Smoked Salmon

I am just so in love with hubby's smoker. We bought some salmon the other day from the grocery store. We'd had it before and were impressed with price and flavor. So after we got the smoker, we decided on getting some more and of course, smoking it. Because the flavor in the fish was so prevalent, we decided not to put any additions to it the first time. It turned out marvelously.

I swear, he broke a piece off and brought it to me and I could taste it, hovering over my tongue before the fish was even in my mouth! Absolutely lovely. It was even better when we paired it with some sauerkraut rye bread that hubby had picked up from the local bakery. I've never been a particular fan of rye bread, but the addition of the sauerkraut gave it such a delicious tang. And even my kids, who absolutely hate sauerkraut, enjoyed it. So I'll be looking up some recipes for that to try on my own. Can't wait to get the bread machine humming again!

Another Win in the Smoker!

Okay, so we've done hot dogs, polish sausages, kielbasa and the chicken last evening was great. Today's choice was a specially cut and prepared deer roast. Now, that's about two to three pounds of meat. When my husband and I butcher, or more precisely, he butchers, I wrap, we do all the roasts up special.

Making some slices into the roast, we add diced onion, green bell pepper and chopped garlic. Tie it up, vacuum seal it and put it in the freezer. Normally I like to slow cook my roasts, to allow that flavor to spread through the entire roast. It's delicious that way. When we decided to do the roast in the smoker, I used a marinade that I thought would compliment those flavors. So I ended up adding A1's Chicago Steakhouse Style Marinade. It's a roasted onion and red bell pepper, tomato based marinade. It smelled wonderful right out of the bottle. Several hours in the marinade and then it was ready to go in the smoker.

Hubby set the temperature gauge for well done beef, since there isn't a wild game dial. We threw in a hickory applewood blend and let it go. We ended up taking it out just a little early, since we don't like deer or beef too well done. Let it rest while I got the rest of dinner together.

It was just amazing. Even the veg I had put in before hand had picked up the smoky flavor combined with the marinade. It was just delicious. And so on to our next area of experimentation with hubby's new birthday toy.

Tomorrow we search out jerky seasonings for homemade ground beef jerky. Ought to be fun!