BBQ Shrimp

First off....New Orleans Barbecued Shrimp are not BBQ'd. No BBQ sauce, No charcoal, No grill required.

If you have never had these, you have not yet fully lived. Even if you do not like shrimp, you need to eat a few of these just to be sure. If you still do not like them, your taste buds are defective.

New Orleans Barbecued Shrimp are cooked a little different by every cook that makes them. There is no wrong way, per say. Some are better than others though. If you google New Orleans Barbecued Shrimp you will find no less than a couple hundred recipes. I have tasted many different styles and I think I liked every one of them. I did decide that I like this way better than the rest though. For me, the real enjoyment and they way these are meant to be eaten is, the messier the better. I cook them whole, heads and all. Just tails works fine. Peeled is ok, so long as you make a couple adjustments.

THESE ARE EASY TO MAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! DON'T BE SCARED BY READING THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! BE BRAVE AND TRY IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I will give the recipe for 2 pound of shrimp, you can adjust for the amount of shrimp you have. However, about 2 pounds is the most you should cook in the pan at one time. If you need 4 pounds to feed the family, just cook 2 pounds at a time. It only takes about 5 mins to cook the pan full of shrimp. There will be sauce left in the pan, just drop the next load and keep cooking. Add a little more butter or beer if needed, probably won't be necessary. If you need to cook more than 4 pounds, you will need to add more butter, seasonings, and beer to make enough sauce. Just eyeball it.

You will need a large saute pan for this recipe. Big wide flat bottom, straight walls. Frying pans don't make great saute pans. You also need a wooden spatula or spoon. Plastic is dangerous. It melts and explodes in your face! Plastic is for milk jugs, not cooking utensils.

2 pounds of JUMBO whole RAW shrimp. Never buy cooked shrimp you plan to cook! Frozen is fine, just put them under COLD running water and they will thaw in about 10-15 mins. Try to get whole shrimp with heads and shells. If you can't find them, just get the JUMBO tails with shells on. If you want to eat the finished product with a fork and not your fingers, then peel the raw shrimp before you start. Keep the shells!!!! Please try this the first time with the shells on, please.

2 sticks of real, salted butter. Do not substitute butter flavored vegetable spunk. If you can't eat butter, stop here and go fix a spinach salad.

2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil. EVOO from here on.

1/2 a sweet onion, chopped

1 tablespoon of minced garlic, more is good

1/2 tablespoon of Creole Seasoning, I use only Tony Chachere's in the green can.1 tablespoon of Paprika

1 tablespoon of Old Bay's Seasoning

1 tablespoon of Rosemary, I used dried, but fresh is better.

2 Bay Leaves - Not required, but I always use them

1 teaspoon of fresh ground black pepper

1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper - more if you like to sweat.

1/4 cup of Worcester Sauce

1/2 a good beer - or a cup of white wine. Both give good results. I like beer better.

2 lemons, peeled and sectioned, like you would do an orange.

Prep:

Peel the lemons and section them

Chop the onion

Measure dry spices and mix together in a bowl

measure out Worcester sauce

Wash the shrimp, peel if your a sissy. Save the shells

Drink 1/2 the beer

*start a pan of water for corn on the cob, if you're gonna eat that with the shrimp.

Weenies read this:

If you decided to peel the shrimp, your gonna need a couple more beers. I hope you bought enough.

Take the shells and heads if you have them and put them in a small sauce pan with a 1/2 a beer. Bring them to a boil, reduce heat and let simmer for 15 mins. Remove from heat and allow to cool 15 mins. Strain liquid off the shells and heads and save for later. See, you just took like 45 minutes extra to keep from peeling your shrimp while eating them. I guarantee it would have been faster to just peel them as you ate. I hope you at least drank a couple beers during this time.

OK, now on to the good stuff:

Add the EVOO to the saute pan on high heat

Add the onions and garlic and rosemary, saute for a couple minutes

Add the Worcester Sauce and continue cooking on high heat, stir like hell! You want to reduce the sauce, but not burn it!

After a minute of bubbling, add the butter and melt. Keep stirring like hell! Keep reducing, keep stirring, don't burn it!

Add the dry seasonings, lemons and beer. Weenies, use your shrimp shell flavored beer stock here.

Bring to a boil and add your shrimp.

Stir and shake the pan, keep the shrimp moving, keep coating the shrimp in the sauce. Make sure you get the ones on bottom off the bottom and the ones on top to the bottom.

Cook on high heat for 5-7 minutes. 5 minutes for peeled or small shrimp, 6 for shell on tails, 7 for head on whole shrimp.

Take it straight to the plate, spoon some sauce over the shrimp.

(OK Weenies, here is one way you redeem yourselves. Since you have peeled shrimp, after the first 2 mins of cooking, reduce heat by half, add a cup or more of heavy cream slowly, ever so slowly while stirring like hell. Cook 3 more mins or a little longer to thicken. This will make a wonderful creamy sauce. If you just dump the cream in, it may curd up and ruin the whole pan. Go slow and you will be fine. This is excellent served over linguine noodles.)

Careful now, these suckers will be freakin' hot! I have burned the ends of my fingers badly trying to eat these too fast.

Use French Bread to soak up the sauce. This is almost as good as the shrimp. Don't even think about serving this dish without french bread to go with it.

I make corn on the cob to go with the shrimp. I just roll the corn in the shrimp sauce left on the plate, no need to butter or salt it. Using the french bread and corn to soak of the sauce is usually deemed more acceptable than licking the sauce off the plate. But, do whatever you have to do to get all the sauce your arteries can withstand.

Jason’s Chicken Salad

Jason’s Chicken Salad 

1 Rotisserie Chicken - deboned approx 3-4 cups of chicken meat

3/4 to 1 cup of 50% Mayo and 50% Sour Cream - add half and check consistency. 

2-3 stalks of celery - chopped

1/2 to 1 cup of chopped pecans or walnuts

1-2 Granny Smith Apples - diced smallish

1/2 cup Dried Cranberries

1 cup of grape halves

1 teaspoon of Dijon or brown mustard

1/2 Lemon - squeezed juice

Salt and Pepper to taste

Serve chilled on Wheat Ritz Crackers with pieces of iceberg lettuce or baby spinach 

Breakfast at the beach (aka Bloody Mary Mix)

This mix is best if it's made the day prior and allowed to sit in the fridge overnight. Target sells a Rubbermaid 1 gallon MixerMate bottle that is perfect for storing this mix.

You can use tomato juice or any of the V8 tomato juice blends, or even Clamato juice. The recipe below uses two of the V8 tomato juices 46oz bottles. This fits well in the 1 gallon container and makes enough mix for the weekend. You can easily cut the recipe in half for a smaller crowd. 

1   46oz Bottle of V8 Original Tomato Juice

1   46oz Bottle of V8 Spicy Hot Tomato Juice

3/4 cup   Lemon Juice

3/4 cup   Lime Juice

1 cup   Dill Pickle Juice

1/4 cup   Prepared Horseradish

1/3 cup   Worcestershire Sauce

3 teaspoons   Tabasco Sauce

1 tablespoon   Celery Salt

2 teaspoons   Coarse Ground Black Pepper

1 teaspoon   Garlic Salt

Add all ingredients to a 1 gallon container and stir or shake well. Allow to sit overnight in the fridge for best flavor. 

Add any of the following as garnish for the Bloody Mary

Crispy Bacon

Stalk of Celery

Olives

Cheese Cube

Pickles

Pickled Asparagus

Pepperoncinis

Cooked Shrimp

Lime Wedge

Lemon Wedge

Rub a lemon wedge around the rim of a glass or mason jar and coated the rim of the glass in the following mix. 

2 tablespoons of Margarita Salt

1 tablespoon of Celery Salt

1/2 tablespoon of Smoked Paprika

Stir together and place on a clean dry plate. Wet rim of glass with a lemon wedge and twist rim of glass on plate. 

Dr. Pepper smoked ham - Whiskey style!

My wife bought a big 19.5 pound ham for me to smoke for Easter. Of all the things I have smoked over the years, I have never smoked a ham. Luckily I know where to find out how, The BBQ Brethren forum did not let me down. I read several posts about what to inject with, what to glaze, how much smoke, how long, ect. Let me digress, my wife called me last Wednesday and asked if I wanted her to order a "Dr Pepper Ham" from the butcher for Easter. She said she had tasted a sample and it was very good. Baahhhh! I ain't paying 50.00 for a ham that someone else smoked. NO WAY! So she bought a ham and I agreed to make it a Dr Pepper ham. There are a couple recipes on the net about Dr Pepper ham glaze so I atleast had a starting point. After reading the instructions for Dr. Chicken's Double smoked ham I was ready to start concocting. Here is what I came up with:

First, get a big ham! Try to find one that isn't spiral sliced. In subsequent attempts, I tried one that was sliced and it was good, but it was dryer and not nearly as tasty as the non-sliced version. Shoot it up with the injector as early as you can, leave the plastic wrap on it, put it in a foil pan, shoot it up and put it in the fridge. Turn it over a couple times, like every 6 hours. All that good juice will be in the plastic and will soak in more. 

I smoked mine at 225 degree untill it reached 140 degrees internal temp, it climbed a little after sitting for an hour. Make sure you leave enough time to let it rest when you pull it. I smoked mine on the smoker rack, but then moved it to a foil pan the last hour when I started glazing it. Then I just tightly foiled the pan when I took it off and let it rest.

This is great on biscuits and egg rolls the next day. Not the Chinese kind of egg rolls, the yellow rolls they sell at Win-Dixie deli. 

Injector Recipe
1 cup of Aunt Jamima Butter flavor syrup
1 cup Dr. Pepper
1/4 cup bourbon, George Dickel at my house.
1/4 cup orange juice, no pulp
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

Combine all ingredients in a sauce pan and heat to combine. No need to boil, just get it warm and mix it well. Allow to cool and inject with a large kitchen injector needle. 

Glaze Recipe
1 cup of Dr. Pepper
1.5 cups of light brown sugar
1/2 cup Orange Juice
1/2 cup Bourbon
1 tablespoon of Dijon mustard
1/4 cup of honey
2 Tablespoons of Apple Cider Vinegar
1-2 Tablespoons of Worcestershire Sauce
2 Tablespoons of instant coffee granules (or 1/2 cup of strong coffee) 
6-8 whole cloves
2-3 stick of cinnamon

Combine in a sauce pan, bring to a boil, and simmer till thickened to a syrupy consistency. Glaze the ham in the last hour of cooking, or even when it's removed from the smoker to allow to rest. 

Hog Apple Beans - These are the best baked beans!

I have made these a few times, but I changed it up just a little. I had apples, not apple pie filling, so I used two apples and fried them with butter, sugar and cinnamon. I didn't have Blue's Hog sauce, so I used some homemade sweet BBQ sauce. Blue's Hog sauce is very sweet, so any sweet sauce would be good. I don't care for green pepper, or should I say it doesn't care for me. Either way, I left it out. I used about 1/2 pound of bacon and 1/2 pound of HOT breakfast sausage. That's a full pound less meat than the recipe calls for, but I wanted these beans as a side, not a meal. 

These are an awesome side to add to any BBQ. 


Here is the original that can be found all over the internet. 

Keri's Hog-Apple BBQ Baked Beans

3 or 4 slices bacon, diced
2 (27 oz) cans Bush's Baked Beans
1/2 c. Blues Hog BBQ Sauce (or other sweet-spicy favorite)
1 lb. smoked leftover smoked pork or beef, more or less,
or 1 lb crumbled cooked pork sausage (a maple flavor pork breakfast
sausage is good)
1 (15oz) can apple pie filling, pieces somewhat chopped up
1 medium onion, chopped
1/2 green pepper, chopped
1/2 c. brown sugar
2 Tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
2 Tbsp. Mustard (prepared)
1 tsp chipotle or cayenne powder (optional, to taste*)
1 tsp Blues Hog barbecue rub (or your favorite bbq rub)

Brown bacon, and saute onion and green pepper in bacon grease.
Mix in remaining ingredients. Bake at 325 F for 1 hour, or simmer
on stovetop in large pot for 30 minutes if you don't have time
to do them in the oven. Serves 12.

This recipe began life as APPLE PIE BAKED BEANS from somewhere
on the web, but I think I've made enough changes to it now to
claim it as my own. This is my standard for baked beans anymore.
Jack's Old South does something similar to this, but I understand
that they use peach pie filling instead.

*This is a rather spicy recipe due to the chipotle/cayenne powder.
Feel free to leave it out if you'll be feeding those who prefer
a less spicy taste.

Recipe created by Keri C, of Tulsa, OK

Slaws I've known...

Cole Slaw, Vinegar Slaw, Mustard Slaw, Red Slaw... I love them all.

Here are a few of my favorite slaw recipes, saving the best for last...

Southern Cole Slaw - on the side or on top of a BBQ sammich.

• 1/2 head green cabbage, finely shredded
• 1 large carrot, finely shredded
• 1/2 cup best-quality mayonnaise (Bama Mayo)
• 1/4 cup of buttermilk 
• 1 tablespoons sour cream
• 1 tablespoons sugar, or to taste
• 1 tablespoons white vinegar
• 1/2 tablespoon dry mustard
• 1 teaspoons celery salt
• Salt and freshly ground pepper

Mix together and chill before serving. 


Vinegar Slaw

• 1/2 cup distilled white vinegar
• 6 tablespoons sugar
• 6 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 teaspoons dry mustard
• 1 teaspoon celery seeds

Combine in a non-reactive sauce pan and heat till sugar is dissolved. Allow to cool completely before mixing with cabbage.

• 1 medium cabbage (about 1 1/4 pounds), thinly sliced
• 1 small sweet onion, thinly sliced
• 1 large green bell pepper, thinly sliced

Combine with sauce from above and refrigerate for 1 hour to 1 day. 


Spicy Mustard Slaw - Great on top of a grilled brat or grilled beef sausage with BBQ sauce.

• 1/2 head green cabbage, finely shredded
• 1 large carrot, finely shredded
• 1/2 of an onion, finely shredded
• 1/2 cup Spicy Brown Mustard
• 1/4 cup white vinegar
• 1 teaspoon of hot sauce 
• 1 teaspoons celery salt
• Salt and freshly ground pepper

Mix together and serve. Not necessary to chill, but good either way. 


Sarge's Hot Slaw - This is my take a slaw I first tried at Sarge's Steakhouse.

• 1 granny smith apple, chopped small
• 1 small bell pepper chopped fine
• 2 jalapeno peppers chopped fine
• 1 bag of coleslaw cabbage/carrots mix
• 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar
• 1 teaspoon of cayenne pepper 
• Mayo - as much as is needed, 1/2 cup or so.
• Salt and black pepper

Carolina Vinegar BBQ Sauce

Carolina Vinegar  Sauce

This sauce started as a recipe from the BBQ Bible that I have tweaked till I have one that suits me. I keep a gallon of this made up in the fridge at all times. I use it to add to other sauces or for basting or just a good bbq sauce for pulled pork.

2 1/2 Cups of White Vinegar (or apple cider vinegar if you like it)

1/2 Cup of Thick BBQ sauce (use spicy sauce if you like hot)

1/2 cup of water

2 tablespoons of brown sugar (white sugar works too)

4 teaspoons of salt

4 teaspoons of Red pepper flakes (like you put on pizza)

1 to 2 tablespoons of hot sauce (Crystal or Tabasco or your favorite)

1 teaspoon of black pepper

1 teaspoon of white pepper

1 teaspoon of dry rub (still good without this)

1 to 2 teaspoons of cayenne pepper

You can add store bought BBQ sauce a little at a time if the vinegar is too much for you or if it is too spicy for your taste.

Mix all this together is a big jar or jug and shake it till the salt dissolves.

You can brush this on a little during the last hour of smoking. I just put a bowl of it on the table and spoon a little over my smoked pork.