Smoked Trout - It's What's For Dinner

One of the benefits of working from home is you can keep half an eye on the smoker as you work.

Today the request was for smoked fish, and yesterday Tash had picked up some whole trout.

My first time smoking whole fish. I brinned them overnight in a water, salt, and brown sugar mixture.

I then took the out of the brine today around 4:30, drained and padded them dry, then broke a chopstick in parts and used it to prop the cavity each of the fish open.

Then I built the smoker fire using locally sourced mulberry wood. and some lump charcoal, which I found lights easier, burns better, and gives an overall better result than the Kingsford briquets.

This was my first time using mulberry wood alone for smoking. It gave off a rather delicate and sweet scent for smoking - quite perfect for the fish.

After two and a half hours on the smoker at 220, the fish was ready.

Really nice subtle smoke flavor and seriously good eating.

Quite a bony fish so serving it got a tad messy. The bones didn't want to separate and it took some effort to get it ready to eat.

Still, it was delicious and both kids liked it which was amazing. Especially so as Leah before the fish were smoked had declared the eyes on the fish kept following her and it was creeping her out, and she wouldn't eat it. Once the fish had been beheaded and she got to sample some she then dug in with gusto, separating the bones from the meat and enjoying it.

For a first attempt it turned out great, and I'd definitely make it again on the smoker.

Sunday Afternoon With Alton Brown

This afternoon we drove to Midland, Michigan to see Alton Brown of Good Eats, Chopped!, and many other food shows fame live on his Edible Inevitable Tour.

The show was fantastic.

He opened with the song "And The Meat Goes On" and the show got progressively funnier from there.

His list of ten things he's sure he's sire about food was a winner.

AB was funny, informative and even musically inclined. From creating ice cream using a fire extinguisher to making pizza in a Mega Bake Oven (think Easy bake scaled up, and up and up) he created with the heat source being 50 some odd stage lights giving off 1 million lumens of light and over 700 degrees of heat. It made the pizza and fast.

A really great family-friendly show and the kids loved it. If you're a fan of Alton Brown (and if you aren't, you should be) and he comes to your city don't miss the chance to see this show in person.

Corned Beef, Cabbage and Computer rebuilds

Yesterday after being inspired by Alton Browm's show on Corned Beef decided to follow his recipe for Corned Beef and Cabbage. It involves careful preparation and hours of nice slow cooking.

This was a good thing as I used the time to completely rebuild my computer.

As I related before, ever since purchasing it my HP Pavillion with Vista 64 has been everything but stable. HP technical support suggested a destructive rebuild was in order, so after spending hours backing up my system I began the rebuild process.

After work today I have the restore just about done and it does seem more stable (it hasn't crashed yet after multiple restarts).

On the upside the Corned Beef and Cabbage was out of this world fantastic, so it made up for the fustration of having to rebuild the system from the bottom up.