I had some fun on my Traeger Texas Elite 34 over the weekend. I smoked 5 pounds of pecans and almonds, as well as a big brick of cheddar cheese. So delicious!! Why are smoked foods so amazing?

Smoked Nuts

The recipe for my smoked nuts is very easy:

• 6 oz pecans
• 6 oz almonds
• 1 tsp seasoned salt
• 1/4 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp onion powder
• 6 drops Tabasco or other hot sauce
• 1 Tbsp Worchestershire sauce
• 1 Tbsp vegetable oil

Mix them all ingredients together, then add the nuts in and stir all around to coat nuts well. Put the nuts in a single layer onto a cookie sheet or shallow foil plan. Place in the smoker at roughly 225-250º for apprximately 2 hours or until the nuts are dry and crisped up/crunchy to your taste.

Smoked Cheese

Cheese is a bit tricky if you don’t have the ability to cold smoke it. Since I don’t have a cold smoker, here’s what I did.

• Elevate the cheese by using toothpicks or shortened kebab skewers. You want the smoke to get all around the cheese, so it needs to be suspended in some way.
• Put the cheese inside a small disposable aluminum tray
• Put a layer of ice in a larger disposable aluminum tray
• Put the small aluminum tray inside the larger aluminum tray and then fill the larger tray with more ice so that all sides of the smaller tray are surrounded. You want to keep the cheese temperature low so it doesn’t melt during the smoking process.
• Put the whole contraption in the smoker at a very low temp (mine was around 160 degrees)
• Let it smoke for approximately one hour
• At an hour, flip the cheese over and add more ice to keep the cheese temperature low.
• Let it smoke for another hour or so.
• Once done let the cheese set at room temperature for an hour or so
• Wrap it in cheese cloth and put it in the refrigerator
• Wait for 5-7 days to let the smoke flavor penetrate all the way and mellow out