Recently, I was trying to come up with something super cheesy that I could make on the smoker. This actually wasn't as easy as one would think it would be simply because, there are so many choices! Of course my wife came to the rescue when she put in a request for some sausage bread.

Now, I couldn't just let it go at that so, I decided to make it Cheese Stuffed Fatty Bread!
(For those who don't know, a "Fatty" is a breakfast sausage roll that has been smoked. It could be stuffed or not and could have a rub on it or not.)

First we had to start with the main star. The cheeses! I picked up 4 different kinds made at Burnett Dairy in Alpha, WI.

I then sliced up a half pound of each of the blocks.

Then came the sausage team.

I combined both rolls and flattened them out in standard stuffed fatty prep.

Then came the cheese! Layers upon layers of it!

Time for the roll up.

Onto the UDS with thee! Did I mention it was dark out...

After the fatty was all smoked up, it went into the fridge to solidify a bit. Then it was pizza dough time! I used the following recipe for my pizza dough:
1 package of bread yest.
1 cup of warm water
2 cups flour
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp salt
2 Tbs olive oil
1 tsp rub

Add yeast to water, mix dry ingredients then add Olive oil followed by water/yeast mixture and mix until it forms a thick dough, cover with plastic and let rise for atleast 30 minutes. I find that if you plan on using the oven to cook it, you can set the bowl on the stove and that will help the dough rise while the oven preheats. After 30 minutes, take out the dough, knead it and beat it down, let rest for 15 minutes.

Then the roll out!

I then created a netting out of the mozzarella string cheese whips on the dough.

The fatty reappeared and joined the party.

Dough got wrapped around ensnaring the defenseless fatty in it's cheese net while cocooning it.

Now at this point, I would love to tell you that it went onto the grill to bake but, right at this point for some reason the heavens opened up and sent a downpour upon my lit grill. So, into the oven it went instead to cook at 450 until it was nice and brown.

All that was left was to slice this bad boy up! I don't think I could have contained the cheese even if I wanted to.

This was some pure cheesy goodness even my wife approved of this one but, be warned this is not for the faint of heart with 2lbs of Cheese, 2lbs of sausage, and 1lb of bread! For those who are really brave, I suggest topping a slice off with some BBQ Sauce and a fried egg for breakfast! Thanks for looking!

Recently I had the unfortunate experience of have most of my family suffering from their own individual ailments all at the same time. During this time I decided why not make up some homemade chicken noodle soup. So that is what I set out to do, now mind you, this isn't an exactly pure from scratch chicken noodle soup but it is definitely a step beyond just opening a can and dumping it into a pan or microwave safe bowl. Here is the recipe for those who want it but, I intend to ramble on a certain part of the process for a bit afterward. Enjoy!

Tom's Easy Chicken Noodle Soup!

2 Celery Stalks

2 Large Carrots

1 Red Bell Pepper

1/2 of a medium Red onion

4 Garlic cloves

2 tsp Thyme

1 tsp Oregano

1 tsp Basil

4 boneless skinless Chicken Breasts

6 Tbs Extra Virgin Olive Oil

4 Chicken Bullion Cubes

1 Tbs Kosher Salt

1 tsp Lemon Juice(optional)

1 Box of Penne Pasta

12 cups Hot Water

Salt and pepper to taste

Start off by dicing up all of the veggies including the garlic. Make sure to take the leaves off of the celery stalks and chop them up to be thrown in as well.

Pour 3 Tbs of the Olive Oil into a large pot on the stove, one that can hold at least 4-5 quarts, and put on at medium heat. After a minute of letting the oil heat up, dump all of the veggies in. You can also dump all of the herbs in but NO SALT. Cook the veggies until they start to give up some liquid making sure to stir them occasionally. While you are waiting on the veggies, cut up the chicken into bit size cubes. After the veggies have cooked for 5-10 minutes, add the remaining olive oil, turn up the heat to medium-high and dump the chicken in.

Once the chicken is in, dump any of the herbs you haven't added. Stir often until you see the chicken starting to cook, then add the Kosher salt and lemon juice(don't have to add the lemon if you don't have it). Once you add the salt, you will notice that there will be a lot more liquid in the pot. Continue stirring often, while thinking positive thoughts, until it appears that almost all of the chicken has turned white. During this time, measure out 1 cup of hot water and drop the 4 chicken bullion cubes into it, microwave this for one minute and stir until all or almost all of the cubes have dissolved. Pour the bullion mixture into the pot and stir in. Now add the remaining 11 cups of hot water to the pot and stir (When I say Hot Water, I mean Hot from the tap not boiling in a side pot). Continue stirring, while thinking positive thoughts, until the mixture comes to a boil. Once it does, dump in the box of pasta.

Proceed to cook until the pasta is tender, this usually takes about 10-15 minutes. At this point turn the head down to very low. You could just stop here and call it good if you would like and simply add salt and pepper to taste but, if you want to go that one extra "homemade" step you'll need to add one tempered egg. To do this, take one whole egg and crack it into a separate bowl along with 1/2 tsp of lemon juice, you mix that up and then proceed to take ONE TEASPOON  of soup at a time and mix it into the egg, do not rush this process. You are bringing the temp of the egg up without cooking it. once the bowl feels very warm to the touch, you can then begin to slowly pour the tempered egg mixture into the soup, you will see that it takes on that classic cloudy homemade chicken noodle soup look. Turn off heat and continue to stir often for a couple of minutes before serving. Serve up and enjoy! Great by itself, with crackers, or sandwiches.

A couple of quick notes. You can add less oil if you would like but, I wouldn't go under 4 Tbs. Also you can add sage or other herbs if you like but, please go a little at a time, nothing worse than to make it to herby (Yes, I've done this.).

Okay, so you may have noticed the "stir, while thinking positive thoughts" mentioned in the recipe a couple of times and thought it odd. The reason that this is in the recipe is because, I believe that emotions can play a big role in how our cooking turns out and how it effects people. If you lack confidence in your cooking, often the food will suffer from it. Where on the other hand, if you are positive about your abilities more often than not the quality of your food will reflect it. I believe the best case of this can be made when it comes to restaurants. Often when you go out to eat now-a-days, your food is being prepared by someone who could careless about the product and is just there to make a paycheck, because of this, the food suffers greatly. Where as, if you go to a restaurant where the chef cares about the food and the way it pleases people, you will find the quality is much better.  There of course is another raw emotional aspect to this as well, anyone who has made dinner when they are mad has no doubt ran into a time when the food ended up tasting bad or bland. Now some could say it was their mood that made them lose their appetite but, I like to think that the bad mood went into the food as well. Same happens for those who are in a rush just to get something on the table because, they feel they have to and it isn't about anything other than consuming fuel. Chances are the food is going to taste neglected or rushed and might be passable but, nothing truly to remember or rave about. So when you think back to all those times when you had grandma's home cooking or mom made you chicken noodle soup when you were sick and how good the food tasted and how good it made you feel, think about this, they were thinking about making people happy or making them feel better with that food and they put their most positive thoughts and hopes into it. I don't expect anyone to agree with me on these thoughts but, I know one thing for sure, when something is made with pride and love, I can taste those secret ingredients.

Okay so, I have been neglecting some stuff lately, this blog being one of them. I looked it up and found that I haven't done an entry since DECEMBER! I apologize.

Moving on though, it's a new season at our shop and a new season of grilling and BBQ season. Mind you that is the normal people's grilling/BBQing season. Some of us believe it to be a year round sport but, I digress. Things are getting busy in a hurry. I've had a shift change over the past couple of months at my "Clark Kent" job and it has cause the making of BBQ Sauce schedule to be changed as well throwing everything up into the air.  I've decided I am sick and tired of sitting on the fences when it comes to wishing to partake in competitive BBQ and am bound and determined to start really competing. I've acquired a new tank to build a new long-haul-worthy rig with and construction is already underway. It will be unlike anything seen before. Like most people, I'm also sick and tired of working another job and want to be doing BBQ stuff full time, what all that entails yet, I am not sure but, that is the goal at this point.

Another area that I've seriously been lacking is my videos. Considering I made it up to 7 episodes my first go at it. I'm going to call that season 1 and the upcoming ones are going to be season 2. Actually thinking about burning them all on to a DVD if I can find the time. Not sure if they will be for purchase though. My new work schedule has also cause some pains with my recording schedule and when I'm free, my lovely camera operator is not plus, I built a couple of smokers called UDS's and plan on using them and there was some discussion about how much to use them and if I should show a build video. After discussing it, they will be used but, when it comes to a build video, I'm better at explaining food than I am construction. Thinking about still releasing the build video but, it will not be considered a "Deep in the Sauce" episode.

One thing I am excited about is that we are going to be having special demo days at the shop where we will be open one Sunday out of the month and I get to do one of my favorite things, show people stuff to cook and talk grilling, BBQ, and cooking all day.  This is hopefully going to be a lot of fun. There will be in store specials for people and sampling.

There is so much more I want to do, and even the stuff I want to do, I just don't have hardly enough time for.  My new work schedule has really thrown a wrench into entering comps but, at the same time, I'm home every night to be with my family and that absolutely rocks!

I'd say more but, if I did, I probably wouldn't end up writing another entry for another 5 months. Keep checking back and feel free to drop me a line anytime: BigButzOrdering(at)Gmail.com

 Big Butz Quekies

BBQ Sauce infused Shortbread with Pig Candy Crumbles Cookies.

Recently I heard about this thing called a Virtual Holiday Cookie Crawl that Gourmet Girl Magazine was doing . They said they were looking for people to post recipes of their favorite or unusual cookie recipes that they had come up with for other people to try and enjoy. Now, I am a BBQ Sauce maker, not a baker, so this wouldn’t seem like something for me but, then I got to thinking, “Who says you can’t make a BBQ Sauce flavored cookie?” After all, the way I looked at it, cookies are sweet, BBQ Sauce is sweet (especially our Cranberry flavored sauce), so it can’t be impossible. After some research and thinking about the different flavors of cookies I’ve had over the years, I began to do some tinkering. Until finally I came up with Big Butz Quekies! At first glance these may sound like the strangest things ever but, just one bite and you’ll be amazed. This is the entry that I came up with for Gourmet Girl Magazine's Virtual Holiday Cookie Crawl (see rules - here).

Cookie Dough Mix

(Makes about 2 dozen)

1 ¼ cup All Purpose Flour

½ cup White Cornmeal

¼ cup Cornstarch

15 tbsp. Stick Butter

½ cup Confectioners Sugar

½ tsp. Salt

3 tbsp. BBQ Sauce (Big Butz BBQ Sauce preferred)

4 Strips Pig Candy (Recipe to follow)

First mix together the flour, cornmeal, cornstarch, and salt in a large mixing bowl. You can use a sifter to do this, I just use a fork to stir it around for a few minutes until there are no lumps and everything appears to be blended together evenly. In a separate bowl, start by creaming the butter (for easy figuring, it’s one tablespoon shy of 2 sticks of butter). Once the butter is smooth, stir in the sugar. (It is best to leave your butter out for it to soften but, if you must, you can microwave it at 10 second intervals. Do not let it melt!) Add the BBQ Sauce to the butter and sugar mixture and stir until completely blended in. Take your butter mixture and add it to the dry mixture by cutting it in. Continue stirring until the mixture takes on a dough like quality. Chop up the pig candy strips into bits and stir them into the dough. Once everything has been thoroughly mixed roll it out of the bowl onto some plastic wrap. Seal up the dough in the wrap, flattening it into a large puck shape in the process. Place the wrapped up dough in the fridge for an hour all the way up to overnight if you need to. When ready to bake, preheat your oven to 375° and take dough out of the fridge. Knead the dough and roll it out into a log shape that is about a 1 ½ inches in diameter. Cut the log in half with a knife and place half back in the fridge. Start slicing pieces about ½ inch thick or divide over and over again until you get 12 even pieces. During the slicing process you may have to continue to rotate the log to keep the pieces as round as possible. Lay pieces out flat on cookie sheet. There is no need for greasing or spraying oil on the sheet. Place sheet in oven and cook for 13-15 minutes. Cookies will be brown around bottom edges when you take them out but the rest of the whole cookies should not be. While cookies are baking, lay out a sheet of wax paper. When cookies are done, use a flipper and immediately remove them from the sheet, and place them on the wax paper to cool. Repeat the same process for the second log. Cookies will come out soft but will firm up as the cool and will really stiffen up if placed in the fridge inside a sealed bag. For serving, I recommend providing some BBQ Sauce for dipping the cookies into to really bring out the BBQ flavors. This recipe works with any of our BBQ Sauce and can bring a whole new dimension when using our Hot flavors. For those who are looking for the ultimate in making these cookies, one could attempt to use a Big Green Egg or Bubba Ho Keg type cooker to do it and would truly have made BBQ cookies.

Pig Candy

(Makes enough for 2 batches of Big Butz Quekies.)

1 package Thick Cut Bacon

1 cup Brown Sugar

¼ cup Chile Powder

¼ cup Kosher Salt (or less)

Quite a few people already have their own recipe for Pig Candy. This is a quick and easy one that I came up with and can be made in the oven. Preheat your oven to 375°. Mix sugar, chile powder, and salt together in a bowl. Lay bacon out on a Jelly Roll Pan or standard backing sheet (there is going to be plenty of grease). Coat bacon evenly with mixture and place pan in the oven. Let cook for approximately 20 minutes or until bacon appears to be cooked and sugar mixture has caramelized on the bacon. Remove bacon from the oven and let cool for a few minutes. After bacon, or now Pig Candy, has cooled for a few minutes, place the strips on another baking sheet lined with paper towels to soak up the grease. You might have to do this a second time to get all the extra grease off. Once fully cooled, your Pig Candy is ready to be used in your Quekies! Or, you can always just eat it by itself.