Breakfast Casserole / Char-Broil 500X

I developed this recipe because I am a lazy cook and wanted a simple to fix whole breakfast meal casserole for our Saturday morning contest cooks. I also wanted to be able to fix it on say Wednesday evening and then bake it on the following Saturday morning. Here is what I came up with and it is very very good and super simple to make.



Ingredients:

16 oz tube of Bob Evans Zesty Hot Sausage
Bout 1-1/2 cups (6oz) of frozen hash brown potatoes
Bout 1/2 cup chopped onions
bout 1/2 cup chopped bell pepper
5 large eggs
Bout 2 cups of shredded Cheddar cheese (I use the sharp)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 tsp leaf oregano
1 can Crescent rolls
1 Nine by Nine tin foil poultry pan
Pam for spraying the pan
Paprika



Run some hot water into a bowl and toss the hash browns in there to thaw out.
Chop up the onions and bell peppers and place them into an oiled cast iron skillet that will fit your cooker.



Cook them about 6-7 minutes and then add the sausage. Brown it well and pour off the grease.



Add the 3 spices and mix it up.

Select a sealed container that is large enough and will fit in your cooler.



Break the 5 eggs into the container and mix them up. Pour the sausage mix into the container, strain the hash browns thru a colander and place them into the container, add the 2 cups of Cheddar and then mix it all up well.



Now if you need to cook at a later date... you can place this mixture and the can of rolls in the cooler and you are all ready to go as it just takes a few minutes to finish it from here.



Pam the poultry pan and place half (4) of the Crescent rolls on the bottom of the pan.
Spoon out the mixture and spread it evenly on the bottom of the pan on top of the rolls.



Place the last half of the Crescent rolls over the top of the mixture and then sprinkle on some paprika.



Fired up the CB500X with some of that great Ozark Oak lump charcoal and brought it up to around 350 degrees for my baking. I have it setup for an indirect cook or bake with the charcoal on the right half of the cooker.



I had to bend up the pan a little to get it to fit as I didn’t have the correct size pan.




I just let the little cooker do its thing for about an hour or until the internal of my treat was at 165 degrees and then took it off the cooker.



Looking good coming off the cooker.





I cut the casserole into 9 servings.




Served it up.

Char-Broil Cast Iron Cooking Grid/Weber Kettle

I purchased this cast iron grid to use in several of my grills and smokers. Along with the Char-Broil products, they will fit some other brands including the Weber 18-1/2” kettles, the Weber 22-1/2” kettles, and the Weber Smokey Mountain cookers. The grids come in two pieces and both pieces must be used for the larger 22-1/2” applications and then the small grid by itself can be used for the 18” applications. Very nice for folks that may have two grills.

This cast iron grid setup retails for $29.95 and comes with a porcelain coating and requires no seasoning and is ready to use. There is a promotion code for the folks that use the Char-Broil forum for an additional 10% off the purchase price.

I would advise folks to shop around and you will see a few replacement cast iron cooking grids for the above cookers and grills that cost in excess of 100 dollars. This grid is a bargain in price as compared to all others.



The grid is shown in my 22-1/2” Weber Performer grill.



To use my grills charcoal igniter, I just remove the center section of the cooking grid and place the chimney over the igniter flame.



After I poured the charcoal in and replaced the grid, I waited about 10 minutes to be sure my cast iron grids was hot. I have a couple of porterhouse steaks for the first attempt with the grids.



I cooked these steaks about 3 minutes and then turned them a little to get the cross hatch type marks and then cooked them about 2 more minutes and then turned them over and did the same to the other side.



It made for a nice looking steak.



I also did some burgers after the steaks.



Burgers looked ok but not as good as I wanted. Would be better if the cooking grids were a little closer to each other for small items. Probably have to watch grilling smaller veggies that some don’t fall thru the cracks.

I love the grid and think it is a bargain compared to anything else out there at that price.

Next step is trying a large wok hanging thru the center section of the grill....I think it will work.

Mixed Cook on the Char-Broil 940X

This cook started out as a Black Iron cook of some talapia fillets and potatoes on the CB 940X and just kept growing from there. I also decided to include a batch of hot wings, a couple of chicken legs and one chicken thigh for my bride, some brats, and about a pound of some other hot sausage along with some burgers.

Set the cooker up for about a 4 hour cook both direct and indirect with lump charcoal and fired it off.

I started out with making up some breading of flour, cornmeal, garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper, white pepper, and red pepper for my hot wings. And for the bride’s chicken, I used just some flour and cornmeal and salt and pepper. Made a wash of milk and eggs and got started with the prep.

I oiled up a black iron skillet with some peanut oil and placed my whole potatoes into it. I then sliced the potatoes in place and carefully kept them looking whole. Made up a mixture of some butter, garlic, onion, and poured it over my potatoes.

My black iron potatoes ready to go on the cooker.

The chicken and potatoes a little later into the cook.

The classic Char-Broil 940X doing it's thing with some hickory chunks for smoke.

After the poultry came off, I added my brats, the burgers, and my hot and spicy sausage.

Next step for the potatoes was to add about a half pound of crumpled bacon and some shredded sharp cheddar over the top.

I did the burgers on the direct side of the grill so they didn’t take very long.

The stuff is looking good coming off of the grill.

For the fish, I oiled the skillet with some peanut oil and then made up a dredge of some butter, a little lemon juice, 2 cloves of garlic, pinch of rosemary, and some onion flakes. I brushed it on both sides of my tilapia fillets and placed them into my skillet. I then sprinkled on some Panko crispy bread crumbs.

I did the fish on the direct side of the cooker and they didn’t take long.

Was another great cook on this classic grill and cooker.

Mountain Spare Ribs / Char-Broil 940X

Kroger had those big “bronto” spare ribs on sale again for $1.47 a pound and I just couldn’t let them get by me even though they are injected with 13% salt water. Will need to adjust my rub for this or they will taste like cured ham!

Mommy found 3 slabs that were just a little over 5 total pound each and I decided to make them into a recipe I saw on the web called Mountain Spare Ribs.

There not a bad looking rib if it weren’t for the injecting. I trimmed them into St. Louis cut and skinned the back of the membrane.

As I needed only the bone in rib, I will freeze the rib-tips for another event. I got all three slabs trimmed up and then I cut the ribs into individual pieces for the recipe.

I placed all the ribs into a large bowl.

Made up a no-salt rub and rubbed up the bowl of ribs. I then added about 3/4 pound of some thick cut bacon as everyone knows, everything is better with bacon!

I setup the CB 940 for an indirect cook and added enough lump charcoal for about a five hour burn and lit it off with a Weber fire cube.

I had about 40 pieces of ribs so I just placed them on the cooker in a big pile as the recipe suggests.

My bad...still haven’t got my cutting block tables stained and sealed as you can see. Anyway, I ran the cooker around 275-300 degrees and every half hour, I sprayed apple juice on the pile and then stirred it up and sprayed it again.

At about 4-1/2 hours into the cook, I sauced up the ribs with a blend of Blues Hog regular and Blues Hog Tennessee Red. I hit em 2-3 times in the last 45 minutes.

They came off looking good.

Served them up with some green beans and salad stuff for a nice low carb meal. These ribs do have more bark and a nice crunch when eating and I liked them. Mommy wasn’t impressed at all and told me to go back to my regular recipe.

Brisket Cook / Char-Broil 940X

This is a three brisket cook on my CB 940X and it came out great! It is also my first cook on this cooker and I do like it. It is very similar to my Hasty Bake and cooks about the same.

I figured I would need about 8 hours on temp so I sure didn’t want to fool with the cooker all day so I set it up for a fuse burn. I placed three firebricks on the charcoal tray to divide the burn or tray in half. I then poured in 14 pounds of that great Stubb’s all wood no crap charcoal. I also added some hickory chunks for the smoke. I will start this burn on the front side with a Weber fire cube and it will burn around the other end and back to the right side of the cooker.

For this larger cook, I needed a fairly large cooking area and it needed to be indirect. I placed a 16X18 oven liner right in the middle of the cooker. This will keep my cook indirect and catch all the drippings from the cook.

Placed two of the cooking grids on the oven liner and this should hold two of the briskets. I then put an additional rack over the grates to hold the third brisket.

I trimmed up the briskets to where I had only about 1/16 to 1/8th fat cap left and then went to my next step.

I was trying out a couple of new competition recipes and these two briskets were injected with a mixture of Butcher’s beef injection mixed with some water, rub, and maple syrup.

The third brisket was cooked for the Minister’s wife and she wanted a brisket from the food network called the Neely’s Smoked Cider Brisket. This brisket was brined for 3 hours and and then cooked with some special recipe stuff from the network.

The two briskets were a little too long for my setup so I placed a couple of beer cans on the grid and laid the briskets over them. This trick shortened them up for the cook.

Added my raised grid and placed the cider brisket on it.

I then let the grill do its thing....

These are the briskets about ready to be foiled.

At about 5-1/2 hours into the cook and when the color looked right, I foiled the briskets with some Rick’s Sinful Marinade and just stacked them back on the cooker.

At about 6 -3/4 hours into the cook, I got the brined brisket off the cooker. The other two briskets came off at about 7-1/2 hours into the cook. As you can see, I just nailed this cook as the charcoal did finish up about the time I got the product off the cooker. I could have probably gone about 45 more minutes but it wasn’t needed.

Now for the money shots....

This is the cider brisket and it was nice and juicy and came out great.

All three briskets were great but the Cider Brisket was outstanding. Will do this recipe again. You can find it at the Food Network.