The Lazy Gourmet

[Elok]

My wife is the grill operator in our family; she was a total pyro as a kid, and still basically is.  She does a magnificent jerk-seasoned pork chop.

[Rusty Edge]

My wife is the grill operator in our family; she was a total pyro as a kid, and still basically is.  She does a magnificent jerk-seasoned pork chop.

Have you bought her a brulee torch? She'd have fun with that.

[Unorthodox]

Retrofitted our grill.  new top grates and burners, and tossed out the old heat shields.  Instead of putting new heat shields (I still have in case I need them), I used the brackets to install a grate right over the burners, on which I put a layer of lava rock, and have enough room now to put a few charcoal briquettes and/or wood similar to BU's setup.  The lava rock grills are a little old school, but I figure it'll give me a good feel for whether I want to pursue the ceramic grill or not. 

I figure 1-2 years with this before the whole thing succumbs to rust. 

[Rusty Edge]

Did a mixed grill today....with mixed results

The Pork chops with Montana steak seasoning and the filet mignon marinated in orange/sesame/ginger cooked to medium-well were perfection.

I tried a new marinade on 4 chicken breasts. I had a flame-out due to the olive oil in the mix. So, one breast cooked right, but "too much pepper." The other three were what I call "Cajun style" ie, blackened on the outside. I tasted some. Too dry, really, even after peeling off the black layer. My plan was to use the surplus chicken in another dish with a sauce, sort of like pulled pork, so it is still viable.

Center cut of cabbage in the center of the grill seasoned with Montana steak seasoning was also over-cooked, but I'm glad it wasn't a pricey piece of meat. As it turned out, just flake off the burnt papery portions and eat it. Still pretty good.

Some small potatoes I tried on a higher rack were undercooked according to one guest, but were easily microwaved. Asparagus  cooked beside it pleased those who like asparagus. Three Bratwursts cooked on what was the cooler side tended to be under done on one end despite flipping and turning. They are mostly for re-heating anyway. Not a problem, but still a shortcoming in that I was aiming for an even cook on the whole sausage, not 3/4ths of it. Since the steak and chops were the primary requests, the dinner was a major success. I was trying to meet the dinner time target. Next time I'll start the fire 5- 10 minutes sooner, or cut back the air slightly. 

[Unorthodox]

So the retrofit definitely has my grill reaching higher temps. 

Did a simple test run on some burgers the day of the retrofit, and again some chicken today.  Really kind of surprised how quick it gets up to temps.  Using the heat shields, I was typically reading 400-500 degrees.  With the lava rock, I run ~600 on high.  Grease is typically vaporizing to smoke instead of causing flare ups. 

Modified my french roasted potatoes to go on the grill instead of in the oven, so pan of potatoes on the top rack, chicken beneath while the boys made alfredo inside, all for the Boss's Bday. 

[E_T]

Happy B-Day hEt

[Trench Dog]

I have my own pasta sauce recipe that is stupid easy to do.

Any sort of meat, can be hamburger made into meatballs or steak cutlets, whatever you prefer. Cook it on the side.

Get a clove of garlic, mince it pretty finely.

Canola oil, or really any sort of cooking oil will do. Put a bit of oil, not too much, into a pot and the minced garlic. Let it fry for a bit.

Add crushed tomato, fresh or canned, don't really matter.

4 teaspoons of sugar.

4 good shakes of salt.

4 good shakes of pepper.

Slice an orange into about a third, squeeze all the juices in and just throw the whole crushed thing into the mix. Stir, and let it slow cook for a bit as you do. Add more squeezed orange juice for a citrusy flavour or a bit more garlic depending on preference.

Throw in the meat, and you got yourself a nice and easy sauce for spaghetti.

[E_T]

I have my own pasta sauce recipe that is stupid easy to do.

Any sort of meat, can be hamburger made into meatballs or steak cutlets, whatever you prefer. Cook it on the side.

Get a clove of garlic, mince it pretty finely.

Canola oil, or really any sort of cooking oil will do. Put a bit of oil, not too much, into a pot and the minced garlic. Let it fry for a bit.

You should try Extra Virgin Olive Oil for this, better overall health and weight wise...

Add crushed tomato, fresh or canned, don't really matter.

4 teaspoons of sugar.

4 good shakes of salt.

4 good shakes of pepper.

Slice an orange into about a third, squeeze all the juices in and just throw the whole crushed thing into the mix. Stir, and let it slow cook for a bit as you do. Add more squeezed orange juice for a citrusy flavor or a bit more garlic depending on preference.

Throw in the meat, and you got yourself a nice and easy sauce for spaghetti.

sounds good

[Rusty Edge]

Okay, this is a favorite of my wife- Barbeque chicken flatbread. It was an appetizer in the restaurant.
http://www.disneyinyourday.com/2017/02/13/barbecue-chicken-flatbread-recipe-from-jiko/

But it has multiple parts. Fine if you're a restaurant with a brigade system and a clay oven. Makes a mess in a home kitchen and takes time.

There's a flatbread, a pesto, a slaw, chicken, and barbecue sauce.

So for shortcuts, use a prepared flatbread or small pizza crust, or I make a Keto Cheese bread - https://www.craftymorning.com/keto-no-carb-cheesy-bread-recipe For this I simply do 2 cups of grated hard Italian cheese, 2 cups of soft cheese ( I think it was Manchego tonight) and 2 eggs. There's enough salt in the cheese I used that I didn't add seasoning. The advantage of the cheese crust is that it is warm, and you don't need to add cheese to the crust.

Use leftover chicken, or grill extra the night before .

For barbeque sauce, just use a favorite one and add ground coffee to it.

For the pesto, I used a cilantro paste in a tube, only adding the ground cumin and ginger to it.

No shortcuts on the slaw. I found the jicama easier to peel when treating it like a shallot- start an edge and peel the skin off with your hands, only use a potato peeler to dig out the eyes. Don't do it much ahead of time, because the apple will brown.

People seem to prefer this warm, so you might want to warm your bread, chicken and sauce before assembly.

[Trench Dog]

My (and originally my late father's) recipe for beef stroganoff.

Tomato sauce and tomato base in a pot.

Mince onion, green pepper, saute in a pan with some oil and throw it into the sauce pot. 

Round beef steak, chop it up into strips and then small pieces. Throw it on a pan with a bit of oil, cook it and add water and beef broth for flavour as you cook the meat, and if you'd like a bit of season salt.

Put in a bit of garlic powder (or minced garlic, also sauteed if you prefer that.)

Sprinkle in pepper and a bit of salt.

Throw in the meat once it is cooked, and then let it cook for anywhere from 3-6 hours occasionally stirring to let the meat soak up the flavours.

Combine with noodles of your choice, I typically like egg noodles with this.

[Unorthodox]

Alright, it's grilling season, and with the house being torn apart, I'm looking at plenty of it over the summer (winter for Dale). 

So, let me hear about your burger secrets. 

First, IMO, there's two ways people try to make a good burger.  Fixins or mixins. 

Fixin wise, the most Utah thing out there is:

Blue Bacon Burger:  Utah original (fairly well documented), though some national chains are making poor knockoffs lately.  Basic burger patty, thick bacon, swiss cheese, lettuce, tomato and Blue cheese dressing. 

Mount Ogden Burger:  The other claimed Utah original, seen it much more widely across the country, Patty, ham, swiss, lettuce, tomato, "Fry Sauce" (this is a totally Utah thing, but thousand island dressing is a common substitute) 

It's the mixins I'm more interested in. 

A little history with me:

We were dirt poor, and mom approached burgers as an economic way of feeding the family.  Anything that would extend that meat was fair game.  Thus, for most my childhood burgers were closer to meatloaf.  Always a package of lipton onion soup mix was going to be in.  Most common other items to mix into the burger were zucchini and carrots.  Oats, bread crumbs, etc were never unheard of.  Add an egg or two if they don't want to stay stuck together. 

By comparison, the prepacked patties they now use are tasteless. 

About 20 years ago, I found a pile of recipes in my grandma's trash bin.  Among these is a depression era recipe for hamburgers, and it's become the basis of my own tinkering since.  Though, I've yet to take it all the way to it's ultimate step. 

It goes thus: 

The recipe calls for getting castoffs from the butcher, with certain cuts to look for to run through your meat grinder.  Jumping it into today, you want equal parts ground sirloin and ground chuck.  This yields a fairly lean burger. 

Mix that together, and smash it all as flat as you can make it.  To this, you're going to add your spices.  Now the recipe gets lost here with pieces impossible to reproduce ('grandpa's mustard' and 'moms chili paste' are just nowhere to be found).  But the gist of it still lives. 

Make a paste out of liquid and dry spices.

Last night, I used Dijon mustard with a bit of soy sauce and Cholula hot sauce mixed with garlic salt, pepper, minced onions, and thyme. 

Anyway, spread the paste evenly across your flattened ground beef.  Roll it up into a loaf, and knead it until mixed.  Spread flat and repeat. 

Make your patties.  This is where I break from the recipe, make thick burgers and grill. 

The recipe calls for thin patties.  WHICH YOU THEN ROLL IN PEANUTS and fry.  (Peanuts at the time of the great depression were extremely economical and would have been a great way to extend your meat)  One of these days I'll work up the courage to try the peanuts, but I don't know how that'll fair on the grill, and I don't care for fried burgers much. 

So, last Sunday was both my birthday and Fathers day.  So, what I got was to invite everyone over and cook dinner.

I figure if I have to deal with a family event, it's easiest to do it on my home turf, and not having to leave the house was as good as it was getting. 

So, I made ye above recipe with a few modifications I've come up with over the 3 years since posting:

I only use the ground sirloin.  This is too lean to stick together well, so I dice up as small as possible a bit of bacon and mix into it.  About 1/4 lb bacon to 2 lbs sirloin. 

I did not use the hot sauce for my family, and have become particular with using Ingelhoffer stone ground mustard.  Which, the vituperator my brother married hates mustard, but I don't care. 

I very rarely trust people on such occasions as it's polite to say how good things are. 

Every family asked me for the recipe days later. 

Including my parents today.  And dad asking if that was some kind of traeger or smoker I was using.  (I actually had all my grilling up and running:  The charcoal side of my big grill and my travel charcoal both cooking burgers, and my gas grill doing pineapple and a few dogs for the kids.) 

Mom was surprised it was her dad's recipe.   They've gone to just using pre-packaged patties, not even the stuff I grew up on. 

[E_T]

First off, Happy B-Day UnO

Second, sounds fantastic...  Making me hungry as I type this...

[Rusty Edge]

Labor day grilling notes-

Two fillets, one medium rare, one medium well. Perfect.
One chicken breast with a dry rub- Perfect. However, it has too much red pepper for my wife's taste. Next time I make it I will substitute garlic or onion powder for half of the cayenne.

I've taken up doing some bacon wrapped scallops when I grill as an appetizer, and serving them about 7 mins ahead of the meats. Normally that works well. Today I was also experimenting with some "country bacon," which is some thin sliced cured pork shoulder meat. You guessed it- the fat on the country bacon melted, causing a flameout. Charred some of itself as well as some of the bacon on the scallops.  I'll have to learn to cook fatty pork on the periphery or not at all.

[Buster's Uncle]

I grilled skinless boned chicken thighs - I leave off the wood, and more charcoal to compensate; unlike beef, I want to avoid just scorching the outside and leaving the inside rare.  This is another one of those things I'm trying to learn to cook right because my wimminz likes it a lot more than I do.

Salting meat for the grill takes a little bit of a touch.  You want to go heavier than when cooking something in a pan, because most of it drips off, but you can still overdo it.  -But meat needs a little when cooking, or I, at least, oversalt a lot at the eating end...

[Rusty Edge]

Like everything else- Practice, practice, practice!