Peanut butter burger

There is a burger restaurant close to Birmingham that has a wide variety of burgers. One of the more interesting sounding is the Peanut Burger. Though I am not willing to pay $7.99 to try it I am willing to try it at home. The recipe calls for peanut butter with bacon crumbles. The bun has mayonnaise. Nothing special about the way I prepared or cooked the meat.

Though it was good, there are many more flavors I want to try before I repeat this. Anyone have unsual ideas they would like me to try?

The results are in

The experiment started with four steaks. Two steaks were prepared in a marinade and two with my traditional steak rub. The bag in the middle contains chicken strips since one our dinner guests does not eat red meat.

My Chargrill duo is pictured here. On the left you can see two steaks and chicken tenders on gas. The steaks on the right you can see the charcoal portion of the grill.

Finally, the steaks were removed from the grill. If you have a steak at our house, I hope you like it rare/medium rare! The different color tooth picks indicate (to me) where the steak was cooked and whether it was a marinade or rub.

My wife and brother-in-law were the only ones sampling. Wife correctly identified the place that three of the four were cooked (she guessed gas on three of them) and was able to correctly identify two of the four "flavors". Sister-in-law could taste no difference in chicken cooked on gas vs. charcoal.

The result, no real difference in gas vs. charcoal. Also, no real difference in marinade vs. rub.

The Great Debate

A few weeks ago I mentioned that I wanted to put to test the theory that charcoal is better than gas. Well, the time has come to test that theory. I have marinaded two steaks and have made my usual beef rub on two more. With family members on the way (one of which does not eat red meat) I also have a handful of chicken tenders marinading...these, of course, will divided equally between the gas and charcoal grills.


Check tomorrow for the results!

More Tools

No, I haven't spent more money on grilling tools. However, this week I flew to Dallas for work and looked through the Sky Mall catalog. There were a couple of “grilling related” items in the magazine. The “Reveo Marivac Food Tumbler” promises a “delicious gourmet flavor and tenderness” in only 10 minutes was one of the more interesting. For the small price of $149.99 it looks nice but to me the fun of grilling and marinating is the time. I want to plan ahead for my grilling experiences.

Another great idea was the "Grillzebo". Though it is a little too pricey at $999.95 it allows grilling in all weathers.

There were others and you can check out the Sky Mall Catalog if you want to see them for yourself.

Mojo Chicken

My wife recently requested something "new". In one of my grilling books there is a recipe for Mojo chicken. The main ingredients are orange juice and lemon juice. After marinading for a couple of hours, I brought the marinade to a boil to use as a baste on the chicken as it cooked.

Good flavor overall and something that we would cook again.

Blue Cheese Burgers

Though not everyone is a fan of blue cheese we love it. These burgers were made with a recipe from allrecipes.com We didn't have any chives so those were left out but we did use the remainder of the ingredients. The recipe called for mixing the blue cheese within the burger. Since we love the taste of blue cheese, we added more crumbles on top.

On the side we have the standard, at our house anyway, potato wedges. Those were cooked in the oven and just lightly tossed in extra virgin olive oil.

Gas vs. Charcoal

My memories growing up with my dad grilling always involved carcoal...and alot of it. I was of the opinion that was the only way to cook. In college I would grill venison at college baseball games with the small tabletop charcoal grills. My first grill of our marriage was a cheap charcoal grill that was only large enough for the meat...no room for vegetables!


However, a year ago my wife bought me a combo gas-charcoal grill. I assumed wrongly that I would only use the charcoal side.

I love how I can control the temperature with gas. I love how I can easily have a "hot side" and "cooler side". I also love how I can cook without much warning. One staple meal now that we are on one budget is hotdogs. The discount grocery store Aldi's sells 24 hotdogs for $2. Though they have very little flavor I can easily throw a couple of dogs on there.

There are still great things about cooking with charcoal but for now I am onto gas!

Sometime soon I plan to have a "taste test". I will marinade the meat (probably chicken) and then put half on the gas and half on charcoal. My wife is convinced she will be able to tell the difference but I am not so sure...I will let you know.

Kabobs

I am not a huge fan of cooking kabobs...it is difficult to cook the chicken and vegetables at the sa me rate. The chicken often cooks much faster than the onions and peppers. The mushrooms and pineapple cook the fastest. However, I do enjoy eating kabobs and it was something that we had not cooked this year. Though the onions weren't cooked enough for my liking I thought they turned out fine. We had another couple join us and make their own stick. You can see how some people spread out their "fixings" for them to cook and others crammed as much as you possible can on the stick.

The chicken was marinaded for about two hours in a bottle of teriyaki. The vegetables were brushed with oil to prevent sticking. I am sure we will be cooking kabobs again soon.