Sushi Para - Palatine IL

My daughter has gone to Sushi Para in Palatine, IL many times, but this is the first time for my wife and me.  While my wife is not big on sushi, she ordered a bowl of Udon Noodle soup.  My daughter and I had the "all-you-can-eat" sushi buffet.  Everything you see on this post... I ate.  Yup!  There goes the diet!

Actually, total calorie count was probably around 1500 calories.  That's my daily limit and I did it all just during dinner!  Well, since I had breakfast and lunch, I may be over the limit for today, but it probably won't affect the overall diet too much.  Thanks to my daughter for taking us out!

Tuna - Flatbread - Mayo - Mustard

Today's lunch: Chicken of the Sea Tuna (in water), 2 tsp Kraft Mayo, 1 tsp Great Value yellow mustard and 1 Flat-out flatbread.  Calories: 250.

My typical meal consists of flat bread, pulled pork (4 oz), shredded cheese, Sweet Baby Ray's sauce... 480 calories. If I did two of these sandwiches and one of the tuna sandwiches for my daily meals, it would be at total of 1210 calories per day. That would leave me with about 300 calories for "junk" food and still stay around 1500 calories per day. I think I will try to incorporate this tuna sandwich in the coming weeks.

6.75 lb Pork Butt on the 14.5" Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker

Here we go again! 6.75 lb pork butt cut in half for more bark on the 14.5" WSM. 

I wrapped during the stall around 157 degrees. Water was in the pan, smoker wrapped with a welder's blanket.  The average pit temp was at 250 degrees but shot up to 280 degrees at the end of the cook.

I kept the cook going until 202 degrees. I used Rufus Teague rub with pecan wood for smoke.

The cook finished in about 5 hours.  Way too fast.  Because of this, the pork was not a good quality in terms of being easy to pull.  It is proof that you need to cook pulled pork low and slow.  The taste was just fine, but the texture wasn't.

Why We Are All Overweight

And this is why we are all overweight here in America!

The Chinese have always been known to give you good value for your money for carryouts, but when I look at this, I would say this is more than a double portion of food for lunch!

Yes, I used to eat all of this for lunch without a problem. But now on my diet, I shouldn't do it even though I want to. I will save half for another meal.

Sesame Chicken with fried rice, a small amount of broccoli (that's not Chinese!) a shrimp egg roll, a fortune cookie and a Diet Coke.

Yeah, I ate the whole egg roll and the cookie. Can't do half of that! Oh, and I drank the Diet Coke too!  ;)

Food from Chopstix in Rolling Meadows. Lunch special: $6.85 with tax included.

FYI:  My wife ate the other half for dinner!

2018 Chinese New Year Dinner

Chinese New Year dinner this year was at my brother-in-law's home.  Everyone brought a dish to share.  Those who did not want to cook, bought some Chinese restaurant food to share.  As always, we all ate too much!

To allow myself the luxury to indulge while still staying on my diet, I only ate breakfast, but skipped lunch.  I typically allow myself 1500 calories per day, but usually end up eating around 1700 calories per day.  Adding up my calories today (roughly guessing the calories for dinner), I estimate I ate 1806 calories.  It's probably higher than that, but overall, I don't think it was too much higher than that.  Not bad considering it was a big dinner!

Valentine's Day Dinner - Red Robin

My wife and I went to Red Robin for Valentine's Day dinner.  I ordered a Taco Tavern Double Burger and a Diet Coke.  Their burgers come with "bottomless" fries and if you order a drink, it's "bottomless" drinks as well.

"Bottomless Fries" come to you when you ask for them, but they bring small amounts every time.  Luckily for us, I'm on a diet, so we only ordered extra fries twice but I had a total of three glasses of Diet Coke.  We asked for no salt on the fries and they did that when the burgers came out.  But twice ordering the extra fries, they came out with salt on them even though we asked for no salt each time.

The burger tasted great, but rather small.  Again, it was ok since I was on a diet.  Calorie count for this meal was 620 calories for the burger and 434 calories for the amount of fries I ate.  Diet Coke doesn't add any calories, but it's not good to have too many sodas on a diet.

ThermoWorks Thermapen Mk IV

I purchased this ThermoWorks Thermapen Mk IV as an open box unit directly from ThemoWorks.  While I have a ThermoWorks RT-600C pocket thermometer, I wanted a faster reading unit with a larger, backlit screen.  Well, that's this unit!  The nice part too is that if you hold the Thermapen vertically the display changes its orientation so you can read it easier!  Nice!

Edit Note:  After using this device on two cooks of chicken legs on my Weber Spirit E-310 gas grill, I can say that it has made a huge difference in how I grill.  I am able to check individual chicken legs in just a couple of seconds and have the exact temperature displayed!  Because of this, I was able to take the legs that were done off the grill and leave others that needed more time on the grill.  I was not able to do this quickly and easily with the other thermometer.  It was too slow in measuring.  Highly recommended!!

7.5 Lb Pork Butt and 2 Slabs of Pork Ribs on the 14.5" Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker

I'm at it again! 7.5 lb Pork Butt cut in half for more bark and two small slabs of pork ribs cut in half. I hope I didn't overload the 14.5" WSM! It's packed! The bottom grate temp was hovering around 242 degrees when it started, but I'd say it really averaged arond 225 degrees.  Water is in the pan. For smoke, I used hickory chunks on Kingsford Original charcoal.  The rub is Rufus Teague - Meat Rub which was put on the butt and ribs the night before.

I'll run the butt until 201 degrees. I will wrap when it hits the stall. The ribs I'll do 2.5-2-.5. These are rather thin looking ribs.  

I haven't used the 14.5" much due to the cold weather, but it's about 26 degrees with very little wind today. Still, I wrapped the WSM in a welder's blanket. Hope it works out! I'll post the finished product later today.

I had to take a quick peek after 2 hours of cooking... the ribs are at 170 degrees.

Three of the four cut ribs after saucing, but before wrapping.  I wrapped the fourth rib, but forgot to photograph it before doing that!

Ribs are done. The color of the Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce changes after it's been cooked. I decided to do 3.5 hours unwrapped, 2.5 hours wrapped and that's it. I usually unwrap and run it another .5 hours, but my wife likes it more "fall off the bone" while I like it with more bite to it. But since I've done it my way so many times now, I thought I'd surprise her and do it the way she likes it for once. 　

The pork butt finished after 6 hours 20 minutes to reach 202 degrees.  I usually don't shred it as much as some people shred it. My daughter likes it less pulled. It pulled really easily this time too!  I also don't pour sauce all over the pulled pork either.  Instead, I prefer to just add a little when needed.  Less calories that way!

It was the easiest "pull" I have ever done.  It shredded very easily!  Could it be the fact that the temperature of the cook stayed mostly around 225 degrees?  The pit temp did jump as high as 320 degrees, but that only happened after I opened up the lid and more air got in.  After a while, it stabilized back to the 220-240 ranges.

But, favor-wise, the pork butt was a little lacking.  I would have thought it would taste really good being closer to the heat source and having so many big chunks of hickory on the charcoal.  A couple of things could have caused this... the pork butt was put in the middle grate and the smoker was loaded down with a lot of meat.  Perhaps the smoke could not get to the middle grate meat as much?  Or, it could be that the rub was not as tasty as other rubs I have used in the past for pulled pork?  (This is a very good possibility as Rufus Teague tends to be more mild).  I usually only used the Rufus Teague rub for ribs and the ribs today were pretty good, although a tad saltier than we preferred (probably put too much rub on them).  Lastly, could it be that the meat itself was not as tasty this time?  Not sure on any of these theories!  They say that meat on the top grate usually gets better smoke, probably because of the circulation of the smoke from the rounded lid, I suppose.  I'm just not sure why it didn't taste as good as it pulled.  But on a technical cooking level, this pulled pork pulled better than any other time I've made pulled pork!

"Snow On The Smokers"

"Smoke On The Water" has nothing on me... this is "Snow On The Smokers!"  Yikes!

   "Some stupid with a snowplow... buried our driveway down."  (New lyrics!)🎼   "S

My portable wok burner is almost completely covered (in the foreground) and the Weber E-310 gas grill on the far right isn't looking too good either! (The inverted flower pot covers the stand of the patio umbrella that goes there in the summer months).

I'm going to remove the snow. I'm fearful that once the snow starts melting, it could help promote rust.

Ah... now I feel better. Only removed what was necessary.

Pulled Pork Flatbread Sandwich

3 ounces of pulled pork, 1/3 cup of shredded cheddar / monterey jack cheese, 2 TSP Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce and a Flatout brand flatbread: 420 calories

If I ate one of these for each of my three meals, the total calorie count would be 1260 calories per day!

Here's the chicken version with 390 calories per serving:

Pork Butt on the 18.5" Weber Smokey Mountain Smoker

It's been a while, but I'm at it again! 7.77 lb pork butt for pulled pork on the 18.5" Weber Smokey Mountain smoker. To keep the wind down, the smoker was covered with a welder's blanket.

While the weather was windy and cold today, the welder's blanket helped keep the pit temp between 253 and 270 degrees.  I was surprised that I only had to stir the coals once during the entire 5.5 hour cook time.  The pork was placed in an aluminum foil pan and covered with a sheet of foil when the internal temperature reached 159 degrees and kept in the smoker until it reached 201 degrees.  A small amount of apple juice was poured in the pan to keep the meat moist.

The rub used was the last of the modified Pork Barrel BBQ "All American Seasoning & Rub".

The final product: 4 oz of Pulled Pork on a Flatout brand flatbread with shredded Kirkland Cheddar/Monterey Jack cheese (1/3 cup) and 2 TSP Sweet Baby Rays BBQ sauce! Grilled on a George Foreman grill to toast the bread and melt the cheese!

480 Calories!

I've been on a diet these past few months and have dropped 39 lbs in the last 3 months. My goal is 60 lbs in 6 months.  Only 21 lbs to go!