Basting Away in Margaritaville

Great Burger!

2008-12-09T11:04:00.003-05:00

BOBCAT Bite!
Santa Fe, New Mexico

One of the best burgers I've had in a long time was found in Santa Fe, New Mexico at Bobcat Bite. I found an article on-line "20 burgers you must try before you die" and Bobcat was rated number 12. Traci and I were in town for a conference and the Balloon Fiesta so we rented a car and headed to the Bobcat. We arrived on a cloudy cold day and as you can see the parking lot was full. As you step on the porch there is a dry erase board hanging next to the front door, that's the sign up sheet to get a table. You write your name on it, how many is in your party and have a seat on the front porch. The place is tiny, maybe 5 tables and then 6 or 7 seats along the bar. Our wait was about 1 hour but worth every minute freezing cold minute! Once inside the menu has several things on it besides burgers, but I was heading to the Green Chili Cheeseburger and nothing was getting in my way. Except the sides that were offered!

SIDE ORDERS
Green Chile............................................ .90
Home Fries............................................1.90
Potato Salad..........................................2.10
Pasta Salad (Summer Only)........................2.50
Cole Slaw..............................................1.90
Tossed Salad.........................................3.10
Salad Bowl (Includes Ham and Cheese).......7.50
Chile Bowl (Winter Only)..........................5.50
Bacon....................................................1.25
Grilled Onions....................................... 1.25
Chili Toreado (Grilled Jalapeño).................1.10

I hit the green chile, grilled onions, home fries and was flip flopping back and forth on the Grilled Jalapenos but figured I'd better not. About 20 minutes later, this was delivered to the table!!

I ate every scrap! I ordered mine medium and it was just a tad too pink for me, but still great flavor, juicy, and not too spicy from the green chile! We haven't hit any of the other 19 places on the list but hopefully someday we can see where Bobcat Bite is on our list of 20!!

Two things we asked the owner that I'm sure everyone that goes there asks:

1) Where did the name come from?
She said it was because bobcats would come out of the mountains every night and the cooks would throw them scraps. She said they still come down but not as often.

2) Why close at 7:50?
She said it was because during the World War II the country had a "lights out" at 8:00 p.m. and 7:50 gave them 10 minutes to close and turn out the lights.

If you are anywhere near Santa Fe we highly recommend it!!

Bobcat Bite
420 Old Las Vegas Highway
Santa Fe, NM 87505
(505) 983-5319

Almost a year and no post...

2008-11-18T14:15:00.003-05:00

Things are crazy at work, crazy at home and crazy with a 7 year old and a 17 month old. But new posts to come from now on! Promise!

We competed in another BBQ cook off over the weekend in Mandeville, Louisiana and had a blast. Despite the 75 MPH winds we managed to pull it together and finish 5th in Chicken, 2nd in Pulled Pork and 2nd in Ribeyes, but dead LAST in ribs. Not sure what happened there b/c we fisnished 1st in Ribs in March. Oh well, goes to show you never know.

Thanks to everyone for all their help. Julie, Pat, Lila, Sarge, Gloria and Cleveland and of course my teammate and sweetheart, Traci, I would never have chased this dream without her!!

Oh did I mention we won Reserve Grand Champion (which means 2nd overall). We won about $300 and a huge trophy (pictures to come of it). Wow is all I can. We were on cloud nine!

Christmas Dinner!

2008-01-01T12:06:00.000-05:00

For Christmas dinner I asked my Father in law what he wanted for dinner and he said "pork or ham". So I checked with a web forum buddy "Rumrunner" at Addicted to BBQ and he recommended a pork crown roast. So I went to this local butcher I found and he made me a 10 rib roast. It was about 8 pounds. So I found a rub in the newest Food and Wine magazine which came out good but if/when I make it again I'd leave out the crushed red peppers, they made it too spicy for our 6 year old. The day before I made a stock out of some pork bones from the butcher, got the recipe from Emeril's cookbook, it made a ton so I have a bunch in the freezer for future cooks.

Then with the help of my father in law we made a sweet onion and mushroom gravy. Came out great! We used the same kind of technique as the Mad Max turkey gravy but used the pork stock and not as much wine. We also added the sweet onions and mushrooms.

I Egged the roast for about 2.5 hours with cherry and pecan wood to an internal temp of 155.

Finally a new POST!

2007-10-19T15:28:00.001-04:00

Chicken breasts stuffed with fresh spinach, garlic and cheeses.

Sunday night we pounded some chicken breasts, sauteed some fresh spinach, garlic and cheeses and then rolled them up and tied them with our new "food loops". I then threw them on the Egg with a ton of other things and served them with twice baked potatoes that Traci made. The chicken was very good but the cheese and spinach kind of squeezed out the ends.

Loaded up EGG!

Twice baked Potatoes.

COOL salad for HOT Days!

2007-08-28T15:04:00.000-04:00

One night I grilled a chicken and then Traci made these incredible salads for dinner. Nothing better then a salad with avocado, tomato, grilled chicken and romaine lettuce. The chicken was "Egged" of course but first I "spatchcocked" it by cutting the backbone out of it and sort of butterflying it. This allows the chicken to cook a little more even and the breast doesn't dry out. The chicken was very moist and had a good flavor.

And HOT is not the word. New Orleans in August is miserable!!! I think we hit 100 for about ten days this month. Too hot.

Tagged!

2007-08-10T12:33:00.000-04:00

I was "tagged" by BC at Beans and Caviar. So here goes.

Rules first:
1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write on their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.

Eight things about me:

1. In the 7th grade I was hit by a car and broke both my legs. Shattered both bones in both legs just above the ankles. First doctor said “He will never walk again”, my Dad immediately fired him and hired a rough and tough German orthopedic surgeon who not only had me walking again but I was back on the football field in the 9th grade!
2. I’ve had 27 jobs, but only 4 since graduating from college in 1986.
3. I drive a commuter van to and from work with 13 riders and we cross the world’s longest bridge twice a day.
4. I absolutely love the beach! I’ve been to the beach every summer of my life except this year! However, I’m missing the beach for a good reason, we had our little daughter Jillian June 6th and I wouldn’t trade that for any beach in the world! She is so adorable and I just love coming home from work and seeing how she has changed since I left earlier that morning.
5. I live in New Orleans Louisiana, Love the FOOD, but hate the crime, pollution, corrupt politicians, and the searing HEAT and HUMIDITY!
6. I love to travel and have been in 26 of the 50 states in the US.
7. I love music! I have been to over 2000 concerts over the years, my first being Foghat in 1977. (wish I had all the money I’ve spent on concert tickets, t-shirts, hats, plane tickets, food, beer, hotel rooms).

Favorite Bands: Sister Hazel, Edwin McCain, Dave Matthews Band, Ocean Street, Will Hoge, Theresa Andersson, David Gray, Bonnie Raitt, Toby Lightman, Sting.

Who’s in your CD player/iPod?

8. I HATE green peppers (bell peppers). It’s probably the only thing that I just can’t eat. My Dad who was an incredible cook use to say “you have to use green peppers it’s part of the ‘trinity’ and you can’t taste them anyway”. So my response was “then why put them in there if you can’t taste them”. I wish my Dad was still alive, I’d love to cook for him now (might even season it with green peppers!!)

Shrimp, Shrimp and more Shrimps!

2007-08-08T15:19:00.000-04:00

Saturday evening some dude knocked on our door selling shrimp! He said he caught them earlier in the day out in the Gulf of Mexico and was trying to sell what he had left. He had several coolers full and was selling them for $3.00 a pound. They seemed fresh and pretty big and he tried to sell me a whole cooler full for $100, but I felt like that was too much shrimp and didn't want to deal with getting them cleaned and ready to be frozen. MISTAKE! I bought 20 pounds and should have bought the cooler full! They were nice shrimp and since we just bought a new freezer and a Foodsaver it sure would have been nice to have a freezer full of shrimp. Oh well, next time. So, Traci made a pesto sauce out of all the basil we had growing and we skewered them and put them on the Egg. Wow these were good!

(I need a shrimp platter to go with my cow platter!)

Having grilled shrimp and salads for lunch this week!

Pork Chops, Shrimp and corn!

2007-07-26T15:01:00.001-04:00

I usually bring my lunch everyday to work, so I try and cook a bunch of things on Sunday night and then we have some dinners and lunches already made. This weekend we were busy (see post below) so I Egged these Monday night. I marinated the pork chops in Bronco Bob's Mango and Chipotle marinade. The shrimp I marinated in a sauce that is sold by a local Chinese restaurant called Trey Yuen. The sauce is called Tong Cho and is pretty good, not too spicy, not too overpowering. We also tried cooking one skewer of shrimp on a cedar plank that we got free from a festival we went to. I don't think cedar is the way to go! It reminded us of our grandmother's cedar chest! Not a good smell at all. I will try it again but next time on Alder wood planks. The pork chops were great! Nice and juicy!

We will do the pork chops again and the shrimp just minus the cedar Plank.

Happy Birthday Mimi and Sarge!

2007-07-25T17:19:00.001-04:00

On Sunday afternoon we loaded up the Big Green Egg (Hazel) and headed to my in-laws house. It was both their birthdays and we were going to grill steaks. We bought a whole ribeye at the store and had the butcher cut them into 1 1/4 inch steaks. Got Hazel cranked up to about 900 degrees and seared each of them for about 90 seconds on each side and took them off and brought the temp down to about 400. Put the meat back on till the interanl temp was about 138, let them rest a few minutes and served. They came our GREAT! I used a combo of apple wood and Jack Daneils Barrel chips and the smoke flavor was not too over powering. All in all a very fun night.

Turkey Burgers

2007-06-29T10:54:00.001-04:00

Trying to eat a little healthier these days so I found a recipe for grilled turkey burgers on Gourmet.com which had great reviews so we gave it a shot. Egged them direct at 325 for about 45 minutes with just a few apple chips.

3 medium yellow onions

1 clove garlic

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 1/3 pounds ground turkey breast

3 tablespoons dried bread crumbs

2 tablespoons barbecue sauce

3 tablespoons quick-cooking oats (not instant)

1 teaspoon dried basil1 teaspoon dried oregano

1 tablespoon toasted wheat germ

1/4 teaspoon salt or 1 tablespoon liquid aminos

Ground black pepper

I couldn’t find wheat germ and used salt instead of liquid aminos (whatever that is).
These came out great! Nice and moist and hint of smoke.

Pizza! Pizza!

2007-06-14T15:13:00.000-04:00

Pizzas on the Big Green Egg come out incredible! They have just a small hint of wood smoke and are nice and crispy. We made 2 pizzas tonight, one with Pepperoni, sausage and baby bella mushrooms, the other a "Taylor Special", Canadian Bacon, Pineapple chunks and cheese. The crust is a recipe I found on-line here, and is very easy to make. The recipe will make about 3 medium size pizzas. I like my pizza deep dish style so I made the pepperoni, sausage and mushroom pizza in a cast iron skillet. Taylor likes her pizza thin and crispy, so we rolled hers out thin and placed it directly on the pizza stone. The Egg was cranked up to about 650 degrees and we cooked each pizza about 10 minutes. I've had great luck on pizzas with the Egg and I've only burned one or two. Main thing is to watch them closely or the crust will burn.

Pepperoni, Sausage and Mushrooms ready for the Egg.

Canadian Bacon and Pineapple ready for the Egg!

Canadian Bacon and Pineapple Done!

Weekend Cookbook Challenge (Challenge 17, Cornmeal)

2007-06-04T10:58:00.000-04:00

Traci and I are going to try and do this "Weekend Cookbook Challenge", the idea is to "crack open" a cookbook you've never opened before or haven't used in awhile and make a recipe from it that pertains to the "theme" of the challenge. This is "Challenge 17" and the theme is "Cornmeal". So we opened Emeril's cookbook, New New Orleans Cooking and made Spicy Beef Empanadas with fire sauce and cilantro cream, the recipe is on Emeril's website here. We highly recommend keeping the dough for the Empanandas as cold as possible. If you don't, they will crack and make handling them a real pain. Of course we had to use the Big Green Egg to bake them! We used the place setter with legs down and placed our pizza stone on it. Got the egg fired up to 500 degrees and baked them for about 30 minutes. We will more than likely do this recipe again.

Memorial Day Weekend

2007-05-29T15:50:00.001-04:00

Rubbed/injected a pork butt and rubbed a slab of ribs for the Egg on Saturday. Our little girl Taylor was promoted from kindergarten to 1st grade and I asked her where she wanted to go to dinner to celebrate the big day, she said "I want pulled pork and ribs". So Pulled pork and ribs it was.

So on the Egg they went.

I did the 3-1-1 method on the ribs straight out of Dr. BBQ's Book, Big-Time BBQ Cookbook and they turned out great. 3 hours indirect at 225 with a drip pan of apple juice underneath. Then 1 hour wrapped in foil with apple juice inside the foil. Then 1 hour direct and applied sauce the last 20 minutes or so. Came out GREAT!

The pork butt stayed on for about 10 hours, the internal temp was 170 degrees and the bone pulled out very easily!

Sunday we decided to make Green Chili sauce to go over some pulled pork enchiladas. You need to check out this blog, Playing with Smoke and Fire and try some of his recipes. We did the Green Chili but left out the ground pork so that it made more of a sauce. We also left out the Serrano chilies to keep the heat level down. Turned out GREAT!!

We then smothered the pulled pork enchiladas in the green chili sauce and cheese and baked them in the oven at 350 for 20 minutes. EXCELLENT! We will be doing these again.

T-Rexed a Strip and Italian Hamburger Slices!

2007-05-04T16:49:00.000-04:00

Sunday night we got a big 2 ½ inch NY Strip, rubbed it with Bad Byron’s Butt Rub, seared it on the Big Green Egg at 800+ degrees for 90 seconds on each side, pulled it off and brought the temp on the Egg down to about 425. Then threw it back on with 2 pieces of the Italian Hamburger slices, roasted both to about 138 degrees and pulled them off to rest about 10 minutes. Talk about good. This is the first time using Bad Byron’s Butt Rub and we really liked it. Wasn’t as coarse as some of the other rubs and seemed to let the rub penetrate the meat a little better (thanks Traci).

Got the recipe for the hamburgers from Emeril on the food network website. We will be doing this again! The Egg does an incredible job on burgers anyway, even if you over cook them, they are still very moist!

"Boiling" Away in Margaritaville???

2007-04-26T16:31:00.000-04:00

This past weekend we entered into the Hospice Foundation of the South Crawfish Cook-off in Slidell, LA and came in 2nd out of 50 teams!! Talk about a lot of fun! The cook-off is open to the public and for $25 you can eat as much crawfish as you possibly can from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.! Our team boiled 750 pounds and from what we heard they had ordered 45,000 pounds total! We also served up 300 slices of Schroder’s Crawfish Pizza. John Schroder is running for State Representative for St. Tammany Parish this October. Check out John’s website to find out more about him. We could have never taken 2nd place or even attempted to boil 750 pounds of crawfish without all the hard work of “Cousin Troy”. Troy worked from sun up till sun down doing all the washing, purging, spicing and boiling of the crawfish! Thanks Troy! Maybe somehow, some way we can get that 2nd place trophy out of Vince’s hands!! What a blast! If you ever have a chance to enter a contest like this I highly recommend it! We had a great time! Hard work but lots of fun.

Our Booth

Crawfish Pizza!

2nd Place Crawfish!

Traci working hard as usual!

Our first EVER competition!

2007-04-11T13:41:00.000-04:00

March 30 and 31, 2007, Basting Away competed in their first of many (I hope) BBQ competitions, The Smoking Blues and BBQ Challenge in Hammond, Louisiana.

We entered into the "Backyard Boogie" division and competed against 60 other teams. There was also a "Pro" division in which Bad Byron's Butt Rub won the grand champion. In the "Backyard Boogie" division, you were required to turn in Sauce, Chicken and Ribs. We got 9th place in sauce, 21st place in ribs and a really disappointing 44th place in chicken. I personally thought our chicken was better than the ribs, but you just never know. We did exactly what the event coordinator told us to do....HAVE FUN! Even the hurricane force winds and rain didn't damper our spirits when we heard them call our name for the 9th place finish in sauce. Can't wait till the next one!!

Chicken Turn-In Box:

Rib Turn-In Box: