I don't know how it became traditional in our family. Maybe someone read something and thought it was a good idea. Maybe it was just an excuse someone gave to indulge his pyromania. However it happened, we have long asserted that the only proper way to dispose of Christmas trees is by fire. Most years we take care of the burning as early as Twelfth Night. Other years we procrastinate like we did this time, and the burning doesn't happen until the beginning of Spring. That tree was just tossed into the backyard in January, and to be funny, the man stood it up with the apple tree as a prop. It fell over almost immediately, and stayed that way until yesterday. We found a good excuse to light that fire, finally, as well as a bunch more wood left over from last year. I had bought a two-pack of tri-tip from Costco, and rather than take it next door so that the neighbor with the electric smoker could cook it properly, I wanted to try again with my redneck homemade meat smoker. Like I did last year, we wrapped aluminum foil around the fire pit, and used guesswork. And guess what? We FAILED. Horribly. The hunk of meat ended up a dry, gray, chewy mess surrounded by a thick shell of unchewable carbon. Thankfully, I had the second tri-tip, and I remade the dry rub and tried again. The man watched it more closely this time, and discovered one of the errors of the first try. The sugar in the rub caught on fire and flared, incinerating a marvelous cut of meat, leaving heartache in its wake. The second roast was acceptable enough to feed to the neighbor and his date, and the first was thrown into the fridge, waiting for a second life or a trip to the trash.
I was tipped off to a traditional Flemish beef stew recipe that uses a ton of onions and beer. There was even a gluten free version of it posted on the same discussion thread. It seemed like a good jumping off point for me, but I had to take a risk on gluten free beer to try it. I raced out to buy a single one, and the game was afoot. I sauteed onions and bacon while I chopped the dry hunk of beef into tiny pieces. Most of the beer plus a half of a carton of beef stock deglazed the pan, and I simmered everything plus herbs for a very long time. I added red potatoes, and then at the very end, a can of tomato paste to deepen the flavor (it was too sweet until I did). It came out interesting. I don't think I need to destroy an expensive hunk of beef next time to recreate it in the future, but I will be revisiting this stew and the gluten free beer at some point.
And I am done with the redneck cooking device. Smoking on the gas grill is a non-starter. It's time to buy another off-set smoker. This time I won't be leaving it behind when I move across the country, as we did three times before. We never technically threw them away. We just left them sitting in the back yards of the houses we left.
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