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!
It’s that time of year again to prepare a grilled Turkey. See my Brined Turkey or Grilled Turkey posts for some ideas. I haven’t figured out yet what I am going to do this Thanksgiving, but thought I would share a great resource for grilling and cooking. Hulu offers tv shows, movies and clips from many different resources in many different genres (not just cooking). This is great for watching your favorite shows for free without having to record them. Or, you can search back catalogs to find old tv shows and movies. With the Thanksgiving holiday, I found some Bobby Flay videos on Food Network to get your juices flowing. While on Hulu, check out other Food Network videos, or just search on your topic and find many how-tos and videos. <updated 12-3-2008> It appears that the Hulu links expire and the ones provided below no longer work. Even a search on the site for Sana Fe Smoked Turkey does not produce a result expected. In any case, you can still search for other turkey related videos. Visit www.hulu.com. -GrillDude
I have to say that the roasted corn husk gives this a unique flavor. My picky 7 year old even likes this salmon (albeit without the capers and red peppers). This recipe was derived from the book “Fish & Shellfish Grilled & Smoked”.
Grilling Clams  Clams are so easy to make on the grill. My wife and I decided to do a seafood appetizer platter with Grilled Shrimp and Clams. Check out my Shrimp on the Barbie blog for the shrimp recipe. Below is how to make Grilled Clams and Spicy Butter Sauce.
 Blueberry Yogurt I caught a show on PBS the other night called “Change Your Brain, Change Your Life” with Daniel G. Amen, M.D. It was pretty interesting how he described the different parts of the brain and their function. He discussed a number of things to stay away from and a number of things that are good for your brain such as life-long learning, exercise and diet. These things contribute to improvements in memory and fighting diseases such as Alzheimer’s. One of the best brain foods is blueberries. There have been studies that show that blueberries are the highest concentration of antioxidants of any fruit. There also seems to be a tie between what’s good for the brain is what’s good for the heart. Blueberries may also help reduce cholesterol. You can find a ton of info just by Googling “blueberries health benefits”. And while I am on the topic, there are other foods that are good for the brain such as spinach, salmon, brown rice, walnuts and almonds and olive oil. After watching this show, I was craving blueberries. Heck, now that I am fast approaching 40, I have to start thinking about this stuff, right?. I racked my brain on “Grilled Blueberry xxxxx”, but I just couldn’t figure out the “xxxxx” part. Why not try some vanilla yogurt with fresh blueberries on top? Now that is a great after dinner snack! It may not be grilling, but you get some healthy tidbits today. -GrillDude
I can’t really explain the off topic post other than say that I have other hobbies and don’t want to have a second blog. Below is my assessment of the iPhone after 7 days of ownership. On my scale of 1-10, here is how I rate the iPhone.
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.
Ok, so this one isn’t on the grill, but it sure is a time saver with a bit of planning. Thanks Aunt Wanda!
Place brisket, onions, & smoke in ziploc bag and refrigerate over night. The next day discard onions & smoke. Rinse brisket, place in heavy duty pan with a lid. Put in oven on the lowest temp. available (about 200 degrees). Leave it there for no less than 8 hrs. or more. When it is done, discard extra liquid around meat. Pour sauce all over meat and return to oven and bake for 30 mins. at about 300 degrees. Remove from oven and let it sit for about 20-30 min. Pull the pork with a fork.
-GrillDude
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 |
