I love smoked food. I mean besides the flavor that smoking infuses into food the whole culture of sitting beside a smoker on a beautiful sunny day with a cold one in your hand enjoying the company of good friends and family can’t be beat. But here it is—- January in Canada and there is about a foot of snow on my smoker and another six inches on the ground AND—– IT’S COLD OUTSIDE!!!!!! Now if you read into this that, unlike my compatriots at Patrons of the Pit who see no problem with standing outside in sub-zero weather monitoring a smoker, that I am a warm weather kind of smoker guy you would be right— at least as far as my backyard smoker is concerned so when I found these “Smoker Cheats” that allowed me to smoke food in the winter while staying warm I was “over the moon”.

This first one is brought to us by the great King of Bam, Chef Emeril Lagasse, and it is just so simple to use.

Emeril’s Smoker Bag is simply that. A heavy duty “foil type” bag that contains the wood chips necessary to infuse your food, and your house, with the smell and flavor of wood smoke. I originally found these at, of all places, our local Home Depot in their BBQ accessories section and I loved them so much I bought a whole whack of em.

All you need to do with these is prepare whatever it is you are going to cook/smoke, insert it into the smoker bag and seal it up. There is a cooking time chart inside the bag package that makes this whole system nearly fool-proof.

The second “cheat” is one I posted here about a year ago but it is worth resurrecting it since it is such a dynamite product.

This a Cameron Stove Top smoker and as you can see it is very easy to use, and clean up, and when you purchase it you even get a selection of wood chips to help get you started. Now mine has seen duty mainly for smoking Jalapenos and Garlic for my Chipotle Mayo (see sauces and dips) but it can be used for almost anything else you would use a regular smoker for. I say almost because it obviously isn’t big enough for a Boston Butt or a good size Brisket but if you wanted to smoke some chicken legs or breast or even some pork chops or veggies this is the baby to use indoors.

The last “cheat” is probably the simplest.

All you need to do is soak whatever wood chips you are using and then roll them up in heavy duty tin foil until you have what loosely resembles an envelope. Poke some holes in the envelope to allow the smoke to escape, place the envelope in a corner of the oven or grill and “go to town” as they say.

Until next time…….. Happy smoking and

                      Bon Appetite