Wednesday, February 28, 2018

Ham, Sides, & Rolls in the Hasty-Bake Ranger Rotisserie

This is my second cook in my Hasty-Bake Ranger using my homebuilt rotisserie setup and it came out well. 

 photo IMG_1160.jpg

 photo IMG_1161.jpg

The ham, the candied yams, the baked beans, and the yeast rolls were all done on my Hasty-Bake Ranger. Sure made a fine lunch.

I cooked a Hickory Smoked Cumberland Gap ham that weighed a little under 8 pounds in the rotisserie using a good hardwood lump and some hickory chunks for smoke. I guess that would be called a double smoked ham. 

 photo IMG_1152.jpg

I did this cook early yesterday morning with a temperature around 39 degrees and in a light misting rain. That Ranger is one of two tailgater sized cookers that Hasty-Bake makes and is a nice all Stainless Steel cooker / smoker.  

 photo IMG_1155.jpg

I glazed the ham a couple of times with a Honey Sriracha Glaze and the ham took about  2 hours and 45 minutes to get done in the rotisserie. I was using s cooking temperature of about 275-320 degrees. 

 photo IMG_1157.jpg

After I pulled the ham off of the cooker, I changed it back over for regular cooking and added my pan of candied sweet potatoes, a pan of baked beans, and a pan of yeast rolls to complete my meal. 

 photo IMG_1158.jpg

Sides just off of the cooker.

 photo IMG_1159.jpg


I ran the ham thru my slicer and it came out nice and ready to be served.

Merry Christmas from my Children

Just what do you get for a old fella that has about everything in life that he wants??

 photo IMG_1162.jpg

 photo IMG_1163.jpg

 photo IMG_1164.jpg

You get him a couple of Muffuletta Sandwiches from Central Grocery in New Orleans and have them shipped fresh to his home!

Jerky in the Green Mountain Pellet Cooker / Bull Racks

Did this jerky a couple of days ago on a cold morning (22 degrees) in my Daniel Boone pellet cooker using a blend of hardwood Premium heating pellets. The same pellets I have used for the past 15 years for everything I cook in my pellet grills. 

 photo IMG_1114.jpg

This round of jerky was made from a little over 5 pounds of top round which I found on sale last week. I had the meat cutter at the store cut the meat into slices a 1/4” thick and against the grain. For my preparation, I cut every speck of fat I could out of each slice of meat and then cut the pieces into strips about 1 to 1-1/2” wide. 

 photo IMG_1115.jpg

To be sure I got each piece covered well with my marinade, I used the two bowl method to be sure each piece was dipped into the marinade and covered completely.

 photo IMG_1116.jpg]

My favorite marinade for jerky and I use if for most batches is the following. This recipe is for about 4 pounds of meat. 

1 cup soy sauce
1 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup blackstrap molasses
2 tsp onion powder
2 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp fresh ground black pepper
1 tsp white pepper
1 tsp cayenne pepper*
2 TBL crushed red pepper flakes*

*I am sure this recipe will be too hot for most folks so do cut back on the hot pepper to suit your taste.

I will sometimes add about a 1/4 cup of Teriyaki sauce to this recipe for one of my Daughters and her family as they like that recipe better. 

I like to have the meat in the marinade for at least 24 hours before the fire and do make it up a few hours before you need it to allow enough time for the sugar to dissolve and the spices to kinda mellow out in the bowl with some stirring once in a while. 

 photo IMG_1118.jpg

I used my “Bull Rack BR6 Ultimate which is The Worlds Best BBQ Rack” as that is what it says on the box. I only needed 4 of the 7 pans that will fit in the rack for this cook. 

 photo IMG_1119.jpg

This picture shows the jerky about 3 hours into my 4 hour cook running 150 degrees in the cooker. 

Now, I have to throw in a couple of plugs for the Green Mountain cookers and the first one is the height inside the cooker is tall enough for many different applications including this very nice tall rack system. I also run rotisseries including the Rib-O-Lator which requires a lot of height. 

Another nice feature is the PID digital controller which will operate between 150 degrees to a top of 500 degrees. The lower temperature of 150 degrees is perfect for items like jerky, sausage, vegetables including my hot peppers, and other drying or low temp smoking with that light hint of wood smoke flavor which makes the items better tasting in most treats. 

 photo IMG_1120.jpg


Came out great and will be in the mail in time for Christmas.

Weber Original Charcoal Pizza Oven # 6520

This original Weber product was introduced to the public in Europe in late 2013 and for some reason, Weber has no intentions of releasing it in the US as far as I know at the present time. I know of many people that have been asking for this accessory but it doesn’t look like it will happen. 

When it was introduced, there were a couple of Weber sites in the UK that would sell and ship this unit to the US but both of them no longer do this, The last one I heard about came from Germany thru the Germany Amazon site and was quite expensive. It is a real shame as it is one nice product and will make some great pizzas. 

 photo IMG_1097.jpg

The two pieces in front of the oven are the protectors for the plastic handles on the Weber kettle. Keeps them from melting in this high temp pizza oven.

 photo IMG_1098.jpg

The hearth stone in this oven is about 15-1/2” in diameter so it can bake a nice sized pizza and in a very short time. Operators manual shows a low of about 6 minutes to a high of about 10 minutes per pie. 

 photo IMG_1100.jpg

This was a two pizza bake with one Pizza Margherita type of pizza and one kinda loaded up pizza with some of the same ingredients.

 photo IMG_1102.jpg

The manual calls for a full Weber charcoal chimney full of hot ashed over charcoal briquets and then about 30 more cold briquets on top of this for about 10 pizzas or one hour of baking. (Now, old tightwad Dave only had two pizzas to bake so he didn’t add the 30 cold briquets to the top of the fire and the oven didn’t get as hot as I wanted on this bake). High was about 575 degrees on the hearth and I wanted about 700 degrees for my high temp pizzas. Still made a couple of nice pizzas at this lower temp. 

 photo IMG_1103.jpg

My fire just before I added the Pizza Oven.

 photo IMG_1105.jpg

I let the pizza oven warm up for about 15 minutes. 

 photo IMG_1106.jpg

Temperature got up to about 540 degrees and I loaded the first pizza. 

 photo IMG_1107.jpg

This one baked about 10 minutes and came out nice. 

 photo IMG_1108.jpg

The second one took a little less time at about 9 minutes. 

Both pizzas were turned about 180 degrees at about the halfway mark into the bake or after about 5 minutes on the cooker. 

I think if I would have used enough charcoal, they should have taken about 5-6 minutes each. 

 photo IMG_1109.jpg

 photo IMG_1110.jpg

 photo IMG_1111.jpg

I thought they looked pretty good for my first attempt with this accessory. 

 photo IMG_1112.jpg

 photo IMG_1113.jpg


Made a nice lunch.

Spamwich & Breaded Green Beans in the Air Fryer

This cook was done on my NuWave 10 quart air fryer using Grill Grates for the meat. 

 photo IMG_1319.jpg

I placed a couple of nice thick slices of the Spam on an onion bun, added lettuce, sliced tomatoes, a couple of slices of Swiss cheese, and some horsey sauce and that completed my Spamwich. Served with breaded green beans and also a little dab of refried beans I had leftover from a previous meal. Beans X2

 photo IMG_1313.jpg

Cut the Spam into 6 slices and then brushed on some olive oil and then sprinkled with black pepper and it was ready for the air fryer. 

 photo IMG_1314.jpg

Set the temperature at 400 degrees and preheated the air fryer for a full 20 minutes to be sure that this time, I had the Grill Grates as hot as I could get them. Placed the meat on the air fryer and cooked them about 6 minutes and turned them and did 6 more minutes. 

 photo IMG_1316.jpg

Would have been nice to get a little darker grill marks but that is about as good as I think I can get with this machine. 

 photo IMG_1317.jpg

Green beans up next and I cooked them at 400 degrees for 9 minutes and they came out great. One of the best things I have done on the air fryer. 

 photo IMG_1318.jpg

With a little salt, I could easily make a meal out of them. 

 photo IMG_1320.jpg

 photo IMG_1323.jpg


Was a pretty simple cook and sure made one great meal.

Roast Beef on the Rotisserie / NuWave Air Fryer

Here is another cook I did recently on my NuWave 10 quart air fryer. 

 photo IMG_1270.jpg

I started with a 3.58 pound bottom round roast. I trimmed it up and then applied some olive oil for a sticker and then some garlic salt and butcher cut black pepper to my roast and placed it on the rotisserie and turned it loose.

 photo IMG_1271.jpg

Was a pretty close fit in the cooker. 

 photo IMG_1272.jpg

The meat about done on the rotisserie in my NuWave 10 quart air fryer. The meat was cooked at 370 degrees for 65 minutes and taken off the cooker at about 128 degrees internal temperature.

 photo IMG_1275.jpg

Resting and cooling off before I slice and shave it up for sandwiches. I wonder if it will be juicy?  Nah

 photo IMG_1276.jpg

Came out great but I got it a little too done..had a little more temperature carryover than I expected with the higher cooking temperature. 


Sure made a great roast beef sandwich with a couple of slices of Swiss cheese  and some horsey sauce.

TGI-Friday's Buffalo Wings in an Air Fryer

Next cook was some purchased frozen breaded TGI-Friday’s Buffalo chicken wings with sauce. They came frozen with just 10 pieces in the box. 

 photo IMG_1278.jpg

Placed the wings in a glass pie pan for easy clean up and sprayed them with olive oil. 

 photo IMG_1280.jpg

About done in the Air fryer. I cooked them at 390 degrees for 10 minutes, turned them over and coked another ten minutes and they were done. 

 photo IMG_1281.jpg

I sauced them with the sauce packet that came with the wings. The wings did come out pretty crispy but the sauce wasn’t very good. Told my lady not to purchase them again.