Dip Makin and Dry Rub Creation

We found some new spices this week at Rainbow Grocery. Rainbow is where all the hip people in Jackson go to get their groceries, incense, and tofu burgers. They let the rest of us shop there too.

I found some organic adobo spice. I thought it was going to be like the adobo sauce that the chipotole peppers are stored in. Turns out it is pepper, salt, oregano, garlic, onion, and turmeric. I have to be honest, I used it as the only spice this weekend on our steaks. It wasn't right. The steaks were just ok. They needed salt. So, my views on adobo seasoning is, "Ah, it's ok, just remember to use some salt too."

I found roasted garlic granules. These are wonderful. All the flavor of roasted garlic, and none of the work or squishy finger mess. These puppies are very powerful. I mixed them one to one with my other find, chipotole powder to make a spice for chip dip.

The dip was 1 cup of sour cream with 1 tea spoon of garlic granules and 1 tea spoon of chipotole powder. It was way to garlic. I added 1/2 a tea spoon of Cayenne pepper and balanced it out. This dip was good. It grabs the back of your throat on the way down with that good pepper feeling.

My dry rub consist of turbindeno sugar 1/2 cup(I know I misspelled that), cayenne pepper 1 TBs, chipotole pepper 1 TBs, salt 1/2 cup, black pepper 1/2 cup, dry mustard 3 TBs, and paprika 1/2 cup. I chopped it all in a spice grinder to blend. Going to try it on the next batch of ribs.

Grilling in the snow

Yes, it is one of those wonderful times of the decade when Mississippi gets a real snowfall. It was suppose to be here by 5:00 p.m. and it hasn't started yet 6 hours later. So when we wake up, we should have a white cover of 5 to 8 inches of snow.

I've been in Mississippi 19 years. I'll believe it when I see it.

That sets the stage for my blog. My lovely best friend chimed in when I got home that we needed to grill pork chops tonight. I reminded her that it was cold outside, suppose to snow, etc.. She grinned, and said, we need to grill pork chops tonight. They are already thawed and we need to grill them. Grin Grin.

So it wasn't snowing just yet, I made my way out to the new grill, uncovered it and cranked her up. 15 minutes later we were sitting down to some of the best pork chops ever. Yes, it was that quick. I put some mesquite grill rub on them and put them on a 600 degree grill. Flipped them at 5 minutes and waited for the finish. Then took them off close to 10 minutes.

Here is the trick. Eddie and Sabrina gave us "the coolest gift ever" for Christmas this year. It is a temperature probe with a timer and a remote beeper. When the meat gets to the temperature you want it at in the middle, the unit goes off and makes the remote go off in your pocket if you happen to be inside washing dishes or refilling your favorite adult beverage. So no more burned dried out meat from the grill because you were up to your elbows in Joy suds.

While it is true that I "technically" didn't grill in the snow today, my lovely best friend informed me that we have a shoulder thawing in the fridge, and it has a date with destiny on Saturday ~ in the snow!

Now that is a grill!

We got it done. The last grill we will ever need. They measure the grill surface in acres. It will smoke, grill, bbq, baste, roast, fry, skewer, shish-k-bob, and cook. This cast iron behemoth took about 5 good hours of work and study to put together. We had to do some hammering and drilling to make it all work, but overall I was very impressed with the craftsmanship of the Chairbroil Professional Grill. Every hole lined up as it was intended. We did have to pop out some of the metal because we added the smoke box to the side, but that wasn't too difficult once you overcome the thought of knocking a huge whole in the side of your new grill.

It has a gas grill section, a charcoal grill section, the aforementioned smoke box, and a side gas fired eye that doubles as an eye for cooking and a starter for a charcoal chimney. I think I could easily smoke 4 slabs of ribs for dinner and cook a case of burgers for lunch all at the same time.

The funniest instruction was "Do not consume alcohol or recreational drugs while putting this grill together." That's funny because they have obviously been sued by some poor rednecks widow whose last words were, "Here, hold my beer while I light this baby up!"