Tri-tip steak

This is a grilled tri-tip steak.  Another low and slow masterpiece.

Ingredients:

• Tri-tip steak
• marinade (Moore's Marinade, gluten free)
• baking potatoes
• onion
• hickory wood

Directions:

1. Start the grill with charcoal banked to one side.  The chimney was only about 2/3rds full.  Close the top and bottom vents to half way.  You will be running this cook at 180°-200°.
2. Put the potatoes on the grill on medium heat.  Place lid on grill.  At this time put your steak in the marinade.  It will only be in the marinade 30 minutes.  At 15 minutes flip the potatoes.
3. At the potatoes second flip 30 minutes, take the steak out of the marinade and place on the grill on indirect.  Put on half and onion soaked in olive oil.  Also thrown on a handful of Hickory wood chips onto the coals.  Flip at the 15 mark along with the potatoes and onion.
4. It will take between and hour and hour and a half to fully cook this.  Pull it off when it is medium rare to medium.  Add a little low fat butter or sour cream to the potatoes and you are done!
   
   

Grilled veal and eggplant parmesan

This recipe is modified from a post by Tracey Seaman on  Everyday with Rachael Ray.  To this I have added eggplant.  With this one my diet was blown for this day, very delicious.

Ingredients:

• red onion
• green pepper
• egg plant
• olive oil
• salt and white pepper (I did not use salt)
• veal scaloppine
• skim milk mozzarella cheese
• parmesan cheese
• marinara sauce (bottled, low sodium)

Directions:

1. Chop the red onion about 1/4" and skewer.  I do this for ease on the grill.  Also chop and take out the seeds of the green pepper.  Coat these in olive oil.
2. Start your grill using a half Weber charcoal chimney half to 2/3rds full of fuel.  You really want a medium heat, not the high heat a full chimney will provide.  Once the coals are started spread out on half to 2/3rds of the charcoal grate.
3. Close the bottom vents to half way and the lid vent to half as well.  Place the onion and green pepper on the grill over the coals.  Let go for about 4 minutes then flip and wait another 4 minutes.  You should have a light char at this point.
4. Slice the eggplant to about 5/8"-3/4" thick.  Move the onion and the green pepper to indirect.  Coat the eggplant with olive oil and place on the grill over the coals.  Use the lid.  Give them about 4 minutes and then flip for another 4 minutes.
5. Then move the eggplant to indirect with the onion and peppers.
6. Slice the mozzarella cheese to about 1/8" thick.
7. Coat the veal with a light coat of olive oil and season with pepper and salt.  Place over the coals and use the lid.
8. At about 1-2 minutes flip the veal.  Add the mozzarella cheese to the veal and place the lid on the grill.  Let it go about 2 minutes.  At this time heat the marinara sauce.
9. Take the onions and peppers off and slice.  Place these on the bottom of the plate.  Remove a couple slices of eggplant and a veal cut and plate.  Cover the veal and eggplant with marinara.  Top with parmesan cheese.  Do yourself a favor and buy shredded parmesan cheese not the Kraft green tube.  Then enjoy.

Smoked Turkey

It is Thanksgiving time in America.  That means turkey and what better way to make it than smoked.  Sure you can do it in the oven which is ok.  You can do it in a deep fryer,  just defrost it first before putting in the oil!  Seriously people get hurt doing that.  But to me smoked is the best way.  With smoking you will not be putting stuffing inside the turkey while it is cooking.  You will need to do that separately.

Ingredients:

• 8-12lb turkey.  The one being used is a 10lb Butterball brand turkey.
• Smoke wood, cherry in my case.

Directions:

1. Defrost your turkey in the refrigerator.  You will need about 4 hours for every pound.  Add about 6-12 hours just to play it safe.
2. Remove the turkey from the packaging and take the package of innards out of the inside.  Discard these or cook separately.  Wash the bird and pat dry.
3. Set up the kettle for indirect/smoking.  A 10lb bird will clear the hood with about 1/2-1 inch of clearance.  Take a tape measure to the grocery store when you buy your bird.
4. You will want the smoke to be about 200-250° the entire cook.  For smoke wood I had cherry wood chips.  They were soaked for 30 minutes in hot water.  Then they were wrapped in aluminum foil with holes poked in the top.  Place this on the coals when the bird goes on the grate.
5. Now is the time for the bird to go on the grate.  Cook until an internal temp of 165° test in two places.  Plan on 30-40 minutes a pound.

Here we are at 30 minutes.  That cherry wood makes a nice color.




Now at a little over an hour.




This is about at 4 hours.   Look at the color, real nice.




Tented after taking off the grill for about 10-15 minutes.  This lets the juices flow back into the meat.




Plated with my selections of sides.  White and dark meat!

Chicken drumettes

Monday night football is on tonight and what goes better with that than buffalo wings.  Well personally I like the drumettes over the wings.  So that is what I have bought.  These will be smoked and part way through we will put the wing sauce on and let it bake on.

Ingredients:

• Chicken drumettes
• pepper
• minced garlic (dried)
• wing sauce of your choice

Directions:

1. Setup the grill for smoking and bring up to about 150°-180°.  Use a piece of hickory for smoke wood.
2. Season both sides of the chicken with pepper and garlic flakes.  Use a liberal amount of spice.  Place these on the smoker and let them go about an hour.  They should have some color on them at this time.
3. Take a basting brush and sauce the top of the wings.  Place the hood back on and let it go about 15 minutes.  Flip the wings and sauce the other side.  Wait 15 minutes and flip and sauce again.  You can do this as many times as you want.  This is what they looked like after the flip and more sauce.
4. Once fully cooked pull off the grill and serve on a platter.

Some people prefer there wings 'wet'.  If you wish to do this don't sauce till after you have taken off the grill.

Dino ribs

Nothing is better than slow cooked ribs except slow cooked beef ribs. Bigger, meatier and full of flavor. They are often referred to as 'dino' ribs due to there size.

Ingredients:

• Beef ribs
• Stubb's Bar-B-Q spice rub
• Stubb's spicy BBQ sauce

Directions:

1. Setup your grill for smoking.  You want it to run about 180° to 200°.  Place a couple pieces of hickory wood in for smoke.
2. Trim the fat off your beef ribs and rub with the Stubb's.
3. Place your ribs on the grill.  This is what they look like after about one hour.
4. So here we are at 2.5 - 3 hours.  Ribs are sauced with Stubb's spicy BBQ sauce.
5. After another hour this is what they look like plated.  The meat just fell right off the bone as they should.  Best dino ribs I have made yet.

BBQ Basics - heat zones

So this time we will talk about heat zones on the Weber kettle. Pretty much all these setups pertain to all kettles from the 14.5" Smokey Joe to the 26.75". Red cross hatches show the coals and solid brown represents fire brick.

1. Direct heat.  The coals are spread out in the center of the grill.  The cooking temp is the same across the entire grill.  Used for burgers, chicken, steak and everything requiring high heat.
2. Coals banked to one side.  This setup has three heat zones.  Direct, medium and indirect.  This is the most used setup on the Weber kettle.  You can sear the steak over direct and finish on indirect.  It is also useful when you need to slow cook something with the lid on and then finish another item over direct.
3. Indirect on both sides.  This setup is best achieved with Weber grilling baskets.  It is used for beer can chicken, rotisserie and faster indirect cooking.
4. Smoking setup.  This has a barricade of fire brick separating the heat from the cooking area for the slow cooking of meat at low temperatures.  The best way to use this setup is to close the bottom vents almost all the way with the top vent all the way open.  Fill up the coal area full and with a couple pieces of dried wood.  Use only 5-6 lit coals place on the other coal.  This will along with the closed vents will allow a slow burning fire at a low temp.  It is possible to keep temps for several hours with this setup.

Steak tacos

Steak tacos on the menu tonight. Nothing better than an easy and tasty meal.

Ingredients:

• Thinly cut steak, chuck or another cut.
• jalapenos 
• lettuce
• tomato
• onion
• green bell pepper
• flour torlilla
• adobo seasoning
• picante sauce

Directions:

1. Go ahead and shred your lettuce and dice the tomato, onion and green bell pepper.  Also cap the jalapeno and slice in half.  Remove the seeds and the white.
2. Setup your grill for direct grilling.
3. Place the jalapenos on the grill and get a good char on them.  Flipping so they do not get burnt.  Move to a medium heat when charred on both sides.
4. Season the steak with the adobo seasoning and place on direct heat.  You want to grill for about a minute a side.
5. Remove from grill and slice into 1" strips.  Also slice the jalapeno.  Place the steak and jalapeno onto a tortilla.  Cover with the lettuce, tomato, onion, bell pepper and finally picante sauce.

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Buffalo goat cheese burgers

So I found some ground buffalo meat at the local grocery.  It was not cheap but I have had buffalo once before in my life when I was a kid.  People will tell you that it is not buffalo in the package but donkey meat.  Either way it tastes good.

Ingredients:

• ground buffalo meat
• pepper
• onion
• hamburger buns
• goat cheese

Directions:

1. Form ground buffalo into 6 oz patties and season with pepper.  Also slice the onion to about 1/4" and skewer.  Then coat with olive oil.
2. Start your charcoal and setup the grill for direct grilling.
3. Place the onions on first.  Get a good char on them flipping when needed.  These will cook twice as long as the burgers.  
4. Move the onions to side on medium heat.  Place the burgers on direct.  You will want to only flip these once.  They need about 2-3 minutes a side.  Flip the onions at the same time you flip the burgers.
5. When on the second flip during the last minute of the cook, put the goat cheese on the burgers.  Put the lid on the grill and allow the cheese to melt a bit.  
6. Remove the burgers and place on the bun and you are done.

Smoked Buffalo chicken wings

So here is a smoke for the weekend. This would be a great thing to have for watching some football. As with most smoked foods it is pretty much set and forget.

Ingredients:

• chicken wings and drums.
• 1 cup white vinegar
• 1/4 cup worcestershire sauce
• 1 shot glass full of chipolte tabasco sauce
• 1 tbsp celery seed
• 1/4 chopped white onion
• 1 large clove garlic minced

Directions:

1. Mix up the marinade,  and add the chicken.  Marinade for about 1-4 hours.
2. Set up your smoker and bring up to about 180-200°.  Add a piece a hickory for smoke wood.
3. Place your chicken wings on the grill and let go for about 1.5-2 hours.  They are done when firm to the touch and when pricked with a toothpick, juice comes out.  Overdone if no juice comes out.
4. Put on a platter and serve, they will go fast.

Even though we used chipolte tabasco sauce they did not come out hot.  If you want them hot, make the marinade a day ahead of time and add a sliced jalapeno.  That should add some heat.  Also on advice of others just plain black pepper will add heat.  You can also use a commercial wing sauce on these and the smoked flavor will add a big layer of depth.

Coconut shrimp

So this is coconut shrimp on skewers.  It is a bit different than how they are traditionally prepared coconut shrimp.  In most cases the shrimp is cooked in a pan filled with oil.  They come out golden brown, my way is on skewers on medium/indirect heat.  They don't turn that golden brown but come out nice.

Ingredients:

• large shrimp
• flour
• egg whites
• shredded coconut
• spray olive oil

Directions:

1. Peel and devein your shrimp then dip in the egg white, dredge in the flour, back to the egg white the cover in shredded coconut.
2. Stick the shrimp on skewers.  Spray with the olive oil.  For this cook I used a  Brinkman shish kobob set.
3. Start your grill and use your Weber charcoal baskets to create indirect heat in the center of the grill.
4. Place your shrimp skewers on the grill on indirect.  
5. When the shrimp is close to being done place over direct tot get some char on the shrimp.
6. Remove and plate. I grilled some white asparagus and added some brown rice.

Roadside Chicken

This is a recipe that has been bouncing around a lot on the TVWBB forums for some time now.  It is a recipe that is common at roadside chicken stands.  This produces a crispy crust and a moist meat.

Ingredients for the marinade:

• 1 cup white vinegar
• 1/4 cup worcestershire sauce
• tbsp white sugar
• tbsp kosher salt
• tsp garlic powder
• tsp onion powder
• tsp white pepper
• 1/2 tsp celery salt

Directions:

1. Marinade your chicken legs, breasts, wings or whatever cut for 1-8 hours.  The longer the better the flavor.
2. I used Webers charcoal baskets for this cook.  The baskets were placed on opposite sides of the grill leaving the center for indirect.
3. Make your basting sauce.  Use the same recipe as the marinade except add 1/2 cup of vegetable oil.
4. Baste your chicken and put in the center of the grill.  Place the lid on the grill.  Every 3-5 minutes flip your chicken and baste it.  You want the skin to come out crispy and it will.
5. Cooking takes about 30 minutes depending on the cut of chicken you are grilling.
6. Plate with some corn on the cob or potato chips and you are done.

If you are interested in the chicken leg holder I am using it is made by Masterforge.  I picked it up at a Lowes home improvement center for about $6.  You can find them online as well.  They make a nice easy way to cook up to 12 legs at a time.  However as I found spray it with non-stick cooking oil before using it.

Grilled pumpkin

It is October and it is time to do something with a pumpkin. Why not put it on the grill. So this recipe comes from Australia via the world wide web. It is a pumpkin recipe with paprika.

Ingredients:

• Pumpkin, a pie pumpkin.
• paprika
• olive oil
• garlic powder
• salt and pepper

Directions:

1. Cut a opening in the top of the pumpkin as if you are making a jack-o-lantern.
2. Remove the seeds and innards of the pumpkin, then chop in 3-4 inch squares.
3. Score the skin of pumpkin and rub with olive oil.
4. Season with paprika, garlic powder, salt and pepper.
5. Place on the grill on indirect heat.  Let it cook for 30-45 minutes.

Done: