chow with chaz

Tag: bbq

  • Chaz’s Choice Week 2

    Week 2 and I am already late. Great start Chaz. If you saw my IG post last week, you saw the early contender. The McPaysan from Paysan. It was a their take on a McDonald’s mcmuffin…taken up a few notches. I’m not the biggest English muffin fan, but this one was incredibly flavorful. They are usually just a bit bland for me. It had sausage, a hashbrown, and a maple mustard. SAY WHAT! The maple mustard was divine. Perfect mixture of the vinegar tang with the sweetness of the maple. Cheese was melted and so messy. It was a glorious concoction…that finished second for the week.

    I am giving the best thing I had this week to…….myself! I smoked my first pork shoulder Saturday. In the snow. I got a bit of a late start but we got it done. I woke up around 730 and immediately got started. As the smoker rose to 250 degrees, I trimmed the fat cap a bit, slathered her in mustard, then put on a healthy coating of Bad Byron’s Butt Rub. I sourced my process from various places on the interweb and it turned out well. After a couple of hours, I put an aluminum pan with half apple cider vinegar and half water in to create some moisture. I let it go until it got to around 170 degrees and it hit “the stall.” My prep for wrapping was some of the vinegar mixture, some butter and some bbq sauce on some aluminum foil. I wrapped her in that and put it back in until it got to 200. I pulled her at about 630 which was over 8 hours on the smoker. Let her rest for about 30-45 minutes then went to shredding. It was honestly some of the best pulled pork I had ever had. The bark was absolutely incredible. It retained so much moisture. We made sandwiches Saturday night, and then I made my top meal of the week last night. Some very simple pork nachos with queso and Kinder’s Hicky Brown Sugar bbq sauce. 10/10 and will eat again tonight…because there’s still 4 pounds left.

    The roads are a bit treacherous here this week, so we will see what that has in store for week 3. Love you all!

  • Sweet P’s Uptown Corner

    I went out to run some errands yesterday and of course planned these around where I was going to go for lunch. I have heard a lot about Sweet P’s BBQ since moving to Knoxville. I love BBQ, but I have yet to try it. I changed that yesterday. I am pretty sure where I went was a new location for them. The atmosphere was great, despite me being the only person in there. It was a restaurant where they take your order at your table, which is always a little odd for me at BBQ but I’ll allow it. I got a sweet tea because ya gotta with BBQ. It was very sweet…just like it should be! For my meal, I ordered the pork burrito and mac and cheese. The burrito was filled with pork, cheese, slaw, and pinto beans (I think that’s everything). They had two sauces on the table, mild and hot. I didn’t try the hot because as soon as I tasted that mild vinegar sauce I was sold! I like most BBQ sauces, but vinegar takes the cake for me. The burrito was absolutely divine. I am not the biggest bean fan (texture!!!!) so I would probably get it without them next time. I wanted to try it as it came the first time though. For my side, I went with Mac and Cheese. It was baked mac and cheese. I like my mac and cheese a bit gooey and you don’t always get that with the baked variety…this had a great amount of gooey. I will be going back 1000%. I rate this 4.8 Wilburs out of 5. In the attached picture, you will see exactly what I thought of Sweet P’s

    BONUS REVIEW!!!!

    Wren’s Bakery is right next door. I could go broke and get the betus in that place. They had a variety of cookie sandwiches which are a weakness of mine. I got the chocolate chip espresso, which I have not tried yet…looks so good though. I did try the carrot cake in a cup and it had maybe the best icing I have ever had. We may have a new contender in the battle of the bakeries. Maybe I will do a Battle of the Bakeries Video! Let me know if you would like that.

    Love you all!!