Frozen Painkiller

New category on my blog, Slushi Recipes! My wife and kids surprised me with a Ninja Slushi for my birthday, so I figured I’d start cataloging recipes that we’ve enjoyed. It can take a little trial and error on some of the recipes, especially the spiked drinks as too high of alcohol can prevent the drink from freezing. I may tweak the recipes in this category from time to time as I work on dialing them in.

Frozen Painkiller

6 Servings

24oz Unsweetened pineapple juice

6oz Orange juice 

6oz Coco Lopez

13oz Dark Jamaican rum

15oz Water (fill to max line)

We love this recipe. Whenever possible, I like to use fresh juices. That said, I usually use Dole canned pineapple juice. Several folks have said this is the best painkiller they’ve ever had. For the rum, we’ve really enjoyed Pussers, Hamilton, Doctor Bird, etc. It’s kind of hard to go wrong. If you’ve never used Coco Lopez before, it can separate a little and solidify in the can. I find it helps to submerge the can in hot water for 10 or so minutes, then stir to make sure it’s well mixed.

Add all ingredients to Slushi and set to Spiked setting. Alternatively, you can pre-mix and chill in the fridge. I wouldn’t recommend doing this more than 24 hours in advance as the quality can degrade, especially if using fresh juices. Pre-chilling will reduce the time required to freeze the drink. Once it reaches the desired consistency, serve an enjoy.

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Biscuits and Gravy

Updated: Biscuit recipe added below:

I love some biscuits and gravy for breakfast. It’s so flavorful and filling and I’ll often skip lunch whenever we make it. So far I’ve usually just used canned biscuits, but I think I may start exploring biscuits from scratch. For the gravy, I’ve made a few different recipes that I’ve found on the internet, but the one I made today has been my fav so far.  Here’s the recipe as I made it:

1lbs Hot breakfast sausage (I used Tennessee Pride)

1.5t Rosemary, fresh 

1.5t Thyme, fresh 

1/2t Kosher salt (plus a bit more)

1.25t Ground black pepper

3T butter

1T Worcestershire sauce

1/2c All-purpose flour

2.5c Milk

2.5c Heavy whipping cream 

Notes: You can substitute 5c milk if you don’t have heavy whipping cream. 

Gravy Instructions 

1. Brown the sausage over medium heat.
2. Add Rosemary, thyme, salt, and pepper and mix well and cook for 2 minutes..
3. Add butter and Worcestershire.
4. Once butter melts, add flour and stir well.  Continue cooking for about 3 minutes, stirring so that the flour doesn’t burn.
5. Add milk/cream and mix well.  Stir occasionally so it doesn’t burn on the bottom. 
6. Once thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon, turn off the heat and cover.
7. Bake your biscuits and once they’re ready, give the gravy a good stir.  
8. Serve over hot biscuits.

Biscuits!

Here’s a really good biscuit recipe I found that goes great with the above gravy recipe. This is purportedly the biscuit recipe from Ruth’s Diner in Utah. If you’ve never been, their biscuits are ginormous and delicious. This recipe doesn’t get quite as high as the ones from Ruth’s, but I think that may have more to do with the shape of the pan used.  Here’s the recipe as I made it:

2.75c all purpose flour

1.5t kosher salt

1T sugar

1t baking powder

1t baking soda

6T butter, chilled and cut into small pieces

3/4c buttermilk

1 egg, beaten

1/4c water

Biscuit Instructions 

1. Pre-heat oven to 425 degrees
2. Combine flour, salt, sugar, baking powder, baking soda in a large bowl. Mix well
3. Add chilled butter and use a pastry cutter and mix until crumbly.
4. Add the buttermilk, beaten egg and water.
5. Using a large utensil (I like to use a large wooden Spurtle) mix well using a folding motion.  Mix just long enough until wet and dry ingredients are blended.
6. Transfer from bowl to lightly floured counter or cutting board and do a little more folding. If the dough is too sticky, add more flour, about one tablespoon at a time.
7. Gently flatten out the dough to about 3/4” thick and cut out nine equal portions. I like to use a biscuit cutter to ensure uniform size.
8. Bake in an 8x8 or 9x9 pan for about 17-18 minutes until lightly golden on top.

Split biscuits in half and top with sausage gravy and serve!

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Smoked Meatloaf and General Update

I haven’t posted in a while. We moved from Utah to Florida and I had to dismantle my brew system and only take the essentials.  Some things like my brew stand didn’t make the cut, so I’m in the process of redesigning and rebuilding. 

In the meantime, here’s a smoked meatloaf recipe I made a couple days ago. It was awesome, and even my wife and son who don’t love meatloaf thought it was great. In hindsight, I wish I’d made two loaves so that we would have had enough for leftover meatloaf sandwiches. 

For this recipe I used the meatball/meatloaf blend that I picked up from Wild Fork. It’s a 1/3 each blend of beef, pork, and veal. I then supplemented it with 8oz of grass fed ground beef. For the BBQ sauce I used Kinder Hot BBQ sauce. Sadly I no longer have my Kamado smoker, but I picked up a Weber Searwood pellet smoker once we got settled in Florida. Here’s the recipe as I made it and credit to https://bakeitwithlove.com for the original recipe.

Ingredients

1.5 lbs Wild Fork Meatloaf Blend + 8oz Ground Beef

1/2c yellow onion (finely minced) 

2 large eggs

3 garlic cloves, minced

1/3c Kinder Hot BBQ mixed into the loaf

1/3c Kinder Hot for the glaze

½c Panko breadcrumbs

1t cayenne pepper

1t chili powder

1t salt

1t pepper

Instructions

1. Preheat your smoker to 275°F using your favorite hardwood. I went with Bear Mountain Gourmet BBQ Blend.
2. Combine all ingredients but the 1/3c sauce for the glaze; this will be added with one hour left in the cook. Mix just long enough that all ingredients are well combined.
3. Form your loaf then place it onto a wire rack. I used a shallow aluminum pan underneath the wire rack to catch any drippings.
4. Place the loaf in the smoker and cook at 275F for two hours. 
5. At the two hour mark, brush the meatloaf with the 1/3c of BBQ sauce.  
6. Continue in the smoker for another hour until the internal temp reaches 160F.  In my case, I ended up bumping the temp up to 300F for the last 15 minutes. 
7. Pull it off the smoker and let it rest for a few minutes before slicing. 

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