I didn't see a place/topic for soups and I'm bettin that some of the ol' pros on here have tried this, but being a novice smoker compared to many of you I'm gonna describe what I did and see if there are some variations out there among the rest of you all.....
Back before Christmas we had a shop chili feed at work. Just as an experiment I tried something when I made my batch of chili. I used 2 Lbs of hamburger and seasoned it with salt and coarse black pepper and made 2 big 1 Lb patties. Put them in the smoker and then placed a cakepan full of beans and onions on the rack beneath the patties. I filled the smoke box full of hickory chips and let the smoker do it's thing until the patties were fully cooked.
The meat drippings ran into the pan and coated the onions and beans just like I had hoped, with the beans and onions picking up some smoke as well. I added the tomatoes to the pan for about the last 30 minutes. I then took the whole mess out of the smoker and poured it into a stock pot and added tomato juice and additional seasonings (aka chili powder, cayenne pepper, etc...) The big hamburger patties were broken up into pieces and added.
It got pretty good reviews from the guys at work and rather than make chili the way I normally do (on the stove with a dash or two of liquid smoke) I was able to use this approach and get a similar if not better chili.
Back before Christmas we had a shop chili feed at work. Just as an experiment I tried something when I made my batch of chili. I used 2 Lbs of hamburger and seasoned it with salt and coarse black pepper and made 2 big 1 Lb patties. Put them in the smoker and then placed a cakepan full of beans and onions on the rack beneath the patties. I filled the smoke box full of hickory chips and let the smoker do it's thing until the patties were fully cooked.
The meat drippings ran into the pan and coated the onions and beans just like I had hoped, with the beans and onions picking up some smoke as well. I added the tomatoes to the pan for about the last 30 minutes. I then took the whole mess out of the smoker and poured it into a stock pot and added tomato juice and additional seasonings (aka chili powder, cayenne pepper, etc...) The big hamburger patties were broken up into pieces and added.
It got pretty good reviews from the guys at work and rather than make chili the way I normally do (on the stove with a dash or two of liquid smoke) I was able to use this approach and get a similar if not better chili.