With the July 4th holiday being the first three day weekend we have had in a while, I was really excited to do some cooking outside. The last few weeks have been rather warm, but it cooled off a bit this weekend which was for hanging outside. Thursday night we visited friends and had some slow cooked pork loin which was delicious and went well with the plethora of beer and wine that was served.
Friday we had my mother over and I used a gift certificate that I was saving to Hoss’ Meat Market. I picked up a couple of 16 oz USDA T-Bones and fired up the grill. For side I cooked some Anaheim Peppers that were split, filled with cream cheese, and wrapped in bacon. They are a takeoff on the ABT’s made with Jalapeno peppers and slow smoked. These were great but by the time we got through with the steaks we were a bit full.
After everyone left on Friday evening a fired up the smoker around 9pm and rubbed down two 9 pound Boston Butts for Saturdays pulled pork. I used my favorite Carolina Spice Rub that I have been making for a while and that adds just the right amount of heat to the meat. Using the Minion Method on the smoker of lighting just a few coals and dumping it over a full bed of unlit charcoal, I got the temp up to 225 degrees fairly quick. The meat went on at 10pm and I set the remote thermometer alarm and went to sleep around midnight. Unfortunately, strong storms rolled thourgh around 2am and caused me to have to go out a make a shelter for the smoker. I finally got the temp back to around 230 degrees and fell back asleep. When I got up and around Saturday I check the temp but the pork ended up sitting at 170 degrees until 4pm when they finally rode through the plateau and hit 190. Sixteen hours later I had these two beauties below just in time to serve everyone.
It was a great weekend and enjoyed being outside cooking. Hopefully I won’t have to wait until Labor Day to do it again!
