Last night we had seven guests over for dinner, drinks, conversation and some laughs. As I mentioned we had choice cut marinated New York strip steaks perfectly grilled to medium rare and medium. Threw in some of Smokin's beans, Caesar salad, red potato salad, and garlic bread. Cheesecake with strawberries for dessert. Wine, beer and margaritas were flowing. Some cheese prosciutto roll, artichoke/jalapeno dip with Peta chips and my smoked almonds for appetizers.
Wow. You'd think these people never had smoked food in their life. They liked the steaks and other stuff but couldn't stop talking about the sides--smoked BBQ beans and the smoked almonds. For the beans, I followed Smokin's recipe and added mustard, garlic and a ton of previously smoked brisket (this could have been a meal all by itself). The almonds were simply smoked with Worcestershire and garlic for seasoning. 2nd and 3rd servings on the beans.
When everyone left, several people requested takeouts on the beans and even the almonds. Filled up zip lock bags and off they went. I made about 1.5 lbs more beans than Smokin's recipe calls for and added about 2-2.5 lbs of brisket. We only had 25% left, and that's cause I had them in a separate container hidden in the garage fridge (couldn't get them all into our largest casserole). Interestingly, we had left over strip steaks--no requests.
Another great evening assisted by Cookshack and this forum. I think Cookshack is going to get some more smoker orders.
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