Warm Weather = Use The Grill! Suggestions?

Cafe Society
21

oh, you really should grill year round. It’s worth being viewed as slightly eccentric, trust me.
As a confirmed carnivore and grill enthusiast, I could go on about beef, chicken, ribs, etc…, but I will just hit a couple of my favorite fruits and veggies:

roasted peppers: red/green/yellow: throw directly on the grill until the down-side blackens. Rotate untill all sides are thoroughly blackened. Remove and place in paper bag, roll up tightly. Let sit for 10 minutes. Remove from bag, peel skin off and cut out core. Slice as desired.

roasted onion and tomato: slice the ends off the onions, and slice the tomatos (preferably roma variety) in half. Use plenty of salt, fresh pepper and olive oil on the freshly cut sides. Grill over med. heat, turning occasionally until onion is soft and ends are blackened, and tomato halves are darkened and shriveled but still soft. Remove outer skin of onion and slice.

grilled asparagus: grill asparagus perpendicular to the gratings, drizzle with vinaigrette dressing being careful to avoid flare-ups. Turn often untill pleasantly browned. Devour immediately.

Grilled peaches: slice peaches in half, remove pits. drizzle cut sides with vanilla liquor of your choice, brown sugar and a slight brushing of vegetable oil. Grill until you get nice grill marks on the cut side. Serve ideally with vanilla ice cream.

22

I see them here (DC, also when I was in TN) as country style ribs, if that is what you mean…

My contribution would be London Broil.

Marinade in chopped garlic, shallots, black pepper, balsamic vinegar & olive oil. Take out and grill to rare, meanwhile reduce the marinade, and add beef stock and dijon mustard, thicken up to make a gravy. Then slice the London Broil (after resting) across the grain and Robert’s your uncle.

23

Bread.

You can make flatbreads just by making a flour and water dough - knead it a bit, then let it stand for half an hour, then take golfball-sized pieces and flatten them in your hands until they’re about a quarter inch thick. Drape these carefully across the bars and make sure they don’t burn.

If you replace some of the water in the above recipe with plain yoghurt, you’ll have pitta bread; if you leave out the yoghurt and use a bit of yeast, you’ll have something more like naan bread. Whichever way you do it, the results will be surprisingly tasty, I promise.

24

Hear hear! For us it’s easy, what with living down south. Even in the winter we’re grilling 4 to 6 days a week. I feel for anyone encumbered otherwise.

For your meats at least, a good rule of thumb is to only flip your item once, although you might rotate once per side to get the X patterns. This’ll keep it from drying out excessively. Start each piece too over the hot part of the grill to sear and then move to the cooler part to finish.

25

Damn, y’all. Now I’m thinking I need to make sure I get the gas grill in the divorce.

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  1. Steak
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  10. Steak with a side of steak
27

The wife and I quite enjoy those little pork loin “steaks” (I guess they’re technically chops - but no bone) done on the grill. I lightly powder them with garlic and then use an apple-cinammon bbq sauce at the end. Cook on medium/med low heat. They take about 15 minutes.

I’ll often grill either aspargus or corn to go with. It’s a simple quick meal.

I would strongly recommend that you start simply and gain confidence with your grill.

And get one of these immediately!

Weber Barbecue Beeper Remote Digital Thermometer

ETA: This is also a good general reference: The Barbecue Bible

28

I am interested in your program, and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

:smiley:

29

I challenge anyone to read RickJay’s post and not get the “Spam” song going in their head.

30

Flank steak is really good on the grill. I like to cover it blue cheese when I serve it.

Tenderloin (beef or pork) is my favorite. The last one I did (beef) I covered in crushed peppercorns (sea salt too). I was freakin delicious if I do say so myself.

31

I have steaks marinading overnight, and the kids coming over this afternoon. I didn’t have much in the way of marinade, so I had to get a little creative with the ingredients. I have no idea how it’s going to come out, so naturally I’m feeding it to my kids.

32

The first time you use it after a long winter ,I suggest letting your wife light it.

33

don’t forget about all your favorite crustaceans! lobster, shrimp, crab and crayfish. Heck even scallops and mussels.

Steamed/boiled lobster seems so boring after you try one grilled. and you can try all kinds of different seasonings. Rub some cumin and garlic on there and then after grilling, squirt some lime juice and sprinkle with cilantro! yum! curry with coconut and lemongrass is great on shrimp over the grill too.

34

:slight_smile: no kidding! I can’t believe the question was even asked.

To the OP, my Burlington experience was three winters when the last snow came for Mothers Day. Don’t get too excited about the warm weather. That said, I am famous in my current neigbourhood for having grilled under every single storm and hurricane we have had the last 3 years.

My suggestion: Kafta! you can’t beat the taste of grilled lamb (ignore recipes that call for beef)

Also, vegetable kabobs are great. Tomato, mushroom, onion, zucchini, peppers, they all do great in the bbq. Throw some garlic heads on the grill while you are at it. Use them for any recipe that calls for garlic and you will taste the difference.

Grlling eggplants for baba ganoush is also a great little side project while grilling anything else.

If you don’t feel up to grilling pizza, just grilling the tomatoes you will use for the sauce will give you a killer regular oven pizza

If you are grilling chicken (be it whole pieces or kebabs), here is my recipe for “guasacaca” a venezuelan sauce to put on top of the cooked chicken:

Sautee equal amounts of green peppers and onions with some garlic. Throw in blender with a large amount (about the same volume of the cooked peppers and onions) of cilantro (aka culantro, the celery leaves), a splash of vinegar or lemon juice, salt and pepper and a touch of cumin. Green onions can also be added at this point. Blend (no need to get it perfectly smooth, some chunkiness is expected). You can add some olive oil if you feel like it, I often don’t.

It should have a very bright taste. You can season the chicken any way you want, but keeping it simple is best if you are going to sauce it up after cooking. It also goes well with latino style grilling sausages (chorizos) and blood sausages.

Enjoy.

35

Scrub some steamers (soft-shelled clams) and just set them on the hot grill. Sprinkle some hickory or mesquite chips (just a few) on the fire if you like a slightly smokey taste.

The clams steam and simmer in their shells. Pluck them from the grill as they open and eat them as you would any other steamers. Marvelous.

36

Smoked mussels…

Take a coffee can (the 5 lb size) and put about an inch of smoking chips (hickory, etc) on the bottom… add a 1/4 cup of water, then cover with foil (to prevent soot getting on mussels)

Fill the can with mussels

Tightly seal with aluminium foil
poke a few holes in the foil with a fork

place on the hottest part of the grill, for about 25 minutes (Until smoke (not steam) is leaving the holes

remove the mussels with tongs (if you just dump them out, soot residue will get on them)

serve hot with melted garlic butter and slices of lemon

Regards
FML

37

I suggest grilling year-round. Put on a damn coat if its too cold! Damn “fair-weather” grillers…

Why, I regularly have to shovel a path 2 miles thru the snow, uphill, with no shoes to light the barby!

38

I think the most fabulous thing I’ve ever eaten from the grill was lamb, in the following marinade (I usually do kebabs, though the recipe calls for lamb chops - lamb leg or shoulder is a lot cheaper than chops):

1-3/4 cups pomegranate juice
4 cloves crushed garlic
6 black peppercorns, crushed
1/3 cup finely chopped fresh mint
Salt, to taste
2 tablespoons olive oil
Garnish: pomegranate seeds, mint leaves

Marinate your lamb for 2 days, though the recipe says to marinate for 4 - 12 hours
Grill until reaching desired doneness
While you grill, reduce the marinade in a saucepan until syrupy and brush the lamb with it

Eat with moans of enjoyment! Basmati rice pilaf of some sort is a nice side dish (the recipe is Azerbaijani, and obviously Persian-influenced.)

ETA: credits: adapted from Please to the Table: The Russian Cookbook, Anya von Bremzen & John Welchman. It’s not just Russian; it’s got recipes from all over the former Soviet Union. Yum!

39

Last night, we fired up our grill for the first time this year!

We made Grilled Lamb Chops with a Chianti Reduction Vinaigrette My only addition would be to drizzle a tiny bit of olive oil over the lamb before adding salt and pepper on each side. And wait until the lamb’s off the grill to finish the vinaigrette - ours separated before we had a chance to serve it, and we must not have re-mixed it enough. Still very tasty.

40

Add my vote for country-style ribs. Give 'em a good rub and go. Very easy to cook.