One fish, two fish, red fish.....

.........Smoked Blue Fish.

In asking our superb seafood salesman, Joseph, who along with being a great salesman was once a top notch chef as well.  His fountain of knowledge on seafood is a valuable commodity for us to use while still trying to figure out this whole smoker thing.  Joseph's most recent suggestion was to smoke some Bluefish.  Bluefish is an east coast fish that has a pretty high fat content that is perfect for smoking.  Along with some of our Smoked Salmon we have been selling we added a couple fillets of Bluefish, one plain and one with a cajun rub.  We will have to wait and see how this turns out but I will let you know!!!

Is this heaven? No, its bacon!!!

Before smoker:



After smoker:


I have to say that as novice smokers, we may have hit a grand slam with this one!!!

We will have pre-sliced packages ready to go this weekend in Western Springs.

Long overdue update

I guess it has been a while since I have last updated you about our progress in our smoking efforts, but here we are.

Jerky:

We have been rolling along with batches of jerky weekly.  In Western Springs we have 4 oz. packages of the Blackened, Asado and the Teriyaki in the counter daily as well as samples on most afternoons.  If you are in before the samples are rolled out, just ask.  We would be glad to get you a taste.  You will not be disappointed!!

Smoked Butts:

We finally got our butts in gear and have smoked butts ready to go!! We did a limited batch this time with 3 Smokehouse and 3 2( already sold one as I typed this) of the plain.  Either of these would be perfect for a quick and easy batch of pulled pork and the plain would go great with some cabbage in the slow cooker for hours!!!

Bacon:

Our first batch of bacon for sale is currently curing in the cooler.  After a 5 day cure we will be drying the bellies for smoking.  It looks like they will hit the smoker on Monday or Tuesday of next week and we will be pre-slicing it and selling it in 1# packages which should be ready by next weekend!!!

Salmon:

Our smoked salmon is in the counter and ready for you to enjoy!! After a couple test runs our Hotsmoked Salmon is in 8-12 oz packages in our seafood case and I have to say it is WAY better than the stuff we were getting out of Wisconsin for the last couple years!!

Other than all of that we are still trying to come up with some more exciting ways to smoke meats and I will try to be much better about keeping you up to date but I have been having too much fun with this great little smoker!!!

Jerky for sale!!!

We are up and running with our new beef jerky!!!

We have our three flavors:

• Blackened
• Teriyaki
• Asado (spicy!)

They are available in 4 oz. packages right now in Western Springs!  Of course this is a "while supplies last" kind of deal because we will not be making more until next week so stop in as soon as you can because I am hoping this will not last too long!!

BAAAAAACON!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I was a little afraid that my excitement would be too much for this bacon.  My hopes for a delicious bacon were pretty high and I have to tell you, I am not disappointed!!!

I am sure that this picture will get your mouth watering but I have to tell you that the flavor is even better than it looks!!  I know that this blog is basically a tease at this point but we will be doing this recipe again real soon for you to take home, but for now I am going back to "testing" more of this bacon!!!

Bacon, candy for adults

After removing the pork shoulders this morning I put the one item I have been looking most forward to smoking, a pork belly!!

Last week we got in a beautiful pork belly in and after trimming the little that needed to come off we cured it for 6 days in a white/brown sugar, kosher/curing salt, maple syrup and some black pepper,   then rinsed and soaked it in cold water to wash off the excess salt and cure.  It went in the smoker a little while ago and I will let you know in the next post how it turned out but I have to tell you I am pretty excited so I will post as soon as it comes out!!!

While you were sleeping

We tried another experiment while you were sleeping.  We put in some pork shoulders into the smoker overnight last night and I have to tell you this is the best breakfast that I have ever had.  These shoulders are so tender and delicious that the 4 or 5 of us that are in the store this early are in breakfast heaven.

 We are just about ready for us to have these smoked butts available for sale so keep your eyes peeled next week for some samples and product to take home and cook!!!

New and improved ribs!!!

For years we have had smoked ribs in our case and we have always done them in a special oven that has a smoking element on it.  They have always been great, but now they are the BEST EVER!!!!  We did our inaugural batch on Tuesday this week and it seems that we hit a home run on the first try so if you would like to try the new and improved ribs come in this weekend because they are even on sale until Tuesday 8/18!!

Jerky next week!!!!

It looks as though our beef jerky will be the first of the smoked products available for you to purchase!!  We did our second batch of jerky yesterday and it came out perfect!!!

We will have a couple different flavors (teriyaki, asado[spicy] & blackened) that will be available in 4 oz packages.  We should be making a couple big batches on Monday and Tuesday of next week so by next weekend we should have some available to purchase, but don't wait long we are not sure how fast this stuff will sell out!

Jerky, not just for breakfast any more.

So our latest experiment with the new smoker was Beef Jerky.  It was pretty awesome.  We tried out 4 different flavors, Blackened (a winner for sure), Teriyaki (another fan favorite), Asado (a spicier rub that was a big hit) and the Roasted Garlic (you won't see this one again, it was too salty).  Overall we are thrilled with the flavor but we need to work out the thickness of the meat.  A little thinner and I think we are ready for this to be sold in the store.  Keep your eyes peeled for what we expect to be your favorite jerky of all time!!!

Coming up we will be trying our hand at bacon (its curing now and will be spectacular).  Expect to see that Thursday afternoon.  In the mean time we will be revisiting the Pork Butts and more jerky.  Stop in this week to see what we have in store for you!!!

A smoker is a beautiful thing.

For years the idea of having a smoker was always on our minds and now we have one and its awesome!!!  I am not sure that we realized how much it would change our lives!!!  We were able to find us a great product through Cookshack out of Oklahoma and we couldn't be happier with the smoker, the sales team and everyone in the Cookshack family!!!

We did our first test run on some pork shoulders on Wednesday and I "tested" so much of it that I could not eat dinner that night.  It was so tender and juicy I was shocked, especially since it looked a little more charred on the outside than I thought it would.  We smoked the shoulder with the mesquite wood for about 4 hours smoked and 4 hours at a low temp with the smoke trapped inside.  Next round will probably be a little less time or we will just have to put more product in there.  Either way we are very happy with the results of our first test!

There will be a bit of a learning curve throughout this process and we are still in the testing phase to see how this machine works so product will not be available to customers for now, but if you are in the store and you catch the aroma of hickory or mesquite, ask if we have anything ready.  We would be glad to let you try whatever we have.

For now, it is off to check on today's experiment, Beef Jerky!!!!!!  I will keep you posted on that soon!!

The dawn of a new age

I know that I bore you all with my weekly newsletter's mispellings and bad grammar but now we have something new to keep you informed about, a smoker!!!  With this blog I will keep you posted on when we will have product available (we are currently in the testing phase) and what we will be smoking next.  The possibilities are endless at this point and every day we come up with something new we would like to try so stay tuned to see what it is we come up with for you!!!

Some of the things we will be smoking for sure:

Pork Shoulder/Butt
Pork Belly/Bacon
Briskets
Beef Jerky
Salmon

That is just the short list for now but our wheels are turning and we will make sure to keep you up to date and informed!!!!