Monthly Roundup - February, 2008

The best from cyberspace in the past month. It seemed to be a slow month in the food blogging world.

• Sandy at Junkfood Science debunks the recent mercury in tuna scares scares. It pays to do your research, folks.

• The nacho cheese fountain via Serious Eats. This is brilliant!!

• Another hilarious hot sauce from the Hot Sauce Blog: Ass Murdering Hot Sauce!

• The Paupered Chef goes on a bourbon tour. I do love me some bourbon and Woodford is one of my favorites.

• Not Martha makes a bacon bowl. This is one of the best things I've seen in ages. My regular readers know that I believe bacon is a gift straight from God. I'll definitely be trying this sometime. They could even make a salad fun!!!

That's all I got, but I will leave you with this great photo from Carl Huber. If you ran accross something cool in the cybersoup this month that I missed, let me know.

Monthly Roundup - January, 2008

The Monthly Roundup is back after a brief hiatus. A few of these are from November and December.

• Serious Eats tells us about the most expensive coffee in the world. I had heard of this stuff before and was taken aback because the beans are collected after they are ingested and crapped out by an Asian Palm Civet. I don't think I'd drink this stuff for 5 bucks a pound, but at 200 dollars a pound, forget about it. I think I'll stick with Folger's, thanks.

• Four (or five) reasons why ribs totally rock!! This is a nice little website I read daily through Google Reader. From their website:

  This is a blog devoted to lists on a wide variety of topics - usually offering four or five items/reasons, although we do reserve the right to do more if the mood strikes us.

• Wired Magazine Online is one of my many geek websites that I like. They put Thanksgiving Dinner under the microscope in a really cool piece last November.

• Whitetrash posts a survey from the National BBQ News about what BBQers use for fuel, sauces, etc. It's an interesting survey, and not surprisingly, BBQers cook a lot, make their own sauces, and use mostly charcoal/wood. The survey is skewed because the people frequenting the BBQ News are more serious about their cooking than your average weekend warrior, but it's interesting nonetheless.

• Everything should taste like bacon!!! I couldn't agree more....so do these guys.

• This is all over the web, but Serious Eats tells us that the FDA has approve meat from cloned animals for human consumption. A lot of people are up in arms over this. I'm not one of them. First, you're not going to be eating the clones anyway. They are way to expensive to be cutting into steaks. You're going to be eating their offspring (who won't be clones). Secondly, there is no reason to believe that the cloning process fundamentally alters the animal anyway. Much ado about nothing, in my opinion. I'm thinking of writing a full post on this subject sometime soon.

• Ten ways to make a better burger via Men in Aprons. I'm a minimalist when it comes to my burgers. A little salt and pepper and a dash (seriously, just a dash) of wooshy-wooshy when I'm making the patties. Cook em' over medium-high heat, flip em' once, and melt some cheese on em' at the very end. mmmmm, good stuff.

• Big Iron BBQ tells us how to unstick a stuck gas regulator. I didn't know this. If you'll recall I just got a gas grill in September after an 8 or 10 year stint without owning one. Learn something new every day, I guess.

• The BBQ Guy shows us how to prepare and cook brisket. His method is pretty much how I do mine, with the exception of the Jaccard. I've never thought of puncturing the hell out of my brisket. It's definitely something I'll be looking into. Another think the BBQ Guy mentioned is that he prefers CAB briskets (a lot of people seem to). To me the meat grade (scroll down) is much more important. Unlike the BBQ Guy, I've had a lot of luck with briskets from Sam's. Both here in Nebraska and in Houston the Sam's sells choice beef (not all do). The reason folks like CAB is that nearly all of it is graded prime. Remember, CAB is a brand name, not a grade. I've cooked a select brisket once and there is definitely a difference between select and choice or prime. I've never cooked a prime brisket, but it's on my "to do" list.
  

Monthly Roundup, October, 2007

Wow. I didn't post in the entire month of October. Life got in the way and I just didn't get it done. I did manage to get one smoke session in and I'll have a couple posts up in the next few days. I neglected my RSS feeds over the month, too. I went through them the other day and had over 400 food related posts to pour over. I picked out a few gems for you to enjoy.

• Beyond Nose to Tail: More omnivorous Recipes for the Adventurous Cook. Serious Eats reviews this interesting new cook book. I haven't bought a cookbook in awhile, but this may be my next purchase.

• A guide to pork. The Chef from Hell tells us all about pork cuts with short explanations on how to prepare them. If you're unsure where each cut of the pig comes from, this post is for you.

• Get Your Grill On posted a couple recipes for reusing BBQ....pulled pork noodle bowl and brisket chili. Two things to note here. If you haven't tried Rooster Sauce (formally sriracha sauce, but I think "rooster" sauce sounds better) used for the noodle bowl, go get you some. It's a fantastic chili sauce. Secondly, try to think outside the box with your BBQ leftovers. They will be good in just about anything.

• Men in Aprons ponders what they could not live without in the kitchen...and comes up with onions. I thought about this for awhile and it's a pretty tough question. I would probably choose bacon because everything tastes better with bacon added to it.

• Pros and Cons of Frying your Turkey, also via Men in Aprons. I'll be frying a turkey this year. It's been awhile since I've done it, but they are oh so good. I'm considering smoking one as well for leftovers. I may do a pork shoulder or something, though. Be on the lookout for post Turkey day postings. They mention the fact the frying can be dangerous as a con of frying a turkey. It can, in fact, turn dangerous in a hurry, but if you're careful and don't do anything stupid you'll be OK.

• World's Largest Fatty via Plowboy's BBQ. I don't know if this is really the world's largest fatty, but it sure is impressive.

• Family's Eating Together via Serious Eats. I'm a firm believer that healthy families eat their meals together. My wife and I ate our meals in front of the TV 90% of the time until our daughter was old enough to eat in the high chair with us. Now, the four (daughter #2 is about to graduate to a booster seat from the high chair) of us are at the dinner table about 6 PM every day. It's an important part of the day to spend with your family, especially your kids.

• Also from Serious Eats, It's Hog Killing Time! Actually they call it hog "butchering" time, but growing up we called the late fall chill in the air, "Hog Killing Weather", so I went with what I'm used to. This post brought back fond memories of killing hogs, putting up hams and fatback, and making sausage as a youngster. I don't do that anymore, but I am buying a whole hog this year and having it butchered at a local slaughterhouse. Come the first of December I'll have more pork than you can shake a stick at...and I can't wait!!

• Give the Gift of a Homemade Cookbook, via Slashfood. A couple years ago, my wife compiled all my recipes (my own and some favorites of others) into a three ring binder. She personalized it with pictures and labels and stuff. It's great to have everything in one place and is one of my favorite gifts ever from the missus. Both my wife and my mom are fantastic cooks, and they love cooking for friends and families. Last Christmas my mom made a cookbook (another 3-ring binder) of all her favorite recipes and gave it my wife and my sister. I can tell you from the look on their faces that it was far and away the best present they received last year.

Monthly Roundup, September, 2007

Time for another link roundup. Blogging has been light for the last week or so. I haven't cooked much and been super busy. Mrs. Hog and I have gotten busy with Church and biking (finally found a cheap trailer to haul the kids around) in the last couple weeks. When I've had free time I've been playing a little Halo 3 on the Xbox 360. Anyway, to the links!!!

• Cupcake crackdown via Serious Eats. It really is a shame when political correctness gets out of hand like this. I mean, denying kids a cupcake to celebrate birthdays....come on.

• Alaina from Serious Eats visited Wilbur's Barbecue in Goldsboro, NC this month. Wilbur's holds a special place in my heart. It's on the way to the beach from where I grew up (and we went to the beach a lot) and we stopped there to eat many, many times per year. It was especially fun when you were caravaning and had enough people for them to serve it family style....mmmmm, good!!

• Whitetrash rediscovered his library this month. I often forget about the piles of cookbooks I have. I really need to start digging them out more.

• Plowboys BBQ had the opportunity to participate in Operation BBQ. This was a great way to show appreciation for our men and women in service to our country. I would have loved to participate.

• The HellChef tells us all about sausages. This was a very informative post for me.

• The HellChef also tells us how he learned to love grits. I can't imagine why somebody wouldn't love grits in the first place!!!

• Why the BBQGuy competes in contests. I wish more competition bloggers would make posts like this.
  

• Men in Aprons defines "blackened" as it pertains to blackening foods. They then give us a recipe. I love me some blackened fish. I've cooked and eaten tons of blackened dolphin (mahi mahi) and tuna....fresh, like caught that day by me (or my Dad). It is fantastic. There is not much my Dad liked more than fishing and cooking his catch.

• Learn about the CSREES via slashfood. Lots of good info from the CSREES.

• My last link is not a blog. It's the Walmart product page for a Brinkmann stainless steel gas grill. Mrs. Hog and I celebrate five years of marriage on Friday. ***insert the "I can't believe she stuck with you that long jokes here*** She surprised me with the grill when I got home from work (no ahe didn't pay 600 bucks for it...almost half of that). That muther is huge. I've only cooked hot dogs and pork chops on it so far. After I get a few cooks under my belt I'll write up a little review for you. I've got to remember how to cook with gas...it's been 10 years or so.
  

Monthly Roundup - August, 2007

I'm starting a new thing here on the blog. At the end of each month I'm gong to to a little link roundup to interesting blog posts/articles I've read in the last month. They won't all be about BBQ (most will, though) and they will come from both commercial and private blogs/websites. They are linked here in chronological order (I think).

So, without further ado, here is the very first Hogwild BBQ Monthly Roundup.

• How to delay herbal death via Serious Eats. I really hate losing fresh herbs after only using a small portion of them.
  

• Better than Bad Sex BBQ Sauce via Hot Sauce Blog. While I'm not sure than any BBQ sauce is better than sex (even bad sex), this has got to be the best BBQ sauce name ever!! BTW, if you're a hot sauce junkie, the Hot Sauce Blog is must visit.

• Turducken Review via MeatHenge. I've always wanted to try a turducken. This one looks fantastic.
  

• How to Smoke Eggs via Howling Hog BBQ. I saw a post somewhere several months ago about smoking eggs (don't remember where) and forgot all about it. The next time I smoke overnight I'm gonna have smoked spam and eggs for breakfast.
  

• Electronic Temperature Controllers via BBQguyblog. I've read a lot about using thermostats to control your pit temp lately and I agree with the BBQGuy...that would take a lot of the fun out of it for me.
  

• The Bull Shot: A Meat Cocktail via MeatHenge. This thing sounds disgusting, but I like vodka and I'm intrigued. I will defiantly be trying this after my next suitable cook (probably not with the spam and eggs breakfast, though). I'll let you know how it goes.
  

• Cooking at home vs. at a competition via Bucky's Barbecue. I don't compete, but I've talked with and read a lot from folks that do. Some say they cook the same way at a comp vs. at home, but I would think it would be different. This is an excellent post on the differences between cooking at home for the family and cooking at a competition.
  

• Waiting for Service via Serious Eats. There is not much worse than getting sorry (or no) service when you're out to eat. This picture captures that frustration pretty well, I think.

There you go. If I missed an informative or funny article over the course of the month (I'm sure I did) feel free to leave a link to them in the comments.