Pellet Smoker Cooking: New Year's Day Dinner 2016

Jan 01 2016

I had to have pork and kraut for our traditional New Year’s good luck meal. I don’t think I have missed having it in over 20 years. I am not German but my wife’s Mother was. I picked this up from a friend I saw in the grocery buying a can of sauerkraut. He said he had to have his pork and kraut New Year’s Day.

It sounded good to me.

The last few years I have made my own kraut and that makes it better. I have a cousin from KY who is related through a half-sister of my Dad. I never knew he had a half-sister. She found me on the net and I have visited her several times. Her Father had to have his black eyed peas on New Year’s Day; so I now have some in his honor.

I got up at 8:30 and got my Traeger started. It was 28 deg. and it groaned awhile before getting warmed up. I had a rack of BB ribs, bockwursts and bratwurst to smoke. They went on at 200 deg. for a half hour then went to 225 – 250 deg. grill level for another 1 ½ hours. Our son and family were coming down to eat. He and the grandson don’t care for the kraut so I had about 5 ribs left that I finished up on the Traeger for them. Even though his wife is mostly vegetarian she loves the kraut and the knopfles my wife makes and even ate a brat.

I got all layered in my Crockpot about 11:30 to cook all afternoon. I usually laid some sliced onions in the bottom, topped with the pork and then, kraut some salt and pepper, a lager beer and then water to almost cover. A fellow LTBBQ member layered in the kraut in one of his cooks, don’t remember who but thanks for the idea. I layered in some sliced onions, some kraut, the ribs, more kraut, the bockwursts and bratwurst then more kraut. I used a quart of kraut.

About 3:30 my wife made some knopfles, German drop noodles, she learned from her Mother. I like to add them in so they have a couple of hours to take on the sour from the kraut. This is best over mashed potatoes but I had some new red potatoes I steamed and added to a casserole dish, smashed and added melted butter then baked a half hour at 350 deg. with my convection fan on.

I heated up the ribs for the son and grandson at 6:00 and we all ate some good food. We had some crusty bread and butter with it.

After our food had settled some; the wife and grandson baked some soft pretzels that were good. Some were topped with salt, butter and cinnamon.

We are having leftovers tonight but I bought some Bob Evens mashed potatoes to have!

Ribs and sausage ready to smoke