BBQ Meatloaf with a Bacon Weave

First, a big shout out and thanks to Susie Bulloch over at heygrillhey.com. I actually saw the photo of her BBQ Meatloaf with a Bacon Weave on her instagram account (@heygrillhey) and I had to try it on the Big Green Egg.

Susie has a terrific post on her blog on How to Make a Bacon Weave. I couldn;t have said it any better, so if you don’t know how to make the weave – check it out at heygrillhey.com/how-to-make-a-bacon-weave/.

The meatloaf was nicely seasoned with peppers, onions, garlic and BBQ sauce, then wrapped in an awesome bacon weave! What’s not to love?

So, here’s my recipe for BBQ Meatloaf with a Bacon Weave on the Big Green Egg.

Ingredients (Serves 4)

• 1 lb (14 slices) of regular sliced bacon (not the thick sliced bacon – it takes too long to cook)
• 1 tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil (EVOO)
• 1/2 cup red onion – diced
• 1/2 cup yellow bell pepper – diced
• 2 tsp garlic – minced
• 1 lb lean ground beef – I used 93% lean
• 2 eggs – beaten in a medium sized bowl
• 1/4 cup breadcrumbs – I used Traditional Breadcrumbs from Kroger
• 1/2 cup BBQ sauce – pick your favorite
• 3 tbsp or more BBQ sauce to glaze the meatloaf on the grill
• 1 tbsp mustard – I used Dijon. Susie called for Whole Grain Mustard but I didn’t have any
• 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 2 tsp hot sauce – I used Frank’s Red Hot Sauce
• 1 tsp kosher salt
• 1/2 tsp cracked black pepper
• Parchment Paper
• Disposable food preparation gloves are really helpful!

 Instructions

 

1. Prepare your Big Green Egg for an indirect cook at 375(F) with the plate setter legs up. I recommend having a foil lined drip pan to catch the grease from the bacon and meatloaf.
2. In a large skillet or saute pan, heat the EVOO. Stir in the onions and peppers and cook for 6 miniutes. Add the minced garlic and cook for another minute. Turn off the heat and set aside to cool.
3. In a large mixing bowl, add the ground beef. Sprinkle the breadcrumbs, salt and pepper on top of the ground beef. To the medium sized bowl with the beaten eggs, add the 1/2 cup of BBQ sauce, Worcestershire sauce and hot sauce. Whisk the wet ingredients together until combined and then pour over the ground beef.
4. Wearing your food preparation gloves, combine the ingredients with your hands until uniform.
5. For the bacon weave, divide the slices into an equal number and then create the weave on a piece of parchment paper as instructed in the link at the top of this post. I used the entire pound of bacon which had 14 slices in it.
6. Place the meat mixture in the center of the bacon weave and form it into a log.
7. Roll the bacon weave over the meatloaf and secure any loose ends with toothpicks. (Don’t forget to take them out after the meatloaf has cooked.
8. Move the meatloaf onto the Big Green Egg and close the lid. After 45 minutes, check the internal temperature of the meatloaf in several areas. You are shooting for an internal temperature of at least 160 (F). Glaze the bacon weave with BBQ sauce. I flipped the meatloaf after an hour to get the bacon to crisp up on the top and bottom. I cooked mine for a little longer than an hour (1:15 or so).
9. When it is to your desired internal temperature and the bacon has crisped up to your liking, take it off the grill.
10. Allow the meat to rest for 10 minutes prior to serving.

The meatloaf was tender and juicy. The bacon weave was crispy. We plated this with some mashed potatoes and green beans. Yum!

Cole Slaw

I was looking for a simple recipe to make cole slaw to top my pulled pork sandwiches. I came across a recipe from Meathead Goldwyn at amazingribs.com. Click here for his recipe.

I went the easier route – my recipe follows:

Yield. 8 servings

Preparation time. 15 minutes. Let the slaw sit in the refrigerator for at least 1 hour to blend the flavors.

Ingredients for the slaw
I bought a 1 lb bag of pre-chopped cole slaw (green cabbage and carrots) in the salad section of the grocery store. You can certainly chop up the stuff yourself – but it was much easier my way.

Ingredients for the dressing
1 tablespoon distilled vinegar
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 tablespoon white sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 tablespoon of sweet pickle relish

Method
Using a wire whisk, mix the dressing ingredients in a large bowl. Pour the bag of cabbage and carrots into the dressing and stir around until evenly covered. For best flavor, chill for at least 1 hour.

How simple is that?

The flavor was spot on and it was great on top of my pulled pork sandwich!

Pulled Pork

As they say – “I like Pig Butts and I cannot lie!” I’ve had it on my BBQ list to do since I got my Big Green Egg. Well, this was the weekend to scratch it off of the said list. It was really easy to do and it tasted great.

Here’s my process:

Start with 7 – 8 lb Boston Butt. (I got a 7.75 pounder at HEB.)

Take the meat out of the package and put it in a large cake pan. Rinse off all the blood and liquid and pat the Boston Butt dry with a few paper towels.

Rinse and dry the cake pan and put the Boston Butt back in the pan.

Unless you want yellow hands, put on some disposable food preparation gloves and slather the meat with plain yellow mustard. (The mustard serves as a binding agent for the rub. Once cooked, the mustard leaves no taste.) Make sure to put the mustard on all sides of the meat.

Liberally sprinkle your favorite rub onto the mustard coating. I used Dizzy Pig’s Dizzy Dust. 

Pat the thick coating of rub into the meat. When you don’t see any mustard, then you probably put on enough of the rub.

Cover the cake pan with foil and put it in the refrigerator for an hour or so. Some recipes say to let the rub sit over night. Some say that soaks into the food too much and you should only have the rub on for 30 minutes. An hour should do just fine.

While the meat is waiting, get your Big Green Egg ready.

Make sure your Egg is cleaned out and ready for a long cook. Empty  out all the old charcoal an ashes and filled her up with new lump charcoal to the top of the fire box.

Light the coals and set up for an indirect cook (plate setter legs up) at 275 degrees. Add a foil lined drip pan on top of the plate setter to catch the grease. Don’t add water to the pan – you don’t need that with a Big Green Egg. Add a couple of chunks of oak and a couple of chinks of hickory for smoke. Don’t soak the wood – just put the wood in with the lump charcoal and let them burn in for awhile. Wait to put the meat on until the temperature is stabilized at 275 degrees and there is no thick white smoke. You want a very faint bluish colored smoke.

While not necessary, I used a Stoker temperature controller for this cook and it worked like a champ. I set the temperature for 275 degrees and it kept it steady all day long.

Put the meat on – fat cap side up. If you have one, insert the temperature probe into the meat. Close the lid and relax for a few hours.

When internal temperature of the meat reaches 170 degrees (it took about 5 hours), take the Boston Butt out and wrapped it in a double layer of aluminum foil. Before sealing it tightly, add 1/3 cup of apple juice.

Once sealed, put the temperature probe back into the meat, through the foil.

Return the meat to the Big Green Egg and continue cooking until the meat’s internal temperature reaches 200 degrees. (This took another couple of hours – about 7 hours total.)

Once the target temperature is reached, unwrap the Boston Butt and transfer it to another double layer of foil. (This probably wasn’t necessary – I could have just kept it in the other foil. I retained the liquid from the first foil and saved it in a bowl.)  Anyway, wrap the the foiled Boston Butt in two towels and put it in a cooler for an hour.

After an hour, open up the foil. The Boston Butt will look like a charred mess! That’s how it is supposed to look.

The meat will be extremely tender. There is a large bone in there – it pulls right out.

My Thoughts

I’ll admit it – I watch a lot of BBQ competition shows on TV. I had great intentions about pulling out the “money muscle” and making a great presentation. I got excited and started pulling the Boston Butt apart and then next thing I new, I had a giant bowl of pulled pork.

I heated up the bowl of reserved liquid that was in the foil and added about a cup of it to the meat. It probably wasn’t necessary because the pulled pork was already so moist.

 I have always heard that you are supposed to put cole slaw on top of pulled pork sandwiches. I don’t like the cole slaw from the grocery store deli. So, I found a recipe on-line and made some cole slaw while I had a few hours to kill with the Boston Butt cook.

Click here to get the cole slaw recipe – it was great.

We kept the dinner simple. Pulled pork sandwiches with some BBQ sauce on it. I used Charcoaler BBQ Sauce from El Paso that a friend gave me. I put cole slaw on top – that was a great idea. Then we heated up a can of Bush’s baked beans.

Dinner was great. I had plenty of pulled pork left over. So, I’ll start researching to see what I can do with pulled pork.