Special Sauce:

• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 2 tablespoons ketchup
• 1 tablespoon white vinegar
• 2 teaspoons sugar
• 2 teaspoons sweet pickle relish
• 2 teaspoons finely minced white onion
• dash of salt
• dash of pepper

Mix all these ingredients in a bowl, cover, let sit in the fridge for a couple hours to let the flavors bind together.

Burger Ingredients:

• Hamburger buns
• 2 grilled hamburger patties
• 2 slices American cheese
• Onion slice
• Tomato slice
• Iceberg Lettuce (not shredded)
• Special Sauce (see above)

The next part of making an In-N-Out Double Double burger is to properly construct the burger:

Place special sauce on the bottom bun

Place tomato on top of special sauce

Place lettuce on top of tomato

Place beef patty with American cheese on top of tomato

Place onion slice on top of first beef patty

Place second beef patty with American cheese on top of onion

Place top bun on the 2nd beef patty

For my beef patties I used 80/20 ground beef with each patty being about 1/4 pound.  Then grilled them over direct heat flipping once till it was done to perfection.  The only difference with this In-N-Out style double double is that it is not nearly as greasy as the ones you buy from them (I missed the grease as that is one part that makes it soooo good).

For some reason I do not do to many burgers on the grill (heck, I haven’t even had a chance to light up the grill in a long time), even though it is very easy to get creative with the recipes.  This is a great example of a creative burger recipe that provides a lot of wonderful flavor.

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds ground sirloin
• 2 tablespoons fennel seed, finely ground
• 1 tablespoon red pepper flakes, finely ground
• 2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 2 red peppers
• Fresh blue cheese, crumbled
• Salt
• Cracked peppercorns
• Olive oil
• 6 4-inch square Focaccia rolls (I used a tomato basil focaccia roll)

Instructions:

Start off by preparing the grill for high direct heat.  Rinse the bell peppers with water and pat dry with a paper towel.  Place on the grill over direct heat.  Rotate the peppers about every 5 minutes, till the skin is well blistered.  Place in a bowl and cover with saran wrap.  Let sit in the bowl till they are cool enough to handle.

Prepare the burgers by combining the ground sirloin, fennel, red pepper flakes, balsamic vinegar, and red wine vinegar.  Make sure to mix the beef mixture thoroughly.  Form the mixture into six burger patties, and coat lightly with olive oil.  Sprinkle on some salt and the cracked peppercorns onto each burger patty.

Grill over direct heat until the desired doneness.

As the burgers grill, the peppers should be cool enough to handle.  Remove the stem and seeds from the peppers and peel off the skin.  At this time it should come off nice and easily.  Slice the peppers into 1 inch strips.

As the burgers are close to being done, slice the focaccia rolls in half and toast on the grill, cut side down.

Remove the burgers and focaccia rolls.  To make the burgers place the burger on the bottoms side of the focaccia roll, topped off with some of the sliced red peppers, and then the crumbled blue cheese.

Results:

These were absolutely amazing burgers!  For the vegetarian/non-beef eater, try portabellas that have been lightly seasoned with olive oil, salt, and pepper, then grilled.  I did this for my wife, and they were absolutely amazing to.

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds 80/20 ground chuck
• 3 tablespoons Jay’s Mexican Rub
• 1/4 yellow onion finely chopped
• Sliced pepper jack cheese
• Chipotle Mayonnaise
• Good quality hamburger buns

Instructions:

1. In a bowl, mix together the ground beef, Mexican rub, and onion
2. Form hamburger patties, should get 6 to 8
3. Prepare grill for medium direct grilling
4. Grill for about 5 minutes per side
5. Move to indirect heat and top each burger with a slice of pepper jack cheese.
6. Serve with the Chipotle Mayonnaise and hamburger buns

The burgers came out pretty good, if you want a bit more spice add in some cayenne pepper to the beef, maybe a teaspoon or two.

Pastrami:
To make this pastrami, I bought a corned beef point cut brisket.  Corned beef brisket is generally just a brisket that has been brined and then to convert it to pastrami, you would just add a spice rub and toss it in the smoker. The source for my method of preparing the pastrami can be found at another Cookshack owners site, MainlyDave.  So here are the steps I followed to make the pastrami:

1. Soak the corned beef brisket in water for about 45 minutes, drain water and refill.  Let soak for at least a couple hours (let mine soak overnight).  This is to remove much of the salt from the brining process.
2. \Remove brisket from water and pat dry with some paper towels.
3. Remove a good portion of the fat cap from the brisket and reserve.
4. Rub in the Pastrami Rub (can be found below), pat it in pretty good, the rub has a hard time sticking to the brisket.  (Some people use some type of weight to let it sit for a while to get the rub sticking to the brisket).
5. Place the brisket on the middle shelf of the smoker with the fat cap on the top shelf directly over it.
6. Smoke at 225^oF until temperature of the brisket reaches 165^oF.  I used about a 3 oz chunk of hickory this time in the smokette.
7. Wrap in foil and let sit for a while (get the juices settled back down)
8. Slice, serve, enjoy!

Pastrami Rub:

1 T Kosher or Sea Salt (many recipes call for 5+ T, but that seemed like a lot to me for something that has been brined). 4 T Paprika 3 T Coriander Seed 3 T Brown Sugar 2 T Yellow Mustard Seed 2 T Garlic Powder 5 T Peppercord Melange (mixture of Black, White, Pink, and Green Peppercorns)

Results:
I ended up taking the pastrami out, wrapping it in foil, and letting it rest for about 2 hours.  The pastrami had an excellent taste to it and I would definitely repeat this recipe.  The meat was nice and tender, and the rub was fantastic.  Someday, I will have to pick up a meat slicer to get nice shaven slices (the way pastrami should be).

Spicy Black Bean Burgers:
This was another first try and I really had some doubts that it would stay together.  However, since my wife doesn’t care for too much for meat products, I had to give it a shot for her.  She supports my BBQin’, so I feel like I should grill up somethings she would like once in a while.

Ingredients:

2 16 oz Cans of Black  Beans, drained and rinsed 1/2 C finely chopped onions (your favorite kind, I choose sweet yellow onions) 1/2 C Dry Bread Crumbs 4 TB Chunky Salsa \2 t Ground Cumin 1 t Hot Pepper Sauce (Tobasco)

Instructions:

1. In a bowl, mash black beans with a potato masher or fork
2. Mix in the rest of the ingredients
3. Form into desired sized patties.  (I got 5 decent size patties)
4. Grill over direct medium heat for about 5 minutes per side

Serve on your favorite type of hamburger bun with salsa, sour cream, and guacamole

Results:
These burgers tasted great and held together very well.  This recipe is definitely a keeper.  They had a nice crunchy outside with a soft inside.  Definitely would recommend this one for anyone that is looking for something different to grill or looking for a meat alternative.

Chicken  Fajitas:
Fajitas are something that are simple to make and always taste great.  For this I made a simple marinade for the chicken and vegetables.

Ingredients:

2 lbs Chicken Breast, sliced into 1 inch long pieces 4 Colored Bell Peppers (mixture of red, yellow, and orange), slice into 1 inch slivers 1 large yellow onion, sliced 1/2 cup lime juice 1/2 cup orange juice 2 T olive oil 8 cloves garlic, minced 4 t Soy Sauce 2 t Kosher Salt 2 t Cayenne Pepper 2 t Black Pepper

Instructions:

1. Put sliced chicken into a ziplock bag
2. Put sliced bell peppers and onion into a seperate ziplock bag
3. In a bowl mixtogether lime juice and orange juice
4. Mix in the remainder of the ingredients
5. Pour half the marinade in the ziplock bag with the chicken and the other half in with the vegetables
6. Let chicken and vegetables marinade for at leat 4 hours or over night.
7. Prepare bbq for direct grilling
8. Place either aluminum foil on grill racks or use other device to prevent food falling through the grates.  I placed the chicken on a smaller grilling grate to prevent chicken from falling in, and the vegetables in a grilling skilling that contain a bunch of small holes.
9. Grill until you reach the desired doneness of the chicken and vegetables
10. Serve with tortillas, sour cream, hot sauce, guacamole, and shredded cheese

Results:
The fajitas turned out great with a real good flavor from the marinade.  This like the other 2 this weekend are definitely keepers.  The fajitas also brought the name of this blog to be true.  It was definitely a true adventure, shortly after I put the chicken and the pepper/onion mixture on to the grill a large thunderstorm hit, but all turned out good though.

The weekend:
This was a great and wonderful BBQin’ weekend. Everything turned out fantastic and would do all three recipes again.  I wish I had thawed enough chicken for the Yucatan Skewers, I have been wanting to do these for a while now.  There is a certain ingredient in these that I had been looking for a very long time, and I had finally came across it about a month ago.  Hopefully in the next couple days I will have a chance to do these.  The only problem is that I do not think I saved enough pastrami to bring into the office like I planned.

J