Sausage & Cheese Breakfast Roll

July 27th, 2010

This is an easy recipe that is always very popular.

First you will need to get:

(1) 8oz. package of sausage. (We use Jimmy Dean. You can use their “hot” variety for an added kick)

(1) 8oz. package of shredded cheese. (We use cheddar, but anything will work)

(1) Tube of Pillsbury French bread dough.

(2) Large eggs.

The first step is to get the EGG set-up for indirect cooking (legs up!) at 375 degrees.

While the EGG is heating up brown the sausage meat in a skillet, cook until brown and drain. Set aside and allow time to cool.

Browned sausage meat

Next take your dough and unroll it on a large, clean, & flat surface. Using a rolling pin you want to try to flatten the dough to about 15 x 9 inches. I obviously went a little bigger, which is fine.  

rolled out dough

Once the dough is laid flat and the sausage has cooled you can add the cheese and eggs to the sausage. Season with salt & pepper.

cheese, sausage & egg mixture

Take the mixture and spread it evenly across the laid out dough.

Ready to roll!

The next step is the only difficult part. You’ll want to fold over one section of the dough and then roll it up like a jelly roll. The dough can tend to get sticky so using a little water on your fingers helps. The faster you go the better this seems to work out. Trying to roll the dough to slowly will lead to holes in the dough and frustration for you.

Once it’s rolled it should look similar to a big burrito.

almost ready for the EGG!

Finally just grease a bundt pan and drop the roll inside.

Ready to go!

Place the pan on the EGG and cook at 375 degrees for 45 minutes.

after 45 minutes

perfect

Once the roll is done cooking remove it from the EGG. Place the bundt pan over a large plate and the roll should fall right out. Slice and enjoy!

All done & ready to serve

Blue Moon Roasted Chicken

June 25th, 2010
At a recent cooking class I learned about brining and how much it can add to the flavor of what you’re grilling. I decided to try it out myself and blog the experience. To start out I got one whole chicken and brined it for about three hours. You can add all kinds of stuff to your brine, but since this was my first time I went pretty basic. My brine consisted of 1 gallon of water, 3/4 cup salt, and 3/4 cup pure sugar mixed together. Just place the brine and the meat into a large contained and let sit. You can brine anywhere from an hour to overnight.

Once the bird was done  brining I took it out and dried it off. I then very carefully removed the back bone and split the breast bone to get the chicken to lay flat.

brined chicken cut flat for grill

The night before we had been given some special Blue Moon seasoning and we decided to give it a shot. You could use it either as a rub or a marinade.

special seasoning - with orange, corriander, cumin, etc.

We decided to try it as a marinade, but had to substitute some of the ingredients it called for.

Their recipe:

8 tbs. Blue Moon Spice Rub (Equivalent to 1 bag)

2 tbs. Olive Oil

2 tbs. Orange Juice Concentrate

2 tbs. Blue Moon Beer

Our recipe:

1 bag Blue Moon Spice Rub

2 tbs. Olive Oil

3 tbs. Orange Juice

2 tbs. Bud Light Honey Wheat

marinade ingredients

Once the marinade was ready we put it and the chicken into a large zip-lock bag and let it marinade for about 2 hours.

whole chicken with marinade

after 2 hours

We then took the chicken out of the marinade and dried it off a bit before putting it onto the EGG.

ready for the grill!

I had the EGG heated up to about 300 degree and set-up for direct heat. I put the bird on breast side down hoping to get the skin crispy.

start out breat down over direct heat

make sure to get all those juices on there

I let the chicken cook like this for about 12 minutes before I flipped it. In hindsight I probably could have let it go a bit longed on that side and gotten the skin a bit more like I wanted it. Either way this was still looking pretty good.

halfway there!

When I flipped the chicken I also threw some asparagus on the EGG to steam in aluminum foil. This gives the asparagus a nice smokey flavor.

smells amazing!

Twenty minutes later everything was done. When I pulled the chicken off the grill it was so tender that one of the legs almost fell right off.

falling apart it's so tender!

I can honestly say that this is probably one of the best chickens I have ever had. I didn’t think chicken could be so juicy. The flavor from the marinade worked wonderfully with the meat and you could taste it throughout. The two us picked this bird clean in no time. It’s definitely something I would recommend and try again.

Pulled Pork Pizza Tacos

June 18th, 2010

I started out with some leftover pulled pork and small white corn torillas.

White Corn Torillas

Then covered the torillas using bbq sauce like you would on a pizza.

tortillas with bbq sauce

From there I coved them in mozzarella cheese and the pulled pork.

with shredded mozzarella cheese

ready for the EGG

The EGG was set-up for indirect heat at about 350 degrees and with the pizza stone.

almost there!

The pizzas needed to cook for just about 5 mintutes and were ready to come off.

Ready to come off the EGG!

These are delicious!! The corn torilla gets a bit crunchy, so it’s like a taco, but has this delicious bbq flavor from the grill and pulled pork. I suppose you could serve them with lettuce, tomato, and sour cream to make them more taco(ey), but quite honestly they are great just as they are.

just fold and eat!

Enjoy!