It's 11:15 dinner time!

We're down in Dartmouth grill'n up a storm!

Cool Birthday Cakes

Check out these birthday cakes.  My colleague makes them for her grandchildren!

Pork Roast

One boneless pork roast - 4-5 pounds
cut along the side and open up to butterfly
cover with plastic wrap and pound to flatten some
generous salt and pepper the inside
spread your favorite chutney (we like mango) on the inside
lay long cinnamon sticks along the meat and then fold over and tie with butcher string
grill on indirect heat for about 1.5 hours until internal temp is about 165.

YUMMM

Chicken Satay with Three Sauces

Boneless skinless chicken thighs with three kinds of dipping sauce.  mmmm good.

1,  Marinade the chicken as in the satay recipe from the Wisconsin Grill'n book page 36.

2.  Grill on direct heat but watch it so it doesn't burn.

3.  Two sauces were from Raichen Sauces, Rubs and Marinades book - Rich Peanut Dipping Sauce p. 208 and B.B.'s Lawnside Spicy Apple p. 136 which we had had with thick cut pork chops the night before.  It is really good with pork (and homemade apple sauce!!) but I also thought it was good with the chicken.

4.  Third sauce was from page 54 of Wisconsin Grill'n which is always a favorite.

Cheap, easy and delicious (Grillin London Broil)

Steps:

Buy in quantity when on sale.
Seperate into ziplock backs, add Veri Veri Teriyaki or another marinade of your choice.
Freeze in bags with marinade included.
Thaw when hungry.
2-3 minutes on high direct heat on each side
15-20 minutes on indirect for medium rare.
Slice thin, across the grain.

Pair with grilled bell peppers.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm......

Bay State Brat Roast

For Saturday's Brewers game, we had Dorothee, Evan, Things 1 & 2, Jack, Lydia, Gomper, WT, and Shortness over. We grilled brats and hotdogs, along with a healthy mound of bell peppers and habaneros. I roughly chopped the peppers to put on the brats. They essentially blew our faces off, but everybody powered through them anyway.

Go Pack, Crew, Red!

Ribs n Roses

We had a wonderful day today - perfect weather, lots of gardening, big Packers win, Brewers on way to win and ribs for dinner.  Jack and Andrea and Sophia and Roy all came over to watch the game and celebrate Mom's bday.

Great batch of ribs done in the Big Green Egg.  Smoked at 225 for 2.5 hours and then put in aluminum pan with the left over marinade and some bbq sauce and cooked for another 2 hours still at 225.  Final step was one hour right on the grill (indirect heat) still at 225 and painted with bbq sauce every 20 minutes or so.  Fall off the bone delicious!

Next time I will have to try it in the wheelbarrow!

Grilling on the move?!?

Yes, he is grilling in a moving wheel barrow.

Salsa Contest

Our Latin American somethingorother group here at JCI is having a Salsa cooking contest.  I looked at Raichelin's recipes which looked ok but if anyone out there has one they particularly like - please post and I will enter.  Keep in mind that I have fresh garlic, Jalapeno, Habanero and Cayenne peppers and tomatoes in the garden so something that uses some or all of that would be fun.  I cannot imagine how hot salsa would be that used all three peppers.   

Summer Favorites

Our top recipes from the summer have been a spicy rib rub from Cook's Illustrated and a jerk chicken recipe I came across online somewhere. The rib rub has a kick, but pairs brilliantly with a sweet BBQ sauce like Sweet Baby Ray's. The jerk chicken is best if marinated the night before and goes well with Jamaican beans and rice--I'll include an easy recipe after the marinade below.

Cook's Illustrated Spicy Rib Rub:

Makes 2-3 racks

3 tbsp paprika
2 tbsp chili powder
2 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp ground black pepper
1 tbsp table salt
1 tbsp cayenne pepper


Jerk Chicken Marinade:

(Makes 6 chicken quarters)

In a food processor, combine:

3 scallions
4 large garlic cloves
1 small onion
5 fresh Scotch bonnet or habanero chiles
1/4 cup fresh lime juice
2 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 tablespoons salt
1 1/2 tablespoon packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon fresh thyme leaves
2 teaspoons ground allspice
2 teaspoons black pepper
3/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon


Jamaican Beans and Rice:

2 cups rice
1 can light coconut milk
1 can kidney beans
1 tsp grated ginger
1 tsp fresh thyme
3 scallions, diced
Salt to taste

Directions:

Measure the coconut milk and liquid from the can of beans. Add enough water to equal four cups.

Combine liquid, beans, ginger, scallions, and salt in a pot and bring to a boil.

Add rice, stir, then cover the pot. Reduce heat and simmer twenty minutes or until done.

Random grillin'

We have served up a few delicious treats of late, but have no pictures as evidence.

1. Flank steak marinated in Veri Veri Teriyaki was a hit when Audrey's parents came up to help us paint the baby's room.

2. Ukranian lamb chops from the Global Grillin' book. We had Jess, Ellie, and the kids over for that one. Mmmmmmmmmmm!!!

3. Last week, we did farmstand corn, herbed chicken leg quarters, and our cast iron pan / root vegetable mix. A great fall hit!

If you have not tried it yet, I highly recommend trying out cast iron pans on the grill top. You can do just about anything in them, and elimiate any last need to turn on the stove or oven for the meal.

Puerto Rican Pork Chops

The rub is very tasty but don't follow the grilling directions.  Pork chops only need a very brief time on direct heat and then finish them off on indirect. 

Any grill'n goin on out there in the fog?

Steve is coming to town this weekend.  Looking forward to four days of non-stop grilling.

Charlie turns 17 on Tuesday!

Peace to all on 9-11-11.

Desperate for ribs, apparently

Drunk man stuffs ribs in pants; is arrested. Again. - Pop2it - Zap2it

File this under "stupid criminals." A Carlisle, Pa., man is in police custody after trying to steal a rack of ribs by stuffing them down his pants.

According to The Sentinel, Donald Noone, 65, was highly intoxicated when he entered a Giant grocery store and tried to shove $20.48 worth of meat down his pants.

But this wasn't Noone's first brush with the law -- or with ribs. He was also detained by police in May for trying to do the same thing with $13.34 worth of meat.

He was charged with retail theft and public drunkenness and, as far as we know, has not yet been able to satisfy his cravings for ribs.

Grilled pork chops with sweet-and-sour onions(p 180)

We actually used a recipe from primalgrill.com, but it was basically the same. The book recipe says veal, but pork worked.

What with Burgie and the 4th we have not blogged about the inaugural event of the Woodruff Street branch of global grillin. It was for my bday and Joan did the vast majority of the work. The main thing I did was to relearn not to grill in bare feet. Ow!!

We did not have any torpedo onions, but did use all the other kinds. The honey we used dated from our last batch of Midas touch beer :). We did elect to grill the onions first; on the other hand, we did not take the onions out as the book says, and therefore the sauce took twice as long to cook "to a syrupy glaze". The taste was definitely worth the wait.

A meat thermometer is an excellent investment for the newbie griller. Several times I thought the chops were done, but they really weren't. When the thermometer finally gave the ok they were perfect.

All in all, it was definitely worth it, and if we do it again it will probably take half the effort. Many thanks to Joan!

Ribs, Wings, and Cornbread

I madethe 5-4-3-2-1 rub from the Global Grillin book to put on the ribs. Since I only had one rack of ribs, I also put it on the wings. Let me tell you, it is so tasty, we didn't even end up using any BBQ sauce.

One substitution of note was lemon zest and ground pepper instead of lemon pepper. It actually worked quite well, and the lemon taste was notable.

We also made the grilled onion/pepper cornbread again (shown here in dough form). Any cornbread recipe will do, add chopped grilled veggies, 20 or so minutes in cast iron on indirect heat. Yummy!

Also should note: throwing an onion slice in the coals and rubbing the grate with onions is also a great flavor booster!

And: be sure to turn the cast iron pan so the bread cooks evenly.

And: Yes, we do need The Phoenix. It will take up at least 1/2 our front yard, but what better use is there for a front yard?

Pancetta Orange Chicken Kebabs and Almond Cream Chicken Tikka

Both of these are very good.  The Pancetta Orange was a real hit.and not too hard other than skewering the meat which is a bit futsy.  The kebabs look very nice with the orange slices and the flavor and smell was wonderful.  Hint:  For the last few minutes of grilling take the meet off of the skewers and cooked it on direct heat just to make sure the Pancetta cooks through.  Otherwise the pieces are packed together and the sides don't really cook all the way. You will have to watch it closely because the fire can flare up as the bacon drips into it.

I didn't use skewers on the Tikka and it was fine.  It is just marinaded chicken.  It makes somewhat of a mess on the grill top because the yogurt sauce sticks a little but nothing to worry about.  I used Almond butter rather than cashew.  It tasted great!

Meeting Steven

Steven Raichlen's book tour brought him to the chilly shores of Lake Michigan last week.  He was doing a fund raiser for the local Public TV station and promoting Planet Barbecue at the same time.  We went to the event and sat with the other guests in an open air tent facing out toward the lake.  BRRRR.  It was one of those "cooler by the lake" days we have in the Spring in Wisconsin. Raichlen is from Miami and has no where near the body fat he should have given the recipes in his book.  He obviously does not sample his own grilling as much as I do.  In any event it was a lot of fun.  While he told stories of the history of grilling around the world, he made Caveman T-Bone Steaks with Hellfire Hot Sauce (p. 151 in your hymnal).  Since he couldn't possibly make enough of that to feed us all, he had paired up with a local chef to make a bunch of other recipes from the book so there was plenty of good food to eat - different kinds of bruschetta, some kind of Turkish meatball sandwich, bacon wrapped mushrooms and Piri-Piri chicken wings.  mmm good.

We now have Raichlen's signature on our copy of Planet Barbecue and he has a copy of the Wisconsin Grill'n blog book.  During his remarks he said that in this kind of climate you can tell the men from the boys because the boys shovel the walk and driveway whereas the men first shovel the path out to the grill.  He clearly knew his stuff.

I tried Caveman steak and hellfire sauce last night.  I don't thinking cooking the steak on the coals adds anything other than the taste of charcoal which frankly I don't mind skipping.  As to the hellfire sauce, I have not perfected.  Jess - you are the expert on this. What's the secret?  Ellie says you use some habenaros but ours was already too hot for my taste.  Do you remove the seeds from the jalapenos?

Cook's Illustrated Knows What's Up

For those of you who are not aware, this month's issue of Cook's Illustrated is entirely devoted to Summer Grilling. This was completely unknown to me when I gave Andrea a subscription for her birthday (May 23rd).

Tonight we made the first recipe out of it, Italian Grilled Chicken Under Bricks. The basic idea is to take some salt, pepper, rosemary, thyme, garlic and red pepper flakes; rub them under the chicken skin; and grill to perfection. A few things he notes, which I thought were interesting:

1) He butterflies the chicken instead of spatchcocking it. In other words, he cuts out the back bone and presses the thing flat.

2) The grill time was 20-25 minutes skin side down, on the cool side of the grill, with bricks on top and breasts on the outside of the grill. Then 10-15 minutes skin side up on direct heat and the bricks on top. Then 5-10 minutes skin side down WITHOUT the bricks on direct heat. The sum total was a perfectly done chicken. You just have to watch it for the last segment to make sure to avoid flare ups.

3) He simmers the herbs & spices in some olive oil before putting them on the chicken. Apparently this helps to avoid simply steaming the herbs and making them taste awful.

The chicken was absolutely fabulous. We had it with some naan, salad and a Riverwest Stein! Next time I'll do a little less salt.

Two tests that they ran which I found cool

1) The Weber chimney is their recommended chimney.

2) Matchlight charcoal will apparently give food an acrid flavor which is particularly noticeable in the tender foods. Avoid at all costs!

As you can probably tell, Andrea is really enjoying her present!

Honey mustard salmon and lost magic

This last weekend, we made the honey mustard salmon from the Art of the Grill book. It was exceptional, as it always is when Dad makes it. It was, however, a moment tinged with sadness, much as it was when I learned how easy it is to grow raspberries. I had always believed that raspberry growing was an art best left to Grammies. Then, raspberries popped up in our yard and it was all we could do to keep them from taking over the whole neighborhood. Making this salmon recipe was much the same. Open the bag of salmon, put it on aluminum foil, put the sauce on, grill on indirect heat, and voila! Delicious salmon.

Next thing I know, someone is going to tell me I could make Bukka too (bouka, bubka, choose your spelling).

Sigh...there is no magic left in the world.

Still Grillin'

I haven't made anything out of the recipe book for a bit, but am posting two recent pictures for the edification of the group. The first should serve as a warning for anyone tempted to use self lighting charcoal in a chimney style lighter. I didn't realize what I had purchased, so happily dumped it in, balled up the paper in the bottom, and lit it up. But a few seconds later, this is the blazing inferno we had going. To save the tree from lighting, I put the top on the grill to extinguish it, dumped out the charcoal, and lit it in the bottom of the grill instead.

The second picture is shot of the jerked chicken we made for dinner with Dorothee, Evan, and the twins. The twins seem to like jerked chicken!