Great ribs & Peri Peri chicken

Hi, kids!

How was your weekend? Mine was pretty much a fun time. We had a party in our neighborhood on Friday night to celebrate a neighbor's birthday. There was a jumping castle and even Halloween movies. Basically we ran around the cul-de-sac with all our friends and exhausted ourselves!

Saturday my dad woke me and Andrew up real early. We had to leave for church at 6:30 am to help make breakfast for our All Pro Dad's event. It was great! I made some really crispy bacon again while my dad made the pancakes (with chocolate chips mixed in!). Pastor Ted organized some neat activities for us to do, focusing on putting together small bags stuffed with everyday supplies that we can give away to homeless people we meet here in Austin. That was pretty fun and a good learning lesson of finding ways to help out those not as fortunate as we are.

We got home from our All Pro Dad's breakfast and then turned out attention to preparing our barbecue. Some great friends were going to join us for supper! I had my neighbor Campbell come over to help me get the rub and ribs ready. Here we are prepping our supplies:

Campbell had never helped me before, so that was fun showing him how to get the ribs ready. He was a great help!

Then I had to go get my dad and get the charcoal and wood set for the grill. We waited for the grill to get good and hot, about 225 degrees Fahrenheit. Then the grill was ready for the ribs!

My dad kept an eye on the ribs for the afternoon while I went and ran around some more. After about six hours the ribs were ready to be pulled off the grill and eat! Here I am checking out the ribs. Notice my tiny grill. Tell me if you don't think me and my dad need to get a real pit about twice if not three times as big!

One of my longest friends, Marc, and his family came over for supper. Here we are appreciating the barbecue ready to eat! It was great inviting friends over to enjoy some of the most favorite barbecue I like to smoke.

We had those yummy ribs, and we also had some of my dad's favorite chicken, using that Peri Peri marinade recipe that he found while in Africa. The chicken turned out great too! We had so much for leftovers that Mom made a terrific soup with the chicken. I think she could be a restaurant chef with that soup. We'd call it: Smoked Peri Peri Chicken Tortilla soup. How does that sound? Come and Take it!

Coming into focus: weekend fun & bbq plans!

Hi, kids!

I hope you all are doing great! My week is going good. It's been a good few days at school, and the weather here in Texas is perfect. It's so nice we can keep playing outside after school until Mom calls us in for supper, and then again for night after that.

I think we're going to have a real fun weekend. Our neighborhood is planning a party on Friday night, and that's always so much fun running around with all my neighbor friends. Then on Saturday it looks to be full of even more fun. First, we have another All Pro Dad's breakfast set for Saturday morning at church, and I'll plan to help my dad cook up some pancakes and bacon just like last time. Then we're going to go to a church friend's ranch to gather some wood. We're almost out of firewood at home, and what with the weather cooling off and needing wood for our barbecue, my dad figured we better go get some soon.

Finally on Saturday we aim to have some friends come over for supper. It'll be a surprise what we'll cook for them, but I already have lots of bbq in mind. My dad has this tasty marinade recipe for chicken that he picked up during one of his trips to Africa. It's called peri-peri and it comes from a country in Africa called Mozambique. It's a really tangy and juicy marinade and I can't wait to barbecue some chicken with that. I also want to bbq some ribs again. They turned out great last time and I really want my friends to try that. I'd like to try to barbecue a brisket, but the last time I tried that with my dad, the brisket didn't turn out so good. It was pretty dried up. My mom says we need to try barbecuing a brisket again just for ourselves, making sure we can smoke it right, before we serve another not-so-tasty one to friends.

Ok friends have a great couple of coming days at school and I'll see you again this weekend!

Your friend,

--James

Huge rain in Austin!

Hi, kids --

We got so much rain this weekend in Austin that we had to come back from camping a night early. At least we stayed dry last night. It rained hard all night long!

We got up this morning to go to church and on the drive we passed by Slaughter creek in our neighborhood. We pulled the car over to check out the creek because the rain was collecting so much and powerfully it was almost scary. We had never seen the creek this flooded:

BBQ pit dreamin'

Hi, kids:

You've seen some pictures of my barbecue pit at home. It's not really a real pit, but instead a small grill that if we squeeze the meat around close enough, we are able to smoke up some barbecue. So my dad and I have been looking around to get a real barbecue pit -- something that has a lot of space to maneuver the meat, and something that has a smoker box attached to it. With the smoke box you can put your charcoal and wood separate from your meat, and it really helps to cook the meat away from the flame (so you don't burn it or overcook it) and more consistently.

We were driving through the town of Luling to get to our boy scouts camp, and we came across this barbecue pit for sale. There was a sign listing it for sale for $2,100 or best offer. It sure looked like a great pit -- it had two sections for meat, the offset smoker box, and a tall smokestack to draw the smoke through the pit. We're still thinking about it. My dad and I were only worried about Mom's reaction to spending that much money on a bbq pit!

You can see how great it looks! You could fit a whole pig into it!

Black's BBQ in Lockhart

Hi, kids!

I hope you had a great week at school. Mine was pretty good, and when the school week was done I got ready for my boy scout campout at Camp Green Dickson, near Gonzalez, Texas. Just Dad and me were going, since it was a Webelos rank event, so Andrew got to stay home with Mom and have a fun time to themselves. I think they were planning to go to the nearby Mighty Fine restaurant, to get some might fine hamburgers and fries.

While they went out for burgers, my dad and me planned to stop in Lockhart for some famous barbecue. Lockhart is like a bbq capital in Texas, with several great bbq restaurants. We knew they had some places like Kreuz's and Smitty's, and then we saw a sign for Black's. That's the one we wanted to try.

Black's is famous for being the oldest bbq restaurant in Texas still owned by the same family. We got to the entrance and it was well worth the drive:

Here I am with some of my favorites: ribs, brisket, and a Big Red soda!

We had to 'fess up to Mom when we got home. Between my dad and me we probably ate 2 pounds of barbecue, plus sides. We got mashed potatoes, macaroni and cheese, and fried rice to go with the bbq. Mmm it was so good! Come and Take It!

Garner State Park after-camp report

Hi, kids!

We had a great time camping at Garner State Park. It was a bit of a drive to get there -- my dad told me it was 170 miles from our house. But what a beautiful drive. And once we got off the highway it was like being in the middle of nowhere, with no cities or much traffic. As we approached the park it was first all flat, and then we started seeing the Hill Country canyons!

We set our tent up at dark, so we couldn't really see what the park looked like. When we woke up in the morning, we began to discover the extent of the hills, river and canyons around us. We started the day exploring the Frio river. Here my brother and me are leaving camp for the river:

We went fishing below the dam. Even though we didn't catch anything, we sure had fun casting and jumping around the rocks. Here you can see how pretty the walk along the river was:

There were some good fishing holes, even if the fish weren't biting! We also tried fishing above the dam, and though we didn't have any better luck, it was a great site!

After fishing we went for a great hike to explore the hills on top of us. They had a couple of caves and some long trails that took us all the way to the top of the canyon overlooking the Frio river valley. It was a misty morning, and that felt good as we climbed the mountain. It even threatened to rain, but thankfully the rain held off and we were able to keep going!

Our campsite is at the bottom of the valley, just behind my right shoulder.

We finished up the hike and returned to our campsite in time for the sun to break free of the clouds. It was a beautiful afternoon to cool off in the fresh Frio river. Mom had a great idea to rent us a paddle board! We had never tried that before and here was the perfect chance. It was so much fun -- if you haven't tried it yet, ask your parents to take you to a river where you can rent one. The paddle board has a lot of balance to it, so even though I had never tried it before, I was able to get the hang of it right away. I never fell off once.

Then it was soon suppertime! And I was in charge. Guess what we were having? I think I mentioned it last time: one of my favorites, steak! My dad picked up a very special treat for us to grill, some beef tenderloin steaks. Look at how huge they were!

We also had corn on the cob to get ready, and mom made some biscuits on the Dutch Oven. So I got the charcoal and wood good and hot, then put on the steaks:

I kept a close eye on the grill, to make sure the steaks didn't get overcooked and dried out:

 I couldn't quite tell the temperature, and also because the steaks were so thick (about 2 inches almost), I kept the meat on the grill for almost twenty minutes. I flipped the steaks about halfway:

Then the steaks were ready! How do they look to you?

Here we are at our campsite picnic table. Come and Take It!

Garner State Park camping!

Hi, kids!

It's mid-week -- how has your week of school been? Mine has been good, and full of activities. After school and besides homework, I had two scouting meetings to go to. Last night was my own Webelos scout den's meeting where we learned about engineering and making electrical circuits. That was cool and was led by another scout's dad who is a real smart chemical engineer. Tonight was my brother Andrew's wolf den meeting and we learned about bicycle safety from another scout's dad who loves to bike. I'm helping my mom and dad lead Andrew's den, so in a way I get to be their den's den chief. That is a great responsibility for me!

Here I am in my scout uniform:

My family is excited for the upcoming weekend, because we get to go camping! We're going to one of the best state parks in all of Texas -- at least that is what I've heard, but I'll have to find out for myself. This will be our first time going to Garner State Park. It is on the Frio River in what we call the Texas Hill Country (it is a part of Texas that has real hills!). With all the rain we've had lately, the river should be flowing, and the trees and grass should be soft and green. It could be a perfect weekend! Of course we plan to grill while we're there. My dad is talking about a special treat of grilling one of my favorites: steak! Mom has already picked up ingredients for making 'smores. What can be better than going camping, going hiking in the woods, seeing the stars and hearing nothing but nature, and grilling meat and 'smores around the fire?

Wish you could come camping with us! I'll give you the update from Garner State Park.

Your friend,

--James