Merry Christmas Blog world! Jesus is born!! If your day was anywhere near as successful as mine, you should be exhausted. But it was all worth it, wasn't it?
I've been waiting to cook this meal since Thanksgiving!
Patiently I've game planned what I'm going to cook and how I'm going to cook it. It was an easy decision really. I received a Weber smoker about a month ago from Home Depot. One of my friends, Ryan P., works there and told me about this stellar deal they had one day. I decided to tell my parents about it.. (a $350 grill for $40..I tweeted it. and sent text messages about it...) Anyways, they decided they would surprise me with it as "an early Christmas gift". What a present! I would repay them with some smoked meats.
One 12 lb turkey (spatchcocked) and a city ham smoked for roughly 3.5 to 4 hours (As you can see in the photo on the right, the turkey is on the bottom grate, closer to the coal). Spatchcocked turkey means cutting out the backbone so the bird will lay flat. I used some pepper, salt, cayenne, paprika, brown sugar and butter as a marinade. The ham is diamond cut and smoked for 3-4 hours at 250 then I put some stuff on it. The ham's final step is to put it into an oven at 350degrees for 30-40 minutes. (All the details of this city ham recipe can be attributed here to Alton Brown. However, I spice things up a bit with SPICY brown mustard and my bourbon of choice is Jim Beam.). This is what it looks like after a little smokin'!
If you're looking for something to do while the meat is on the grill, walk around your neighborhood and look for birds. Although this probably sounds extremely lame to most people, you would be surprised at the amount of birds you will see and what they do. A HUGE thanks to my parents for hooking me up with a 55-300mm lens for Christmas! Here are some birds I saw while waiting for the Christmas bird to finish cooking:
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| Mourning Dove |
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| Male Cardinal |
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| Great Blue Heron |
I also saw a hawk tearing apart food, some Mexican Squealers, and some kid shooting his new BB gun into a tree at moss. Other things might include: Enjoying a home brew (if you're old enough), watching Season One of Big Bang Theory, or bake a dessert. [Special shout-out to Jeff for giving me a delicious BBP Bourbon Barrel Porter to enjoy for Christmas! It went great with the meal!]
After 4 hours in the smoker, or when the turkey has reached 170 degrees, it should look something like this:
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| it looks like a GIANT frog |
Wrap this in foil and let it rest for at least 30 minutes before carving. While you are waiting for that, let's get the pork ready for its final destination. Less typing, more pictures.
Baste it with the mustard
Sprinkle on dark brown sugar, then spray on the bourbon.
then sprinkle on the broken ginger snap cookies. I think it looks like an ant mound. This mound of joy goes in the oven at 350 degrees for 30-40 minutes.
Ok, so now that the turkey has been resting for 30 minutes, CARVE IT UP!
Does anyone else see a face?
After you're finished carving the turkey, move onto the HAM!
Time to dish up the plate!
It was quite the feast! We missed all the extended family from BR, PR and Nevada, but know y'all were on our minds the whole day. After a long day of cooking, present exchanges and enjoying family time, I have some "quiet time" (we're watching Rise of Planet of the Apes) to reflect once again on how blessed I am with family and friends. Thank you to everyone for reading my posts! May God bless you with everlasting joy, peace and love!
Happy Plates! (even though the puppy ate a dead squirrel during dinner and it brought up some entertaining conversations...)
