Amy Speace "It's Too Late To Call It A Night"

BBQ Pigmeat Pistolettes

Scratch dough made with leftover cheesy jalapeno grits in the dough

Chopped leftover bbq pork, with some chopped up leftover succotash mixed in. This is the filling for the pistolettes

Filling on a piece of rolled out dough ~ fold over & seal edges, then onto buttered baking pan for second rise

Today's Blue Plate Special ~ $3.95

Chopped BBQ Pigmeat ~ hot off the trunk monkey, dusted with a lil' more of my house blend bbq seasoning

Sauced and sided up wit some cheesy jalapeno grits and succotash

Lunch

Let's Talk Bar Stools

I'm in the market for a couple of new bar stools to put at the island in my kitchen...and as you know, I'm a big fan of a company called Cymax...so the first place I looked for bar stools is their website called HomeBarSelect.com which is another one of their fine family of online shopping websites. WOW...what a selection they have!! Every kind of home bars, pub tables and bar stools you can imagine, wooden barstools, metal ones, modern styles, retro styles...you name it, they got it. They are all reasonably priced, and many of them are on sale & shipping on most of them is free. Win-Win. I've purchased a number of items from Cymax in the past, and have always been very happy with their customer service, shipping is fast, etc. They never disappoint. I like the retro look of chrome barstools, so these are the two styles that I'm considering ... similar, but just different enough that I have a decision to make. Almost all my kitchen appliances are black, so I will get black seat covers on the barstools.

Hash Brown Casserole & Brownies

Homemade hash brown casserole, topped with a buttery crushed ritz/asiago/pepperoni topping

Before the crumb topping was added

Scratch brownies - to make hot fudge brownies ala mode fer dessert

The Great Lenexa BBQ Battle

Neil "Blue Spoons" Hughs, Yours Truely, Bruce "Willdog" Williams

This past weekend was the big bbq cookoff in Lenexa, KS ( a burb of KC ) and it brought back some good memories of when I dabbled in comp bbq back in the late 80s ... I was working as a professional chef in KC at the time, and had a couple of teams: Swine Of The Times and Habitual Hickory Hobos ... I didn't know spit about comp bbq cooking, but we sure had a lot of fun.

Kaw-Cajun Breakfast Skillet Scramble

Farm fresh eggs from the farmer's market, new taters & bermuda onions from lil' missy's garden, my homemade spicy breakfast sausage, Tillamook cheddar ... sided with sourdough toast & homemade rhubarb jam ~ chased wit a cuppa dat good community coffee. Sunday breakfast on da bayou.

Jerk Chicken

Bone-in chicken breasts, cut in half, marinatin' in homemade jerk sauce

Jerk chicken, crunked up to the moon ... hot off the trunk monkey

Olive/asiago primavera toast (on crusty rosemary sourdough) - toasted under broiler until golden brown & bubbly ... and a few oil cured olives stuffed with maytag blue cheese

BBQ Pigmeat Is What I Crave

BBQ pigmeat (pork steaks on the trunk monkey ~ sauced with Smoky Mountain Smokers Original) and oven roasted taters & Vidalia onions

Tater & Vidalia, quartered & tossed wit olive oil & seasonings - into hot & nasty oven to roast

BBQ pigmeat, hot off the trunk monkey

Panzanella Salad

Romaine hearts & iceberg lettuce, garden fresh bermuda onions, oil cured olives stuffed with maytag bleu cheese, salami & pepperoni, baby swiss and cheddar (and a lil shredded asiago), tomatoes & crusty rosemary sourdough ... all tossed with some dat good Newman's vinaigrette

Pigmeat Is What I Crave

Carne Adovado Indian Tacos

Now, THAT'S a taco!!!!

Adovado Beandawgs

All beef dawgs, grilled and topped with homemade pintos in adobo, shredded Tillamook cheddar, garden fresh bermuda onions ... cold beer chaser. Crunky plowboy fine dining on the down low.

Keb Mo - Folsom Prison

Spaghetti And Meatballs

Mama Mia ... datsa spicy meatball

Meatball mixture ~ breadcrumbs, egg, asiago, red pepper flakes, mushroom duxelle, herbage and the Italian holy trinity ... made for some killah meatballs

Meatballs simmerin' in a big ol' pot of homemade meat sauce

Sunday Breakfast On Da Bayou

A lil' bacon grease in da pan ... 3 farm-fresh eggs, lil' diced ham, bermuda unyawns & peppers from Missy's garden, fresh mushrooms w/thyme, Tillamook cheddar ... badda boom it's omelette time, baybee

Perrydize Bacontater Salad

Burgers Smokehouse bacon folded in the redskin tater salad

Redskin Tater Salad

Made with baby new redskins and garden fresh bermuda onions from Missy's Perrydize Garden

They call me "tater salad"...

Perrydize Mish Mash

Pot holders made from an old pair of Levis ... pretty cool, eh? My friend, Lil' Missy, made these for me. Can be used as oven mitts also, by putting hand in pockets. Genius.

A few garden goodies from Lil' Missy's garden ~ gonna make a redskin tater salad wit them baby new taters.

Made a good salad with some of the other goodies from Missy's garden

Cream chicken gravy, made with pan fried chicken drippins

Scratch buttermilk biscuits - hot out the oven

Biscuits & Chicken Gravy S.O.S.

Suck a Lil' Head, Nibble A Lil' Tail

Let's Talk Dining Room Furniture

Buffets and sideboard servers ... specifically sideboards. I LOVE these pieces of furniture, and my good friends over at Cymax have a wide and varied selection of some of the most beautiful dining room buffets and sideboards that I have seen. You can find the entire collection at Dining Furniture (one of the family of Cymax online stores) ... or you can go directly to the Buffet Tables and sideboards.

I have relatively simple traditional taste in furniture, so I like the buffet tables pictured above. One of them is made with pine wood, and the other (darker) one is made with oak wood ... I'm having a hard time deciding which one I like best, but my dining room has an oak table and an old antique roll-top desk in it already, so I'll probably go with the oak sideboard. There are many other more modern styles to choose from, something that will please everyone ~ regardless of your preferred style. Many of these pieces are currently on sale, and to sweeten the deal Cymax is offering free shipping on most of them.

Chicken Adovado

Chicken leg quarters, after braising tender in homemade adovado sauce

Browning the chicken first, in the ol' Griswold black iron ~ after browning, smothered with adovado sauce, covered & into oven to bake tender

Chicken after being pulled off the bones & shredded ~ drizzled wit a lil' the pan sauce. Will use this shredded chicken for enchiladas, soft tacos, etc.