Last post I talked to you about this being a year of taking my BBQ to the next level. For me, that is not purely about BBQ itself, but also the meal as a whole. As I have posted for the past year my cooks have gotten tremendously better while everything which accompanies the meal has been lackluster, to say the least. I realize that a good BBQ can be pushed tenfold by how it is included in the entire meal. Yes, the star will always be the BBQ, but I need to get my shit together with everything else to make it shine.
Knowing this flaw, I have begun to learn how to cook indoors as well as out. No, I am not going to pan sear steaks...but I am hell bent on creating entire meals revolving around my BBQ. This comes in many forms. It starts as basic and simple as knife skills and extends everything I prepare.
See, here is the thing, there are a lot of my BBQ cooks this past year which were more like experiments. I walked in with not knowing if it would be cooked properly and certainly not if anyone in my house would eat it. Now, BBQ is done with some skill. I know that when I start a cook, I am not going to use the smallest portion because I don't know who will eat it. Now I make a point to make sure I cook when everyone is home to eat.
So for this cook, I had the entire family plus ready to eat. I knew everything not on the grill would take up a ton of effort, so I went simple on the cook. The one piece of meat I have total confidence around, the tri-tip! Looking back, my selection was a bit of a double-edged sword. Great that I knew the cook. The downside is that it cooks fast, so it wasn't like I had a couple hours to cook everything else. Once the tri-tip hit the smoker the clock was running.
As I looked for something to pair up with the Tri-Tip, I quickly realized that in order to pair with the food well and have something my family would eat, I was going to have to make a lot of substitutions. So I finally settled for a medley of baby carrots, beets, broccoli, and baby red potatoes. All would be oven roasted in a pan of parsley, thyme, and rosemary.
It all sounded good and work intensive, but then I took it off the rails. Somewhere along the way my wife also asked to try some recipe for a healthy mashed potatoes which includes white beans. So I said sure, let's throw that in the mix too.
So here is how this all went down. I set up my smoker ready for the fire. I then took the meat out of the fridge and rubbed it down with some Caribeque Beef Rub. I set that aside and let it get to room temp. I then peeled all my potatoes and prepped everything for the mashed potatoes. I then prepped everything for my roasted vegetables.
Now with the difficult prep work out of the way I was ready to fire up the cooker. I quickly got the fire going thanks to my Looftlighter. I bought the cooker up to temp and threw on the cherry. Soon the beautiful tri-tip was on the cooker!
With the tri-tip on the cooker, the potatoes started boiling and I started assembling my tray of vegetables. From this moment forward, it was a bit blurry. It was just a mad scramble to do 10 things at one time. But, it absolutely worked! Well I mean I will not say go make mashed potatoes with white beans, it was just blah. But the vegetables were amazing. It takes a lot for me to say a vegetable is amazing, but they absolutely were. Once they paired up with the amazing tri-tip, this was simply one incredible meal.
So no, I haven't jumped into a cook that I have no knowledge about. But I did accomplish something I never have, a complete full meal for my entire family. For once my cooking meant something more than a plate of meat.
And next time, I promise I will cook the cook assigned by Mikey!
Until next post, remember kids.....CHUNKS not chips!
