Tales from the Front

[KonaRich]

After that rollicking adventure cold smoking cheese around 10 weeks ago, I'm once again approaching my little ole' MES40 with its mailbox mod with another cold smoking assignment: A big bunch of Costco hot dogs.

Load those beautiful dogs in, fill my pellet tube with mesquite/oak blend (that 20 lb bag is going down real slow when used for smoke only), fire it up, place it in my mailbox with my lava rock propping up the front end, wait until the pellets all burn (5-6 hours), remove, bag, tag, freeze the resulting vastly improved tube steaks.

Those intervening hours will be put to good use, involving drinking, napping, web surfing, and eating junk food.

Maybe next time, in another few weeks, I'll smoke some st louis ribs. That will have to wait, as I still have enough in the freezer for 2 more meals both of us.

Tonight: gyros, tzatziki sauce, pita bread, and Belgian Wit beer - all home made. (no smoking involved).

Life is good.

 

[Compulsive Smoker]

Sounds good! You have any pictures?

 

[KonaRich]

Sounds good! You have any pictures?

Cold smoking hot dogs isn't that picture worthy. Making homemade gyros is, but i have no pics of that, since we're using a portion from the last time we made it many months ago.

After grinding and mixing the meats and spices we load measured portions into gallon size zip lock bags so it flattens down thin. That represents a 2-person portion.

Freezing all the bags allows us to remove one, cut off the plastic and cook it up in a pan immediately. It cooks in a very short time, and can be cut in the pan using a spatula into rectangles, then plated, or stuffed into a split pita bread for sandwich style, then pile on the sauce. Tomatoes and onions on the side, or in the pita pocket, of course.

There are zero Greek restaurants on this whole lava rock island, so, like so many things, it's DYI or do without.

 

[forktender]

How can you call it cold smoking in Kona?
It's 100 degrees here right now, and I was hotter on your island when it was 85 degrees.
I've never even thought of smoking hot dog's, I have to try this now.

 

[KonaRich]

How can you call it cold smoking in Kona?
It's 100 degrees here right now, and I was hotter on your island when it was 85 degrees.
I've never even thought of smoking hot dog's, I have to try this now.

It's a balmy 80 degrees here. The humidity at the moment is 76%. That heat index can really make a difference. No such thing as "dry heat". Sorry, not sorry. :D

 

[forktender]

Cold smoking hot dogs isn't that picture worthy. Making homemade gyros is, but i have no pics of that, since we're using a portion from the last time we made it many months ago.

After grinding and mixing the meats and spices we load measured portions into gallon size zip lock bags so it flattens down thin. That represents a 2-person portion.

Freezing all the bags allows us to remove one, cut off the plastic and cook it up in a pan immediately. It cooks in a very short time, and can be cut in the pan using a spatula into rectangles, then plated, or stuffed into a split pita bread for sandwich style, then pile on the sauce. Tomatoes and onions on the side, or in the pita pocket, of course.

There are zero Greek restaurants on this whole lava rock island, so, like so many things, it's DYI or do without.

I absolutely love Greek food, I learned to make a mean tzatziki sauce from a man I met in a physical therapy, that was straight off the boat from Greece. The key is wrapping the yogurt in cheese cloth and suspending it above a bowl in the refer over night to drain off the liquid.
A few times you wrap the yogurt into a ball and twist the cheese cloth to tighten around the yogurt to squeeze more liquid out of it. Doing so makes the yogert thicker and creamier. I never knew this step, anther thing he taught me is you co the same thing with the grated cucumber.
He used twice the amount of grated garlic as I used to use, and a palm full of grated red onion, and minced dill, zest and juice from one lemon.
I freak'in love tzatziki sauce, I can eat half of the bowl with toasted Pita bread bushed with olive oil with sesame seeds, with S&P on it all by it's self. I like it with red bell pepper slices, carrot and celery sticks as a snack. I'll make it a few times a year for appetizers to munch on while watching football games, everyone loves it.
But talk about garlic breath, he taught me to use a whole garlic bulb grated into one large container of yogurt. I love garlic, but one whole bulb of raw garlic is a little too much for me, I use half a bulb when I make it.

 

[forktender]

It's a balmy 80 degrees here. The humidity at the moment is 76%. That heat index can really make a difference. No such thing as "dry heat". Sorry, not sorry. :D

The next time we visit, we are going to try to come in December or January, just to break up our winter.

 

[KonaRich]

I absolutely love Greek food, I learned to make a mean tzatziki sauce from a man I met in a physical therapy, that was straight off the boat from Greece. The key is wrapping the yogurt in cheese cloth and suspending it above a bowl in the refer over night to drain off the liquid.
A few times you wrap the yogurt into a ball and twist the cheese cloth to tighten around the yogurt to squeeze more liquid out of it. Doing so makes the yogert thicker and creamier. I never knew this step, anther thing he taught me is you co the same thing with the grated cucumber.
He used twice the amount of grated garlic as I used to use, and a palm full of grated red onion, and minced dill, zest and juice from one lemon.
I freak'in love tzatziki sauce, I can eat half of the bowl with toasted Pita bread bushed with olive oil with sesame seeds, with S&P on it all by it's self. I like it with red bell pepper slices, carrot and celery sticks as a snack. I'll make it a few times a year for appetizers to munch on while watching football games, everyone loves it.
But talk about garlic breath, he taught me to use a whole garlic bulb grated into one large container of yogurt. I love garlic, but one whole bulb of raw garlic is a little too much for me, I use half a bulb when I make it.

OPA!!