Sunday, May 8, 2011

Temple Air Show

Got sunburned out at the Temple Air show yesterday.  Minus the grass fire the pyrotechnic guys set off to delay the show for a few hours, there was a lot of great stuff out there.  I took over 200 pics, but here's my 12 favorite from the day. 



And in a rant on the stupidity of the BATFE and federal regulations, the pyrotechnics guys that delayed the show and started a grass fire?  Didn't blow off all their charges before the fire.  And, because the fed govt thinks none of us monkeys should be trusted with anything more dangerous than a spork, they require any explosives purchased for a show to be used that day.  So, the pyro guys got to set off another explosion, after starting one grass fire that came very close to getting out of hand.  Heaven forbid we use any sort of common sense, we can't have any loose explosives running around out there in the hands of trained pyrotechnic specialists!  Death to the dry grass!  /rant.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Sweet and Sour Shrimp kabobs

These were tangy and delicious.  I only wish I'd had more stuff to put on the kabob with them. (examples of good additions might be pineapple, cherry tomatoes, zucchini or squash)

A pic on the grill:

Ingredients:
1/2 cup barbeque sauce
1/4 cup pineapple preserves
1/4 cup lemon juice
4 teaspoons soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
2 lbs of large shrimp
2 large green peppers

Combine first 5 ingredients in a saucepan, bringing to a boil over medium heat.  Remove from heat and cool.  set aside 1/2 cup of marinade for basting, put the rest in bag with shrimp.  Marinade at least 30 minutes, but an hour would be better.  You don't want to go much longer than 1 hour with any citrus based marinade or it starts breaking down the meat. 

Grill uncovered over medium hot for 2 minutes on each side, then another 8 min total or until shrimp are pink.  Turn and baste throughout. 

Coming up in the next few days, I'll talk about 1911s, and why you should love this classic pistol design as much as I do.

Until then, anther dinner pic:  Beer is a Shiner Blonde (can ya tell I like the Texas beers?)

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Not grilling, but good

Found this recipe in a book and decided to try my hand at baby back ribs.  These are super simple, but they HAVE to be in the over 2 hours before you want to eat.  Now that the timing disclaimer is out of the way, on to ingredients.

Enchilada Roasted Baby Back Ribs

1 packet of fajita seasoning mix
4 tablespoons of brown sugar
A slab of baby back ribs, obviously
Dijon mustard
1 can of enchilada sauce (I use hot, but go by how spicy you like things)

Preheat oven to a scalding 250 deg.  Mix fajita seasoning and brown sugar.  Brush mustard onto both sides of ribs, then sprinkle the fajita sugar mix onto them.  Roast ribs for 2 hours.  (if you put ribs directly on rack, put foil on bottom rack to catch drippings).  Remove from oven, turn on broiler.  Brush enchilada sauce on both sides.  Put ribs meat side down onto foil lined baking sheet, and broil 5-6 minutes or until sauce bubbles.  Let cool, and serve.  You can grill these as well, but since I have a gas grill, didn't feel like having it on for 2 hours.  Main thing is to keep the temp at 250 deg.

This is before brushing Enchilada sauce, after they've been roasted for 2 hours.

These ribs were tender, just a tad spicy and fantastic.  We made corn on the cob with it (finger foods should be eaten with other finger foods).  Beer is a Landshark (thanks Jimmy Buffet.)