Tag Archives: Cookout

BlizzNasty.

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BlizzNasty began yesterday around 1pm and continued until about noon today. With nearly everyone in Chicago with a snow day we decided to throw together a last minute cookout.

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Foraging

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Julie and I headed out into the neighborhood for supplies.  We made our way to Dinkel’s Bakery which was packed considering the 18 inches of snow on the ground.  We picked up a couple donuts for our neighbor and got a batch of pretzel buns for our cookout.  Then we headed back up Lincoln to Paulina Meat Market which was also open. We were their first customers of the day, so we scored some burgers and charcoal.  It was great to know that with all the snow both places with in walking distance were open.

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SnowBBQ

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At around 2pm we started the cookout, we used the snow as a cooler and we setup the chairs and table in the middle of the snow.  We spent about two hours in the yard as the burgers cooked.  The sun was out and the weather was really good considering all that has occurred in the past 24 hours.

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Train Football

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After our cookout we headed down Marshfield in search of a suitable football field. We ended up playing under the Brownline Paulina Stop for a little one-on-one Train Football.  I’m pretty sure we’ll all be feeling this for the rest of the week.  A running game is probably the best option in this weather.  As you can see in the video above I’m pretty sure I blew my knee out.

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Side Notes:

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* We also did take time out of the day to push a car.

** The rest of my photographs are here and Julie’s are here.

Lobster Bake

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After extensive research and a couple of days of planning we pulled off our first Lobster Bake.

The Ingredients:

8 two pound lobsters
40 little neck clams
4 ears of corn
6 red potatoes
4 links of italian sausage
1 bag of rockweed seaweed
A bunch of kosher salt

The Plan:

We planned to steam everything together except for the lobsters. I don’t have a pot big enough to do 8 lobsters and all the other stuff so we decided to boil the lobsters four at a time in their own pot. Since we were doing all this outside we just fired up the grills and put the a pot on each grill until the heat was right.

First we put water into both pots with a good amount of kosher salt.  Then we started the steam pot first, using a steamer rack, I set the the majority of seaweed down first, then the potatoes and corn. On top of the corn I put the rest of the seaweed and then I put the sausage on top. Finally we added the little neck clams which we put in cheese cloth to keep them together. This did leave room to probably do four lobsters but not the whole eight. I let the steaming go for about 30 minutes and then I began the boiling on with the other pot. Once I got the second pot to a boil I put in 4 lobster and when they were done I moved them over to the steam pot while I finished the other 4 lobster in the boil. This way everything was hot and done completely at the same time.

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Side Notes:

* The full set of pictures are on Flickr here.
** The rockweed is key, regular seaweed won’t really cut it. Rockweed has small pockets of air throughout the leaves that burst and produce steam as it heats. This is what really brings the smell/taste/vide of the sea to the lobster boil.
*** When I do this next year I’d like to either get a bigger pot or split the whole process equally into two pots. That way I could steam all of the lobster with the rest of the food.
**** We got all of our seafood from Dirk’s Fish and Gourmet Shop here in Chicago.  We were able to place an order for everything we wanted on Monday and it was all ready to go and fresh Saturday morning.  Dirk’s was on point enough to give me a call first thing in the morning to let me know that the Great Neck Clams I ordered weren’t good but they could substitute them for Little Neck Clams which were farm raised.  This was a plus in my book as I didn’t have to worry about cleaning the clams and getting all the sand out.
*** The aftermath:

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Fourth of July BBQ.

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Yesterday was our second annual Fourth of July BBQ and once again I spent the better part of the day smoking ribs.  This year we changed things up a little bit.  We didn’t use nearly as much rub (Dinosaur BBQ’s Cajun Foreplay Spice Rub) and we also smoked the ribs for a longer time (6.5 hours).  This made a huge difference in my opinion.  The ribs were much more tender and the taste from the rub wasn’t over the top.  When the ribs were done smoking I put them in foil and covered them with Dinosaur BBQ’s Sensuous Slathering Sauce and then threw them back on the grill for about another hour.  For table side sauce we tried some new stuff from Rufus Teague which was great.

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Despite raining the entire day the weather let up around 7pm which was perfect.  We had a good showing and we might have finished off the bottle of Singleton.  A good time was had by all.