Recently in Survival Spice™ Category

Served with a smoked shallot and asparagus orzo.

Too busy to write a detailed post, and I think it'll be more fun if I just answer any questions you have about it in the comments. Anyone?

About 6 hours in my smoker with pecan wood only, after one load of charcoal to get things going. They got another 3 or 4 hours in a low oven after that.

We served this with an ancho pasilla cream sauce to our guests as part of my birthday bash. More stuff to come!

It doesn't take a foot of snow to get me in the mood for soup. To do it right, a great soup starts with a great stock, and I was lucky enough to have the carcass to the smoked turkey we had for Thanksgiving. Because it had so much flavor I was able to get a stock with a ton of flavor in 4 hours. The only seasoning I used was Survival Spice®, aside from a bit of Sriricha hot sauce at the table.

The rest was pretty straight ahead, and I used a few bolillo rolls to make some quick garlic bread, drizzled with Tibvrtini Olio Extra Virgene di Oliva.

I got a gallon's worth of stock for my work, and used half of it for this soup. I guess I can make 2 batches of brocolli cheddar soup with the rest!

I don't know where the custom of eating pork and sauerkraut on New Year's Day came from, but I'm down with it.

This is pretty standard stuff, except I used some Survival Spice® combined with the flour in the first stage of breading, and used panko crumbs instead of the traditional bread crumbs. Gee, I guess it wasn't all that standard after all, but it sure was good.

The sauerkraut just got a bit of sauteed onion and some diced apple. Hopefully we've got a year of good luck ahead now. Hope you do, too!

I suppose my "Irish Posole" was much closer to a stew than posole, with a tip of the hat to the Southwest. A nice hunk of beef, seasoned with Survival Spice®, then slow cooked in the oven on top of some carrots and onions. After about 90 minutes I added a bit of stock and braised it for another hour or so. I added some hominy and let it go for another hour.

During this time, I roasted some butternut squash, a head of garlic and a few jalapenos. Once the garlic and jalapenos were done, they were chopped and added to the rest of the ingredients, which were removed and chopped as they were tender. The squash was chopped and added to each bowl for service.

This was one of those smashed up techniques that very often result in something that's either really great, really bad, or a really good lesson. This was a pleasant surprise on the up side. I guess having a can of hominy on hand was the impetus for this in the first place- use what you have on hand, and develop the cooking chops to bring it to the table.

Have fun with cooking, and eat your mistakes!!!

It's tough to come up with variations for a Thanksgiving, but this year was a good one. As I mentioned before, I tried to get away from the usual starchy sides- stuffing, mashed potatoes and breads. I love 'em, I mean I really love 'em. You'd have to, if you made stuffing sandwiches like I do, you'd know what I mean.

This turkey, which was about 11 pounds basically got cooked the way I grill a lot of chickens, over indirect heat. this accomplishes a few things- eliminating flare-ups and also keeping the breasts protected from drying out. To do this, just cut out the backbone and season as you see fit. I marinated this bird in orange juice, chicken stock, onions, garlic and lots of Survival Spice®. A few pictures of the turkey in progress are below the fold.

This is an easy version of the Indian classic Chicken Tikka Masala, using a sauce I picked up at Fresh and Easy. I made it in a totally unconventional way- first roasting chicken parts with Survival Spice® barbecue rub until it was nearly done, then cubing it and baking it in the sauce for 15 minutes or so.

Simple, and really good. I also made some aloo gobi and picked up some garlic naan, and I'll post that later.

Any Indian food fans out there? I'm going to dive into it more, but it's fairly pantry intensive, so the jarred sauce is an easy way to get started.

("Y'know, pork roasts? Ya gotta kinda cook them just right or they get kinda leathery on ya.")

We've all dried out a few pork roasts in our day, and it's no fun to suffer through a jerky-like pork experience. To avoid that, I've been doing this larding technique for quite a few years now, but after searching through the archives I was surprised I'd never blogged about it before. Rather than go into it again, read this post about larding vs. barding from aways back in '05 to get my take on the difference.

Bottom line is adding fat to moisten a potentially dry pork roast is a fine idea, not that it's impossible to create a juicy, succulent roast by other means, far from it. But taking the opportunity to add some additional flavor as well is really a bonus.

I've done this with pork tenders and homemade chorizo, served with a pasilla cream sauce, with excellent results, especially with a professional casing filler at my disposal. Run a chef's steel through a pork tender, widen the opening a touch, then fill with the casing machine. Easy. But at home, what I decided to do is follow the side seam of a sirloin roast, butterflying it, then I added some hot Italian sausage and sealed it with a bamboo skewer along the seam, with a few bits cut off to seal the ends. Rubbed it well with Survival Spice®, or as I humbly (ahem) like to think of it, "the ultimate pork rub", and it was ready for the grill.

While I was working outside I cooked this directly, then indirectly with a combination of charcoal and dry hickory chips- not for smoke, just for flavor. I left it on the grill a bit longer than I would have liked, but it was terrific.

I was going to cook other stuff to go with this, but I blew it off. Can you blame me?

In a never ending quest for variety at dinner time, this is a quick meal idea that worked out great.

I cubed a turkey breast, then seasoned well with Survival Spice®, which is great with any poultry I've experimented with. Placed in a cast iron skillet, I cooked it at a fairly low heat (275º) until it was most of the way finished, then I added some barbecue sauce to the skillet and let it simmer until it was done.

I cranked up the broiler to crisp it up, and we had it with baked potatoes and a salad.

Try it with beef, chicken, or pork shoulder.

I love the combination of pork and apples, and the addition of our Survival Spice® barbecue rub is a really great variation.

This is a classic dinner, just some pan fried chops with some rustic red potatoes, skins on. Steamed brocolli and some organic applesauce to top it all off.

Just a few seconds extra plating this up makes it seem more special, it sure was good!