2012 SILICON VALLEY BBQ CHAMPIONSHIP

Ms. Goofy and I will be in Santa Clara enjoying and judging BBQ. If you are in the neighborhood, stop on by. Here is a little information from the Rotary Club's website.

"Welcome to The 2012 Silicon Valley BBQ Championships hosted by The Rotary Club of Santa Clara

Friday June 29th, 2012 from 4:00PM to 8:00PM – Meat & Greet

Saturday June 30th, 2012 from 10:00AM to 8:30PM – The Main Event

Mervyn’s Plaza located at the corner of Scott & El Camino Real Blvd in Santa Clara, California

Open to the Public - Admission is FREE!

The 2012 Silicon Valley Barbeque Championships hosted by the Rotary Club of Santa Clara aspires to be one of the many wonderful and entertaining community events that the City of Santa Clara has to offer.  Proceeds of this event will benefit the children of the community through the various programs of The Rotary Club of Santa Clara."

FAIR FOOD

Alameda County Fair 2012

Deep Fried Bacon

HOT DOG EATING CONTEST

 It is only eight days away to the 4th of July. That also means it is only eight days to see if Joey 'Jaws' Chestnut will retain the coveted 'Mustard Belt'. This championship belt is awarded for eating the most hot dogs in a 10 minute period. Joey holds the World Record for consuming 62 hot dogs in this time frame. Needless to say this is a gastronomical feat that is extraordinaire. We will be rooting for our hero and champion Joey 'Jaws' Chestnut. I just wanted to give everybody a heads up that the event has a new time. Traditionally the event was held at 12 noon EST. It has been moved to 300pm EST. I think we will serve hot dogs during the event

GRILLED MEATLOAF

Grilled meatloaf is comfort food at the Chilebrown household. It is simple and easy to make. Cooking it in the Weber gives it a small kiss of smoke that puts this loaf over the top delicious. We cover this meat log with a weave of bacon. This is the only time we ever use mass produced store bought bacon. The bacon is mainly for decoration and to seal in all the meatloaf juices. The bacon covered meat loaf is cooked in our trusty black iron skillet. As Dr. Biggles recommends: Do not forget to use a trivet. The trivet allows the bacon and meat fat to drain away from our loaf.

Our meat loaf recipe varies from time to time. It all depends on what is available and if we have a specialty theme. Today's meat loaf was made from ground beef procured from U.C. Davis meat labs. This is some quality beef. It was about 1 1/2 pounds of 80 percent lean beef. Grated carrot, chopped garlic and red onion, finely chopped mushrooms, 3/4 cup of bread crumbs soaked in milk, and salt & pepper were the ingredients today. The ingredients were shaped into a small football shape and covered with our bacon weave. One hour of cooking time in a covered grill and it was time to eat.

One of the best things about meatloaf is the sandwiches the next day. This is comfort food that we love. I think I am going to have a sandwich.

SMOKED BROWN SUGAR

Here is something new for the books. Smoked brown sugar was found at the Santa Rosa Farmers market. “The Smoked Olive” company sells various smoked olive oils. If that is not unique enough they have smoked brown sugar. One whiff of this fragrant sweet product sold us immediately. The uses for this smoky sweet product are only limited by your imagination.

We brought our sugar home and decided to bake some cookies. The recipe used can be found on the back of your chocolate chip package. The sugar in its raw form is very fragrant. Once cooked into our cookies the aroma was only a memory. There was only a faint, small hint of smoke in our cookies. I had to eat the whole batch of cookies for testing purposes.

The verdict is not out on this product. We will try it some more and report back. The cookies sure were good.

VICTORIAN FARMSTEAD

We love to go on Meat Adventures. Today our journey only went as far as the Santa Rosa farmers market.’ Victorian Farmstead’ located in Sebastopol California sells their ‘all natural and pastured’ meats at this Saturday market. Local beef, pork, chicken, and lamb are sustainable, kindly, stress free and humanely grown. The beef is raised on certified organic pasture and grass finished. The pork is a Berkshire/Duroc hybrid. This meat vender is pushing all the right buttons for today’s demanding consumer. Does it taste good?

Some of you may know that I am not a big fan of grass fed beef. The attributes of grass fed beef has been overly hyped to the politically correct food connoisseur. You need to use caution cooking grass fed beef because of its lack of fat. It also has a flavor that proclaims that it is the original beef flavor. Boulderdash! If you have to tell me that it tastes good something is not right. Give me a ‘Midwestern’ corn fed beef any day. That is what beef should taste like. With that said, we purchased a 18 ounce rib-eye steak. It set us back 22.80 cents.

This steak had nice fat marbling. This was one impressive looking rib-eye. This would be cooked over a very hot mesquite charcoal fire. Cooking grass fed beef can be a little challenging. It should be cooked rare or medium rare to guarantee tenderness. You really need to be careful with the carry-over cooking. A medium rare can turn tough in an instant. We cooked our steak to the rare stage and after a 10 minute rest it was a perfect medium rare. Now, for the taste verdict.

Sometimes one must admit that trying different styles of meat can be flavorful. This rib-eye was very tender. There was a rich beefy flavor. Victorian Farmstead must be doing something right because this was one great steak. I still am not a convert to grass fed but I will keep an open mind.

UNCLE JACK’S OZARK BBQ SAUCE

Uncle Jack has come over to visit today. We are going fire up the grill and give Uncle Jack’s Ozark BBQ Sauce and dry rub a try. Over a two day period we cooked some ribs, chicken wings and sausage. Uncle Jacks is an ‘All Natural” sauce with no preservatives. There is no high fructose corn syrup and this sauce is gluten free. Last but not least this is a ‘True Ozark Product’.(“A product that represents the essence of the Ozarks, the disappearing pioneer spirit and the true hickory smoke flavors that flourished in the 19th and early 20th century Ozarks.” )This sauce is manufactured in Branson, Missouri. Pull up a jug and let’s fire up the BBQ.

At the Chilebrown kitchen, it is standard practice to apply a dry rub to meats before grilling. The ingredients listed are simple and few; Brown sugar, kosher salt, paprika, dehydrated onion, garlic and spices. It has a pleasant sweet aroma. You will get a faint smell of the dehydrated onion. We shook a generous coating over all our meats. We returned them to the ice cave for several hours.

The first day we cooked our ribs. The rub did its job and painted a beautiful sheen of color over our ribs. When the ribs were done we brushed Uncle Jacks BBQ sauce all over the ribs. We put them back into the barbeque just long enough to set the sauce. Today we were trying the ‘Spicy” version of Uncle Jack’s BBQ sauce. The sauce is ketchup based, sweet molasses style sauce. This sauce was tasty on our seasoned ribs. I am not sure you could call this hot by any stretch. Ms. Goofy loved the sweetness that this sauce provided. I thought it was a good blend of spices, smoke, molasses and vinegar that leaned toward the sweet side. The combination of rub and sauce complimented each other.

Chicken wings went on the grill the next day. The sugar in the rub provided a amber glaze to our wings. Once again when the meat was done we applied some sauce. We really enjoyed this combination. The sauce complimented the richness of the wings. Ms. Goofy licked her paws clean. 

    Uncle Jacks Ozark BBQ Sauce and rub is welcome at our barbeque anytime. The rub is an all-purpose seasoning. We would like to try it on some grilled corn. The barbeque sauce is a sweet tomato based style of sauce. The heat level is mild and great for everybody. You can visit the Ozarks in your own backyard. We love our Uncle Jack.

Uncle Jacks BBQ Sauce

BOWL OF CHERRIES

Life is just a bowl of cherries. In our case this bowl will be turned into a cherry pie. These sweet/tart cherries were found at the Richmond Farmers Market. We like the Dutch topping on our pie. Oh yeah!

TEXAS BREW

This last week we have been having a lot of fun sampling and making different dishes with Texas Brew salsas. Texas Brew salsas are gluten free, all natural and the vegetables are  fire roasted. These salsas also happen to be delicious.

Continue Reading Here

TEXAS BREW BACON PEANUT BUTTER CUP ESPRESSO BEER BROWNIES

We have been working on our latest review for Texas Brew salsas. The last week we have been making different recipes using their salsa. One recipe, Texas Brew Bacon Peanut Butter Cup Espresso Beer Brownies has been a hands down favorite. Listen to this list of goodies. Reese's peanut butter cups, Guinness stout beer, chocolate chips, salsa, espresso and even Nueske bacon. This brownie is way over the top delicious. Full review to follow in several days. Stay tuned.

CROCKPOT PULLED PORK

Simple, easy and tasty is our dish today. One does not always have 15 hours to smoke pork shoulder to create pulled pork. There is so much good daytime T.V. such as: “The View”, ‘Maury’, ‘Judge Judy’ and of course my favorite ‘Jerry Springer’ (I wonder if Jerry has received my letter to be on the show?) that an easy pulled pork recipe was welcome and necessary. The ingredient list is small as the directions. A pork shoulder, can of coke, a jar of salsa and some barbeque sauce is all she wrote.

The pork shoulder is trimmed of excess fat. It is placed in a crock pot with the can of coke poured over the top and set on high. Four hours later the pork is removed. Remove all the liquid from the pot. Shred the pork with a fork and place back into crock pot. Then add salsa and barbeque sauce to cook for 1 more hour. I told you this was easy. We served ours juicy and tender pork over rice and accompanied it with home made Cole slaw. We were impressed how simple, easy and tasty this pork turned out. No way will it replace pork smoked low and slow but with our busy daytime hours this was a welcome dish.

GOODBYE ASPARAGUS

Jumbo Asparagus & Asparagus Ravioli

 So long my good friend Asparagus. There was a sign posted last Sunday at the Asparagus booth that read; 'Last Weekend for Asparagus". We bought these jumbo spears and several packages of asparagus raviolis, to say our goodbyes. Farewell, till next year and we meet again.
  Hello my good friend Corn.

BLUEBERRY CRUMB CAKE

At the Chilebrown household the television is glued to the Food Network 24/7 except for when Jerry Springer comes on. Sometimes a particular dish will grab your attention and you just want to make it. Ms. Goofy was watching the Barefoot Contessa and a Blueberry Crumb Cake leaped out into her mental bucket list. This was a while ago and blueberries were not in season. We have been watching the farmers markets and finally blueberries are in season. Our friend Dr. Biggles has a theory that only cute girls can sell blueberries at the farmers market. I am sorry to tell you Biggles but this was an older couple vending the berries.

Here is a link for the Blueberry Crumb Cake recipe.

This cake was delicious. I had a huge piece with some ice cream. It is always nice when Ms. Goofy gets her bake on. Here is a photo supporting Reverend Biggles theory.

CONEHEADS & SAUSAGE

It is Friday evening and Lucy is not very happy. She has to wear a conehead so she will not bite and scratch her stitches. Lucy will survive and become her goofy, bouncy one girl wrecking machine self soon enough. What does that have to do with sausage? Not  much.

We had some left over brisket and pulled pork. A light bulb went on over our heads and raviolis came to mind. Some fresh eggs from 'Garden Girl Farm was the ticket to roll out this fresh pasta. The brisket and pork was chopped fine and cheese, spinach and eggs were added. These meat pillows were gently boiled for several minutes. A cheese sauce and sausage accompanied our meal.

Poor Lucy Conehead