Traeger – Riveted

Making Stuff from Scratch

Laura Domela — Tue, 05 Aug 2014 01:48:13 +0000

The tortilla press I ordered arrived this afternoon (from Laredo, TX!) and I decided we should get right to it and have tacos tonight! Kevin smoked some tomatoes and peppers on the Traeger for what started out to be one hour but ended up to be almost three hours (that's what happens when you're cooking while working). Nice and smoky!

First, I used the tomatoes, some of the jalapenos and poblanos, fresh garlic, shallots, cilantro, and a few more raw tomatoes and made some homemade salsa (just throw it all in the Vitamix and season to taste). This particular batch of salsa turned out SO good!

Next (also in the Vitamix) I used one of the smoked poblanos and half a jalapeno, added a bunch of Oregon Star tomatoes, a red bell pepper, a peeled English cucumber, shallots, garlic, olive oil, a dash of salt, and some Vinagre Jerez (Spanish sherry vinegar) and made another batch of gazpacho.

(No photo, you've seen it before.)

Next up: guacamole! Three large ripe avocados, half of one of the smoked poblano peppers, half a smoked jalapeno, garlic, shallots, lime juice, cilantro, salt…mix it up by hand in a bowl and voila!

Now onto the more advanced items: tortillas! I found a simple, interesting recipe for plantain tortillas so I'm trying it. No wheat flour or corn, just dough made from cooked green plantains, sea salt, and water.

Boiling the plantains in water with sea salt:

Cooked, peeled plaintains (a fork should go through the skin, and the skin should pop right off when they're done):

The recipe says to mash up the plaintains with a fork, so I started that way, but then remembered that the recipe also said "If you have fancy equipment, go ahead and us it." I DO have fancy equipment…the Vitamix. So I put the crumbled part I'd already done plus the rest and, well, it didn't turn out so good. It quickly became a sticky solid mess and my Vitamix "turned itself off" so I dug it all out of there, and did the rest by hand with a fork (and eventually a potato masher).

Add hot water (I used the water I'd boiled them in…not sure if that was allowed, but it was already super hot) to the plantain mixture and knead until you get a soft dough. Form balls and put them between plastic or parchment in the tortilla press:

And what d'ya know? It looks JUST like a tortilla! (This first one is a bit small though.)

I increased the size of the dough balls and went to town. The tortilla press is killer…like magic! My stack of uncooked tortillas:

I put some plastic between each one so they didn't stick together. So far so good!

Cooking them in a bit of coconut oil until they browned:

Kevin smoked/grilled some salmon and some prawns so we had fish/prawns, homemade salsa and guacamole, cilantro, and sour cream and lime, and the "tortillas" along with some fresh local corn. SUCH a good dinner.!

Update: A few people have asked me about the tortilla press. I got this one, and I ordered it here from Amazon:

It's heavy duty, cast iron, and works wonderfully.

Givin’ Away Some BBQ Secrets

Laura Domela — Sun, 28 Jul 2013 17:43:01 +0000

We're getting low on our supply of our homemade BBQ rub (and we have a brisket on the big Traeger at home right now) so we decided to make a couple big batches of it today. We headed over to Penzey's to pick up the bulk spices we needed, and got two large jars so we could make a double batch for home and a double batch for the Airstream. We're feeling generous, so we thought we'd share the recipe with you. We use it on chicken, pork, brisket, baby back ribs, and even occasionally on salmon.

Riveted's Rowdy Rub (we made that up right this second)

1/3 c coarse sea salt

1/2 c coarse ground pepper

1/4 c smoked paprika

3T chili powder

1T cayenne

1 T chipotle

2T garlic

1T cumin

1T oregano

1T thyme

Mix everything together in a jar or tupperware, shake well, and you're ready to go. You're welcome!

A New Portable Traeger

Laura Domela — Wed, 24 Jul 2013 13:32:40 +0000

We really really loved our Traeger Junior. We've had it a few years and it's been good to us. We've cooked everything on it: baby back ribs, salmon, chicken, vegetables, blue cheese stuffed dates, bacon, oysters…you name it. Tiffani and Deke decided to join the Traeger family and got themselves one of the newest, most compact Traegers that recently came out, the Traeger PTG.

It's 13 inches high by 21 inches wide by 17 inches deep, weighs 40 lbs and has a 169 square inch grilling area. Highly portable (especially for a Traeger)!

The Junior is 38 inches high by 36 inches wide by 16 inches deep, weighs 68 lbs and has a 292 square inch grilling area (basically, four racks of baby backs).

Well, Deke got an email a few weeks ago announcing a "one day only sale" of a limited edition version of the PTG for a hundred bucks off with a carrying case and digital controller upgrade and well, we couldn't resist. (Troublemaker!)

It's so much more portable than the Junior (even after we took the legs off of it and added the tailgate kit to make it smaller) and we think we'll be able to cook almost everything we need to on this smaller grill. We seasoned it yesterday and tried it out last night (6 chicken breasts!) and so far, it's just perfect.

Thanks Deke!