Review: The Smoking Bacon & Hog Cookbook

The Smoking Bacon & Hog Cookbook – The Whole Pig & Nothing but the Pig BBQ Recipes is written by championship pitmaster Bill Gillespie. He started cooking competitive BBQ in 2005 and won the Jack Daniels World Championship Invitational Barbecue in 2011 and in 2014 he won the American Royal Invitational, probably the two most coveted titles in the world of competitive BBQ. Bill knows what he’s talking about and shares his hog knowledge with us in this book.

Bill Gillespie covers everything in this book. From the rooter to the tooter (ok, not quite but pretty close). The recipes are easy to read and follow. He covers appetizers, snacks, drinks (with bacon in them) main courses, whole hog, and dessert (with bacon). The book is worth it just for the section on whole hog.

Review: Baconstien - Sweet and spicy

Creator: Sograte BBQ and Brew
Location: Lubbock, TX
Cost: @$5.00 +shipping
Link:  Baconstein Bacon Bites

Sograte BBQ and Brew sent me some samples of their Baconstein bacon jerky and rubs for me to sample and review. I decided to start with the Baconstien jerky and then move on to the rubs.

I've been curious about bacon jerky since I've seen it popping up in stores around the area but hadn't gotten around to trying it yet. I finally had a chance to with the Baconstien. Overall it is flavorful and has a nice kick.

Homemade BACON!

I don't know why I have never tried this until this year. It is so easy and so good. Making your own bacon. It takes about a week and a couple hours to smoke it. You can season it with a variety of spices and smoke it with different types of woods to vary the flavor but it is all good.

Super Bowl Sunday

Our SUPER Super Bowl Screen

This weekend we had a Super Bowl party and I smoked a bunch of food for it. I had done some St. Louis ribs last month and had saved the trimmed tips so I used those along with some country style ribs. I also did the crowd pleasing MOINK balls, wings and Pigs on the Wing. We had a great time with lots of friends eating, talking, cheering on our teams and making fun of the half time show.

Pigs with wings? (Bacon Wrapped Wings)

I was trying to figure out what to make for supper and looked in the freezer to see what I had. I had some chicken breast, wings and bacon. So I figured I would grill some chicken and wings. As I was thinking about how to season the chicken I thought, "Bacon wrapped chicken wings would be good." Here's how I made the wings.

Ingredients 
Chicken wings - I made 12
Bacon - 12 pieces to wrap the wings
Rub - I recommend something that has a bit of sweet to it.
BBQ sauce - I use a homemade one similar to Sweet Baby Rays

When ever I grill I start my coals before I start to prep the food. Coals take longer to to heat up then gas so you need to plan ahead. You can cook these on either gas or coals.

Lighting the charcoal.

Bacon Wrapped Fiesta Burger

A couple weeks ago I got the idea to make something like a bacon explosion. A bacon explosion will put you into a meat coma if not consumed carefully. My idea was for a bacon wrapped fiesta burger. 

Ingredients:

@1.5lbs ground beef

1 onion

1 egg

Worcestershire sauce

1 pack of bacon

1 can of blackbeans

1 can of tomatoes

Rub (I used Meyer's Elgin Sausage's Smokehouse Seasoning)

I started by cutting up the onion and chopping it up fine. I mixed the onion in with the ground beef, egg, some Worcestershire sauce and rub. Once that was mixed up I set it aside to marry the flavors together.