp turmeric ¼ tsp cumin Kosher salt and pepper And finally a Mediterranean Tomato Salad. Now I can cook the Shawarma. Broke out my good skewers. (Closest I can come to a Shawarma rotisserie) I used two so I could better control them on the grill. I tightened up the stops to help keep in the marinade and juices. and placed them on the grill. My new Red Kettle was cruising along at 350 and stayed within 10 degrees of that for the entire 75 minutes of this cook. Flipped them after 5 to 6 minutes. After a while I moved them over the coals so I could develop some char that Shawarma should have. Here is everything plated up family style with some cucumber slices, Olives, pita bread and a Ballast Point Grapefruit Sculpin IPA. So Good! My wife and company loved everything. Thanks for looking.

A lot of steak knives are serrated for a reason. Like I said above, "I've been using my Miyab 9" bread knife to do my slicing on smaller cuts. It slices through meat like a hot knife through butter." The only problem is that they are hard to sharpen once they become dull. If you use it only on meat, and have a good cutting board, they won't become dull for a long time.

Yes I like it for larger (boneless) cuts. Am I wrong in thinking the Victorinox and Forschner are the same company?

Of my Victorinox knives I have the 12 Granton edge slicer and have used it for larger cuts where my 8" Zwilling slicer just wasn't big enough. It does a nice job for thin slices. I know this is more than what you want to spend but lately I've been using my Miyab 9" bread knife to do my slicing on smaller cuts. It slices through meat like a hot knife through butter.

After the new Red Kettle had burned for approximately 90 minutes initiated it with a fast cheese burger cook. Let the patties heat up indirect at first. Once they were sweating I moved them over for a 90 second sear on each side and then move back to the indirect side to melt the cheese. Plated mine up with some chips, potato salad and a Stone Brewery Coffee Milk Stout. Easter was good to me. Thank for looking.

Thank you KK. I just have this thing for Red. I don't know where it comes from. Thank you shuley. As I said above to keeper I use the kettle mostly for fast grilling style cooks (Hot Dogs, Hamburgers, Carne Asada, shrimp) So I haven't really tried to control the temperature to much. I will say that during the seasoning burn I had the vents open all the way and it got up to around 375 and more or less leveled off there. I then closed the vents down to half way and it came down to 340 and stay there so I'm sure you can control it if you wanted to. In the pic above you can see that I marked where the vent is at 1/4, 1/2, 3/4 and fully open so I can control temps should I ever want to.

Thank you ck. Thank you keeper. I'd love to have (or at least see) one of those old models (Red of course) in good condition. I use the kettle for fast grilling style cooks. Hot Dogs, Hamburgers, Carne Asada, shrimp. No reason to heat up the kamado for hours when my cook is over in less than 20 minutes.

I recently watched some YouTube videos by Baby Back Maniac where he reviewed the new Weber Limited Edition Red Kettle. I was immediately drawn to the red color for some reason. Since I already had a standard black kettle and I didn’t have an extra $200.00 burning a hole in my pocket I figured I’d just have to make do with what I had. Yesterday I noticed they were on sale at Ace Hardware for $149.99 (a 25% discount) and I figured it was a sign that I had to buy one. Well here it is and the unboxing and assembly pics will follow: New and nicer wheels included. Put some cardboard down and installed the vent / ash assembly. The legs, wheels and shelf. The lid rest assembly. The ash pan and the handle. Put in the charcoal and grill grates. Then installed the handle and placed the lid on it. I wheeled in out from under the patio roof where I took a few more pics before doing a seasoning burn. Lid moved back onto the rest. (Nice!) Nice new thermometer and Limited Edition plaque. Now I started a chimney full of KBB and let the kettle settle in on a seasoning burn. So pretty! Thanks for looking.

Thank you KK. Beer for breakfast hasn't been on the menu for a few decades. After breakfast I made a fresh batch of Pico.