Preventative Medical Care

If anything in the past week as shown, preventative medical care should always be practiced. If for any matter that you feel not normal, medical attention is necessary. I bashed my hand during basketball, luckily it was not broken. But at minimum, I received instructions on how to make my hand get better. Same should be done for women with mammograms and men with colonoscopies. Get them done, no matter what. Certainly if you have insurance, there are no excuses!

Smoking Efforts Day 2: Smoked Salmon

We had a couple types of Salmon in our freezer, time to smoke them was my thoughts. After night of defrosting, and with the final weekend of NFL football at Noon, it was time to smoke em' up.

The first type of salmon had a marinate already on it from Trader Joe's, it turned out ok. The flavor was not the best, but it was ok for smoking.

The second type of salmon had no seasoning on, so I added my own special mix of spices. This salmon was Wild Sockeye, it was a deeper Red fish, the flavor was excellent. I highly recommend smoking salmon this way, but I would offer a challenge to keep an eye on the fish more than I did. The Trader Joe salmon cooked fine at 2 hours, but the non marinated salmon turned a bit tougher. I am thinking 1 and half hours for these small fillets, and 2 to 2.5 hours for whole fish cuts.

Charcoal Firestarter Smoking

Soaked Wood Chips (Hickory)

My secret spice mix

Smoking da Salmon 

Finished Product 

The Trader Joe Salmon (raw)

Initial Smoking Efforts: 5 Pound Whole Roaster Chicken

For Christmas, H gifted me a Classic Weber charcoal grill. She read some reviews and found that this model is good for smoking. The initial smoking effort started with burgers. They turned out ok, some thought the flavor was more lighter fluid that not, I think it was more hickory than not. After the coals were burned I added more coals and moved them into a circle formation for in-direct heat. Then I applied the beastly near 5 lb chicken to the middle. The chicken took just over 2 hours to fully cook, and the meat thermometer measured 170 degrees, 165 if FDA regulation on cooked chicken. The chicken was great by all reviewers.

The 5 lb chicken is ready for smoking action

The Charcoals in Ring formation for in-direct heat

Chicken after 1 hour on grill

After 2 hours and about a hour of prep time, good to go.