Pulled Pork Dinner

Today we had Tony's mom, Rick, grandma and my mom over for dinner.  We smoked a pork shoulder for 7+ hours and made some amazing pulled pork sandwiches.  For sauce, I didn't want to risk making my own.  I've got a killer BBQ sauce, but pulled pork needs a tangy vinegar based sauce and Tony had the answer.

BBQ Pete's makes great sauces.  Their regular Puyallp Fair sauce is a great traditional BBQ flavor, and their 'zesty pulled pork sauce' is exactly as it says.  Tangy, zesty and a perfect combo with smoked pork. You can find Pete's at most local grocery stores.  They're also the BBQ restaurant at the Puyallup Fair!

For dessert I made a peach and blueberry cobbler.

All sugared up and ready for the dough.

Baked and ready for eating!

Peach and Blueberry Cobbler
Filling:
1 lb peaches, pitted and cut in to 1" chunks
3 c. fresh blueberries
3/4 c. sugar
3 Tbsp cornstarch
1/2 tsp almond extract
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Topping:
1 1/4 c. flour
1/4 c. sugar
3/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

1/4 c. unsalted butter, cut in to chunks

3/4 c. buttermilk

Sugar for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Grease a 9x13" pan with butter.

Mix all of the Filling ingredients together and pour in to baking dish.  Bake until filling is hot and bubbly, usually 20-30 minutes.

In the meantime, make the topping by stirring together the flour, sugar, baking powder and soda, and salt in bowl.  Add butter and mash with hands or cut in to dry ingredients until mixture looks like coarse sand.  Slowly add buttermilk while stirring.  Mix together just until dough forms.

Take fruit out of oven and reduce temperature to 375.  Drop the topping by sproonfulls on to fruit and sprinkle with some sugar for added sweetness.  Bake for 15-25 minutes or until topping is golden.  Test topping with toothpick to make sure dough is baked through before pulling out of oven.  Let cool slightly and serve with homemade whipped cream or vanilla bean ice cream. YUM!

Family Party

My family from Austin and Scottsdale are in town for a few weeks so tonight we hosted a party at our house for the entire extended family.  It was so fun seeing everyone together!

Texas doesn't do a very good job of recycling.  We attempted to make things clear to my Aunt, but she likes to stick to her motto while visiting Seattle, "When in doubt, leave it out".  (And... we're a little obsessed with compositing and recycling at our house)

13 adults (and a few kids that LOVE ribs) = a lot of ribs...

Gabe brought about 3 dozen oysters from the cabin...

The cousins loving their dinner! (Jack, Walker, Christopher, Blake, Emily) 

Smoked Salmon Dip

Our smoked salmon turned out great and tonight I made a very easy dip (thanks Sarah!) consisting of just smoked salmon, cream cheese and diced green onion.  No real recipe for this other than using 8oz of cream cheese, and add as much smoked salmon and green onion as you prefer.  I also put in fresh cracked pepper.

Serve on a platter with crackers, veggies, and grapes.  Don't stand too close to this appetizer though... you'll eat too much of it!

Rabbits and Carrots

This morning I spotted my garden enemy, the neighborhood rabbit.  Our regular visitors are much bigger, so I'm guessing our rabbits had babies.  Now I have even more critters to keep out of the garden!

You can see the rabbit near center of below photo, hopping straight for the veggie garden!

I headed straight out to the garden to scare the rabbit away and thinned out some carrots.  Two of the carrots look like they became very close...

Blue Kus (pronounced: Blue Koos)

One of my favorite cocktails on a hot day? A Blue Kus of course.  A glass of ice, shot of blueberry vodka (or two), and topped off with club soda.  Garnish with blueberries skewered on a cocktail stick or toothpick.

I ran out of blueberries this morning, so just pretend that strawberry is a big 'ole blueberry! :)

Carrots and Cucumbers

Today I let Blake pull a carrot from the garden.  He has been asking to have one, and I'm impatient and wanted to see how they were growing.  So we pulled one and although they're only about 3-4" long at this point, it tasted SO good!  Amazing how fresh, homegrown vegetables have such a great taste compared to ones that are mass produced and linger in the stores.  Now if we can just keep our neighborhood rabbits away!

A few of the cucumbers almost ready for picking...

Smoked Salmon

Today we are attempting our first batch of smoked salmon.  The above picture is around hour 15 of the process... air drying the salmon after it brined for about 12 hours.  Once it is dry we'll begin the smoking process. We're crossing our fingers that it works because it smells so good!

Fresh from the Garden

I was very proud to serve our salads tonight.  Everything was fresh from our garden! So cool.  Lettuce, cucumbers and snap peas.  Blake told me how cool it was that the basic Bisquick biscuits I made came from the garden too.  Hmmm, I wish!

Bisquick Biscuits

1/3 c. butter
2 1/2 c. Original Bisquick® mix
2/3 c. milk
Butter or margarine, melted

Heat oven to 450ºF.

Cut firm butter into 1/4-inch pieces. Toss Bisquick mix and butter pieces with fork until coated. Add milk; stir just until milk is absorbed (do not overstir).

Turn dough onto surface dusted with Bisquick mix. Knead 5 times. Pat to 1/2 inch thickness. Cut with 3-inch cutter. Place on ungreased cookie sheet with sides touching for soft sides or 2 inches apart for crispy sides.

Bake about 9 minutes or until golden brown. Brush with melted butter.

Oh, Snap!

Clearly I should have been paying more attention to my snap peas in the garden.  Blake helped me pick a big bucket full, and many were the size of my hand!  oops.  Note to self, check peas daily...

Margs and Ribs

Today I surprised Tony with homemade margaritas and slow cooked ribs.  It turned out he was having a rough day, so this was the perfect pick-me-up.

What I like to call margarita eggs...

Ribs.  Oh heaven.  Just rub your favorite bbq spices (I'd have to kill you if I shared my secret recipe) on the ribs the night prior.  Start up the bbq (and yes, you can use gas, charcoal, or smoker) on low so the meat will have indirect heat. No direct heat please!  Slowly cook until the ribs are tender - depending on your cooking method it can take anywhere from 4-8 hours.  I mop the ribs every 30-45min with a apple cider/apple vinegar/water mix to help keep them moist and add a slight 'crust' to the spices. When meat starts shrinking back from end of the bone you know they're getting close to done.

Serve with your favorite bbq sauce and sides.  I prefer my ribs 'dry' with only the rub.  But, if using sauce I prefer using B-Man's BBQ or Pete's BBQ (both are local and available at QFC). Oh, and a fresh margarita of course!

Los Brisos (or Las Brisas?)

My mom's infamous cocktail.  It is so refreshing and so deadly - you can't taste the alcohol... And one is never enough.  I believe the correct spelling is Las Brisas (the breeze in spanish - though if you Google this version there is a totally different drink recipe), but it is my mom's drink so she gets to name it whatever she wants!

There really isn't a recipe, just a list of ingredients:

Limeade concentrate

Anejo Rum

Splash of club soda or water

Wedge of lime

Place above ingredients in a glass with ice and enjoy!

4th of July Cake

Today I was excited to attempt the patriotic flag cake I posted about earlier.  After baking two red, one white, one blue round cakes I ended up with a pretty awesome finished product. I'll definitely do similar cakes in the future! 

So tasty, and so cool to cut in to and see everyone's reactions!  The perfect end to a fun patriotic pool party!

Rosemary Lemonade

I've talked about this recipe before, and have to post it again.  It is that good.  I made this rosemary lemonade recipe for our pool party.  Its a nice change from the usual yellow or pink lemonades, and a little more adult oriented (kids don't always love the rosemary taste).

I finally used our electric juicer.  We received it as a wedding gift and I have NO idea why I haven't used it until now.  I mean, its only been in our pantry for almost five years!

Making the simple syrup and adding rosemary to flavor the mixture only takes a few minutes.

Rosemary Lemonade2 c. sugar

2 c. water
4 large sprigs of rosemary
2 c. fresh lemon juice (do not use store bought lemon juice)
4 c. water
rosemary sprigs for garnish

Stir together sugar and two cups of water in saucepan to make simple syrup.  Add rosemary sprigs.  Stirring constantly, bring to a boil.  Remove from heat and let cool.  Strain syrup.  Mix together syrup, lemon juice and four cups water.  Add fresh rosemary sprigs.  Chill.  Serve with ice.