Happy Mutants food and drink topic (Part 1)

The ribs were great, even considering they were my first attempt, ever, at smoking anything. Yes, you read that right.

Lessons learned: The smoker tube works well but it’s hard to refill when it’s hot. A second tube would be handy. I refilled the tube twice, but I really didn’t need the third load of smoke. The digital thermometer is an absolute necessity, and it was important to get it in the right location to be accurate. The gas grill was surprisingly easy to keep on temp once I figure that out.

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I hope they taste as good as they look!
I went the opposite route and made sticky ribs with the instant pot for dinner. It was all I had the energy to deal with. Sautéed some baby bok choy and beech mushrooms to go with.

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Awesome! Those look juicy!

homer drool GIF

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NICE.

Put a water pan under the grates. Over the burners.

Even better fill it with sand. If you can’t do indirect with space. Do it with thermal mass.

It’ll take a longer pre-heat to hit temp. But everything will be much more stable.

We do whole pigs on a direct heat charcoal grill. Fill the bottom with the fire. Then rake it around the edges and stick foil pans full of sand through the whole center of the grill.

Completely changes the heat dynamic, you’re basically just going indirect by cooking though the residual heat.

We went with sand over bricks cause it’s super cheap, my folk’s house is walking distance to a beach.

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What do you do with 2 week old stale chocolate babka? Make bread pudding of course! Now in the oven.

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The best Rice Noodles I have found: Three Ladies Brand.
Hopefully to be used today for a pork belly noodle soup.

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For some reason yesterday I decided not to have any Coffee, alcohol, and err… other. And today woke up with a splitting headache.
Laurie said I was in withdrawals. But after my normal 2x double demitasse espresso this morning the headache is almost gone!
WtF? Really?

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Bought one, haven’t tried it yet:

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caffeine withdrawal = bell-ringer of a head splitter! no thanks!

rice noodles: i used to get Three Ladies Brand when i lived near Asian markets. i get to one in miami now and again to stock up on stuff like that, fosh sauce in 750ml size, galangal, lime leaves, fermented bean curd, lap xuong sausages and other stuff not typically found at Publix.
today i used some of those rice vermicelli (not the flat sticks in your pic) in a Thai/Lao fish curry, kanom jeen nam ya. we had it on lettuce leaf “boats” topped with my som tam thai sour green mango salad, thai basil, bean sprouts and crispy fried shallots. had to order out for some key ingredients like the shrimp paste and krachai a “fingerroot” type ginger used in tom yum.
explosion of flavors like what i used to get at a Cambodian deli kitchen in the back of this tiny grocer market in West Seattle.

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fish finger pizza?! ok. i’m down. would try (with an abundance of sriracha over the fish fingers)

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Season 11 Reaction GIF by Curb Your Enthusiasm

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Oh my goodness! Yes, I would buy this to try too.
Pretty much my philosophy to try any food once.
Things I will not eat again are boiled duck feet (really weird texture), squid in its own ink out of a can, what was I thinking? I love squid ink pasta I guess and thought what the heck.

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Erm, you’re forgetting the rule of threes. Unless you’re counting each duck foot as it’s own thing, we need one more example of a food you tried once but will not eat again. :wink:

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Good point.
This may be controversial, Okra.
Perhaps the recipe? It was slimy and obnoxious.
It has be suggested that I should try them fried.

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fried okra is good!
pickled okra is a winner, too. great garnish for one of those “salad bar” bloody marys at sunday brunch

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I know what you mean. While I was joking, I found it really hard to think of 3 foods I wouldn’t try again. Because maybe I just had them prepared the wrong way.
Scrapple comes to mind.
Also, no longer interested in eating jellyfish sushi, thank you very much (was like a lemony frisbee, so much chewing!).
And okra any way other than breaded and deep fried. (Or pickled, thanks, @FloridaManJefe). It once ruined a lovely “harvest pie” I made. So slimy :nauseated_face:

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Oh man top and tail, a little oil, some garam masala, and salt. roast for 15-20, or more if you want em wrinkly, also roast a little cumin seed in the oven for a couple minutes, take it out and grind it. Mix plain yougurt and a bit of salt to taste, fold the okra in, sprinkle cumin on top.

No slime, loads of flavor.

Another thing a friend of the family from Pakistan showed me is that chopped, and covered in abundant lemon juice, the slime goes away in a few minutes, he then cooked it with tomato and spice… I assume the acid in the pickle vinegar is similar.

I love em pickled, but love pretty much anything that isn’t sweet pickled.

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Thank you!
Though low on my list in the past perhaps I should try everything 2 or 3 different ways!

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…jellyfish sushi…
Just sounds wrong.

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This topic was automatically closed after reaching the maximum limit of 5000 replies. Continue discussion at Happy Mutants food and drink topic (Part 2).