Old Dave's Slyders

I am always looking for something unique to cook for friends and competitors on Thursday or Friday evening at a BBQ Contest. I think this one will be a winner. Much of the work can be done in advance to make it easier to prepare at a contest in the cooker. Everyone I know loves Slyders!!



There are a couple of my homemade cheeseburger slyders and one hamburger slyder on the plate.

I grew up eating these sandwiches on a Friday evenings after the ballgames and at that time, they were $.12 cents each. As a young man, I could put away about 12 of these in one meal.

All right, lets make slyders...



There are several things you can use for buns and I am lucky in that our local Kroger carries the very small Lewis Bake Shop sheet buns which come 24 per package and measure 3" X 3" which is the perfect size for a slyder. If you can't find something like that, you can use the small yeast rolls or maybe hotdog buns that you could cut in half or thirds.

The pickles need to be the very small and thin hamburger type dill pickles for best results.

Ingredients for 12 sandwiches

1 lb. ground beef
1 jar Gerbers beef baby food 2.5oz
2/3 cup of low sodium beef broth
1-1/2 cups of chopped dehydrated onions
3 cups of hot water
12 buns or rolls of some type
12 thin sliced dill pickles
Salt and Pepper at table
Condiments of your choice

Instructions for making the patties

Mix the hamburger, baby food, and the low sodium beef broth in a bowl with your hands.

Line a medium sized baking sheet (about 10X15") with plastic wrap. Place the meat on the sheet and spread it out with your hands or a spatula until it is fairly thin and then cover it with another sheet of plastic wrap and use a rolling pin to spread it out to the final size which will be slightly less than the full size of the sheet. Carefully remove the top sheet of the plastic wrap and score the flattened meat in about 3-1/4 to 3-1/2" squares all the way to the pan and then cover the meat back up with the plastic wrap. It now goes into the freezer to be frozen solid.



This is what it looks like just coming out of the freezer. You can see the way the meat has been scored and it will now just break off into the 12 pieces and be ready for the next step.



This is another picture of the meat just before I broke it up for the slyders and placed it back into the freezer until I was ready to do my sandwiches.

On cooking day, I fired up the smoker and brought it up to about 350 degrees. Using pecan for smoke.



The next step is to place the onions in a bowl and then add the water to get them ready for the cook. It will take about 15 minutes.

I wanted the buns steamed so I made up a pan for this.



I put a little water in this pan and then added a rack to the top of the pan.



I placed the buns on the rack and then covered the pan with another pan.



I then lined a larger cookie sheet with foil to make for an easy clean-up and then spread the wet onions out on the sheet.



The pan is ready for the frozen slyders.



I got the frozen meat out of the freezer and placed it on the onions.



I put the bun pan on about 30 minutes before I placed the slyders on the smoker to give the buns time to steam a little. I then placed the slyders on the smoker for a short cook of about 15-18 minutes although I didn't time it.



This shows them on the smoker just before I pulled the pan off the cooker.



This picture show the slyders right out of the cooker and just before I got them ready for the table.



This picture shows me getting the patties on the steamed buns and then adding the pickle on top of the meat.



Man, don't them things look great!! And they do taste like the real thing.



I prefer a slice of American cheese on my slyders.

I know many folks won't have a smoker that will run at the higher temps but I am sure these slyders will do fine at a lower temp of say about 250 degrees but will take longer to get them done.

You can do them in your kitchen oven as well for the folks that don't have a suitable cooker or smoker.

Whole Pork Loin / Rick's Blue Ribbon Barbeque Pit Beans

Here in Central Indiana, they are just about giving away whole pork loins at both our local Marsh and Kroger stores. For the last month of so, they have been running about $1.32 to $1.36 a pound and that is a bargain. Most of the whole loins weigh about 5 to 7 pounds. Heck, you can't even buy burger for that price!

You know, you can cook em whole, cut them up for roasts, kinda fillet them open and stuff them with whatever, have the store cut and cube them for great sandwiches, pound em out for your deep fried loin sandwiches, and many other great methods for this wonderful cut of pork. At this price, I have been filling the freezer.

One of my favorite ways to do the loins is to just cook them whole and then slice them up and freeze the slices in bags for the freezer. They re-heat nice in the nuker and make for a quick and tasty meal along with some of Rick's wonderful Pit Beans.



I usually start by laying the loin out and giving it a light coat of my favorite rub which is Smokin' Guns hot about 30 minutes before I put it on the smoker.



Rick's Blue Ribbon Barbeque Pit Beans are KILLER!!! While I do love about all kinds of baked beans prepared in a smoker, these are much different and have a very unique flavor. They have a slight celery taste that really is great and goes with about all types of meals. I do many other beans but this one is most requested and very simple to prepare as it starts as a canned bean.

I will start with Rick's recipe and we can go from there.

Rick Salmon's Blue Ribbon Barbeque Pit Beans

(as Rick originally posted over on the BBQ Forum sometime back in early 1993)

Two 28 oz. & one 15 1/2 oz cans of Bushs original baked beans
1 12-to-16 ounce bottle barbeque sauce (I use KC Masterpiece)
1/2 onion, finely diced
1/2 green pepper, finely diced
3 celery stalks, finely diced
8 tablespoons of prepared yellow mustard
About 1 pound brown sugar (or what ever it takes to adequately cover)
2 tablespoons powered hickory seasoning (or bbq rub)
2 tablespoon celery seed
1 to 2 pounds of smoked pork or brisket
1 aluminum half steam pan (roughly a 9x13)

Put all the above ingredients in the pan. Mix well. Cover with brown sugar, about 1/2 to 1 inch thick and do not stir in the brown sugar. Put in smoker for about two to three hours at 200 to 225 degrees, I use hickory wood. Let the brown sugar melt down into the beans. Stirring it in is not necessary.

Can be done in the oven.

Use one of the big industrial cans for two half-steam pans. "end quote"

For our home use, I usually do a double batch of these beans in a full sized hotel pan as the beans do freeze well and heat up great. A great side dish for my pork loin.



For this batch, I used a couple of cans of the 44oz and a couple cans of the 28oz regular Bushs original baked beans. I also used about 5 pounds of pulled and chopped pork butt. This picture shows the brown sugar going on the top of the bean mix.



I also doubled all the other ingredients in Rick's recipe and then added a little cayenne pepper to the pan as I like a touch of heat or a little kick in my beans. Probably best to leave this out if you don't like a little heat in your beans.



I started the beans first in my old school Fast Eddy pellet cooker and set it on smoke for about the first 90 minutes to be sure I got some smoke flavor in the beans. I used pecan pellets for this cook.

At 90 minutes into the cook, I added the whole pork loin and let is set in the smoke for an additional 60 minutes before I turned up the temp to about 325 degrees to finish my cook. I can't remember for sure but I think it took about 90 more minutes to get the loin to about 140 degrees internal and then I pulled it off the cooker and wrapped it in foil and placed it into a cooler for about two hours.



I sliced the loin up and kept out a few pieces for lunch and breakfast and then put the balance into freezer bags and froze it for later use.



I dished up a large bowl of the beans for our use and then froze the balance in quart containers for future use.



I served my loin up on a toasted bun with some special home made hot sauce along with some veggies and pickle and then added some of Rick's wonderful pit beans for one great meal.

Orion Cooker / 70 Minute Spare Ribs

I got the itch to try another cook on the Orion cooker and decided to smoke up a couple of slabs of 2.25 and down St. Louis cut spare ribs on this very unique cooker/smoker. It is advertized to cook up great "fall off the bone" baby back ribs in just and hour and ten minutes. Of course, most real bbq cooks would know that "fall off the bone" is nothing more than an overcooked rib and I sure didn't want that in my first try with ribs on this cooker!





As you can see, I did get some nice looking ribs cooked up in this first try on the Orion cooker.

I started out by setting up the cooker for the rib cook by installing the rib hangers as the ribs are cooked hanging upright in the cooker. I then wrapped my drip pan to make for an easier clean up after my cook.



Next step was to select my smoke chips and I decided to go with some sugar maple for my smoke flavor for the ribs.



I then packed in around the drip pan about 2 cups of the smoke wood which should be more than enough for the cook.



I then placed 11 of the Matchlight Briquettes in the top part of the cooker and the balance of the bag was poured around the bottom charcoal holder of the cooker and I was ready to cook.

The ribs used for this cook came from Gordon Food Service and they were the non-injected, 2.25 and down, St. Louis cut spare ribs. I started my prep by removing the membrane off the back of the slab. I then trimmed up some of the fat off of the ribs and got them ready for the cook. I rubbed them with a generous coat of Cimmarron Doc's rib rub and then cut a small slot between the 2nd abd 3rd bone so I could hang them in the cooker. The ribs going into the cooker.



I then fired up the cooker and just let it do it's thing for about 70 minutes.



I checked back after the correct time and found the cooker with plenty of the charcoal left and I was wondering about this as even the longer cooks like pork butts and beef briskets are suposed to cook with just the one bag of Matchlight charcoal for about 3-4 hours and from the looks of the remaining charcoal, it looks like it will go this long for those meats.



I pulled the top off of the cooker and other than a kinda ugly color on the ribs, they did look like they were done judging by some pull back on the bones and the flexibility of the racks. Sure would have been nice to have been able to glaze the ribs on the cooker but the cooker design doesn't lend itself very well to that kind of finish for the ribs so I came up with something that did work for this cook.



I quickly brought the ribs in the house and applied a generous coat of Blues Hog mixed with some clover honey to the slabs and then let the remaining heat in the slabs to kinda set the sauce on the slabs and after about 15 minutes, it looked pretty good.



I then cut up the ribs for serving and they did come out looking very good.



Ok, let's critique my first cook of ribs on the Orion Cooker as compared to what I can cook on my other cookers. My normal rib would have cooked for about 5 hours verses the rib on the Orion cooking in just 70 minutes.

Color...the outside color came out great as I love that deep dark red color on my finished ribs. However, the inside looks pale white and not pink showing a smoke ring like my normal ribs. The ribs were perfect in smoke flavor so I sure can live with a little more whiter inside color rib.

Tenderness...very close to what I can get off of my other cookers although I found them slightly rubberie if that is a word. They were tender enough but the texture was a little different.

Moisture...these ribs are probably as moist as anything I get off of my other cookers. Very Juicy!!

Taste...just as good as anything I can cook on any of my other cookers.

Ease of cooking...you know, light it and forget it....what could be more easier??

As a competition cook, I feel that I can cook a pretty good rib and if my best rib would be judged as a "9" off of my other cookers, I think the rib off of this Orion cooker would be a solid "8" with the method I used on this first cook.

Tailgating...what could be better?? Six, count em, 6 slabs of very tasty ribs cooked in just 75 minutes at your favorite sporting event??

In closing, I am not a shill for this cooker but just a cook that can see some applications for this very unique and inexpensive cooker. I like it!

Genuswine Rotisserie / Ribs and Hot Wings

I am always looking for an excuse to dig this classic little rotisserie cooker/smoker out of the barn for a cook as it is just a joy to use. I needed to cook about 3 slabs of ribs, 6 pork steaks, about 25 pieces of chicken for some hot wings, and a few hotdogs and this would about fill up this cooker. I also figured that a load of lump will fire this cooker for about 5 hours and this is the time I needed for this cook. Looks like a good match to me! I also have about 200 pounds of Royal Oak lump from offshore that has many chunks that are as large as soccer balls and this fine little cooker will burn about anything including large pieces of lump. Been trying to use this stuff up for about a year.



I rolled the cooker out to my cooking patio, hooked it up to electricity, loaded it up with that nasty lump, filled up my charcoal chimney, and got it ready to light.



I have some rather large chunks of seasoned pecan from my friend Mr. Steve Creech (ZZ-Que) that I also used for this cook.



I wasn't ready to light it up as I had some prep to get done before the fire.



I mixed up some wing breading with some flour, cornmeal, garlic powder, onion powder, black pepper, white pepper, and cayenne pepper. I then mixed up a milk and egg wash for the wings.



I ran the wings thru the wash and the breading and then placed them in the fridge for about 45 minutes to allow the breading to setup on the wings.

I then fired up the cooker as it will take about 30 minutes to get it ready for the cook.



I skinned the ribs and applied a generous coat of Smokin' Guns hot rub.



I applied Slabs pork rub to the pork steaks.



When the cooker got on temp (about 235), I added 3 big chunks of the pecan smoke wood.

I loaded up all the meat and just let the Genuswine do its thing. Once this cooker is on temp, it just stays where I set it and I really don't have to touch it again until it runs out of fuel.



Was a nice day for cooking with the temp around 82 degrees with a very light wind.



I then made up my hot sauce for the wings with some Franks, butter, honey, and more cayenne pepper.

I also mixed up my sauce for the ribs and the pork steaks. I used about 40% Blues Hog, about 40% Tennessee Red, and about 20% Tupelo honey.







The cooker just does a great job with this type of cook and all I had to do was watch it do its thing. I did wrap the ribs for a short period and sauced some of the meat but that is all I did with the cook.



The chicken wings came off first and they are great although very hot.



Pork steaks came off next and they looked good.



I also added a bowl of baked beans during the cook and they got done about the same time as the ribs.



The last step with the ribs was to glaze them on the cooker.



Ribs were last off the smoker and they as well looked great.



About 3 of the ribs, one of the very large pieces of hot wings, some of the smoked baked beans, and some fruit makes for a nice meal.

You know, I am fortunate enough to own several great cookers and this one is really a favorite of mine. It is just plain fun to use!!