To me, it’s just not Memorial Day Weekend unless some serious meat is being cooked outdoors.
I’m having a big Gary Coleman Memorial Cookout tonight, and I just put a 10-pound mutton shoulder and an 8-pound Boston butt on the smoker. Later on I’ll add a couple of chickens, and I’ll do some grilled broccoli and some NC-style barbecue slaw.
Meanwhile, CrazyCatLady has made several batches of her famous homemade marshmallows–cherry, coffee, and mint julep flavors–and after dark we’ll roast them over the fire pit for the best s’mores ever.
What are the SDMB’s grill jockeys lighting a fire under this weekend?
Have a whole pig coming tomorrow. Prepping the pit tonight. Will fire coals tomorrow morning, drop the hog in tomorrow night and it should be perfect by Monday afternoon.
Grassfed sirloin steaks tonight, probably some sort of fish tomorrow or chorizo sausages, and then Sunday night we’ll put down a Boston Butt to smoke for 14-18 hours so it’s done for Monday.
On Sunday I grilled some chicken beasts for Monday’s dinner. I tried to approximate the seasoning that the Weber Grill Restaurant puts on their grilled chicken strips – the waiter wasn’t sure what the seasoning is, but he said he’s pretty sure it includes oregano (pronounced “o reh GAH no”, that is!) and olive oil…my wife suggested including basil as well…and I season ALL meat I grill with Montreal Steak Seasoning. I smoked a few handfuls of mesquite as well. It must have turned out well because I’d love to say how my wife thanked me, but…let’s leave it at that.
Then I tossed a flank steak on the grill for that night’s dinner. Not a flank steak fan, but it turned out OK.
BTW…one thing I’ve learned in my relatively young grilling career (not even two years yet): if you throw wood chips in with the charcoal and you’re almost physically overwhelmed by the smoke (literally), the food is going to turn out incredibly yummy.
We did some Tandoori chicken on Sunday for company. We had some extra chicken left over so we just grilled the rest with some rosemary to tide us over for the rest of the week.
Nothing fancy for us. Yesterday I grilled up some marinated flat-iron steaks, roasted some ears of corn (which were then basted with a butter-ancho pepper baste, de-cobbed, and tossed with a bit of seasoning), and grilled slices of yellow crookneck squash. Left-over steak will grace tomorrow night’s Chef’s salad.
Just the traditional for us - hamburgers, hotdogs, and kielbasa (I guess that’s a little non-traditional), with baked beans, potato chips, and pasta salad, and all the fixings!
I smoked a chuck roast on Friday for myself, and then yesterday used the leftovers for baked beans. Also put three racks of ribs on the smoker (one with a homemade jerk paste, and the other two with more typical spice rubs), and a half dozen hot links. I was debating all of Sunday whether I wanted to do the 12-pound packer cut (point & flat) brisket I had in the freezer, but I decided to save that for this weekend.
Brisket was the main target, but it cooks for 10 hours. I snagged some 1 1/2" ribeyes to grill while the fire was still hot, and some pork back ribs to fill in the ribeye->brisket gap.
Did all the prep Friday evening, started cooking early Saturday with a brace of Bloody Marys to keep the “grilling = drinking” vibe.
We had a few low fat hot dogs and some corn on the cob. I also had a couple turkey bratwurst and a few chips. We just got back from vacation so there wasn’t too much here at the house.
I went to my sister’s house for a Memorial Day celebration BBQ on Sunday; she grilled: Italian sausages, chicken (breasts, thighs, drumsticks), hamburgers and hot dogs. Not on the grill, that other folks brought: my oldest sis’s baked beans (she’s given me the recipe, and I’ve made it, but they don’t taste like hers!), potato salad, deviled eggs, fruit salad, pepperoni spread (basically, softened cream cheese with chopped up pepperoni mixed in), brownies, lemon squares, beer and assorted soft drinks and bottled water.
The sister whose house it was at has a swimming pool and a hot tub. It was a good day.
