As you might imagine, I don’t have a lot of new things in my kitchen this month. There is one big thing new though – John bought a Bradley Smoker. I’ve been perving one when I went to Steve Cylka’s website, The Black Peppercorn. He raved about his smoker. I’ve wanted one for ages but couldn’t justify the price. I had a big smile when I saw this.

When I saw the smoker, it was almost like a present for having a sore back.  🙂 I immediately put a pork butt (fully rubbed) in there and it was divine!

My son wrote a post for me a few years ago about smoking pork butts for pulled pork. He chastised me then for making bbq pork in a slow cooker because there’s no bark. I didn’t know what ‘bark’ was back then. It’s the crunchy outer layer that’s gone crunchy from the rub and mop sauce and tastes delightfully smoky.

I wouldn’t have entered my pork in a contest but for my first time, I was really pleased with it.

It’s Joan’s birthday today. She’s John’s mother and has advanced dementia but she loves cake so I made this carrot and apple cake with brown sugar cream cheese icing.

I was watching TV and I saw someone roast a whole pumpkin filled with partially cooked rice, sultanas, chopped dried apricots, spices, butter and honey. I had a pumpkin sitting on the counter and decided to give it a try. I had no recipe so I went by intuition. It was really good. If you slice it into wedges, it opens like a flower.

I’m sure there’s a name for this and a recipe so if you have one, let me know?

Finally, here’s a photo of Charlie when he was a puppy. He was great at cleaning windows.

If you’d like to be part of In My Kitchen, just write a post about what’s going on in your kitchen this month and publish before the 10th of the month – either leave a comment with your URL or email me at maureen at gmail.com.