Grilled Pork Loin / Stuffed Hot Dogs / ABT'S

The greatest bargain in meat today is the whole and half pork loins that are on sale about everywhere in the country. At the worst, they will run about $1.98 a pound and at the best, you can find them at about $1.47 a pound. These loins can be used for a gazillion different treats and are always pretty good regardless of how you prepare them. We purchase them when they are on sale and freeze them for future use. We usually have our Kroger store slice them and run then thru the cuber. It’s a free service at our store. We use them for breaded loin sandwiches, grilled loin sandwiches, stir fry treats, country fried pork loins, pork stew, to name a few. 

My prep for this Cobb Grill cook was to just salt and pepper my cubed pork loin. For my dogs, I cut a slot in them and filled it with some cheese and then wrapped them in pre-cooked bacon. Went overboard on the stuffing for the  ABT’s and pulled and chopped up some pork rib meat, finely chopped up some onion, and added it to my cream cheese and then packed my Jalapeno pepper halves. I sprinkled on a good rub and then wrapped them with bacon. 

Typical Indiana Winter morning with a temp of about 37 degrees, froggie, and some light misting rain...Cobb don’t mind that.

Started the cook on the backside of my Grill Grates with the cubed pork loin. It took right at 4 minutes a side to get done. 

Stuffed dogs up next and all I was really doing here was to heat them up enough for the cheese to melt. 

I changed over to the standard grate and added the raised rack and did the ABT’s and they took the longest to get done. 

Food just off of the grill.

Placed my stuffed dog in a bun and added some mustard. I cut my cubed pork loin into two pieces and then put the half of it together in a slider bun with some sliced onion, lettuce, tomato, and some horsey sauce. Added one of the larger ABT’s and had a great simple meal.

Hasty Bake 10 Hour Fuse Burn

This fuse burn cook was done to just see how much time I could get out of a load of fuel running at about 225-250 degrees measured at the cooking grid with a standard load of food.



I started with 3 pork half loins each weighing about 4-5 pounds. I trimmed some of the heavier fat from the fat side and then sprinkled on a good spicy rub and they were ready for the grill.



Wife made up about 10 one third pound burgers and I also got out some of my homemade Texas Hot Links. I also did a full package of the bun length hot dogs, some chicken wings, and a small meat loaf which are not shown in this article.



I filled the charcoal basket with a full bag (11 pounds) of the all natural Wicked Good Bricketts and then placed some hickory chunks around the edges of the charcoal box. 



Charcoal box ready for the cooker.



Started the fire with a propane torch this time on the one side of the fuse. Let it run for about 40 minutes and loaded some of the meat. I also used the heat deflector to make this an indirect cook.



Picture shows the loins and burgers on the grill.



Burgers just off the grill.



The loins just off the grill at about 140 internal and this took about 2 hours and 15 minutes. 



My hot links.



The hot dogs.

I just kept adding and removing the meat until I got it all done and I was able to get a full 10 hours of cooking time at about 225 to 250 degrees measured at the cooking grids. This was also just using the intake and exhaust vents on the cooker to fine tune my cook.

Large Cook on my Char-Broil CB 940X

I did this cook back in August on my CB (Yugo) X over charcoal with a little hickory for smoke. I set the cooking grid up with about 1/3 of it direct and the other 2/3 rds indirect. I had several meats to cook and needed both direct and indirect for the cook. 



I started with 5 pounds of 28% flavor burger and Jan made up 16 burgers from the 5 pounds. Added salt and pepper.  Bout 1/3 pound each makes a nice small burger.



Since I needed a very hot fire at the start, I added a small amount of lump to the direct side of the cooker and then filled up a large Weber charcoal chimney with lump and after it was well lit, poured it into the cooker and added some smoke wood.

I like to put a good sear on my burgers and then finish them on the indirect side to about 165 degrees internal. 



There is my Yugo, De Soto, or maybe Edsel doing it’s thing. Real shame that this once  great cooker in no longer listed on Char-Broils website. 



Here are some of the other meat cooked on this round. Top left is a package and a half of the Eckrich Grillers, and right of it some bun size hotdogs. Top right plate has 4 strip steaks which will be used for my steak and mushroom hoogies. Bottom two plates are six big pork steaks. Not shown are about 22 of my very hot chicken wings.



My steaks are prepped with some Smokey Mountain steak rub. These 4 one inch steaks are seared about 2 minutes a side and they are done to medium rare and I took them off the cooker. 



Thats my burgers getting happy on the indirect side of the cooker. 



Next were the dogs and I like to put a little char on them. I followed the dogs with the Grillers. I love these things and use them for snacks. 



Steaks just off the grill.



Burgers looking good.



Jan’s dogs.



The Eckrich Grillers.



The pork steaks were prepped with my no-carb rub. I like them seared just like a beef steak and then slow cooked indirect for a couple hours. 



While my last pork steak was searing, I picked a few hot peppers out of my patio boxes and added them to the grill. 



My hot chicken wings were prepped with my no-carb rub and then I added mucho ground cayenne pepper. Just like about everything I cook over charcoal, I like to somewhat char it for that additional flavor. Nothing beats a hot charcoal fire licking at the bottom of my meats and veggies on the cooker for the most great flavor. 



I added a second raised grid in the cooker to make room for all the indirect items that I was cooking. 



Working the cooker...as you can see, I am finishing up putting a little char on my wings and then placing them on the indirect side of the cooker. Pork steaks are still soaking up some smoke and heat. 



Chicken wings were sauced next with some Frank’s hot sauce mixed with some butter, some Splenda, and some ground cayenne pepper. 



The cooks treat and man they were good. 



The hot wings.



I cut up all four steaks for my special treat which I will fix at a later date. 



The pork steaks were sauced with my low carb sauce and then taken off the cooker. Really hard to beat a good pork steak dinner. 



Close up of the pork steak.

Chicago Style Hotdogs

This is my attempt at making a Chicago Style Hot Dog in Indy as it is difficult to find about half the ingredients you need to make up this wonderful treat. The folks up there are super "picky" about what goes on their dogs!



I sure don't know why anyone would cut up a dog like this but anyway, the hotdog itself must be a high quality all beef and best if about a 1/4 pound in weight. The bun must be a poppy seeded bun and must be steamed before loaded up. The toppings in order must be regular yellow mustard (none of that foo-foo stuff), chopped onions, neon green sweet pickle relish, sport peppers, dill pickle spear or the even milder cucumber spear, tomato wedges (never slices) and celery salt.

I started with the bun and there is nothing close to what I needed on the West side of Indy so I decided to just make them up.



I used an Amish bread recipe to make up my poppy seeded hot dog buns. Not very pretty but should work good.

Had the FE100 pellet cooker in use so I just cleaned it up a little and upped the temp to about 400 degres and baked up my buns.



The hot dogs were ordered from Allen Brothers in Chicago and were the Great Steakhouse Steak Dogs with the natural casing and weigh 1/4 pound each. These are rated by the Chicago Tribune as the best dogs in Chicago and the best in the US by Forbes Magazine.



I cooked (warmed up) these very carefully on the FE100 on my cast iron grid to be sure to not crack the skin and loose all the juice.

After steaming the buns I put the dogs together.



Put the dog in the bun and then added a light stream of regular mustard back and forth across the dog. Next went on the chopped onion. Neon green relish is not available in my area so I used just regular sweet relish. Next came the Sport Peppers??-I know these are fairly hot so I would guess they are seranno peppers but none could be found so I used some rings of the hot yellow wax peppers as they have a wonderful flavor. Added the dill spear and the tomato wedges. Last came the celery salt for that unique Chicago taste.



Was a pretty good meal but probably not worth all the trouble.