Atomic buffalo Turds, Revisited

Almost five years ago, I posted a recipe blog for the crazy spicy delicacy called Atomic Buffalo Turds here on the Barbecue and Beer blog. Since then, it has been featured on the White Trash BBQ blog and even The BBQ Report. After all this time, the Atomic Buffalo Turds post continues to be the most viewed post of the blog. While I am still not a great writer or photographer, both skills have improved since that time as well general BBQ knowledge and skills. It is humorous to look back at the post see how far I have come.

Beyond my own growth, the ABT recipe itself has also come a long way as well. There have been several blog posts featuring a similar recipe such as this one on Hogwild BBQ. Most recently, the talented crew at BBQ Addicts (home of The Original Bacon Explosion) has provided their new take on an old recipe. The photography and graphic design is much better for sure and the results look delicious!

ABT's continue to be a favorite of my family and friends as well. Rarely is there a fire in the smoker without some ABT's on the grates. Below are some pictures from one of the last cooks in a simplified version, minus the lil smokies. While there is always room for improvement, the photography has come a long way.

BBQ Chicken Bacon Ranch Taco

In this weeks Taco Tuesday challenge, it was a battle of the BBQ chicken tacos. Although, it was not much of a contest against my girl's mad skillz. While I can admit defeat on this challenge, I will maintain that my Chicken Bacon Ranch Taco was indeed worthy of an honorable mention.

My smoked Chicken Bacon taco with topped with Ranch Salsa




Her Smoked Chicken Taco with cilantro Caesar ranchero cheese, salad and pinto beans with jalapeno's

So it has Begun

My free pre-release copy of the Full Plate Diet book arrived in the mail today. This diet was created by the Lifestyle Center of America (read the back story here), a non-profit organization "whose only mission is to improve the health and vitality of hum beings around the world". This is a well planned spiral bound book beginning with The Full Plate Concept as chapter one then walking you through the steps of changing your eating habits. The general concept being that you add fiber to your meals by way of fruits and vegetables. Easy and basic. Loaded with recipes as well as lessons and instruction, it looks like the Full Plate Diet will be easy to follow.

Taco Fail

The wonderful woman in my life and I have turned Tuesday nights in a semi-challenge with Taco Tuesdays. It all started innocently enough with a little chatter about not having to decide what to make for dinner on Taco Tuesdays. We both enjoy cooking and sharing our food adventures through pictures so it It didn't take long before this came as a challenge between us to make the better taco. She is an amazing cook with the unlimited creativity of an artist and the hands of a surgeon so the idea of one-upping her is not an easy task to take on. As we create our different tacos, I will post pictures and recipes as a series in the blog.

This week, I decided to stick with a traditional ground beef style taco and shift my focus to making my own puffy style fried taco shells using Maseca Corn Flour. I made the the tortillas as per the directions on the bag and rolled them into little balls. With a dutch oven full of hot oil, I began pressing these balls into gorgeous flat tortillas. Well at least I tried to make gorgeous flat tortillas. This is where some nice tools like a tortilla press or even a rolling pin would have come in handy. I could quickly tell that a lack of these simple tools was going to be a distinct disadvantage.

After using every thing I could get my hands on to smash these little balls into a semi-recognizable tortilla like shape, they were carefully folded into the hot frying oil. Unfortunately the Home Sick Texan made this look at lot easier than it really was. In the end, we had some pretty tasty nachos on a bed of homemade fried puffy crumbled tortillas that were not worthy of a picture.

Luckily, I had a huge advantage this week as my sweetie was unable to make it to the kitchen which allowed me to take this week by default. Next week, I wont be so lucky!

The Full Plate Diet

As I was reading the Monday Morning Memo this morning, Roy introduced us to a new book by the name of The Full Plate Diet. I am not big on the idea of chasing diet fads and looking for easy answers to all of life's problems. Everyone knows that the trick to losing weight is simple math, burn more calories than you take in. Even though it seems so simple I have the hardest time feeding myself and my family healthy foods and getting the exorcise we need. You can read all the diet books in the world and nothing will help you until you are ready to make a change to your own behavior and self control.

After I read the memo my interest and curiosity was peaked. Just like any hungry fish in the sea, I took the bait and ordered up my pre-release free copy. The only catch is that they want feedback on how it worked. Now as a taker of the free pre-release copy, I agree to share my thoughts and experience using this diet method. Therefor, this is the beginning of a new journey which will document here for the record.

Promises, Promises

I have been very unfaithful to my poor little blog over the years so I am now looking to fix that problem. Writing is not a strong point for me which makes the whole blogging thing very difficult. It is not for a lack of ideas, rather a lack of organization of my thoughts and spitting them out in a legible format. Maybe I should not have slept though all those classes at school. Whoda thunkit?!?

Things have changed in many ways since the time I started the Barbecue and Beer blog and I have a lot to talk about. I have gone from building a smoker for the backyard to competing in BBQ competitions to creating and building a marketable brand. All of this said, I have a lot of great things to blog about.

Now for the promise.. I promise to myself and to my poor little neglected blog that I will dedicate the time needed to create at least one blog entry per week about a BBQ or beer related issue. So, starting at this point I will start posting entries to the Barbecue and Beer blog as well as the Sograte BBQ Blog. K, that's it for now, see you soon!

Oh and don't forget to subscribe!

"Life's a Pitch, Then You Buy It" - RIP Billy Mays

Every time I turned on the TV, this man was yelling at me about some life altering product. Some of these products became common house hold items. Whether or not you ever bought anything Billy Mays was selling, you were familiar with his face, his voice and his pitch.

In April of 2009 Discovery Channel launched a new series featuring this unique man and the team behind him called Pitchmen. In a single episode, Pitchmen earned my respect. In a single episode, I was no longer annoyed with these commercials selling a magic putty, drill mounted hole diggers and other seemingly crazy products. I was now mesmerized with Billy Mays and his producer Anthony Sullivan for the process of finding products that thought would be useful in our lives. The insight into the process of finding products to pitch, the effort put into giving the consumer maximum value was eye opening. The Pitchmen series quickly became a 'must see' show along with Deadliest Catch and Man Vs Food.

Billy Mays made many peoples dreams come true. He spent his life bringing other peoples inventions to a very broad market. Billy put everything he had into closing the sale, no matter what the product was. What an inspiration to us aspiring entrepreneurs.

On June 28th 2009, Billy Mays was found unresponsive by his wife. The fascinating pitch man had passed. With my new found respect for his booming voice telling me why I need Oxy Clean or Kaboom, I will truly miss this man yelling at me about his latest product.

Discover Channel will be airing a tribute show to Billy on on July 9th.

May GOD bless your soul, Billy Mays!