Kerner.net

Thanksgiving Smoked Turkey

 

We had Thanksgiving for my family at our house this year. The dinner consisted of smoked turkey, zucchini casserole, cranberry sauce, garlic mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, rolls, and both pumpkin and apple pies for dessert. The turkey got smoked and was delicious.

Prior to smoking the bird soaked overnight in a brine made of salt, unfiltered cider, sugar, pepper, thyme and sage. I used one of the Ziploc big bags to soak the turkey, the next to largest size will hold up to 10 gallons of liquid and they're just as food safe as a normal Ziploc bag.

The turkey went on the smoker around 10:15 and smoked at 350° until about 1:30 when it reached proper temperatures in the breast and the thigh. You can see the steam tray pan beneath the bird used to catch drippings for gravy. The rub is my standard rub (see the pulled pork post) with reduced salt and extra chile powder.

We pulled the turkey from the smoker, let it rest wrapped loosely in foil for 30 minutes then sliced. It came out with a great color and the skin was nice and crispy. We usually don't eat the skin, but the bits I tasted while slicing were great.

The final platter with most of the dark meat and one of the breasts sliced. The turkey was smoked mostly over apple wood, but I tossed in a few small pieces of cherry. Both were apparent in the finished meat. It was very good with the hint of cherry smoke.

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Mexico Pulled Pork

Last night the men's group I'm in at church came over for dinner and to discuss the second half of Integrity. I made a chile rubbed pork shoulder served with beans, tortillas, guacamole, and chile sauce (both green and red). The event used up the last of our frozen stash so I had to order more (which will be here next week). I love alternative bbq uses and the New Mexican cuisine seemed like a good choice.

I started two pork butts around 10:30 on Thursday night. I ground four dried red chiles in the spice mill (two mild and two hot) then combined them with my standard bbq rub for the pork. I fired the WSM with the Minion method and cooked them at 225° until 4:30 PM. I really thought that they would have reached 190°, but they stayed in the 170° zone from 10 AM and had only gotten to 180° when I took them off the smoker (if I'd have had a bit more time they probably would have gotten to 190°). I let the butts rest wrapped in foil for 30 minutes then pulled them into a crock pot set on low.

My presentation of choice is to wrap the pork with a little bit of cheese and sour cream in a tortilla and then cover it with chile sauce Christmas style (red on one end and green on the other). Refried beans, some guacamole, and chips with the Rancho de Chimayo cheese dip finish the plate of nicely.

Election Night Bloggers Meeting

Went to my first Springfield bloggers meeting in a long time to get my fix of random political conversation. I figured election night would make for an interesting meeting. We started as the polls closed in Springfield and Patton Alley Pub has a TV set to CNN so we can watch results. More updates throughout the evening.

Update on the people here:
Branson Missouri
Curbstone Critic
Dad’s On A Rant
Fat Jack
Rhetorica (it's all his idea)
Simple Thoughts of a Complext Mind
Tony Messenger – News-Leader
Zach is Here

Interesting site: http://www.islostarepeat.com/ 

Get live results for Missouri: http://www.sos.mo.gov/enrweb/statewideresults.asp?eid=189
 

My election coverage of choice: Comedy Central 

 Things here have degraded to the point that we're discussing the need for a neo-whig party. What would it stand for? Powdered wigs of course (maybe even wooden teeth).

11:15 makes it a night for me. Time to head home. My gut tells me the Talent McCaskill race isn't getting called tonight (it will probably take a recount). 

Restored from Backup & Future Kerner.net Plans

After a hacking incident I've finally gotten around to restoring the weblog from a backup. Not sure exactly what happened, but I know that I used to have a relatively unsecure webdav configuration in place for the web root of this site - it's gone now. No other security issues found on the machine, and apache logs indicate that the culprit just went wild writing files to the kerner.net site.

I was going to take this as an opportunity to redesign the site both in layout and purpose. I thought I'd make that a bit more of a public process though.

The overall theme of the site won't change much. Currently the tag for the site is: "thoughts on food, technology and ministry, but mostly food." I'm leaning towards keeping it the way it is, but I'm really drawn to using something from scripture.

My scripture of choice is from Ecclesiastes 2:24-25: "A man can do nothing better than to eat and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see, is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment?"  I especially like the way these verses are paraphrased in the Message, "The best you can do with your life is have a good time and get by the best you can. The way I see it, that's it—divine fate. Whether we feast or fast, it's up to God." John Wesley says that we should "thankfully take, and freely and chearfully [sic] enjoy the comforts which God gives him" as these comforts are a singular gift of God.

I love that scripture tells us life is to be enjoyed. I think there is some risk in this scripture being perceived as defeatist, but I don't think it is – everything we have is from God, but that shouldn't stop us from working to improve. Mark Batterson reconciles this conflict very well with his statement that we should "work like it depends on us, and pray like it depends on God."

So what are your thoughts? Keep the traditional tag or go with the scripture? I'm going to be migrating from MovableType to WordPress soon so that seems like a good time to update the layout. Does anybody actually visit the site or is everybody in an aggregator these days?