Well, here is some advice for you.  Read the recipe.  All of it.  Including how many servings it makes.  If you are not feeding a bunk house full of ranch hands you may want to hold back on this.  I didn’t think about what I was doing before I made this recipe.  I blindly bought ingredients.  Blindly.  Scroll it back a second.  Four Rivers is a local smokehouse here in Orlando with a massive cultish following.  People. Love. That. Place.  It has brisket.  It has smoked jalapenos stuffed with cream cheese and wrapped in bacon.  It has my favorite coconut cake.  In fact, I want it right now.  I bought the cookbook when it went on sale a few months ago after flipping though it and realizing it was most of the menu in writing.  This is all developed by a regular guy who loves to eat things, particularly things topped with an onion ring.  John Rivers is a good guy who sells good food and is doing well for it.  His book is easy to read and follow…you just have to do it.  Note to self.

He’s even opening a new chicken joint soon that I am more than excited about.  So, in this quest to try new things and open my books I made a Brunswick stew recipe out of the book.  I probably could have put thirty seconds of thought into it and realized that it would feed a small army (which we are not.)  It is a BBQ sauced soup that is full of brisket, chicken (it called for smoked, I used rotisserie) and sausage alongside those cowboy staples corn, diced potato and baby lima beans.  It made about 2 gallons.  I’ve eaten it three times, Z twice and our lunchmates  (X3) ate it today too.  That’s eight servings and I estimate 6 or 8 left in the fridge.   It is pretty dang good though, on cornbread (so I heard today at lunch) or with buttered yeasty rolls (my personal favorite.)  The picture here is rather soupy.  Only the first two bowls were soupy like that.  The rest is fairly just spoonfuls of meat and vegetables in the savory sauce.  I happily had a bottle of 4R hot on hand when I was cooking.  The rest of the book beckons…  I may just have to buy a smoker.