Jason Perlow

Pan Seared Scallops w/Quinoa over Salad Greens, Asian Vinaigrette

Smoked pork butt definitely. Also tamales.

Pastrami Reuben Quesadilla

Updates: Both sides are now installed. Pump system on the right side of the pool is running and plants are being fed. The left side will be used for tomatoes and peppers and eggplants and a few other things. Behind the spa we are planning to put in a trellis with large planters underneath so we can have peas and other vine-y kinds of vegetables crawl up behind. Tomato plants Various types of hot peppers. These will be transplanted into the planters shortly.

Experimental dish tonight. I had smoked several pieces of tofu on the BBQ last night along with the pork and the steak. So I sliced this up and wokked it with minced chicken mixed with a black bean paste and XO sauce, mushrooms, garlic, shallots and green onion, and leftover french green beans.

Experimental dish tonight. I had smoked several pieces of tofu on the BBQ last night along with the pork and the steak. So I sliced this up and wokked it with minced chicken mixed with a black bean paste and XO sauce, mushrooms, garlic, shallots and green onion, and leftover french green beans.

Actually there do appear to be some 8" melon varieties that we can grow. And of course strawberries.

Well, in all honesty we weren't going for melons. We won't be doing corn, that's not in the diet. Zucchini I know we can do. But then again I was up to my ass in Zucchini in New Jersey, I was pretty sick of the stuff. We'll probably try a few other squash varieties.

Well, the guy who is doing the setup seems to know what he is doing, he's an expert vegetable gardener is going to guide us through the process. I'm not sure what you mean by containerized soil, there's no soil here, it's a hydroponic growing medium, Perlite covered by sterilized coconut fiber. There's a lot of stuff we intend to grow that are from tropical asian climates and also stuff tested by the University of Florida. Hot months we know we can't grow tomatoes, that's pretty much a given in Florida. As to the size of the containers, you're not seeing these things up close. They're pretty big, and also you'll notice at the bottom of each pole is a pretty large root veg container.

What's in your "Montreal Rub"? The recipe seems to vary. No idea. We bought it from Penzeys a while back.

Also, during a hurricane, the system is designed so that the pots can be removed and put in the garage, leaving just the poles.

Right now there is a cloth, but we will probably put down a stronger covering or more mulch.

Smoked Steak (cooked with the still burning fuel from the BBQ with some hickory wood added) with Montreal Rub

So, as some of you know, I moved to Florida over the summer. Rachel and I bought a home in Broward County, a beautiful 5 bedroom. Unfortunately, the one thing we didn't like about the house was that it didn't have a swimming pool, so we had to build one. This was a eight week project that was completed just after Christmas. Here's the result. Now, it is indeed a stunning pool and spa setup, and we love it. But this ended up eating up most of our backyard. That essentially very little grassy area was left didn't bother me, since it eliminated a ton of lawn maintenance. we were able to save some space along the side of the house for a dog run, which we thought we were going to use for garden space as well. We had it covered with mulch, thinking we could use pots with soil to grow various things. During the construction of the pool and spa, we ended up running into an issue of not having enough pavers because the original design called for a grassy buffer area between the original patio (marble) and the new patio (brick). This ended up being changed to a flush to the house design that you see now. Unfortunately, this meant stealing a bunch of pavers from behind the spa area that was adjoining the back wall that faces the forest preserve. As you can see, there is a big gap where we have sand covering dirt. The original solution was to landscape this with exotic plants, but a few weeks ago I ran into a fellow at the Palm Beach Gardens Greenmarket named Chuck Frogner who has a business in Delray Beach called Mighty Fine Gardens. What intrigued me about his business is that he consults with various restaurants and such to build hydroponic "Chef Gardens" which consist of poles that have vegetable planters that are filled with a silica-based growing medium and are topped with coconut husk fibers, and is fed with a electrically pumped drip irrigation system using clean water that is fortified with plant food. There's a couple of benefits to this, one, you don't use anywhere near as much water for this as you would a traditional garden. Two, The plants go like gangbusters in a controlled, sterile medium (Perlite, a silica-based substance) much as you would on a space mission like they will do when they go to Mars or the Moon and build bases there someday. In Florida, much of the soil is contaminated with Nematodes (nasty microbial wormy things) that kill plants so growing veggies directly in the mulched area along the side of the house would have been a bad idea. The third benefit as these are vertical gardens and totally raised off the ground, you don't hurt your back when you are working on them. Today we completed the first half of the garden. When we are done, there will be 24 poles that will be fed by two drip irrigation pumps which will suck out water and nutrients from two garbage-can sized tanks (which will be wrapped with bamboo mats to improve the aesthetics.) Here's what the first half looks like. Tomorrow the second side is going to be completed, along with the irrigation and the first seedlings. I'll be using this thread and my two blogs (offthebroiler.com and techbroiler.com) to give progress reports on the setup and the growing of the vegetables, and to answer any questions anyone might have.

I decided to do a bit of prep cooking for our superbowl party coming in a few weeks. This will all be vac sealed and will be heated in the bag, ready to go for the game. Boston Butts, smoked at 4 hours mark, before wrapping in foil Rough pull before saucing.

tarragon chicken a la Christine Nunn

Scallops with blood orange cream sauce

How the hell do you make beef flavor out of wheat and milk derivatives?

There was a rather well-publicized lawsuit about 10 years ago about a Hindu man who bought french fries at McDonalds in the US and when he found out the frying medium was seasoned with beef fat, he freaked out and it became a group lawsuit. Since then it is my understanding Mcdonalds stopped flavoring the oil with Beef Tallow. One of eG's founding members, Holly Moore, worked for McDonalds and may have some history as to when they changed their frying oil mixture. At one point it had a much higher proprtion of beef fat to vegetable oil. Edit: the article linked above cites that in 1990 McDonalds switched from beef fat to vegetable oil entirely, but used beef essences to flavor the oil, making it not a vegetarian product.

Other companies haven't been besieged with lawsuits at such scale. We're talking about the largest fast food franchise on the planet here.

I miss the beef tallow flavored oil they used as well but the lawsuits by vegan and vegetarian customers put the kibosh on that.

Speak for yourself. They still have some of the best French fries in the fast food industry, and an excellent coffee program that has vastly improved in recent years. Better than dunkin or starbucks for regular coffee, if we are talking about a location with a full blown mccafe. Just for those two items alone McDonald's is excellent.

Holy cow.

I don't expect it to turn into balsamic vinegar, but I would think the mother would turn the wine into a decent white wine vinegar. We'll see. At the very least its an interesting science experiment.

Looks nice and crispy,