Hot Stick Meat makes for a great spicy appetizer. Over the Valentines Day holiday, we had a few friends over for a bunch of appetizers and a few filets. We made Shrimp on the Barbie, asparagus, Bacon Wrapped Peppers Stuffed with Cheese, and a few filets in case our eyes weren’t really bigger than our stomach. Watch for the Stuffed Peppers recipe soon!
Let me start off by saying that I have flown over Cuba, smoked real Cohibas, listened to Gloria Estefan (forcibly), have a Cuban-born coworker, but never actually been to Cuba and am not an expert on Cuban culture or cuisine by any means. But, I love pressed cuban burgers. I have been wanting to make this for a while and La Cense gave me good reason. Their lean, healthy, individually pre-packaged ground beef patties were great pickins for this dish. Below is my recipe with these great tasting patties (well, 2 were La Cense and 3 were 80% lean) Click to continue »
I recently had a chance to experience La Cense grass fed beef. Their Black Angus cattle graze in 88,000 acres of open pastures in Montana and are raised without pesticides and antibiotics. Research shows that grass fed beef is lower in calories than grain fed beef and higher in beta-carotene and Omega-3 fatty acids. This leads to a healthier beef eating. La Cense beef is then dry-aged for 19 days before butchered and the result of the entire process is a leaner, more tender cut of meat. Check out their 4th of July Special at their website www.lacensebeef.com.
Today, I am here to share some grilling woes with my Grill”Dud” Kabobs. Man, is it tempting to just grab that pre-made kabob from the meat section. All the meat and veggies are skewered nicely and seasoned to make these things ready to slap on the grill. In fact, for the the novice, they even come with brief cooking instructions on the sticker. And finally, the buy-one-get-one-free offer sealed the deal for me (this red sticker should have been the RED FLAG). We bought chicken kabobs and beef kabobs. Throwing the chicken kabobs on the grill a few minutes before the beef helped me get things off the grill at the same time. The timing would make Chef Ramsey proud.
The great thing about cooking kabobs is that you can cheat by eating a chunk of meat to check for doneness. Never admit that you are cheating though…..just claim that you are sampling your creation. Before you know it, you will have eaten a whole kabob! So, in the spirit of sampling my creation, my second sign of trouble was the slightly chewy beef. The wooden skewers did get a little burnt, so if you were preparing the kabobs yourself, you should soak the wooden skewers for about 1 hour prior to using them. These kabobs had big chunks of meat on them and I was pretty proud that they were cooked to perfection and ready to head to the table. At this point, I am not sure if I am lucky or unlucky to not have Chef Ramsey in my kitchen. Going from the serving station to the table would have sent him into a frenzy of censored bleeps and the chewy, tasteless kabobs would have never made it to the table. But….they did. The best (or at least the most honest) critics are two kids under 7 and a hungry wife. I didn’t get any censored bleeps from my diners, but their tired jaws were still able to flap out their disapproval. No amount of A1 was going to save this one. After weeks of no blogging, and this is what you get? Sorry….if you were looking for something inspirational today, check out a totally unrelated video “The Last Lecture“. It is over an hour, so you can check out the Wall Street Journal 5 minute overview. -GrillDude
I don’t really do restaurant reviews, but this is truly an exception. Plus, I generally don’t order steak when I eat out since I am usually disappointed by paying over $30 for a steak that I can easily make better at home. My last trip to Boston put my partner-in-crime and I in plenty of great seafood restaurants. But, we wondered if this tea slinging town could produce a good local restaurant with great steaks. We have thanks to pay to the concierge at the Omni Parker hotel for pointing us to KO Prime.
We eat sandwiches often for lunch. When I have pastrami, I usually just eat a cold sandwich. I decided I would have a hot pastrami the other day, and it just hit me that I could do this on the grill.
For those ribeye affectionados out there, i’ve been playing with a new crust/rub for my Sunday Night Steak. i’ve heard about people using ground coffee in their rub, so i thought i would try a bitter-hot-sweet-salty rub, thick enough to crust up on the fire. i suggest ribeye for this, since the fat content makes it prone to natural dripping and flare ups that crust the meat nicely. The rub was simple… the ingredients (per steak) were: 1 tsp ground coffee take the coffee, sugar, red and black pepper, thyme and 1/2 the salt, powderize together. i prefer a mortar and pestle. For some reason, if i don’t powderize, i don’t get as nice a crust. Spread over the meat evenly and thickly. Let sit a 1/2 hour to an hour or so while the steak warms to room temperature before grilling. Before grilling, coat with olive oil and add the rest of the salt (being sure not to let the spices run off. Grill as usually, making sure you get a little flare up, but not so much that it over cooks the steak. My better half surprised me by noticing the new spices, and she liked it!
The busload arrived on New Year’s Day for our 1st Family Brunch rather than doing a traditional New Year’s Eve party. We managed to round up 18 of our family members and a few friends.
I found a rub that is simple to make and remember. It tastes great on many cuts of meat, including prime rib roast. Just use equal part of:
Cook over high heat for about 5-6 minutes on each side. Ribeyes will likely cause flare-ups, but I think this sears the meat and keeps the juices in. I always love seeing the juices pool at the top of the steak cuz it makes my mouth water. I wonder if guests ever worry about me touching their steak with my bare finger while cooking. However, this is the best way to tell if your steak is done. I figure they would rather have me try to get the steak done to their satisfaction by testing with my finger than poking it with a fork and draining out all those precious juices. So, how do you tell when it is done just by using your finger? A popular method to compare various levels of doneness is to compare the ”touch” of the meat to the firmness of the space between your thumb and index finger. See this Men’s Health article. That may work for you, but for me, the best way to tell using your finger is just by practice. Once you cook enough, you can just tell how done the meat is by giving it a poke with your finger. After dubya’s posting, I told myself that I would try his Partly Grilled Steak for my next Ribeye. Well, I lied, but is on my list to do very soon. -GrillDude
This is a great meal for having friends over, or for a nice holiday meal. And who doesn’t like prime rib?
Mix the spices in a bowl for the rub. Liberally rub the spices into the meat. Place a drip pan between the burners and the grates. The butcher will cut the bone off and tie back on with butcher string. This is usually how I buy the roast, but you can easily cut the bone off using and electric knife after cooking. But, always cook it with the bone on for best flavor. -GrillDude
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My friend Mark at a big aerospace company turned me on to grilling filets probably almost 15 years ago. For the longest time, this was my favorite steak to cook on the grill. Even though I could usually get it to a perfect medium-rare, at times, it would be somewhat bland. Finally, my friend Ron turned me on to ribeyes and it has been my favorite cut on the grill for the last 8 years or so. With all the fat on this slab of meat, it produces so much natural flavor! 
Get yourself a nice 3/4 to 1 inch thick ribeye (I like bone in). For this posting, I actually timed the cook time with a 3/4 inch steak. I just sprinkle the rub on both sides of the steak and gently press the spices into the steak.
Place the roast, fat side up, directly on the grill and cook for about 1.5 to 2.5 hours. Once it is about 125 degrees in the center, take it off and let it sit for 15 minutes before cutting (cover with foil). This should give you a good medium-rare. The end pieces will likely get done medium for those folks that don’t want it too rare. This 7 lb roast took about 2 hrs 15 min at just above 300 degrees.