Cooking Cheap

– Sunday
As usual, I made a lot of food. If you’re going to fire up the smoker, it’s what you do. I will have enough left overs and freezer-fixens for a long time. This meal would feed 6, easily. I made a batch of potato salad, tried some homemade mac and cheese from a mash up of recipes so that makes it mine. And somewhere in there I’ve mixed a batch of sourdough bread resting for baking tomorrow. One rack of smoked spare ribs and one “fatty”.

A “fatty” is a roll of pork breakfast sausage that gets smoked alongside the main protein for 3 or 4 hours (at low and slow temps). I’d never done that. I can say now, “that’s some good eats.”. Any brand will do, I’m told and I believe it. I can hardly wait for breakfast or a late night snack. Putting it into the fridge for another day was the biggest challenge I’ve faced in quite a while.

The smoker was the least of the adventures. It got into the 250F area fairly quickly and stayed there practically forever with little need to play with vents. The ribs were done a little early so I wrapped them in foil and left them on the counter for 45 minutes. They had just the right finger licking temperature after that nap.Very tasty. Firm bark, fall apart in your mouth tender. Nothing wrong with the ribs, nor the rub (I have a fair amount of rub left over to use for “BAM”’s.)

The potato salad was wonderful. Just kind of a pain to cut all that up in the middle of the day. Which is why I don’t make it very often. But, I can control the mayo content and I prefer it light., well in the background.

The mac and cheese I’m not sure about. Oh, I had two servings so I’ll with hold final judgement until I eat some more. I used 1/2 buttermilk and 1/2 whole milk for the sauce. That may be the source of just slight “different” flavor – not bad, just different. It might have been the roux getting a bit scorched or too must mustard powder but actually I suspect It was the cheese or the buttermilk. Ill write about the cheese next (above post).

[Update 4/30/07]
I used the the left over ribs as a source of pulled pork, some KC Masterpiece and some homemade bread – a very fine sandwich. The mac and cheese, still just slightly off.

[Update 5/1/07]
Smoked a turkey breast. See up top. The Mac and Cheese really shined. Tonight it was excellent and thats after have reheating and fridge-ing twice. So the off flavor was more the mouthful of rub and pork reacting with the white sauce or the cheese or the butter milk. That’s a fine lesson to learn. It seemed like an odd pairing or ribs/pulled pork to me, now I know why.

– Saturday
I picked up some spareribs and a turkey breast, the later frozen). Both are “enhanced”, no doubt. i thought about doing the Turkey tomorrow so I put in a the big sink with cold water to defrost. Then, a few hours later I changed my mind. I’d rather do the ribs tomorrow and the turkey on Monday or Tuesday.

I prepped the ribs: I removed the membrane, sort of. I didn’t bother with doing the St. Louis or Kansas City thing butchery and trimming. Presentation isn’t that big a deal with me and it wasn’t that big a chine bone (just 6 lbs of of spares). I mixed up way too much rub for the this rack of spares so I adjusted it to be usable on the turkey in a day or two. I hope.

1/4 C Kosher salt (Mortons)
1/8 C Paprika (the base recipe says 1/4 C but mines a bit strong)
3 Tbl chili powder
2 Tbl Black pepper, supermarket brand
1 Tbl ground cumin (that’s a fair amount)
1 Tbl garlic powder
1 Tbl onion powder
1 Tsp cayenne (might be a bit hot)

Thats more rub than one rack of untrimmed spares can take on. Enough to do the Turkey breast too and maybe more. If it’s going on poultry I need to tone down the paprika and chile powder. I added
2 Tbl of Turbinado Sugar – Yeah it’s lot. Use 1 Tbl of brown sugar instead.. That’s a fair amuunt. Just enough to take the bite off all those others. Well, that’s my plan and the die is cast.