Memorial Day BBQ Revealed

Some Quick Weekend highlights for you. I actually did 3 BBQ's this weekend but only took pictures of 2 of them.

The first couple of pictures are of some chicken strips I marinated overnight in Buttermilk, Green Onions, and Spices. I did it 2 ways actually the top picture being the chicken no frills simply BBQed as is. The Second kind of blurry pic(my bad on the blur..make you own wine/blurred vision joke if you like) is the same Chicken with some rub and some sauce.






























Below are some pictures of food prepared in my brother's Texas Style Smoker. From left to right-Smoked BBQ Backs, The Middle is some Beer & Garlic marinated Tri-tip, and on the right some Sliced Rump Roast. Believe it or not the Rump Roast after 5 hours of smoking was wonderfully delicious. I could have sold people on the fact that it was prime rib and they might have believed me. And after manning the smoker from 8AM to roughly 2PM I really dropped the ball for not taking any pictures of the ribs and other cuts of meat on the grill itself. It was poetry I tell you....poetry.

Red Snapper-2 different Kinds

The local gourmet market here in Southern California had a pretty good special on wild red snapper so I figured I pick up some filets and see what I could do with it.
Snapper is a very easy fish to work with and works great on the grill w/ a fish basket. Unly takes about 5 minutes on each side over low to medium heat.

Here we have my attempt at grilled snapper with Singaporean Satay Seasoning. Its almost 1/2 Satay 1/2 Curry. You don't normally associate Curry with BBQ so I thought it would be interesting. True to form it had a nice indian style flavor that wasnt too spicy(which made the wife and son happy).















Here we did a Snapper with Northwoods Seasoning. Northwoods Seasoning is a specific blend they sell at www.Penzeys.com that works wonderful with Chicken or Fish. Its not quite cajun and not quite jerk but looks and tastes great. I highly recomend Penzeys for anyone looking to get high quality spices without breaking the bank. Ive yet to be dissapointed from any of their stuff. If anyone reading this knows a better place to get spices though Im all ears!















Not pictured was that nights wine which was a French offering called Quintessance. The Misses really liked this wine. It had a nose that was half wood and half wet hay and while a bit on the dryer side for my liking certainly had all the characteristics of a much pricier wine. Wonderful finish and very smooth almost silky texture. Why I didnt take a picture Im not sure....my bad! Also had the new Cameron Hughes Meritage offering as well. I preferred it the Quintessance as it had a bit more berry character to it but truth be told I could have went either way on those choices as they were both very good for the price. I also picked up a bottle of the Cameron Hughes White offering that I will be reviewing in the near future and hopefully a bit better then this meager offering.

Something I stumbled upon....

Maybe its because its late on Friday afternoon and all the hard hours have caught up with me but this is something I found that struck a chord with me for whatever reason. Basically it is a slide show of vintage pictures taken at Disneyland. Growing up here in Southern California and having a dear family member working at the park I used to spend quite a lot of time there. Of course its changed a lot today then what it used to be(what hasn't?) this is a wonderful pictorial and real slice of americana that hopefully you will enjoy. For the record as well-should have my latest creation posted this weekend sometime- Shrimp and Scallop Brochette wrapped with Bacon and stuffed with pineapple. Truth be told I may do a Mango/Pineapple salsa but we'll have to see. Anyhow enjoy these pics!

http://flickr.com/groups/65461987@N00/pool/show/

Robert Parker-10 Great Wines under $10

Straight from Business Week online written by the man himself. Surprise Surprise-the 2003 Borsao makes #3 on his list.




Great Wines Great Price

Grilled Mahi, Red Diamond Cab, Borsao and Shrimp

Here we have a couple of shrimp and veggie skewers and a marinated sirloin pinwheel. I wont lie...I bought the pinwheel at El Toro Meats here in Sunny Southern California. It was overpriced but I had a coupon so figured what the heck. It was very very good though. The marinade was some type of Worcester Sauce and some type of Oil I will presume. Basically they take a sirloin strip and run it through a tenderizer where they roll it up(hence the pinwheel), wrap it in bacon, and marinate it. Great flavor and great texture. I normally run for the hills on any item that needs to be run through a tenderizer but this was very very good. As for the Skewers-you just can't go wrong with your basic Olive Oil, Garlic, and Lemon Pepper mix and that exactly what I did here. For those wanting to do this at home make sure you do the shrimp as the very last thing...they cook quick so make sure you throw those on the grill right before the veggies are done.




Here we have Maha-Mahi served atop roasted Maui onions with grilled mushrooms and asparagus sided with some sun dried tomatoes. I once again went the east route here using some of the frozen Mahi fillets at Trader Joes. I've since also tried their marinated tuna and can say unequivocally the Mahi is superior. The onions I simply sliced lengthwise into large slices. They are very sweet and roast on the grill nicely. Once they get that nice opaque look to them you know they are pretty close to being done. Very flexible, you could probably drizzle any oil based dressing onto them for a nice touch. Your standard bottle of Kraft Italian will even work in a pinch but I generally stay away from that massed produced stuff. I once used Franks Red Hot Sauce actually and even that turned out to be decent. The rest of the Veggies were simply some things I had in the Fridge thrown onto the grill.



If I had it to do over again I would have certainly wrapped the asparagus in bacon...maybe even cut the shrooms in half, placed them on the asparagus, and wrapped the lot into bacon. I'll have to try that sometime this summer. As for the Wine(s), I never promised this blog was going to be high brow high digit so these are just a couple of standard wines. My next review will be a review of Australian Woop Woop that a co-worker recommended. I sampled a glass this previous weekend so hopefully will be able to give a more comprehensive review at a later date.