Remember when I bought an awesome smoker for my anniversary with my boyfriend?  I was so excited about this smoker and this weekend it finally got it’s official start!

Sunday was dedicated to an all day cookout with Jason’s family since they had extended family in town. Jason and his uncle woke up at 4:30 am!! to get started with the smoker.

By mid-day there was chicken on the grill, pork in the smoker, and a ton of appetizer prep going on in the kitchen.

Clearly we were preparing to feed an army of people to celebrate the 3 day Labor Day weekend. It’s serious business when you’ve got a full kitchen, grill, and smoker going.

The entire day was dedicated to cooking, supporting the cooking, and just hanging out with friends and family. It was an excellent way to spend a Sunday before a day off.

On the menu:

• 2 pork shoulders (boston butts)
• 2 whole chickens
• 2 packages sausage
• 5 lb bag of potatoes
• grilled corn on the cob
• broccoli slaw
• tomato salad
• fruit: strawberries, grapes, blue berries
• watermelon
• chips and dips
• chocolate lasagna
• fruit pizza

Literally, there was a ton of food. So much food! All of the food!

The main proteins were on point:

  

Are you drooling? You probably should be. Everything tasted just as good as it looked.

I took a little video of the finished Boston Butt because they were pretty darn happy about it!

There was so much food that even with 20+ people for dinner there are still a ton of leftovers after people took a meal home with them. Making so much food at once is a lot of work but it’s nice to have leftovers to enjoy the next day and even through the week.

I took photos of the process of smoking the pork and will be sharing it in the next post because I found the process so interesting! We started on the food shopping and prep the day before so this cookout was really a multiple day event.

Jason did a great job smoking food for the first time and it was a huge learning experience for me. At the end of the day I smelled like smoke from hanging out and helping but it was definitely worth it. I really enjoyed learning how to cook a good pork shoulder from Jason and his uncle.

I doubt I’ll be a bbq champion any time soon, but I do live in Memphis so I’m starting to learn some of the cooking secrets!

Hope you are enjoying this wonderful Labor Day in the USA or a very pleasant Monday elsewhere!