The pulled pork, pineapple, and cashew pizza from last night was so good that it seemed only natural to make a variation of it today for lunch. Mini-pitas were substituted for the TJ’s dough, and the toaster oven for the BSK.

All I can say is my kids are going to be angry when they find out what the wife and I had for lunch…

Combine leftover pulled pork, proximity to Trader Joe’s, a Monday night where there isn’t a lot of interest in cooking anything that involves a lot of work, and you end up with pizza. Two of them, actually.

Both pizzas were built on Trader Joe’s fresh herb pizza dough (now found in the deli section nowhere near the bread), a sauce mixture featuring Big Butz Cranberry and Extra Hot, mozzarella cheese, and chopped pulled pork. The first variation added chopped pineapple and cashews.

The second featured mushrooms and olives. Both were excellent and disappeared without complaint.

Right now I’m wondering why I didn’t go ahead and come up with a combination for the other pizza dough package I bought. Surely there was something else in the refrigerator that needed to be used up…

More pre-Super Bowl appetizer experiments today, and the result was 3 different flavors of something I’m going to call Swiss Pig Pulls. Take some leftover pulled pork, slices of swiss cheese, some fresh French baguettes, some of your favorite BBQ sauces, and before you know it you’re eating some tasty appetizers.

We tried these with both toasted and untested bread slices; surprisingly enough the un-toasted version was preferred by 3 out of 4 judges. The sauces ranged from Jack Daniels Swineapple to Big Butz Cranberry and Big Butz Extra Hot. Assembly instructions are as follows:

1. Slice baguette into 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick rounds.
2. Add a liberal amount of your favorite BBQ sauce to the bread.
3. Place a slice of Swiss cheese on top of the sauced bread.
4. Top with some leftover preheated pulled pork.
5. Bake or broil in toaster oven (or regular oven) until the cheese melts.
6. Serve immediately. Don’t forget the napkins…

We’re going to Pigdog’s house for the Super Bowl. I told him to let me know what he wants me to bring in the way of finger food, and I’m guessing this will make it even harder for him to make a decision.

Pork butts were on the WSM today with the intention of reviewing a bottle of Big Ed’s Heirloom BBQ Sauce that the folks at Pigtail Brands were nice enough to send me before the holidays. Butts were prepared using my normal method, and after about 8 hours on the WSM were ready to come off and rest in a cooler for awhile.

After about a half hour, the butts were pulled and ready for sandwiches. It took a bit longer to pull them today; I wish someone could tell me where my pulling gloves got off to. I suspect they are at Pigdog’s lake house, as I seem to remember hauling some butts over there in August while still intact. No worries though; after some time with the bear claws and a quick finish with nitrile gloves, we were ready for sandwich assembly.

As you can see from the picture above, the meat already was very moist and well covered with flavorings from the bark. Here’s where the review process went horribly wrong. Although I applied a liberal amount of the Big Ed’s Heirloom BBQ sauce to each sandwich, it was difficult to tell where my normal seasonings left off and the Big Ed’s picked up.

A closer examination of the ingredient list and quick perusal of the literature they included with the sauce very quickly revealed that the vinegar-based sauce contains many of the same ingredients in the sop mix used in my normal recipe for pulled pork. Add to that the slaw had a vinegar-based dressing on it, and it sort of ruined my plans for an objective review of the sauce.

Having said that, dinner was excellent. And there is a recipe for chicken with Big Ed’s that was included with the reading material. I should probably read that closely before attempting to review this again.

Who knows, I might even follow the recipe…

Must have been the cod (sprinkled with Cajun seasoning mix) on the grill.

Or it might have been the fish tacos (steamed corn tortillas, shredded cheese, sliced cabbage, and a mix of sour cream, chipotle Tabasco, and Chili Garlic Cholula) the cod ended up in.

Either way, no complaints have been registered regarding dinner. Not even for Spanish rice made with brown rice.

And I don’t expect any here either…

Today we celebrated Oldest Daughter’s birthday. By cooking. A day late. When asked what she want for her meal, her first response was “Not ribs”. Seems she has been indulging in inferior ribs recently, and wanted something different. While eliminating suggestions for what she didn’t want, the subject of side dishes came up and suddenly potato salad was on the menu. Followed by smoke beans. Followed by these. Don’t confuse them with ribs…

These “not ribs” were rubbed with some No Excuses BBQ rib rub (recipe here), left to smoke on the WSM for just over 2 hours, then foiled for another 2 hours. Somewhere during the foil process, the beans went on the bottom grill of the WSM, and when it came time to remove the foil all the drippings went directly into the beans. The ribs were sauced with Big Butz Cranberry, then left on the grill for another 30 minutes. The result was a plate of goodness that looked surprisingly like ribs, tater salad, and smoke beans.

As for Oldest Daughter, I’m guessing she won’t be eating inferior ribs again anytime soon, especially if she can figure out a way to get me to cook more of these.

The only way I’ll ever to get to Carnegie Hall is to buy a ticket, but that doesn’t mean practice is a waste of time. The Battle Ground Fire Department agrees with this philosophy and demonstrated how not to stage a BBQ today.

They certainly know how to attract a crowd to their events; this one was a controlled fire on an old school building that should have been razed years ago. I’m assuming all went well, and I’m very grateful I don’t live across the street from the school.

As for me, I continued my practice of using my family as guinea pigs and tried out four new flavor combinations on chicken strips rather than experimenting on my friends at an upcoming Super Bowl party. Today’s experiments were brought to you by the following products.

Standard disclaimer applies today for all you FCC types out there with nothing better to do. I purchased most of these myself, make no money whatsoever recommending them, and those I didn’t buy have all been mentioned before as having been provided to me for unbiased review purposes. For those of you that remember the powdered BBQ sauce review, you’ll know I am not swayed by the reception of free stuff…

All of today’s experiments went on boneless, skinless chicken breasts that were cut into strips right before application of rub spices. All strips were liberally dusted with rub, placed on the BS Keg for 5 minutes over a 350°F indirect fire, turned and let cook for another 3 minutes, at which time 3 of the batches were sauced, and all were then cooked for another 2 minutes.

At the top right (2:00 for you analog clock types) we had The Rub Company Original flavor combined with Frank’s Red Hot Buffalo Wing Sauce. The sauce was mixed with a bit of melted butter to assist in adhesion as it is fairly thin coming out of the bottle. Besides, the instructions for wings say to do this, and who am I to not follow instructions? Oh, wait…

At the bottom right (5:00 on the grill) was the Big Butz entry; Chicken Dust with some more of the special recipe Asian Twang sauce. No butter was mixed with this, as the Asian Twang sauce is a much thicker consistency.

On the bottom left (7:00 for anyone who still cares) was Big Dick’s Dry Rub mixed with Cholula Chili Garlic sauce. And butter. The Cholula sauce is about the same consistency as the Frank’s Red Hot, and if it is good enough for Buffalo wings, it ought to be good enough for, well, Cholula wings…

Last but not least I finally got around to using the BBQ Curry rub from Pirate Jonny’s (top left, 10:00, but you probably already figured that out). These nice folks have been patiently waiting for me to get around to using this, and now I can happily say that I did. I couldn’t figure out what sort of sauce to pair it with (other than peanut), so we let it stand on its own.

I’m very pleased to say that all four of these combinations were winners and that they are worthy of serving to your guests, be they tailgaters or couch-pertaters. In spite of not being sauced, the BBQ Curry strips stood up to the others just fine, and actually would have gone well with some peanut sauce on the side for dipping.

As for the fan favorite? Today’s crowd went with the Big Butz offering, which is going to create some issues for me down the road if Tom decides the Asian Twang sauce isn’t a commercially viable product for him to market.

If he doesn’t take it to market, maybe I can convince him to share the recipe with us…

I suppose that phrase could be used to describe the playoff games today (each for different reasons), but in this case it is being used in the literal sense. A chuck roast was cooked on Bubba Ho-Keg in a dutch oven today, and the resulting gravy was the hit of the meal.

The chuckie was originally going to be given the “smoke first, then finish in the pot” treatment, but at the last minute the hail, snow, and wind convinced me that I was more interested in watching football on TV than worrying about temperature control. So in the pot it went over a bed of sliced onions and was then splashed with a bit of Worcestershire and soy sauces, about a half-cup of water, and a liberal coating of Simply Marvelous Season All. On went the lid, on over the fire it went with some large russet taters to keep it company. A couple of hours later the taters were removed, the innards turned into mashed potatoes, and then spooned back into the skins for twice-baked taters. On went a foil pouch with some seasoned green beans, and dinner was almost ready.

After all this time simmering away in the pot with the meat juices the onions had pretty much turned to mush and the flavor was well-incorporated with the rest of the juices. A bit of flour and water were added to thicken, and dinner was served.

The pot roast was actually very good, as were the potatoes, but all I heard was ravings about how good the gravy was. I guess this means there is a new standard to live up to next time pot roast is on the menu…

Now that the NFL playoffs have begun, I figured I better get some practice cooking finger food on the off-chance I get invited to someone’s house for a Super Bowl party. So for starters there were MOINKs on the BS Keg.

This batch was dusted with some Original recipe rub from The Rub Company, smoked for about an hour, then glazed with some Asian NoBob sauce leftover from the Christmas wings. Oh, and did someone mention wings?

The wings were sprinkled with Cajun seasoning mix, then basted with some private-recipe (aka science experiment) Asian Twang BBQ sauce from Big Butz BBQ. I’m pretty sure you can’t buy this from him (yet), but it made for some real nice wings. Add some veggies and dip, and you’ve got food made to eat in front of the big screen TV.

Pay no attention to the Lil’ Smokies covered in pineapple-teriyaki sauce. It isn’t like they were cooked on the BS Keg with everything else and were camera-shy…

There is something about the day before a holiday that demands comfort foods. Around here, comfort foods not only bring a feeling of warmth and fullness, but also methane gasses. Tonight’s offering combined leftover turkey (yep, we’re still not done with it) and some explosives disguised as cabbage, onions, and potatoes. Add some spices, a can of chicken broth, then do this to it for about 45 minutes.

The result is a non-photogenic bowl of brown goodness that is guaranteed to warm your innards. And clear the room later in the evening.

Good thing we aren’t going out to party with the rest of the amateurs tonight. And for those of you that are, do the right thing and let a non-drinker drive you home. We want all of you to have a safe start to 2012.

Happy New Year from No Excuses BBQ!