One of my first photo shoots

I found a file with some old pics on a my desktop at home last night. This is one of the first times I decided to document the process with a camera. I'm guessing this may have been 3 summers ago because I was incredibly proud of my Kershaw Shun Knives that got as engagement and wedding gifts. This is another Garlic stuffed Pork loin, but with a few twists. First I cooked an appetizer with this and second I basted the loin throughout the process with bacon as seen above....Mmmmmm....Bacon.....


One thing I have noticed from these pics is that I have come a long way since then in both grilling and photography!?!?

First the shrimp. I took U8-12 shrimp from the local grocer that were already deveined and removed the shell but left the tail. I did these two ways. The first way I wrapped a large basil leaf around the midsection of the shrimp. Then I wrapped a half piece of bacon around the basil and secured it with a toothpick.

The second I did with Rosemary. In this case I took a short sprig of rosemary and put it in the valley created by the deveining process and then wrapped in bacon as I did with the basil shrimps. A little cracked black pepper is all it needs after that.

Here is a bowl of the shrimps ready for the grill:


Then the loin. As I did before with the garlic stuffed loin I cut slits into the loin and inserted slivers of garlic. I'm guessing I did some sort of marinade considering the color of the meat when raw. The marinade was likely worcestershire, garlic, black pepper and maybe some red wine.

I had yet to buy my Charcoal baskets that keep the coals on each side so this is a quasi indirect/smoking session on a standard 22 inch weber. In this case I seared the loin a bit over the coals before pulling it over to the side with no coals to indirect and smoke:


Here you can see the coals on one side and none on the other:


And after a bit, I rotate to get a bit of a sear all the way around the loin:


Then I pulled the loin to the other side of the grill and added some soaked wood chips and small chunks. Here is where I have grown as a pit master. I never use chips anymore or those tiny chunks as they burn up way too quickly.


And now it's time to make sure that loin will be juicy when I pull it off:


Evidently I got a little hungry and decided to throw a couple shrimp on the ole barby to enjoy during the process. Notice the bacon browning on the loin. How good does that look?


Once the shrimp is firm and the bacon looks done they are ready to eat:


Here's a rookie mistake with the bacon used to baste. The first three half slices were running out of fat to render out onto the loin, so instead of pulling those three slices off and eating them, I put three more slices on top of them. Learn from my mistake here. Don't let perfectly cooked bacon go to waste like I did:


I have no idea how far along in the process this is, but I'm guessing I was about to pull the loin off at this point. How does that bacon look now?


And here we have the loin resting and me proudly displaying my badass cutlery yet again:


Here are a couple of slices. You can see the bits of garlic if you look close:


How things have changed. First, I don't show off my knives as much. My pictures are clearer than these. I know not to waste bacon. I don't use wood chips anymore. That was the summer of 2006. A lot can change in 3 short year...