Best Of

After a five year hiatus, it's good to be back to spending time with my Big Green Egg in my
old home.  To celebrate my newfound freedom, I fixed a bit of the ol' tried and true along
with some new recipes.

I procured some beef belly (beef naval) from a grass-fed beef producer.  Three pounds of
the belly meat was cut into 2.5 x 2.5 inch cubes, seasoned with Oakridge BBQ Black Ops
Brisket rub and put on the BGE at around 245 degrees with hickory and cherry wood chunks.

Boiled eggs were sliced in half in preparation for sour cream and chives smoked deviled
eggs and placed on the BGE for about 20 minutes.

The egg yolks were mashed, finely seasoned with salt, pepper, garlic and onion powder, then
mashed with sour cream and mustard.  Chives were then added and the deviled eggs were
assembled.

Fresh off the BGE and lightly tinged with smoke:

Some years ago, I came up with an appetizer I named Chief Balls. They were a derivative
of Moink balls without the 'oink', as I do not eat pork. I thought to revise this recipe and come
up with a beef bacon wrapped beef sausage concoction, stuffed with a cream cheese and
parmesan cheese mixture, which had been seasoned with garlic and onion powder.  I'm
calling them Heifer shots on account of the all-beef makeup and the small, cheese stuffed,
cup-like structure created on top by the bacon wrap.

The cream cheese was softened by placing the cheese block on the smoker for a bit.

I thought I had some toothpicks somewhere in my kitchen but I was mistaken.  The use of
butchers twine had to suffice for this effort.  It was truly a major PITA making them.

They were topped off with Dizzy Dust and then joined the beef belly burnt ends on the BGE.

The ends were turning a nice color after a few hours so I prepared the dark cherry cola sauce.

 The sauce was made from Cherry Coke, black cherry juice and some SBR BBQ sauce. The
juice and cola was reduced by a little more than half, then about 1/2 cup of the BBQ sauce
was added. The burnt ends were placed in an aluminum pan and the sauce was added.

While adding the sauce to the ends,  I noticed the heifer shots were coming along nicely.

I took a taste test at this point and smiled like the Cheshire Cat while burning the bejesus out
of my mouth. Hot, melty cheese and salty, bacon wrapped sausage.  The way these took on
just the perfect of amount of complementary smoke put me on cloud nine.

The heifer shots were taken off after another hour.

Two hours after being sauced, the pan of burnt ends was covered with foil for 1.5 hours. The
foil was then removed and then the sauce was allowed to reduce for another 30 minutes.

I didn't want to make a regular pan of cornbread.  In fact, I didn't even have any cornmeal in
my home.  I did have plenty of polenta, so I decided on sweet potato polenta skillet cornbread.
I chose this recipe, swapping out the polenta for the cornmeal, palm sugar for granulated,
and heavy cream for the buttermilk.  A pinch of cinnamon, allspice and ground cloves was
also added to highlight the presence of mashed sweet potatoes in the bread.

I was getting a bit tired at this point after being on my feet most of the day, running around
and outside of my home. I made an aluminum foil bowl for the butter and tossed it on the
smoker in order to melt it. It took on a bit of smoke and frankly, I could have drank a pint
of that stuff. I added all but 1 tbsp to the polenta cornmeal batter and noticed how the texture
of the mix changed.  I was hoping that it would give the bread a 'cooked over a campfire'
taste.

This is no Jiffy Mix.  Looks like a bowl of 'yellowed' grits.

While the bread baked, I made some butter that would complement it. Using the ingredients
below, with no specific measurements, I whipped up some maple palm spice butter.

The addition of mashed sweet potato changed the baking time, hence the multiple 'poke'
points.

It really had such an awesome texture and had the most luscious, hearty mouth feel. I usually
like my cornbread sweet, but the typical heavy load of sugar to which I'm so accustomed was
not missed in the slightest.

Dinner was served:

The beef belly burnt ends were good. Beefy richness with a good dose of smoke. This cut is
so fatty that it renders down to tidbits when cut as cubes. I think if I try this again, I will either
cook the belly slab whole and cut afterwards or cut the cubes much larger. I couldn't discern
any cherry flavor. I think the SBR is flavored and sweetened such that it masks any subtle fruit
flavors. I'll leave the SBR out next time. The smoked deviled eggs were a blast from the past
for me and I had really missed them.  They really don't taste the same without sweet pickle
relish.  The polenta cornbread was the real winning dish of this meal.  I ate like half the pan
and I didn't feel even a little bit guilty as I finished up the rest for breakfast. Good eats.