Pork Shoulders

So Chef Butts got us two pork shoulders for this weekend. I picked them up Saturday afternoon at about 5 and started the process of cleaning and firing up the smoker. I figured these would take 12-14 hours so I ended up using the Minion Method for a long burn with steady temps.

The Minion Method consist of filling a chimney starter about 3/4 of the way full and then dumping pretty much the rest of the bag of charcoal, mixed with the variety and amount of whatever type of smoke would you choose, into the ring on a Weber Smokey Mountain smoker. I have the 22", so the 18" might not hold the rest of the entire bag. From there you light the coals in the chimney starter and when they're ready, you dump them on top of the coals in the smoker. The few coals that are lit will get the smoker up to about 250 degrees without getting it too hot and making it hard to bring the temperature down. They'll slowly light the coals underneath allowing for steady temps and a long cook time.

Now, onto the meat.

Steak Roll Up

What you need:
Steak (Flank, hopefully)
Asparagus
Baby portabella mushrooms
BBQ saws (WV slang)
Provolone cheese
Garlic
Salt
Pepper
Popeye's wife

The mix is chopped asparagus, chopped baby portabellas, minced garlic, salt & pepper sauteed in some olive oil to soften it up a bit.

Usually I use flank steak sliced in half to make a long thin piece to roll up, but the local podunk grocery store didn't have any so I ended up with one of there "Flat Iron Grillers". I sliced the top 1/3 almost all the way through leaving just enough to henge open. Then from the top hinge, I sliced another 1/3 back to other way doing the same for a nice long thing sliced piece of steak.

Layered with Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ, provolone, and then the mixture and rolled it, skewered it, then cooked it to a medium rare/medium. I don't have any finished photos, but it didn't survive the onslaught of the 5 people that were in the kitchen when it came out of the oven.

Spare parts from spare ribs

So Sunday night was an easy night. All the left over trimmings from the ribs went into a put with BBQ sauce and a cup of water at a time. It was simmered for about an hour or two, adding water when needed.

After it was cooked long enough, the leftovers were pulled and more BBQ sauce was added for some very tender pulled pork. So I think I lived off of those ribs for a little over a week.