Corned & Pastramied Beef Brisket Flat on the Davy Crockett

How about a Reuben sandwich? Take a couple of slices of fresh rye bread, and add a generous amount of corned and pastramied brisket flat slices, slap on about 4 slices of baby Swiss cheese, add a layer of homemade kraut, a big dollop of Thousand Island dressing, and just fry it up in a skillet,  and my friend, it’s about as good as it gets!

We use a lot of this meat and make it several times a year but always do it from scratch (corn our own beef) until this week. I decided to try it with corned beef brisket flats  purchased from our local Kroger store. 

Purchased four of the corned beef flats that weighed around 3.40 pounds each at a price of $2.98 a pound from Kroger. My total was 13.51 pounds. 

First step was to de-brine them to get some of the salt out of the meat as we didn’t plan to cook this meat with a big pot of veggies or add the meat to a pot of cabbage where the salt would be needed. I soaked two of them at a time in the fridge for about 9 hours changing the water about 3 times to remove some of the salt. 

I made up my pastrami rub with the following spices. My recipe is for 6-7 pounds of meat. 

9 TBL Black peppercorns (coursely cracked)

3 TBL Coriander seed (coursely cracked)

3 TBL Turbinado sugar 

1 tsp Granulated garlic

1 tsp Paprika

1 tsp Montreal Steak Seasoning

I dried the meat after the de-brining process and added a heavy amount of rub to each piece and put the meat into freezer bags and then into the fridge for an overnight stay. 

The meat ready for the cooker.

Brought the Davy Crockett pellet cooker around to my cooking patio and fired it up and set it to a good smoking temperature of 165 degrees which will produce additional smoke for the first couple of hours. Later, I moved it up to 280 degrees to finish the cook. 

Got an early start and had the meat on the cooker before daylight. 

I just removed them from the cooker as they reached a finish temperature of 185 internal degrees and of course, they didn’t all come off at the same time. The cook took about  7-1/2 hours total.

You know, for a quicker method for this treat, this worked out nicely. While not quite as good as starting from scratch in my opinion, it is still very good. Sure be better if a fellow could purchase larger corned beef flats to start with. 

Steak & Pork Burger on the Davy Crockett Grill

The first part of this cook was done on the Davy Crockett pellet cooker with my cast iron grilling insert and using a grid temp of about 450 degrees.



Ribeye was trimmed up a little and then rubbed with one of my steak rubs and then left out on the counter top to warm up for about 45 minutes.



Steak was on the grill for about 7 minutes total and this resulted in a nice medium rare cook.



Came out looking pretty nice and sure smelled good.

Dropped the temperature on the Davy Crocket grill to about 350 degrees, removed my grilling insert, and added a round cast iron griddle for my pork burgers.



I formed up 4 patties of my homemade pork burger and then added some simple SPG rub and they were ready for the fire.

Placed my four (6 oz each) pork burgers on the cast iron griddle and cooked them until done.





Sure made a nice lunch.

Prime Rib & More on the Davy Crockett Grill

Since there will only be the two of us for our Christmas dinner this year and the weather looks nasty for 13 of the next 15 days, we decided to celebrate our Christmas meal a few days early as we do like to do it outside on a grill.





I started a green bean casserole with a few slices of bacon and about 1/2 pound of aged (20 months ) country ham for seasoning.

I also rubbed peanut oil over a couple of those big baker potatoes and then added a sprinkle of rub.

We plugged our 5.10 pound roast with garlic, rosemary, and thyme and Jan selected a rub with some dill in it for the meat. I sprinkled on a fairly heavy dose of the rub and the first stage of our meal was ready to go on the cooker.





I rolled the little GMG Davy Crockett around to our cooking patio and fired it up and set the temp at 170 degrees for the first hour to be sure we got some smoke flavor into the roast. I then raised the temp up to about 325 measured on the cooking grid to finish this part of the cook. Was a cool 19 degree morning for the cook.



Just before the meat got done, we made up the Pineapple Upside Down Muffin Cakes for our dessert. I also got my yeast rolls ready for the cooker.



When the meat was done (120 internal), I pulled it along with the potatoes and green bean casserole off of the cooker and added the yeast rolls and the dessert cakes. I then foiled the potatoes and the roast for about 40 minutes before serving.







The meat and potatoes looked great coming out of the foil after the rest period and the balance of the meal looked good as well.



I sliced the roast into three pieces for serving.







As plated...Jan made up a pound of compound butter for the potato and rolls and also a nice tossed salad with some sliced hard boiled eggs and poppy seed dressing on top. The dessert cake was plated with some ice cream and this was our early Christmas dinner.

Smoked Mac n Cheese and More

I like to fool around with simple tailgate style dishes that can be done in smaller grills or smokers and think the Mac n Cheese dish is about as good as it gets. I also did a few loin cut country style ribs and a quartered potato with this cook. 

This cook was done on my Green Mountain Davy Crockett pellet grill.

This Mac n Cheese recipe is very rich and is done from scratch without cooking the macaroni first. You just throw it all in a pan and then on the grill. 

Ingredients:

3 cups elbow macaroni
1/2 stick butter
4 cups whole milk
2 cups heavy whipping cream
1 8oz package of shredded sharp cheddar cheese
1 8oz package colby jack cheese
salt
fresh cracked black pepper
tin foil half pan




These are the ingredients I started with.



I just poured the 3 cups of elbow macaroni into my pan.



Added the melted butter over the macaroni and then the sharp cheddar and colby jack cheese. 



Added the whole milk and the heavy whipping cream and then the salt and pepper. 



I sprinkled on some SGH rub on my loin cut country ribs and then brushed peanut oil on my quartered potatoes and then added salt, pepper, and thyme. To be able to use a half pan in my Davy Crockett, I have to have it on my lower grid as it is too large for the top grid. Since I didn’t want any drippings going into my Mac n Cheese, I had to use a pan for my ribs on the upper grid.



I fired the cooker up and brought it up to about 250 degrees measured on the lower grid and then let it go thru a few cycles to be sure it as burning clean. I just want to add a hint of smoke to this dish. I loaded my three treats on the cooker.

I stirred the Mac n Cheese at about 1 hour into the cook and then at about 1-1/2 hours and found it about ready. I let it go a total of about 1:45 hr and it was done to my liking. 



The Mac n Cheese just off the cooker....I like bacon and Jalapenos in my Mac n Cheese so I added that for the picture. I then crumbled the bacon up and stirred it into my dish.



I glazed three pieces of the country ribs with BH Smokey Mountain for myself and left two of them dry for my bride.





Served it up with some fruit and it made a nice meal. The Mac n Cheese was wonderful and just so simple to make. We froze about half of this recipe.

Sticky Orange Glazed Ham & More

Kroger keeps putting ham on sale for under a dollar a pound and we do love ham so here is another cook with this treat. 

I did the last ham cook on my Green Mountain Daniel Boone in the rotisserie and this one will be in the Green Mountain Davy Crockett tailgater grill.



The ham weighed 9.88 pounds and my sides are candied yams, pit beans, and some rolls that we will use for buns for the ham.



I started the cook with the ham and the dish of yams.



Ran the cooker at about 165 degrees for the first hour to generate a little more smoke and them moved it up to about 300 degrees.



Pulled the candied yams off when they were done and foiled them to keep them warm. 



My pit beans went on next.



Pulled the beans next and as above, foiled them to hold for the balance of the cook. 



Pulled the ham when the internal got to about 135 degrees.

Raised the temperature on the cooker to about 360 degrees.



Put my raised grid in and loaded my rolls.



They come off looking great.



Sliced and chopped up most of the meat up for the freezer. The ham bone and some chunks of ham will be used for some soup beans today. 





Made a nice lunch.

Gotta love that little pellet cooker.