Smoking Meats and Vegetables!

Is anyone else ready for this week? Not me. I had such a great weekend with the illustrator and the boys. Jay starts school in a week and a half and then Max starts a week and a half after that. The summer is going too fast! I guess we need to really focus on enjoying the next couple of weeks!

The illustrator and I smoked a lot of stuff yesterday...

butts and veggies to be specific!

We started off smoking a couple of Boston Butts and then I asked what he thought about making some BBQ sauce with all the cherry tomatoes we have here. He suggested smoking them and that was such a great idea! FYI, cherry tomatoes are not my favorite tomato, but roasting them and now smoking them are my favorite ways to eat them!

Smoking the vegetables was incredible. I've smoked beets and eggplant before, which I HIGHLY recommend...it is incredible! The smoky flavor really came through the tomatoes and now I want to smoke more! The ideas are flowing for smoked vegetables.

After we smoked the cherry tomatoes, we did both yellow and red, with the garlic and onion, we blended them in the blender. I could have left it here and had it as a soup. It was so good!

We took it the next step and added more seasonings including some local honey. 

We reduced it down a bit, but left it chunky. I had it over an unpictured (due to lack of light and starvation) omelet. I'm thinking some BBQ lentil stuffed peppers are in order for dinner tight! 

Smoked Cherry Tomato BBQ Sauce

(makes 3 1/2 cups)

5 1/4 ounces onion or two small, peeled

12 cloves of garlic, peeled

2 lbs cherry tomatoes, scored with a cross on the bottom

salt and pepper, sprinkled on for smoking

Smoke this mixture for 2 hours. We used apple wood. Then puree in a blender. 

1 tsp cumin

2 TBSP honey

1 TBSP apple cider vinegar

1 TBSP brown sugar

1 cup ketchup (without high fructose corn syrup)

Add everything to the tomato mixture and allow to cook on low until reduced down to 3 1/2 cups. This took us about 3 hours. 

Dessert was fresh white peach cobbler! I made a gluten free version and a gluten full version. I did things a little differently since I used fresh peaches. I will share that variation tomorrow...

Is it sad that I only ate dinner to get to the dessert portion of the meal? It was pure summer heaven!