Category Archives: BBQ

May 17, 2012 · 8:36 pm

Slow cooked pulled chicken

Orlando has felt like summertime for awhile now, and the summer  season always puts me in the mood for barbeque, which also happens to be one of Kevin’s favorite cuisines. Kevin’s the griller in our house, but I think I’ve found a way to keep up in the barbeque department via the slow cooker.

Slow cooked pulled chicken

Ingredients

  • 4 chicken breasts
  • 1 medium Vidalia onion
  • 1 bottle of barbeque sauce
  • 1 bottle of beer
  • 2 tablespoons cider vinegar
  • salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder

Ingredients

Directions

Add barbeque sauce, beer and cider vinegar to crock pot. Wisk together to incorporate.

Chop onion and add to slow cooker.

Onion

Season both sides of chicken with any combination of salt, pepper, onion powder and garlic powder. Place in crock pot. Cover and cook on low for at least six hours.

Crock Pot

After six hours, remove chicken breasts and onions and place in medium bowl. Using two forks, scrape chicken to pull it apart. Once shredded, ladle enough sauce from crock pot to cover chicken and onions. Let sit for five to ten minutes to soak up sauce. Add more as needed.

Serve on hamburger buns.

Pulled Chicken Sandwich

This recipe makes a lot of chicken: enough for at least four people plus leftovers. The chicken ends up really moist with a lot of flavor. I love how simple this is to throw together and how much flavor comes out of just a few ingredients.

What signals “summertime” to you?

4 Comments

Filed under BBQ, Eating In

January 22, 2012 · 9:39 pm

January BBQ

When I lived at home, my dad always made brats to signify the beginning of summer and the months ahead of BBQs and beautiful weather. Yet, this weekend, the weather seemed pretty perfect. I realize that snow has blanketed parts of the country, but Saturday was a perfect Florida day down here. We opened up our the windows and doors of the house to let the breeze circulate through, and Parko enjoyed lounging on the front porch.

lounging

We wanted Parko nice and rested because he had a big day ahead of him. We planned a little play date. We invited our friends Jimmy and Stephanie and their adorable dog, Bogey, for some BBQ.

playdate

Kevin cooked up a feast of brats, hot dogs, grilled asparagus, grilled corn on the cob and baked beans.

hot dogs and brats

beans

corn

Kevin makes great grilled corn on the cob by spreading margarine on the inside of a square of foil, sprinkling some salt on it and wrapping the foil around the corn. Then he grills it, and all of the flavor soaks into the corn.

plate

It was a perfect summer dinner…only in January. Of course, we had to offer our guests dessert.

cookies

We have a ton of leftovers that I look forward to munching on all week starting with today. My lunch consisted of a leftover hot dog, asparagus and broccoli from an earlier dinner this past week.

leftovers

I sprinkled yellow curry powder on the broccoli to bring it back to life, and it tasted great. I really enjoyed the unexpected flavor. Curry and hot dogs go together, right?

What did you do this weekend?

14 Comments

Filed under American, BBQ, Eating In, Parko

October 12, 2011 · 9:42 pm

Four Rivers

Kevin’s and my favorite barbeque place in Central Florida is Four Rivers Smokehouse. The line at their Winter Park location can get pretty long, but it tends to move rather quickly. The other evening, we called in a pick-up order to eat at home so we could avoid waiting in line.

Kevin ordered their brisket dinner. Their brisket is so tender and flavorful.

brisket

My favorite thing about all the platters at Four Rivers is choosing the sides. They have a long list to choose from. I love their cheese grits, fried okra and corn bread salad.

Speaking of corn bread salad…

corn bread salad

That’s all I wanted. Usually I opt for the pulled pork platter with a side of corn bread salad, but I just decided to get a regular order of the salad, which is by far, my favorite thing on their menu. It’s chopped lettuce, peppers, onions, bacon and chunks of corn bread tossed with roasted tomato dressing.

I love all the yummy ingredients in the salad and it’s massive. The soft corn bread soaks up all the dressing and makes the salad really hearty. I was noshing on leftovers the whole next day.

Remember my secret baking project yesterday?

baking

cakes

Be My Bridesmaid Funfetti cakes! My sister is my Maid of Honor, and I asked my two friends from college to be my bridesmaids. I’m so excited that my three best friends will be standing next to me on my wedding day!

What is your favorite box cake flavor?

25 Comments

Filed under BBQ, Wedding, Winter Park

September 12, 2011 · 11:00 pm

Knightly

On Saturday evening, Kevin, his brother and I headed out to east Orlando for a University of Central Florida Knights home football game against Boston College. Kevin graduated from UCF, but this was his first game in their on-campus stadium. Back when he attended, the football games were all held in the Citrus Bowl near downtown Orlando.

Although I didn’t go to UCF, I don’t have any problem cheering for the hometown team.

stadium

ticket

Thanks to Kevin’s brother, we got suite tickets, which allowed us to go into the IOA tent prior to kickoff. The tent was catered by Howl at the Moon, and we got to snack on mini foods. Miniature foods are more fun to eat than normal-size food.

minis

We walked around campus, said hello to some friends and checked out the UCF swag at the bookstore. Eventually we headed up to the box suites, which provided an amazing view of the field. Kickoff was at 8 p.m., and there was a nice breeze in the air. It was a really nice evening.

sunset

pregame

They also fed us very well in the suite. (Not that we really needed even more food!)

bbq

chicken

desserts

Although everything was delicious, what really impressed me was a UCF student-led effort to get everyone to wear red bandanas to the game to celebrate former Boston College lacrosse player Welles Crowther. Welles was known for wearing his signature red bandana, a gift from his dad, wherever he went. After graduating from Boston College, he became a New York City firefighter. It wasn’t until after all of the events of Sep. 11, 2011, unfolded that people were able to retell the story about how  a man, who tied a red bandana around his head to cover his face from the smoke, saved their lives. He made three trips back into the South Tower and passed when it collapsed.

They brought out his family members onto UCF’s field and seeing everyone waving their red bandanas in the air was an amazing and moving sight.

All in all, it was a great evening topped off with a UCF win at home.

Kevin and I

Weekly Workout Summary

  • Monday-Stationary bike
  • Tuesday-Arms and treadmill run
  • Wednesday-off
  • Thursday-off
  • Friday-off
  • Saturday-Arms and Stairmaster
  • Sunday-Treadmill run and walk Parko

Yikes—not the greatest workout week! This definitely needs to be fixed for next week.

Do you cheer for any college teams of schools that you didn’t go to? Kevin really likes UCF and Miami, so I’ll cheer for them if they’re not playing any of my teams. Since I lived in Chicago and Indiana, I also root for Northwestern and Notre Dame (and no, I don’t want to talk about the Michigan game).

9 Comments

Filed under BB, BBQ, Football, UCF

August 29, 2011 · 7:59 pm

WildSide BBQ Bar and Grill

You have until tomorrow to enter my giveaway!

Last night we headed out to Thornton Park’s WildSide BBQ Bar and Grill. Once we were seated, we discovered that they revamped their menu, so I was excited to see what they had to offer.

Kevin ordered their brisket platter with a side of French fries and garlic bread. I may have snuck a piece of his bread…

brisket

garlic bread

I ordered a new item: mahi fish tacos. The mahi was encrusted with tortilla chips, and it comes with a side of their pasta salad. I love WildSide’s pasta salad. It’s a vinaigrette based dressing and is light and delicious. I was glad to see they didn’t change this recipe. I need to recreate it as soon as possible.

mahi tacos

It was a lot of food. I got three fish tacos. Each taco had a big piece of mahi with the tortilla chip crust and then was topped with cabbage, corn and tomato salsa, and jalapeno ranch dressing. The flavors were really good, but the fish was a little dry. I’ve definitely had fresher fish elsewhere. I really liked the crunchiness of the cabbage and the spiciness of the salsa. I was stuffed after only eating two tacos (and of course, all my pasta salad).

After my disappointment in myself yesterday for a  weak workout week (say that three times fast), I managed to will myself to the gym despite having a slight stress-induced panic attack as I was walking inside. I kept thinking, what am I doing here? You see, I had gotten out of work an hour later than usual, had a longer-cook-time dinner planned for tonight of which some was going to our next door neighbor who just had a baby a few days ago, and I really need to read a book for work within the next few days. Yes, I have to read a book for a project I’m working on at work. The book is actually really interesting, but I still have a ways to go and probably should have had it done already.

But I knew I had to start out the week right, correct my mistakes from last week and get moving. I felt really good after my workout and not as stressed (maybe because of the endorphins?).

Now stuffed chicken is in the oven (with extra to be brought next door later tonight or tomorrow as to not disturb a sleeping baby), and I plan on hunkering down and reading tonight.

Has you Monday been as busy as mine?

Yesterday, I asked all of you if you ever felt guilty for missing a workout. Do you ever feel guilty for working out when you know you have a ton of other things to do? Today I definitely felt a little bit of guilt, but I feel better now that I know I can still get everything done. I would also never put working out before a friend or family who really needed me or before my health.

15 Comments

Filed under BBQ, Fitness, Thornton Park

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