Jon's Cocoa CocoNut Cereal Bars

Our friends Jeff & Whitney invite us up to their place on Lake Pymatuning every summer. Whitney and I try to put together a weekend menu and do most of the prep before we head up to the lake.

When I was thinking it over in my head, I realized that there wasn't a chocolate dessert. I don't really care for chocolate, but pretty much everyone else loves it.

Jon made this recipe up standing in the kitchen as I was headed out the door to pick up everything I needed for my share of the cooking.

He's the brains in this operation (ummm recipe) I'm the muscle (I did the work!)



Jon's Cocoa CocoNut Cereal Bars
1 box Cocoa Pebbles (the small box I think it's 13oz)
1 bag mini-marshmallows
1/4 C butter
9 little bags (1.5oz) Coconut M&Ms (about 2 cups)

Melt the butter in a big pot. Add marshmallows and stir until coated. Cook over medium low heat, stirring until all marshmallows are melted. Pour in Cocoa Pebbles and still until well coated in marshmallow. Fold in Coconut M&Ms. Pour into a parchment paper lined or non-stick 13x9 pan. Press firmly. Cool. Cut. Enjoy!

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I started by opening all those bags of Coconut M&Ms.


Then it's your basic cereal bar recipe!

Melt the butter...


Add the marshmallows...


Stir...


Until melty...


Add cereal...


Stir some more...


Add M&Ms...


Fold them in...


I try to do that as gently as I can. I don't want to mush up the M&Ms since the marshmallow is still warm.

Press it into a 13x9 pan...


Cool... Cut... Enjoy!


If you like Chocolate and Coconut... you'll love these!

Three Bean Casserole aka Bean Shot

My friend Susie brought this to a potluck a long time ago and I had to have the recipe. She just called it "Three Bean Shit". Her title definitely doesn't describe it. So one day at work, she rattled off the recipe while I wrote it down. Tawny was just a toddler at the time, so I wrote the title like this...

Susie's Three Bean Sh*t

Well sometime in my kitchen, I got that paper wet and parts of it blurred, including the title.

I was making it when Tawny was probably in the 5th grade or so and she looked at the recipe. She said, "Bean Shot? That's a weird name." My asterisk had blurred to look kinda like an "o". She still calls it Bean Shot. I renamed it Three Bean Casserole for the blog because I try to get a G rating around here.

Without further adieu...



Susie's Three Bean Casserole aka Three Bean Shit aka Bean Shot
1 lb. lean ground beef
1 lb. bacon chopped
1 medium onion, diced
1 can (15oz) pork n beans
1 can (15oz) lima beans
1 can (15oz) kidney beans
1 cup ketchup
1 cup brown sugar
Tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tsp dry mustard
2 Tbsp vinegar
salt and pepper to taste.
(do not drain the juices from your cans)

Preheat oven to 350F
In a large skillet, cook ground beef, chopped bacon & onion. Drain.
Move meat mixture to a large baking dish along with all other ingredients.
Stir until well mixed.
Bake 45 minutes at 350F.
Enjoy!

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This is wicked easy and can totally be done ahead of time!

Chop your bacon and onions.


Toss it into a skillet with the ground beef, when cooked through, drain fat.


Add beans.

Add them juice and all.

Add remaining ingredients.


Mix well


Now bake at 350F for about 45 minutes. You could also just cook it in a dutch oven over a fire!



We served it up with some haluski, broccoli salad and grilled chicken!



This is wicked good! It's awesome at a BBQ or potluck... make it on gameday for tailgating or for the crowd at your house... It's beefy bacony baked beans... like baked beans on steroids!

Try this! You won't regret it!

Islay's BBQ Ham Sammies

So the guys at work give me a hard time because I often complain about Pittsburgh. Don't get me wrong, I love living here, but it's definitely my #2 choice. I grew up in the Boston area and then lived near San Diego for quite a few years. By far Boston is my favorite! San Diego is a good place to vacation. But if you love rain and snow and changing of the seasons, it's definitely not someplace you want to live.

Most of my complaining is missing regional foods. I miss all the food in Boston. Pizza, Italian food, Seafood, even the Chinese food is different... try getting chicken fingers anywhere in Pittsburgh. I know you're thinking you can... but that's because you don't know what they're like from a Chinese restaurant in Boston... deep fried in that fluffy batter... so good... even cold outta the fridge the next day... oops... I'm getting off track here... and of course I miss the Mexican food of SoCal!

Anyway... I always say if I left Pittsburgh, there's no food I'd really miss. I would miss MadMex's Insane San Francisco Wings... and Mike & Tony's gyros... but really... that's about it for food.

They wanted me to try something uniquely Pittsburgh and suggested the Isaly's BBQ Chipped Chopped Ham Sandwich.

I decided it was time to give it a try.

First to get a little more info about it, I consulted my friend the internet.

There I discovered that Isaly's Chipped Chopped Ham is "hammier". Yup... that's right "hammier". I'm not sure what it's supposed to be more hammier than. It's definitely hammier than ice cream or roast beef or broccoli... but if it's supposed to be hammier than other ham... well... I don't get it.

hammy(er)


You're supposed to heat the Chipped Chopped Ham with Isaly's BBQ sauce. I found the BBQ at the deli of my local Giant Eagle. I had planned to get Original flavor and Spicy flavor. Unfortunately they only had original. So original it was!



I smelled the BBQ sauce when I opened it... and instantly it reminded me of Spaghetti-O's sauce, which I think is revolting. I was describing the smell to Jon, saying it smelled like sweet tomato sauce... he picked up the other jar and started to read the ingredients... The first two ingredients... Tomato Puree & High Fructose Corn Syrup... to be followed by more corn syrup a couple ingredients down. Well... at least it smells like what's in it!

I took a little taste... and it was WAY too sweet for my liking. I was thinking this might turn out to be a pizza night... even though the best pizza is at Wakefield House of Pizza on Tuttle St in Wakefield... unless you want Sicilian.. then you have to go to Morena's on Broadway in Wakefield... oh... sorry... getting side-tracked by the foods that I miss again!!

So I tossed the Isaly's Chipped Chopped Ham into a skillet. Then added the sauce. The salty ham did improve the taste of the BBQ sauce, but not really enough that I'd actually want to eat it. So then I poured in a big dollop of Jack Daniel's Honey Smokehouse BBQ sauce in an attempt to make it more edible.



That made it much better!


Yay! Dinner, while not authentically Pittsburgh, was at least not a fail.


It turned out to be pretty yummy.


So there's still not really much food I'd miss if I left here. Even though this turned out yummy, it's unlikely I'd make it again. I prefer my ham smoked and slathered with mustard!

Smoked Ribs & Beer Can Chicken!

We hadn't used our smoker at all this year and decided the 4th of July would be the perfect day to use it. (ok... really any non-work day that's not raining is a perfect day to use it!)

Jon really wanted to do ribs. We haven't used our smoker very much and have had kind of hit or miss luck with ribs. But I figured why not right?

While we were shopping for baby back ribs, Jon also suggested doing a Beer Can Chicken while we were at it. It takes so long to cook stuff in the smoker, we usually go for maximum capacity. So I grabbed a chicken too!



The rub recipe I use for the ribs is slightly adapted from Alton Brown, but we don't use his method.

Rib Rub
8 TBLS light brown sugar, tightly packed
3 TBLS kosher salt
1 TBLS chili powder
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper
1/2 tsp chipotle chili powder
1/2 tsp Old Bay Seasoning
1/2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp onion powder

Ideally we rub this on the ribs the day before. But this time they only had four or five hours before hitting the grill. This is enough for 2 slabs of ribs. If I'm only doing one slab, I'll use the extra on a chicken.

Here's what you need (plus ribs!)


Stir that all together until well combined.


Now to get the ribs ready.

This part is kind of icky! You have to remove the membrane from the back of the ribs. If you just grab a corner, it kinda of peels off. But it's slimy and totally sticks to your hand as it comes away from the ribs. Have your guy do this if you can. Mine was still sleeping, so I had to do it.



Yuck... makes me squinchy looking at it!


When the membrane is pulled off of both slabs. Place them on some heavy duty foil.


Then just rub all of the spices into both sides of both slabs.



Then wrap them tightly in foil and refrigerate overnight.


And for the chicken.


I totally spaced on a rub for the chicken. I have almost every herb/spice known to man. Ok... maybe not that many... but I can definitely make a large assortment of rubs without going to store. But I found a Lawry's Chicken Rub in there and decided to just finish that off.




I don't do the chicken ahead of time. I guess it would probably benefit from it, but it's never occurred to me until just now.

You need a can of beer. Most of the beer at my house is bottled. The only canned beer you might find is Dale's Pale Ale. I usually don't want to cook with hoppy beer, so Jon will typically pick up something cheap. In this case Budweiser. Don't get the tall ones. They gave him tall cans and it just barely fit in the smoker. But you can use whatever beer you like. You'll need to empty some of the beer from the can. Jon always helps with this part.


I have a stand that's made for beer can chicken. Put the can in it.


Then I add some of the rub and some herbs (I used rosemary & thyme) to the can with the remaining beer.



Now it's time to put the chicken on the beer can.




There's a big bowl that sits in the bottom of the smoker to keep everything nice and moist. I wasn't really watching while Jon filled it, but I think he put in a couple liters of apple juice, some white wine, maybe some beer, probably some kind of vinegar and whatever herbs were growing next to the smoker (that's where our herb garden lives) I'd guess that pan holds somewhere between half a gallon and a gallon of liquid.


Now to start putting the smoker together.
First the chicken, since it's going on the bottom level.
There is a probe thermometer stuck in it.


Here's the little smoker window view.


Top level... ribs...

The slabs are too long to fit flat on the grill, so I cut them in half and stand them up in a rack.








I don't want to waste all of those spicy juices in the foil... so I just pour them into the smoker... they'll land in the bowl at the bottom.


So Jon always starts the coals. I have a very hard time with that. It takes 3 chimneys. We only have two, so we start with that and just add one.





Hickory wood chips that have been soaking in water.




When the 3rd chimney is ready to go, we just lift off the top and pour more coals in.

Now the main part gets put on top of the coal part.




And cover it up.


Unfortunately my smoker's temperature gauge doesn't have temperatures, so we keep it in the "ideal" range on gauge.



But now you have 3 or 4 hours.

So about 3.5 hours later... the temperature probe on the chicken reads 165F. Chicken's done! Hopefully the ribs are too.

So we opened it up.






Another window view.


As it turned out the ribs were done too!

Time to eat!


Mmmmm.... moist smokey delicious meat!!!













So that's how we spent our 4th of July. Smoking meat!