Cookout for family birthdays

A couple of the grand daughters have September birthdays, so DW and I hosted a cookout a couple of weeks ago. The fire cooked portion of the menu consisted of ABT's (Mike Chavez), pulled pork (Teddybear Haskins), Steve Petrone's No. 5. sauce, and Mac and Cheese with parm crumbs (Jamie Purviance).

Pork Butt going on first thing in the morning.


Looking good but not quite ready to foil.


ABT's were up next after the butt was foiled.


Mac and Cheese ready to go on the grill while the No. 5 simmers after adding some drippings. The Mac and Cheese is all to my DW's credit. She stirred the roux. All I did was carry 20lbs of CI and Mac Cheese out to the grill. That is a No. 12 sized Lodge.


Mac and Cheese is about ready.


This is where I started to fall down on the job, photographically. I kept forgetting to take the after pictures until it was almost too late.

ABT's went fast.

The less hot ones went faster than the full hot ones. When I make the ABT's, half of the peppers are 100% de-seeded and de-veined, and then rinsed under tap water; these are the less hot. The other half, I leave some seeds and veins in, and do not rinse; these are the full hot. I partition them on the grill and plates with a line of toothpicks.

Forgot to take pics of the butt before pulling, and only remembered to take one after the buffet line was going strong.


That mac and cheese recipe is amazing. It was so good it overshadowed the pulled pork. I can't remember off the top of my head which book it's in, but I think it's also on Weber's website. Enjoy!

Looks like a good time. Well done!

That is a great looking feast! I know that pulled pork was delicious. Every time I go through Weber recipes I see that mac and cheese but I've never done Jamie's version. Going to give that a try one of these days. I like that rack for your knife. I'll have some of those abt's too. Line me up with the "full hot". Nice post.

Awesome post and everything looks delicious.

It all looks great, nice cook.

Awesome looking cook. I'm jealous. Gonna have to convince the wife/kids to let me cook "real" mac & cheese one of these days, and not just something from a blue box. Although, tossing some pulled pork and bbq sauce on the blue box variety does improve it a bit...

Thanks everyone!

The Mac Cheese is in Purviance's New American Barbecue, I think on p. 254. It's also here:

https://www.weber.com/US/en/recipes/starters/macaroni-and-cheese/weber-13968.html

For anyone that tries it, I suggest really under cooking the pasta. I think the package said 6-7 minutes for al dente; DW cooked it 5 minutes and it was perfect. I cannot recommend this recipe enough! We've tried lots of recipes, but this one is the best.

ABT's are always a big hit. I hadn't made them in years, but now I've made them 3 times in the past couple of months.

Cliff, that knife holder came with the knife. A local kitchen store went out of business about 10 years ago and I was able to get some really nice knives at 40% off.