We've been busy!

We've been getting alot of mail from the blog and our facebook page. Some with reviews others with recipes. Here's a great review for the Texas EZ Hook. I truely am a fan of these. They make flipping steaks a lot easier. These are made in the USA! Now you know it's quality! Check it our for yourself!
The EZ Hook

A GREAT COLLARDS RECIPE

This was submitted by Home Team BBQ of Charleston, SC

1 gallon water
3 cups cider vinegar
1/4 hot sauce
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup kosher salt
2 to 3 shoulder bones or smoked hamhocks
1/2 # smoked pork shoulder, chopped or pulled
2# collard greens, cut in 2" strips

Bring water to a simmer. Add cider vinegar, hot sauce, brown sugar, and kosher salt. Add bones or hamhocks for flavor and simmer for 25 minutes. Add greens and smoked pork. Simmer lightly for 2 to 3 hours or until tender.

If you try this recipe, send us some pictures and a little review letting us know how you liked it.

Do you love the taste of food cooked over a charcoal fire but don’t like idea of using a product with actual “coal” in it?

I know I love grilling over a charcoal fire. The smell, taste of the food, and just that type of heat alone takes me back to my time growing up, family functions, or just being out back with my father when he stoked up our old charcoal grill. The food just tasted better!

Today most of us are looking for a healthier way to do things and really watch what we put into our bodies. For a lot of people the idea of cooking over a charcoal fire using a product that consist of scrap wood, hardwood chunks and coal dust just doesn’t sound all that appetizing! Well there is good news, Humphrey’s Charcoal now has a 100% natural product that consist of hardwood chunks and instead of using coal dust, it uses a 100% natural binding agent that is even consumable when further processed. The actual mixture of course is an industry trade secret but was shared with us so we could verify the information. The 100% Natural Briquettes are uniform in shape and have a similar appearance to traditional charcoal but without any of the additives. The briquettes light relatively easy in a chimney starter or with an organic fire starter pack.

If you want to recreate those memories of cooking over a charcoal fire for your family but don’t want to use a product with coal dust in it we recommend Humphrey’s 100% Natural Hardwood Briquettes.

Celebrating Maine

If you are in the Eliot, Maine area this weekend, stop by the Raitt farm and get yourself some good BBQ. There's crafts, blues music, guy selling t-shirts, BBQ and of course Humphrey's Chips and Chunks will be set up. Stop on by and show us your support.

The prices are down it’s a good time to grill up some lobster!

The combination of hearing about the Maine Lobster Festival in Rockland, Maine happening this weekend and the price of Maine Lobster being the lowest I have seen it in years if not decades prompted me to go ahead and try grilling up some lobsters. Now most of us have probably had lobster cooked one or two ways and the most common is the traditional boiling. Here’s how we went about grilling some up!

Lobster is just about available anywhere now a days. You can go to your local supermarket, fish market and even some variety (convenience) stores and end up being able to buy yourself a couple lobsters. Here in Maine we kind of have an advantage, and with the price and demand being low, the lobstermen are selling right off their boats on the sides of the road, that fresh! Soft shells are in season now and that is what we ended up with and the following is the procedure we used in our preparation.

1. Line your grill with aluminum foil
2. Pre-Heat your gas grill to a temp. of approx. 450 or prepare your charcoal fire to the same temperature.
3. Melt some butter on either your side burner or on your stove top. Use caution to not over heat, or burn the butter. Another thing you can try is infusing the butter with different spices or items to add flavor.
4. Place the lobster on its back.
5. Insert a sharp knife between the tail and the body to cut the spinal cord
6. Split the lobster in half and clean out the entrails and digestive track
7. Coat the lobster with the melted butter (use caution melted butter burns very badly!)
8. Remove the elastic bands from the lobster claws because they may melt under the heat
9. Place the lobster on the aluminum foil on the grill with the flesh side down.
10. Cook the lobster until the meat starts to firm and get cooked marks. (Lobster meat is very gelatin like until it is cooked.)
11. Add more butter to the lobster and place back on the foil with the meat still down, cook until meat is firm.
12. The claws seemed to take a couple minutes longer to cook than the body so we removed the claws and cooked them for about 3 more minutes by themselves.

Serve the lobster with the remainder of melted butter for dipping and enjoy! Believe it or not a really good side with lobster is rippled potato chips! Try it.

If you have cooked up any shellfish on your grill let us know, we are always looking for new things to cook!

Picture supplied from http://hubpages.com/hub/Grilling-Lobster-Tails-Recipe