Staff Training

This past week I was out of town for much of the week with my annual staff training. I had an excellent prime rib steak at Mary Mahoney's in Biloxi. At the Hard Rock Cafe I tried a burger that is new to me...the Granny Smith Apple and Provolone Burger. Other than that, I was mainly eating seafood.

Finally home, I planned to grill tonight but there is a nice steady rain storm over Birmingham. Though we need the rain it sure puts a damper on my plans.

My wife can grill!

Kudos to my wife! Friday afternoon, while I did yard work, I let her use the grill. Of course, I got the charcoals started and spread. I assembled the rub and patted out the burgers. She applied the rub to the patties and took care of everthing!

I tried a new hamburger seasoning that was fairly tasty.

3 teaspoons of paprika
3 teaspoons of black pepper
2 teaspoons of salt
1 teaspoon of dark brown sugar
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp onion powder
1/2 tsp cayenne pepper

For now this is my new favorite burger seasoning.

More Shrooms

Though we love mushrooms this recipe was not worth repeating. I created a mushroom "sauce" in a mixer. It also had sour cream and some salt/pepper.

I will continue to work on this recipe and post it when I get it right!

Mexican Chicken

All about timing

Steaks for the parents, hot dogs for the kids, and chicken for an upcoming meal. (And you can see a couple of potatoes in the coals). Rarely do I have the opportunity to try to cook different things at the same time and try to have them finish at the same time. The taters, of course, went on first followed by the chicken. Since we eat steaks on the rare side they went on the same time as the hotdogs...looking at this is making me hungry!

Hot Wings

My wife loves hot wings. I am learning more about the best way to grill them successfully.

1. Toss them in evol a couple of minute prior to cooking.

2. Light salt/pepper the wings when you toss them with oil.

3. Cook on high indirect heat until they are finished (depends on the size of the wings).

4. Cover with your choice of buffalo sauce or barbecue sauce for the final few minutes.

Bacon wrapped sirloin with fried squash

One of my goals as I continue to learn about grilling is to cook a complete meal on the grill. I did not attempt to use the side burner to cook the squash but I certainly could have!

The potato pictured was wrapped in foil and thrown in with the hot coals. I allowed it to cook for about twenty minutes before placing the meat on the grill. I did move it around one or two times to make sure it cooked evenly.

The sirloin was rubbed in a mixture of salt, pepper, and garlic powder. I realize these ingredients are fairly standard in my cooking but they work! To secure the bacon I used a tooth pick that I removed the same time the meat came off the grill.

Quite tasty!

Racks of ribs

As I look at this picture of the ribs I realize the limitations of my photograhy skills. I certainly could have set up the picture better!

Ribs were cooked very similar to my other posts about grilling ribs. A three-hour marinade followed by a four-hour cooking on indirect heat.

The only challenge that I had this time was I was cooking six slabs of ribs on my "small" grill. I am always amazed at how good ribs taste when you cook them yourself.

Burgers with tater circles

You can't tell from the picture but the burgers in the back are stuffed blue cheese burgers. The burger in the front was for the kids to share and is a regular cheese burger. All the meat was lightly seasoned with a tablespoon of fresh pepper and salt.

The potato circles, as you can see, was two taters cut into slices. Cooked for about eight minutes on each side. Just before removing them from the grill I added a small piece of cheese and salted them. The tater circles were a nice change from our traditional wedges.

Updates Coming

Over the next few days I hope to have lots of new pictures and recipes posted. I have about a dozen pictures saved on my laptop and have just been informed by my office it is my turn for a new computer.

This month I am traveling and have been away from the grill. I hope to have a busy July with many different meats on the grill.

Mushroom burgers

I must confess that I have had a hard time updating the blog. With a busy travel schedule I am doing my best to even grill...much less post pictures and recipies. Last weekend my wife was on a "girls" trip with six friends from college. While she was gone I grilled some burgers. On the side I also grilled some mushrooms. Even the kids (age 4 and 2) loved the mushrooms. In fact, most of the shrooms were gone before I could assemble the burgers. The picture, as you can see, was taken with my phone. I did not do anything special to the burgers. On the muschrooms I added: 1 carton of white mushrooms 2 tbl Dijon mustard 2 tbl soy sauce 1 tsp fresh black pepper small amount of olive oil to prevent sticking I made an open foil pack and placed the ingredients inside. Grilled alongside the meat for about ten minutes. For the last minute I poked holes in the bottom of the foil for the juices to run off and the mushrooms to dry out. Great burgers.

Steak and Chicken

Not wanting to give a wonderful steak to a 4-year old I decided to cook some chicken to go along with the steaks. The chicken can been seen in the back marinading in the small orange bowl.

On the chicken I created another sweet sauce that I was sure my kids would enjoy. The marinade for the children had:

1 T soy sauce

1 T honey

1 T extra virgin olive oil

pepper to taste

The steak had my usual rub that you can find several places on the blog...most recently in late December.

Grilling Mistakes

Yes, these steaks may look good. However, you can see they are a little charred for most peoples taste. On a cold February night I was attempting to not open the grill cover at all. I could see a good bit of smoke coming from the top and had cause for concern.

Upon opening the cover I was greeted with four well done steaks. The steaks were just a little fatty so the dripping grease had cause a major flame-up. Next time I am going to stay closer to the grill!

T-bone Steak

Once again, simple rubs are my mode of grilling. T-bone, or any bone-in steaks, are among my favorites. This steak was prepared with a rub of:

1 tbs Kosher salt

1/2 tbs of pepper

1/4 tbs of garlic powder

Rubs can be left on the steak as long as you would like. I like to rub the steak about thirty minutes before placing on the grill.

Pork Chops with Sorghum Barbecue sauce

I am not normally a fan of a sweet taste on meats. I enjoy garlic flavors and salty flavors. However, in an effort to broaden my palate I tried this recipe modified from something I found.

The marinade contained:

1 cup ketchup

1/2 cup sorghum

1/4 cup red wine vinegar (its what we had)

1/4 cup mustard

3 T Worcestershire sauce

1 T Kosher salt

1 T pepper

I added the ingredients into a pot and brought to a boil. After the sauce came to a boil I let it simmer for an additional five minutes.

The pork chops marinaded for about three hours in the sauce. After I removed them from the marinaded I poured the sauce back into a pot and brought to a boil. I wanted to be able to use it on the side.

On the side I grilled bacon-wrapped asparagus. I lightly brushed extra virgin olive oil on them and let the grill perform the rest of the magic.

The pork chops were very good and just needed more salt and pepper. The kids even seemed to enjoy them!

Birthday Chicken

I recently celebrated a birthday. My wonderful wife was willing to cook, order take-out, or even go out. However, my choice was to grill my own dinner with her preparing the sides.

On the stove-top I cooked mushrooms and onions with a small amount of oil. Once the chicken was cooked these were used as a delicious topping.

I used a simple rub on the chicken with:

1t- garlic powder

1t- black pepper
1t- Kosher salt

Another delicious side was the stuffed stuffed baked potato from the Omaha Steak delivery from Santa.

With a cold beer the dinner was perfect.

Whole Chicken

I have had a whole chicken in the freezer since I worked at the Valleydale Farmers Market last summer. I defrosted the chicken and discovered that it was already cut into pieces. However, I wanted to experiment with injectable marinades so I decided to attempt to inject the marinade into the various pieces.

In the marinade I used:

3 Tablespoons of butter

2 Tablespoons of lemon juice

1 Tablespoon of black pepper

1 Tablespoon of onion powder

pinch or two of salt

I injected the chicken about thirty minutes prior to placing it on the grill. I cooked it loosely wrapped in foil for about an hour on indirect medium heat. After an hour I moved it to the hot coals for the remaining thirty minutes. At this point I put the wings and legs on the grill.

The marinade was very good but did seem to be missing something. Next time I cook a whole chicken I will probably add something to the marinade. Any suggestions?

Grilling Tools

Though it has been a long time since I updated the blog, I have grilled several times. I had a birthday at the end of January and even got to grill for my the occassion. I hope to have five or six updates over the next week.

The main birthday gift I received was a remote thermometer. I recently grilled an small chicken and the thermometer was a great help. You can see that I snapped this picture right before the thermometer sounded.

Grilled wings

Recently we had wings. Though I enjoy hot wings I wanted to try a different flavor. The wings on the left are honey barbecue and on the right hot wings.

For both sets I marinaded the wings in extra virgin olive oil before putting them on a hot grill. After cooking on both sides for about seven minutes I added the sauce. I used store bought sauce for both of them.

The more often I eat bone-in wings, the more I crave boneless wings!

Grilled Turkey

This afternoon I finally prepared the turkey. I decided to use an injectable marinade but did not have a syringe. My veterinarian offered to supply one but I never made it by his office. Since this was my first attempt in using an injectable marinade, I used a store-bought product along with instructions.

Following the directions on the bag, I cooked the 9 pound turkey for about three hours. I covered the bird in foil and put it in a roasting pan that I bought specifically for using on the grill. I cooked mostly on indirect heat but moved it to direct for the last twenty minutes. I also used some smoke chips and they produced some great smoke for half an hour.

Once the turkey reached an internal temperature of 165 I removed the foil cover and took it off the grill. I did a good job of keeping the lid closed. From the time I put the bird on the grill I only opened the grill four times. Twice to add more charcoal (and rotate the bird) and twice to check the temperature of the bird. Before cooking, I did have to remove the top rack from my grill in order for the turkey to fit. I hope to reinstall it tonight when the grill cools.

I carved the bird and you can see the great lines of marinade in the turkey. The flavor of the injectable marinade was "Creole Butter." I also used a small amount of Cajun seasoning on the skin of the turkey. The bird was moist and quite delicious. After this I may be drafted to cook the Thanksgiving turkey!

My two year old daughter had no objections! The rest of us were also pleased with the bird. I am excited about future attempts and making my own marinade.

Grilled Chicken Salad

I have never been accused of eating too many vegetables. Salad probably doesn't really count as a vegetable and a salad loaded with a sweet dressing probably isn't a "health" food. However, I enjoy grilled chicken salad.

I marinaded the chicken for about three hours in:

3 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon of orange juice
1 clove garlic
salt and pepper to taste

After removing from the grill I diced the breasts into bite-sized pieces. I searched for grilled chicken salad and found tons of recipes. It seems there are a wide variety of ways to prepare a grilled chicken salad. I look forward to new experiments with this dish.

Frozen Turkey

The turkey is still frozen! I will have to allow it another few days to defrost. I will be firing up the grill this weekend. Seeing that there is still frost on my grill cover I am going to say it is a good thing!

Temperature is supposed to be much warmer this weekend and even into next week. Right now it is "run from the car into the house," type weather.

Roasted Turkey

Coming later this week...a roasted turkey. It is defrosting in the refrigerator now. Hope to prepare it Thursday night.

Any suggestions? Considering some sort of injectable marinade.

Grilled Asparagus

Since the start of the new year it has been extremely cold in the South. I have grilled about three times but have not updated the blog. I hope to do that in the next few days. One of the first grilling experiences was with friends and we grilled chicken and asparagus on the grill. I took a picture of the asparagus before placing them on the grill but forgot to take the "cooked" picture. They were great!

I marinaded the asparagus in:

3 tablespoons of bacon grease (previously saved)

2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon of salt

1 tablespoon of garlic powder

You can see that I wrapped two uncooked pieces of bacon around six shoots. I used two toothpicks to hold it all together.

Bacon always makes things better!