Pork Spare Ribs- Friday Night Dinner Date

My wife Lupe wanted to stay home this past Friday night so I planned a little dinner for our Friday night together. What better way to spend a Friday night than with my best friend and wife with a little BBQ at the same time.

Because it was only the two of us, I dry rubbed a half slab of pork spare ribs with a simple salt, pepper and garlic powder rub. I let this sit in the refer for 6 hours. 

When it came time to grill, due to the rainy weather, I used my little 2 burner gas grill and took care of the ribs muy pronto!! Then I proceeded to grill the cut yard long green beans, sliced eggplants and red hot peppers. Used a little olive oil and salt and pepper on those and added a sprinkle of Parmesan cheese on the eggplants.

Lupe prepared her grilled chicken and mango garden salad. 

Here are a couple pictures of our meal...

Grilled pork spare ribs, green beans, sliced eggplant with Parmesan, and red pepper.

Lupe's awesome grilled chicken and mango garden salad topped off with Asian Sesame dressing.

We had a wonderful time and we really enjoyed our meal. 

We always look forward to our Friday nights together.

Another fabulous Friday evening on Guam!!

Until the next time....

Guam Salmon Salad!!!

Need a new side dish for a fish-themed BBQ. Try out Guam Salmon Salad. Talk about an abundance of flavors....

Check out the recipe on the Guam Firehouse Cook blog.

http://guamfirehousecook.blogspot.com/2012/03/guam-salmon-salad.html 

Hope you enjoy it!!!

Until next time....

BBQ for Wednesday Night Scrabble Party

My wife Lupe has a Scrabble Party just about every Wednesday night. So I am usually voluntold to prepare something for everyone to eat. Of course Lupe does her share of the work also.

This past Wednesday, Jan. 11, I grilled fish and top sirloin steak. Lupe made her delicious spaghetti and veggie salad. She also made her tartar sauce and lemon finadenne' sauce.

Here are pictures of what we prepared for our dinner:

Fresh Guam Reef Fish.

18 pound Top Sirloin Block.

3 inch thick by 1 foot long Sirloin Steak.

Tangantangan wood used for fire. Similar in aroma and flavor to Red Oak.

Reef fish being grilled.

Sirloin steak on the grill.

Fish is cooked!!!

Small groupers are very tasty.

Snappers and trevally.

Lemon Finadenne', the Hot!!! Chamorro Sauce.

 The Calamansi Lemons use for the finadenne'.

Lupe's fresh veggie salad consisting of cucumber, wing beans (sigidiyas), eggplant, tomatoes, green onions, sprinkled with calamansi lemon juice and salted to taste.

Lupe's homemade spaghetti sauce with Italian sausage.

Spaghetti noodles with melted butter and garlic powder.

Chamorro dessert called Letiya. Letiya is a cake with a egg, sugar, cornstarch, Carnation Milk, and cinnamon frosting. Super delicious. I will place the recipe for this into the recipes section.

The other players also brought their pot luck dishes like corn and beef vegetable soup, banana bread, and ice cream.

Needless to say, everyone had plenty to eat. Oh, and the Scrabble game......it did not get over til about 12:30am.

Until next time....

Guam Firefighter's Breakfast

On CHRISTmas day firefighters all over the world work. Emergencies never stop and we have to be ready to response at any time of the day or night. We also have to be fueled up for those exhausting responses. So on CHRISTmas day the crew at the Umatac Fire Station put together a little feast that we almost did not get a chance to enjoy....But 7 fires and numerous medical responses later, we were able to Chow Down!!!! The cooking was the hardest part. Everything had to be done in between all those emergency responses. Not an easy task!! But one thing is for sure, Firefighters always complete their tasks!!!!!

The boys grilled marinated Carne Asada, Pork Spare Ribs marinated overnight in Korean Bulgogi  marinade, a dish that we call Chicken Tinaktak, which is a BBQ'd chicken soaked in a coconut vinegar (tuba) with plenty of hot pepper, onions and a few other ingredients, potato salad and chicken ala king donated by the fire crew at the Agat Fire Station.

But this post is about breakfast..right? Well, there was plenty left over and guess what? Our next shift, we warmed everything up and had it all for breakfast. Talk about powering up for the day. And you know how leftovers are....always better the next day. This day was no exception.

Here is what my breakfast plate looked like...

Whew, let me tell you, this is the best way to start your day. And lucky for us, because our day, again, was filled with quite a few more emergency responses.

Until next time....

Creamy Coleslaw

We always have to have sides with our BBQ. Creamy Coleslaw is a good one to have. This coleslaw can stand alone or on top of the good ole pulled pork sandwich.

Here is the recipe...

Ingredients:

1 medium head green cabbage, cut into ¼ to ½ inch wide strips (about 9 cups)

½ of a small head red cabbage, cut into ¼ to ½ inch wide strips (about 3 cups)

3 medium carrots, shredded (about 1 cup)

¾ cup mayonnaise or salad dressing

1 tablespoon  apple cider vinegar

2 teaspoons  sugar

½   teaspoon  salt

½ cup of sour cream

1 tablespoon Dijon style mustard

½ teaspoon ground black pepper

Directions:

In a very large bowl combine cabbages and carrots. In a small bowl combine mayonnaise, sour cream, sugar, vinegar, mustard, salt, and pepper; stir into cabbage mixture. Cover and chill for 2 hours. Mix the two right before serving.

Makes about 10 cups


Until next time....

Rueben's Slaw

I love Cole Slaw. This recipe is one that I developed over time. It just evolved, so to speak, until I was satisfied. Rueben's Slaw, as I named it, is great with pork…. especially with pulled pork sandwiches. Give it a try. I don’t think you will regret it.

Rueben's Slaw recipe

Ingredients:

1 Head Green Cabbage

½ Head Red (purple) Cabbage

1 White Onion

1 Red (purple) Onion

3 Fuji Apples

¼ cup Apple Cider Vinegar

1-2 tbsp Sesame Seed Oil

1-2 tbsp Tri-Tip Rub:

            2 tbsp Sea Salt

            2 tbsp Granulated Garlic Powder

            2 tbsp Granulated Onion Powder

            ½ tsp dried Parsley Flakes

            ¼ tsp Black Pepper, medium grind

            ¼ tsp MSG (Accent)

Fresh Ground Black Pepper and Salt to taste.

Directions:

Cut cabbage into about 1/8 in. thick by 3 in. long pieces.

Cut onions thinner than cabbage and about the same length.

Julienne Fuji Apples very thin about same as onions.

Mix all the ingredients together.

Make any adjustments to your taste.

Chill before serving.

Until next time....

BBQ steak, chicken kelaguen and potato salad at the Firehouse..

Every fireman knows that the firehouse or fire station as we refer to it on Guam, is our home away from home. Aside from responding to emergencies and conducting non-emergency public services and fire inspections, we keep the station in good repair, train and yes....we even cook our own meals. We are known country wide as good cooks. Heaven knows we get a lot of practice. If a newbie doesn't know how to cook when they first get hired on, believe me, they will learn. Everyone takes their turn in the kitchen.

On Guam, the firefighters are jockeying for the cooking duties. Well on this day we decided that we would BBQ for dinner. On the menu was BBQ'd beef steak, chicken kelaguen and potato salad. Now I'm sure most of you that are not from Guam are probably wondering what in the world is "chicken kelaguen"? Well I can tell you this....you don't want to miss out on trying this dish.

Chicken kelaguen is a local favorite. It consists of  BBQ'd chicken that is cooked to about 3/4 done, de-boned and diced up, mixed in with thinly sliced yellow or white onions, diced green onions, hot pepper to taste as well as salt and mixed in with freshly squeezed lemon juice. The lemon juice finishes off the cooking of the chicken similar to ceviche. Once the lemon and salt are just right, the chicken sampling is just about unstoppable. Add in your favorite ice cold "cocktail" and forget about it. 

Here are the steps to making chicken kelaguen:

 First if all you can use whole chicken or pieces. We typically use whole chicken and then de-bone the chicken after it is BBQ'd. But here we already had chicken thighs on hand and Chef "Richard" de-boned the thighs ahead of time.

The next thing you do is grill the chicken until it is about 3/4 cook over medium to high heat. High heat really locks in the flavor but it has to be constantly turned. Here are the Grill Masters themselves, Jeff Soriano and Jess Acfalle. BTW, you needn't marinade or season the chicken. Grill it naked.

Here is a closer look at the chicken being grilled.

While the two grill masters are taking care of the chicken, Chef Richard is squeezing the lemon juice out of the freshly picked Calimansi lemons.

The strainer is catching all the seeds as each lemon is being squeezed.

Chef Richard slices up the hot peppers. He has already sliced up the yellow onions and has diced up the green onions. You can see the lemon juice in the white bowl.

Once the chicken is cooked to spec, Richard then cuts the chicken up into small pieces.

Here is a close up of the cutting.

The following step is to dice up the chicken pieces into the right size. Usually about 1/8 to 1/4 inch pieces.

Then the prepared hot pepper, onions and lemon juice are poured in and mix thoroughly.

The mixture is tasted and if it needs a little more tartness you can add more lemon or in this case lemon powder. You will also salt the mixture down until it is slightly salty but not overpowering. The saltiness and lemon levels should blend in with each other and balance the mixture out. 

You will know when it is right because when you taste it the flavor just "pops" and you will just know as you go looking for your beer.

Now let us move over to the steak.

The steak is first marinaded in the traditional Guam marinade. Click here for the recipe:  

http://guamfirehousecook.blogspot.com/2011/04/guams-bbq-marinade-for-beef-chicken-and.html

 The grill masters Jeff and Jess are taking care of business.

 The steak is well under control on the grill.

The steak has been grilled perfect. We like it medium to medium rare and very juicy. The steak is cut into 1/2 inch thick by about 2 inch long strips.

The next step is to put all the sliced meat into a container.

The lemon finadene is then made and poured over the steak. Click here for the lemon finadene recipe:  http://guamfirehousecook.blogspot.com/2011/05/lemon-finadene-guam-bbq-dipping-sauce.html 

The "Pouring".

The finished product!!!

And last but not least is the potato salad by Chef Richard. He can really dress it up. Tale a look: 

Our dinner table spread.

The plate but without the white rice.

It was another great meal to end the day. Well, the day was almost ended. We still had to respond to a few emergencies because "that's what we do."

Until next time....

How about just some salad??? Are you for real?

You know sometimes you just have to take a break from eating meat. You just can't always be a carnivore. And I'm so tired of going to bed so full that I can't roll over in bed because my stomach is so full it's stopping me from rolling over. Now that's bad.

Well, my wife and I try to eat only salad for dinner once a week. At least we try to. And tonight was the night.

Here is a picture of what we ate:

We've got the greens made up of baby spinach, green leaf and iceberg lettuce. There are also julienned carrots in there. On the "outskirts" we have hard boiled eggs, cherry tomatoes, cheddar/jack shredded cheese, cilantro and the left over jerk chicken chopped and warmed up. I just couldn't stay away from the BBQ. We served this with Feta cheese, and a whole smorgasbord of dressings.

I felt so healthy after this one plate meal.

I am so ready for some serious BBQ now. Can't wait til tomorrow!!!

Until next time....