Great Balls of Smokin' Snakes!

This weekend my husband and I promised ourselves some chilled out, non gardening, non crazy partying time off. Nothing tooooo strenuous, we were both still recovering from a major party we hosted last weekend...

I suggested we smoke some meat (such a Southern thing) and we decided to try something new. Normally we'll do some brisket or pork butt, but this weekend, lamb and chicken....

We marinaded both overnight, the chicken in a mojo sauce and the lamb in garlic, rosemary and lemon - we were going for a greek flavour.

Now the principal of smoking is low and slow, so you normally get up early to get the meat on for lunch... however this was a relaxing weekend so our meat went on to be ready for dinner (lazy we are!)

So we just have a little electric smoker... hubbie wants a mac daddy wood one, but for now we use this one and invest in nice smelling wood chips...

So a novices guide to smoking...
1. Meat goes on wrapped up until smoker gets to temp
2. Unwrap meat ( we leave resting in foil for two textures of meat)
3. Periodically throw wood chips on heat to produce smoke
4. Swim in pool and drink cocktails whilst smoking

Meat ready to be smoked!

Mesquite chips....

Smoke rolling... now time for a swim

I went to chill by the pool... it was a little cloudy, but the sun was still blazing hot...

And the pool was as bad! like getting in a warm bath... still the cocktail was cold and icy and I had pool float which my mate Anne had left here last year...

The only bad bit about smoking is having to add new chips every couple of hours and normally hubbie would handle, but I was trying to blog on our smoking experience so I had to extract myself from the pool and walk around the side of house where we keep the smoker... the meat was starting to absorb the smoke and cook

When we walked back round we encountered this....

A new slippery friend by the front door.. totaly pissed at us.... shaking his little tail!

raring up... gulp.. so he wasn't big, but sure was fast.

We tried to thrown Gary's garden stake at it and all it did was rare up at us... so just in case it wasn't a Black racer (could have been a Coachwhip) we went the other way.. when we returned our new friend had gone, ready to fight another day... I'm not really bothered by snakes.. in fact I ran over a small Rattler in the garden! Its just Florida for you!

Anyway the meat was nearling completion and I took photos before whipping it inside....

The lamb (which we had with greek salad, pittas and tzaskiki sauce) was pull apart delicious

and too keep my husband happy I made my new spicy mac and cheese too...notice the throw away pan.. told you it was an easy does it weekend...

All in all very tasty... the chicken made the best sandwiches Sunday and supper tonight will be chicken salad probably, so my chilled weekend is making work easier this week too..

Hope you had a good one