Win a $429 Masterbuilt, Stainless Steel Electric Smoker

August 30, 2010 – 1:00 AM

In the USA we have a little holiday coming up this weekend:  Labor Day.  Since this holiday is meant to celebrate the end of summer and experience a day of rest, many Americans organize barbecues and parties- taking advantage of the chance to get together with friends and family and share food.  I follow the masses, and celebrate this holiday weekend in the same way.  Masterbuilt and I have joined forces to give away one of their fabulous stainless steel electric smokers to one lucky RecipeGirl reader.  Wouldn’t this be fun to use for a holiday celebration? Here’s what it looks like:

Highlights:
* 40″ tall, stainless steel
* Viewing window and internal light
* Push-button digital time temperature & time control panel
* Thermostat controlled temperature
* Chrome-coated smoking racks
* Convenient side wood-chip loader
* Removable drip pan and rear-mounted grease pan

What can you smoke with this?  Well, just about anything.  You can smoke the usual things like ribs and chicken and turkey and salmon.  But Masterbuilt has also developed recipes and instructional videos for smoking things like leg of lamb, pork butt, potatoes, corn on the cob, macaroni & cheese (yum!), etc.  I have one of these arriving at my house soon.  I’m pretty darn excited to try it out.  And I’m certain that there will be smoked turkey on the dinner table this Thanksgiving. Here’s a recipe how-to video using the smoker- it’s a little smaller and it’s black instead of stainless, but it will give you an idea of how it all works. You might just get a kick out of CEO John McLemore’s strong southern drawl too. He has written a cookbook called “Dadgum that’s Good,” (coming out this fall). I might have to buy that one, just because of the title :)

This recipe is open to the USA only. If you’d like a chance to enter to win this fabulous smoker, Just leave a comment below telling me what you’d like to like to try smoking in this smoker! Please just leave one comment… UNLESS you are an existing or newly subscribed reader of RecipeGirl either via email, Google Reader or using one of the subscribing methods listed in the right hand column at the top- then you are eligible to leave a 2nd comment- just tell me in the comment that you’re a RecipeGirl subscriber. I’ll pick a winner randomly via random.org on Friday, Sept. 3rd (sometime in the late evening), and I will post the winner here on the morning of Sat., Sept. 4th. Good luck to all :)

Disclaimer: I was not paid to work with Masterbuilt on this giveaway opportunity, but they did (generously) send me a smoker to try out for myself.

By Lori Lange | Posted in give, GIVE, GIVE!! | Tagged , | Comments (416)

Brownie Campfire Cake with Toasted Marshmallows & Hot Fudge

August 26, 2010 – 1:00 AM

I haven’t been here in San Diego for much of the summer, but I heard that there were icky, overcast skies through the month of July. We tend to have our warmest weather in August and September, and summer is definitely here now. Temps this week have been near 100 and not terribly comfortable. Heat makes me sleepy and I can’t seem to get very motivated to accomplish much. I guess I should be very thankful that we don’t see even a hint of the humidity that I experienced in Savannah back in June. That’s some miserable heat to endure in Savannah. In any case, it’s hot enough here in SoCal right now to warrant the making of an ice cream dessert. I brought this one to a dinner with friends a few nights ago: Campfire Cake

This dessert is made in a springform pan. There’s a brownie base and a tub of ice cream spread on top. I used chocolate chip, but you can certainly use any kind of ice cream that you’d like… something that would go well with brownies and hot fudge. The “Campfire” reference comes into play with a marshmallow topping. Then it sits in the freezer until everything is totally frozen.

If you have one of these cool hand-torches, you can use it to toast the marshmallows on top of the frozen cake. You can also put the cake under the broiler for a couple of minutes to toast the tops.

I also made homemade hot fudge– just because I had never done so before. It was simple and yummy. And now I have a bunch of leftover hot fudge in the refrigerator. Mmmmm. It’s meant to drizzle on a plate and top with a slice of the frozen cake, and you can drizzle it on top too if you’re inclined to want a lot of it.

The cake was a big hit at the dinner party- with both kids and adults. The brownie layer topped with the ice cream… and then that toasted marshmallow topping with drizzly hot fudge too… delicious.

Want a bite?

The weather here in San Diego is pleasant year round (which gives us a lot of excuses to eat ice cream). We don’t have any bugs or mosquitos- only an occasional fly (which means no bug spray!) I live 15 minutes from the Pacific Ocean (which is pretty darn cool). And it hardly ever rains (which means I get to wear flip flops year-round). So I really don’t have any business complaining about a little heat now, do I? :)

Recipes can be found here: Campfire Cake and Hot Fudge

By Lori Lange | Posted in Sweet Treats | Tagged , | Comments (33)