Gas Grill Recipes | Chef Dana Giardina

I don’t think you can ever learn enough, get enough tips about grilling and/or barbecuing on a gas grill, or any kind of a grill. There are tons of recipes out there with different grilling and barbecuing methods all designed to prepare the perfect meal for you and your family.

I attended a class on grilling and barbecuing at Bauman Farms in Gervais, Oregon. It is about 35 minutes south of my home in Oregon City.

It’s a huge complex that caters to families, has a first-class old fashioned general store, nursery, world-class landscaping display, and all kinds of fun things for the kids to do.

The class was conducted by Chef Dana Giardina (See above photo), a Portland chef who works for Whole Foods Grocery. Previously, she owned and operated a restaurant in the Pearl District in Portland, “Vitis Enoteca”.

The class was two hours long and there were approximately 30 folks in attendance.

I thought it would be distracting to take photos during the session even though I had permission to do so.

I had the privilege of sitting at a table with some super, super nice folks….Pete and Nancy and Dublin (Just like Ireland), she hasn't arrived yet when this shot was taken.

Chef Dana started the session with a “Grilled Asparagus and Sugar Snap Pea Panzanella”. One of the best salads I have ever eaten in my life. No joke! I wasn't alone in my analysis either.

I’m thinking, “How come I can’t get a salad like this when I go out to eat”?

Basically, you prepare a dressing in a food processor that consists of white wine vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, Dijon mustard, Kosher Salt and black pepper….set aside.

Next, you grill thick Italian Bread, then cube, grill asparagus, and snap peas.

Other ingredients include: diced tomatoes, Kalamata olives, red onion, capers, pine nuts and fresh basil. Toss everything together. I will prepare it in a modified version and let you know how it turns out in a future post.

 I didn’t count heads but, eighty percent, or even more, of the class were females.

Now, I didn’t think much of this until I got home and by accident turned on the “Food Channel” and the “Grillin’ Girls” were on. A fact: the gals are much more into the total meal experience than the guys are. And, it's ironic..... but, this was what my class was all about….”the total meal experience”.

Back in the late eighties( or early 90's), there was a grilling show on public TV put on by Chef George Hirsch. He was way ahead of his time. He still is...check him out!

He had an inexpensive gas grill with a heavy and custom-made cast iron grill. His show was based out of Florida (I think), and although he grilled meats and fish, there was a lot of emphasis on the right way to grill fruits and vegetables. And, he always combined everything making it into “the total meal experience”. And, I might add, "healthy meals"!

Meanwhile, back at the farm, the first course was the “Grilled Asparagus and Sugar Snap Pea Panzanella”.

The second was a “Grilled Romaine Salad with Spicy Caesar Dressing”. Romaine lettuce, besides Iceberg, is one of the few types of lettuce that won’t evaporate, or wilt completely before your eyes on the grill. I have a Marine Corps buddy that fixes this salad on his BBQ grill all the time, and everyone just loves it.

The hard part is the dressing that you have to prepare in a food processor which includes chipotle peppers and anchovies, among other things. A hard cheese should be added to the finished salad.

A little history lesson: Chef Dana told us that the advent of Caesar Salad took place in Mexico.

We then devoured courses of barbecued turkey breast served with a white sauce, beef brisket and Asian baby back ribs. The finale consisted of Roasted Stone Fruit and Vanilla Ice Cream with Berry Compote.

She told us about using a good quality, aged balsamic vinegar on fruit when grilling. Wow, talk about learning new things! It interacts with fruit to bring out the natural sugars.

All the barbecuing of meats were prepared using gas grills. She used two of them, plus a warming platform. In earlier posts I talked about using indirect heat on your gas grill turned to a moderate temperature, or low temperature.

I also mentioned using wood chips in a smoker box, mopping, or misting, and the using dry rubs. You might want to read my post again, because this is exactly what she did except for the misting part.

 Yes, you can have genuine barbecue using a gas grill, you just have to use exact methods in preparing things right way which includes slow-cooking.

All of Chef Dana’s BBQ recipes turned out super excellent, but with one exception, the brisket was a little on the tough side because she didn’t have the time to cook it as long as she would have liked.

Basically, in the old nutshell, the synopsis, all things rolled into a ball, all recipes that you can prepare in your kitchen can also be prepared on your gas, charcoal, wood pellet grill. There is something about cooking things outside that cannot be duplicated. For now, ten fourEnjoy! Like my favorite chef and friend, George Hirsch would say: “Know your fire!”

I don’t ask that you send me 100K for my BBQ and cooking tips. But, hey, it's cool if you do! It really helps with the bills. If not, please check out my sponsors and ads....it helps keep up the blog and my fragile spirit! Thank you, it’s appreciated! Please see bottom of page for Product Disclosure and Privacy Disclosure. “Semper Fi” To All Marines!

Barbecue Turkey | Yummy

If you have never barbecued a turkey on a Traeger Grill before you are in for a treat.

I started with a 14 pound bird and placed it in a plastic bag after cleaning out the cavity and rinsing with cold water. You can start with any size turkey you want.

Apply some extra virgin olive oil over the entire turkey, and then add a generous coat of Chef Paul Prudhommes’ Poultry Magic on the outside skin and also the cavity.  Also, if you want you can lift the skin on the topside of the turkey and apply more of the Rub and butter between the body and skin...for an additional taste! 

This is not easy, so be careful. You don't want to completely remove the skin or you turkey won't come out right.

Start the Traeger Grill on high and after 20 minutes or so turn the Traeger down to medium.  I used cherry wood pellets that gave it a unique taste. Place the turkey right on the grill, no pan, breast side up, cooking at a rate of between 25 to 30 minutes per pound.

Thirty minutes, per pound equates to seven hours cooking time at a medium temperature. Now, you really don’t need to baste, mop or mist the turkey. But, I prefer to mist the bird in the later stages of cooking with a concoction of apple juice and apple cidar vinegar...lot's of juice, not so much vinegar.  Use a laundry squirt bottle.

Ideally, you want an internal temperature of 170 degrees and a golden brown turkey.  Check your bird after 2 to 3 hours on the grill and keep checking until you reach your temperature. Wrap in foil when it's cooked and let it sit out fifteen minutes before carving and serving.

Enjoy! Like my favorite chef and friend, George Hirsch would say: “Know your fire!”

I don’t ask that you send me 100K for my BBQ and cooking tips. But, hey, it's cool if you do! It really helps with the bills. If not, please check out my sponsors and ads....it helps keep up the blog and my fragile spirit! Thank you, it’s appreciated! Please see bottom of page for Product Disclosure and Privacy Disclosure. “Semper Fi” To All Marines!

Tips For Using A Weber Charcoal Grill

When I first started BBQ’ing (real far back, I'm a bit of a fossil) there weren’t too many tips for using a Weber charcoal grill, or any other kind of a grill. Zilch! Nada!

Things have changed. As barbecuing has become more popular, the BBQ accessories and knowledge of “just what makes good barbecue” is at your finger tips, especially for the Weber.

Tip One
More of the fossil thing, I don’t remember anyone having a chimney starter to get their charcoal going way back when. If you don’t have one, acquiring a chimney starter would be a great start to your barbecuing experience...providing you don't have Touch-N-Go gas-ignition system on your Weber already.


They are a snap to use and require just a piece of newspaper to get your charcoal going. The days of using charcoal lighter fluid to start things is over. Do you really want to introduce family and friends to the lighter fluid taste?

Tip Two
Using a quality charcoal instead of the local grocery store variety of briquettes helps immensely. Good charcoal is made out of real wood and helps to put grilling and barbecuing at the very top of the scale.
OK, you can use name-brand briquettes, just stay away from el cheapo generic brands.

Tip Three
If you ever want to get past hamburgers, Shish Kabobs and steak and get into pulled pork, ribs, whole chickens, turkeys and brisket you are going to have to learn about indirect grilling on your Weber.

In a nutshell, it means heating one side of the grill and not the other. You shove the charcoal to one side of the grill and barbecue on the cool side. This prevents scorching and burning whatever you have on the grill and allows you to slow-cook things for hours. This is super important in acquiring genuine barbecue results.

Tip Four
When you slow-cook you can also use a water pan specifically designed for a Weber grill...... "The Smokenator". This adds a real dimension to whatever meat you are barbecuing. It helps to retain moisture in the meat and keeps it from drying out. You can add garlic and onion, including all kinds of spices (or a brew) to the pan. This will enhance the taste of whatever you are cooking. But, a pan is just an option for slow-cooking.

But, if you use a water pan you don’t necessarily have to “mop” when you slow-cook, but I do anyway.

Tip Five
What is mopping? Anything to do with mopping the floor? Nooooo! There are literally little tiny mops that you can use to add BBQ sauce, butter and spice mixes to what you are barbecuing. In essence, it helps keep meat moist and adds flavor. However, you don’t want to do that until the last stages of cooking.

If you are using a heavy sauce or butter to mop the meat with, use a BBQ mop. If not, I prefer to use a squirt bottle.

I like to use fruit juices and apple cider vinegar in my squirt bottle. They refer to it as “misting”. Personally, I think it beats mopping all to pieces...but, once again it depends upon what you want to add to the meat. It's hard to mist butter or barbecue sauce out of a squirt bottle.

For misting, add a cup of orange juice, or apple juice into the bottle, add a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar to the juice….you’re all set.

With a couple of hours left on your slow-cooking start misting, or mopping on the half hour until done.

This is not one hundred tips for using a Weber charcoal grill. The whole idea is to get you started on making your grilling experience exceptional, and make you look like a pro in front of family and friends. So where do you get all this stuff? I'm here to help, so leave me a comment.

Enjoy! Like my favorite chef and friend, George Hirsch would say: “Know your fire!”

I don’t ask that you send me 100K for my BBQ and cooking tips. But, hey, it's cool if you do! It really helps with the bills. If not, please check out my sponsors and ads....it helps keep up the blog and my fragile spirit! Thank you, it’s appreciated! Please see bottom of page for Product Disclosure and Privacy Disclosure. “Semper Fi” To All Marines!

Grilled Pineapples | And Some Other Things

When I was in the Marine Corps way back when, they served pineapples every which way, including grilled with every meal. I mean every meal.

I don’t know if they got “real deals” on them or what, but I got to the point I hated pineapple and wouldn't eat it.

It took me a long time, but now I am back to eating pineapple….in fact it is one of my favorite fruits now.

I love to eat it all by itself, love it in fruit salads, and particularly love it grilled on the BBQ.

Most folks are familiar with pineapple as something that you add to a shish kabob. That’s cool! But, you can grill pineapple slices all by themselves and they turn out marvelous-like.

I have messed around with several different recipes, but the best one I have found has been simply coating them with brown sugar. Well, you could soak them in rum, too.

I slice the top and bottom off the pineapple and then cut off the outside skin vertically. I then slice the pineapple, again vertically in manageable chucks around the core.

I know they have pineapple coring devices, but there is nothing magical about slicing a pineapple in this manner.

I then get myself a marinating container and pour on the brown sugar. I don’t measure anything.

You will find that the pineapple reacts with the brown sugar and is formed as a syrup around the pineapple almost immediately.

I like to get the grill going hot. I use a non-stick on the grill and plop the pineapple on. Use tongs to turn over the fruit. Don’t turn too fast as you will break-up the pineapple if you do.

You want nice grill marks on each side of the pineapple. Notice that when the sugar hits the grill it caramelizes very nicely and adds a dimension to the fruit.

In the picture above, I added nectarines to the mix. They are very soft so be careful when turning. I like to serve grilled pineapples warm. I hope you and your family enjoy this simple but delicious treat.

Weber Charcoal Grill | Compare To Those Expensive Ones

Weber is the standard and the most recognized name in a charcoal grill, period.

Their grills are built like brick chicken houses, and since the get go, (that means a long time ago) have offered superior grilling and barbecuing ability even for the beginner.

Walk around your neighborhood and you will almost always spot a Weber grill, especially the “kettles”. Of course, there is the name, but they have always kept their prices to the point that almost anyone, even someone on a strict budget could afford.

I like to use this analogy. I live right next to the Willamette River in Oregon. During salmon season you will see hundreds of boats out on the river fishing for Chinook salmon all at once.

There are the folks that think they have to have the $35,000 boat to catch fish. Then there is the guy who has the hundred dollar boat that he rows with the old oars.

Hey, the fish don’t care if you paid $35,000 for you boat, or a hundred bucks. The guy that has the $100 boats (the guy with the oars) will catch as many fish, if not more than the guy with the fancy $35,000 boat.

The basic $100 boat, with oars in the BBQ world is the Weber Silver Kettle Charcoal Grill. Although, the price is under a hundred bucks.There are lot’s of imitators, but there is nothing at that price that is superior, or comes close to the quality. And, if taste is the final denominator, the $5K grill won’t taste any better. In fact, it may not taste as good!

The “Silver” can grill and/or barbecue most anything the folks that have the $5000.00 grill can. They just may not have all the conveniences, the guy on the $5K grill has.



But, and if you must, and if you are into conveniences you can move up to a couple of different models, namely the Weber Gold Charcoal Grill and the Weber Performer Charcoal Grill.

What do they have over the basic Silver model? Basically, they both have removable ash catchers and hinged cooking grates for easy re-fueling. You don’t have to get your hands dirty at all cleaning ash from the unit. And, you can deal with the lid a lot easier.




In the case of the Weber Performer it has a bin for storing fuel and a propane ignition system and a cool work table.




All can easily accommodate six large succulent (big word) steaks, or twelve juicy mouth-watering hamburgers, or a dozen shish kebabs.

Maybe this isn’t quite as much food as the guy with the $5K grill can accommodate, but it tastes just as good..... most likely better, for a lot less bucks.

If you are in the market for a charcoal grill, none comes better than the Weber brand. I would take the Weber Charcoal Grill in a heartbeat over any gas grill that’s in the same price range. Hey, maybe even some of those gas grills that are in the $5000 price range.

Enjoy! Like my favorite chef and friend, George Hirsch would say: “Know your fire!”

I don’t ask that you send me 100K for my BBQ and cooking tips. But, hey, it's cool if you do! It really helps with the bills. If not, please check out my sponsors and ads....it helps keep up the blog and my fragile spirit! Thank you, it’s appreciated! Please see bottom of page for Product Disclosure and Privacy Disclosure. “Semper Fi” To All Marines!

Jambalaya Recipe | On The BBQ

My family and I love Jambalaya. We also love Gumbo. In fact, we love a lot of Cajun-style food. Here is a simple recipe for Jambalaya, and since it is BBQ season why not just go ahead and use the barbie?

This isn’t a made from scratch recipe. I often wondered exactly what that meant. Do you grow your own rice, or what?

I don’t want to shock anyone, but I used a Zatarain’s pre-packaged product, along with Kielbasa, chicken and a red pepper to make my Jambalaya. Not to mention shrimp.

If I thought I could make a Jambalaya better. and more economical than Zatarain’s, I would do it. They seem to have just the right blend of spices and is very tasty to say the least.

The first thing I do is prepare two packages of Zatarain’s Jambalaya mix in a large stock pot. It calls for two and a half cups of water brought to a boil for each package.

You can prepare this on a side burner on the BBQ, or on one of the main burners. I did not. I used my kitchen stove top.

I don’t use water as instructed. I substitute low sodium chicken broth and at least one can of beef broth.

After you are done cooking the rice mix, using their exact instructions you will find that you need to add more broth so that it doesn’t dry out. Play it by ear!

Zatarains makes suggestions on what meats or seafood to add to Jambalaya mix and you can do that in a number of ways.

They recommend adding smoked sausage, ham, chicken and shrimp. You can add one of these ingredients, one at a time, each time you serve it, or all at once.

By smoked sausage I think they mean Andouille sausage. It is not readily available in my neck of the woods, so I substitute Kielbasa sausage.

I grilled it on a gas barbecue, along with three chicken breasts and a red pepper. Real simple!

After grilling, everything is cut up into bite size chunks and added to the pot. As recipes go this is an easy way to make a Jambalaya recipe that everybody will enjoy, and won't require you to stand over a hot grill, or stove all day long. Below is Zatarain's case of 12.

Enjoy! Like my favorite chef and friend, George Hirsch would say: “Know your fire!”

I don’t ask that you send me 100K for my BBQ and cooking tips. But, hey, it's cool if you do! It really helps with the bills. If not, please check out my sponsors and ads....it helps keep up the blog and my fragile spirit! Thank you, it’s appreciated! Please see bottom of page for Product Disclosure and Privacy Disclosure. “Semper Fi” To All Marines!

 

Weber Performer Charcoal Grill | UGrill-IEat!

With barbecue season right on top of us (It's always on top of us), it’s time to talk once again about the Weber Performer Charcoal Grill. (Well, just kinda of an earlier post thingy, too)

First the Weber Performer is not some type of an El Cheapo charcoal grill. This is not a ten dollar grill designed to destruct after one BBQ season. It is a grill designed to last and last.

As of the date of this post, there are 173 positive ratings of this product. There are a few minor gripes (A rednecky thing: "I so busy fightin' off the flies, I done forgot to light the charcoal and dat your fault. (And An And/Or thing): I done left the charcoal out in the rain all year to dry out and I won't light."

But, in short, most folks just love their Weber Performer to pieces! It's goin' light your fire, dude!

The BBQin' results you're goin' get are goin' be phenomenal! It's going to impress your family! It's goin' impress your friends, providing you didn't leave all that charcoal out in the rain all year!

All Things Equal: The Performer makes it easy to light charcoal and takes the pain out of having to use foul repulsive smelly, not so good for the environment, dude, charcoal lighter fluid, or a chimney starter to get things going.

They have an auto-ignition feature…a button that you push that gets the charcoal going. How hard can this be? Rally your brain...get with the button!

Technical Time: Basically, what it consists of is a propane welder’s torch built into the base of the kettle that ignites the charcoal. This definitely solves the lighting problem….especially on cold windy days. In essence, this combines a convenient feature of gas grills with charcoal grills.

There are some additional cool features like a dual-purpose thermometer that monitors the temperature inside the grill while you are cooking and then you can removes it to test whatever you are barbecuing for doneness.

You don’t have to take the lid off to add charcoal. They have what they call a Tuck-Away holder that holds the lid up and out of the way while you add charcoal, or check internal temperatures of the meat that you are barbecuing.

There are aluminum vents that you can adjust to provide perfect airflow so that the Performer can meet any cooking condition. Hey, there is even a storage container that keeps up to 20 pounds of charcoal nice and dry.

There is also a rack to hold all your BBQ tools and a great set of wheels makes your Weber extremely easy to move around.

Make sure you get a cover….they are thirty some bucks, but worth every penny. You grill will last much longer if you cover it when not in use.

Is this a recommendation for the Weber Performer Charcoal Grill? Yes! And, I think you will find the price is right….and, there are 173 folks that have given a super positive review on Amazon.

Enjoy! Like my favorite chef and friend, George Hirsch would say: “Know your fire!”

I don’t ask that you send me 100K for my BBQ and cooking tips. But, hey, it's cool if you do! It really helps with the bills. If not, please check out my sponsors and ads....it helps keep up the blog and my fragile spirit! Thank you, it’s appreciated! Please see bottom of page for Product Disclosure and Privacy Disclosure. “Semper Fi” To All Marines!