Nothing in Iowa represents summer as much as corn on the cob.  Every 1/2 mile in town there seems to be a stand selling corn and eventually you must stop.  Yes, the grocery stores sale corn on the cob, but it is not even close to what you can pick up from the road side stands.  Preparing the corn is of debate in my house, I love putting the corn on the grill, my wife swears by boiling the corn.    This is a BBQ and Grilling blog, so I will only talk about grilling it (plus its better).   I served the corn (yes, the corn is the main dish in my house) with bacon wrapped turkey tenderloins.

To prepare the corn start off by soaking the corn in the husks in water for about 30 minutes to soften the husk and to help prevent the corn from drying out as you grill it.

Remove from the water and remove 2 or 3 layers of the husk, leaving the remaining layers to protect the corn while grilling.  Save a few layers that you remove.

Pull down the remainder of the husk as close to the bottom as you can get, without completely removing the husk and remove of the silk as possible.

With a butter knife, spread on some softened butter to the corn.  Alternatively you can even melt the butter mix in some fresh herbs for an extra kick to the corn.

Close up the remaining husk, making sure the corn is completely covered.  Tie the husks closed with the husks you save when removing a few layers.

Grill with direct medium heat for about 20 to 30 minutes.  I like to get a parts of the corn a little charred, not sure why, but it seems to have more flavor when I do.

For the bacon wrapped turkey tenderloins, apply a little freshly cracked peppercorns and kosher salt to both sides of the turkey.  Place on the grill over direct medium heat for about 7 minutes per side.   Remove and serve with the corn.

This was a wonderful family meal.  We go through spurts in the summer where we eat corn for 2 to 3 days straight for every meal.  Seems like we can never get enough corn.

We really enjoyed the Spiedini from the Italian series, I decided to do them again, but with a few other twists.  This time I used ground turkey instead of beef and added in some chopped red onions.  I also didn’t use the Italian bread on the skewers, but kind of wish I did.  The Italian bread really helps holding the meatballs on the skewers, so I won’t skip that next time.

Ingredients:

• 1 pound ground turkey, ground twice (use your food processor)
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/2 cup pecorino cheese, grated
• 1/2 cup bread crumbs
• 2 tablespoons Italian parsley, finely chopped
• 1 garlic clove, chopped
• salt and pepper to taste
• 2 ounces pancetta, diced

Instructions:

1. In a medium size bowl, mix the all the ingredients and form into 1-inch balls
2. Place the meat in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes
3. Prepare the grill for medium heat
4. Double skewer all the meatballs
5. Place the skewers on the grill, turning occasionally and basting with olive oil
6. Remove from the grill and serve.

Ingredients:

• 1 gallon water
• 1 cup coarse kosher salt
• 3/4 cup soy sauce (I use low sodium)
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
• 4 tablespoons black pepper
• 4 tablespoons chopped garlic
• 1 teaspoon allspice
• Optional: 1 oz (2 tablespoons) Morton’s Tenderquick (I skip this, it is there for food safety with older brines).

Heat the water, sugars, and salt to a rapid boil.  Remove from heat and add the remaining ingredients.  Let cool down to room temperature before placing the turkey in the brine.

As the brine is cooling to room temperature, start preparing the turkey by rinsing it out with cold water.  Place the turkey on a clean working surface and remove pop up timer that tells you when the turkey is done. 

Place the turkey in a non-reactive container and pour the brine in with the turkey.  Be sure that the turkey is completely covered.  I like to use one of those turkey cooking bags to hold the turkey and brine and then place that in a pot.  As you can tell I placed some weights on top to hold the turkey down a bit so that it is fully submerged in the brine.  Place back in the refrigerator for up to 48 hours.

Ingredients:

• 3 lb boneless turkey breast
• 1 quart water
• 1/2 C brown sugar
• 1/2 C kosher salt
• 1/3 C juniper berries, crushed
• 1/4 C black pepper, coarsely ground
• 1 T Tellicherry peppercorns, whole
• 6 cloves garlic, crushed
• 2 t thyme
• 1 t ground cloves
• 3 bay leaves

Brine Instructions (48 hours in advance):

1. In sauce pan mix together the water, brown sugar, and salt, bring to a boil and stir until the salt and sugar are dissolved.
2. Remove from heat and add the peppercorns, thyme, bay leaves, cloves, and garlic and let cool to room temperature.
3. Add to a non-reactive food-safe container with the turkey breast and let sit in brine for 48 hours, make sure the turkey breast is fully covered.

Smoking Instructions:

1. Remove turkey breast from brine and pat dry with a paper towel.
2. Mix together the black peppers and crushed juniper berries.
3. Coat the turkey breast well with the mixture.
4. Smoke at 225 with cherry wood until the internal temperature reaches 165 in thickest part of turkey breast.
5. Remove from smoker and let cool and rest.
6. Once the turkey breast has cooled down to near room temperature, place in air tight container and place in refrigerator overnight.
7. Thinly slice for sandwiches.

Results:

Turned out great and a lot healthier then the turkey pastrami I was buying at the stores, since it was all white meat.  Next time I may inject the turkey breast with some type of mixture to get more flavor inside the turkey.

The first part of the recipe is to brine the turkey 24 to 48 hours ahead of time (preferably closer to 48). 

Smokin’ Okie’s Holiday Turkey Brine: 

• 1 gallon water
• 1 cup coarse kosher salt
• 3/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/2 c white sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup honey
• 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
• 4 tablespoons black pepper
• 3 – 4 tablespoons chopped garlic
• 1 teaspoon Allspice
• 1 ounce Morton’s Tender quick (optional)

 Instructions:
Heat water/salt/sugars to rolling boil.  Take off burner, add other ingredients.  Once the brine has cooled down to room temperature, put the turkey in a non-reactive container large enough to hold the turkey and brine.  Once the turkey is added, pour the brine over the turkey so that the turkey is fully submerged in it.  Let sit in fridge for at least 24 hours and preferably up to 48 hours.

Smokin’ Day:
Take the turkey out of the brine, rinse and pat dry 3 times.  The following is the rub ingredients that I used for the turkey (mix all together in a bowl):

• 1/4 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons paprika
• 1 tablespoon onion powder
• 2 tablespoons seasoned salt
• 1/2 tablespoon garlic powder
• 1/2 tablespoon chili powder
• 1/2 tablespoon lemon pepper
• 1 tablespoon sage, dried
• 1/2 teaspoon basil, dried
• 1/2 teaspoon rosemary, dried
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Instructions:
Carefully separate the skin (making sure not to tear it) breast; add about 2 tablespoons of rub underneath the skin.   Rub down the outside of the turkey with the remainder of the rub.  Soak a cheese cloth in some butter and place over turkey (to prevent the skin from becoming to black from the smoke), and put the turkey in the smoker.  I smoked it at about 250 (highest a Smokette will go), if you smoker goes higher, go up to about 350 degrees.  When you believe you have about an hour left of smoking, remove the cheese cloth from the turkey and let it resume smoking until your desired temperature.

Results:
Overall the turkey tasted wonderful, but could have been better.   I had some issues with the brine forming a leak in the turkey bags I used to brine it in, next time I will use something else.  The only dark meat I had of the turkey was one of the wings, and it was way too smoky for me.  The other people that had the dark meat thought it tasted great, but I was the only one that had one of the wings.  The breast meat tasted great.  Next time I may drop the amount of wood I smoke it with to try and get less smoke in the dark meat.  

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