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Weekly Cooking Challenge: Bananas

Posted by on November 11, 2011 No comments

This week, we’re taking part in a weekly cooking challenge that runs on Facebook. I think it would be great to get a few of you involved in it as well!  It’s called “The Weekly Cooking Challenge” (I have NO idea where they got that name!!) and I love seeing the creative things people come up with every week. Sometimes it’s difficult for us to get involved since we want to grill everything for our recipes and the weather doesn’t always play fair. But this week, we got to participate and we’re quite happy with the results!

This week’s ingredient is: Bananas!

We made Banana Delights. They are essentially banana splits made on the grill and they are delicious! We have some recipes below and of course … pictures & videos! We hope you enjoy.

Our first recipe is Chocolately Peanut Butter Banana Delights. Click here for a printable recipe.
You will need: Bananas, Peanut Butter Chips, Mini Marshmallows, and Chocolate Syrup. We also added chocolate chips to ours because we like chocolate!

Mini Marshmallows and Peanut Butter & Chocolate Chips

How we did it:



Stuffing the banana with marshmallows, chocolate chips,
and peanut butter chips

We also made a Banana Delight with Heath in it … SO good! You can click here for a printable version of that recipe.


Bananas on the grill ... don't
they look goofy? But they taste
great!

Click on a picture to see it full
size.

What do you think? Have you ever heard of bananas on the grill before?

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10 Pumpkin Beers You Need To Try

Posted by on October 25, 2011 No comments

October and November make manufacturers want to add pumpkin spices to everything they sell … and with good reason! Most of us want a little taste of something that reminds of us a nice, crisp fall day – and boy do pumpkin spices do that for me! Below are 10 pumpkin beers that are a mix of newcomers and old-timers (one is an “oldy-but-goody” that is being bottled for the first time this year). Make sure you give at least a few of them a try! Serve these in a pint glass at about 45-50°F. Keep them stored between 40-45°F.


The Fear brewed by Flying Dog Brewery
Flying Dog brewed The Fear with a local pumpkin puree and a secret blend of spices, but once you take a sniff and a sip, those spices become quite apparent. The Fear has bold pumpkin pie flavor complemented by graham cracker and chocolate notes. Anything seasonally spicy or sweet will beautifully complement this rich and complex brew. This beer gets a B+ overall, which is very good. 9.00% ABV

 



The Great Pumpkin brewed by Clipper City Brewing Co.
Clipper City (Heavy Seas Beer) adds the pumpkin during the mash at precisely the right time to create just the perfect balance of malt, hops, pumpkin and spice. The key to any good pumpkin ale is in getting the combination of malt, hops and spices just right. Clipper City has done exactly that. Cinnamon is especially prominent and alcohol is barely noted. Just released in September, The Great Pumpkin is already getting great reviews! This beer gets a B+ overall. 8.00% ABV.

 


Great Pumpkin Ale brewed by Cambridge Brewing Company
Good Grief, it’s … Cambridge Brewing Company’s Great Pumpkin Ale!  Great Pumpkin Ale is being bottled for the first time in 22 years! CBC brews with local, organic sugar pumpkins (over 150 lbs in each batch) and they also use organic barley that was grown in MA. Great Pumpkin Ale is fairly sweet with a strong toasted malt and toffee flavor. It is certainly spiced, but not overly so. Seems the folks at Cambridge are pretty adept at brewing pumpkin beers. This beer gets an A- overall, which is excellent. 4.20% ABV



Fisherman’s Pumpkin Stout brewed by Cape Ann Brewing Company
Fisherman’s Pumpkin Stout is a dark stout accentuated by flavors of the Autumn season. Using real Pumpkin, cinnamon, nutmeg and allspice, the Cape Ann Brewing Company took a fresh take on the common fall seasonal. This rich dark stout offers an inviting pumpkin spice aroma that gives way to the delicate essence of real pumpkin. Hints of chocolate and roasted malts melt seamlessly with cinnamon and nutmeg touches that really accent them well. This beer gets a B overall, which is good. 7.00% ABV.



Lips of Faith Kick brewed by New Belgium Brewing
Kick is a rich and tart pumpkin/cranberry ale blended with wood-aged beer for a uniquely complex harvest season sour. This beer has a very nice tartness from the cranberries. The spice notes are subtle, but there. Nutmeg, all spice, and even a bit of vanilla are present. The beer pours a slightly hazed orange-amber color with a finger of white head. It looks as autumnal as it tastes! This beer gets a B+ overall. 8.50% ABV.



The Great Pumpkin brewed by Elysian Brewing Company
Elysian makes sure this beer deserves its name: they put roasted pumpkin seeds in the mash and extra pumpkin is added in the mash, kettle, and fermenter. This results in a rich pumpkin smell & flavor. It’s a nice change from the “pumpkin” beers that get their aroma and flavoring mostly from the spices added. The Great Pumpkin is spiced with cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and allspice, so it’s not that it doesn’t have a set of spices in it, just that that’s not what Elysian relied on. This beer gets an A- overall. 8.10% ABV.


T.R.E.A.T. brewed by Midnight Sun Brewing Co.
This recipe won a gold medal at GABF in 2007 (back when it was known simply as Imperial Chocolate Pumpkin Porter). TREAT melds rich decadent flavors into an enticing brew that is perfect for pairing with both sweet and savory dishes. Reduce this porter down to glaze grilled meats! More brewers ought to turn their pumpkin ales into pumpkin porters or stouts; the spices work just as well with the dark malts as they do with the pale ones. This beer gets an A- overall. 7.80% ABV.


Oak Jacked Imperial Pumpkin Ale brewed by Uinta Brewing Company
Aged in oak barrels, Oak Jacked is somewhere between the average and good end of the imperial pumpkin patch. It smells like cinnamon, nutmeg, and toasted pumpkin – but it is lacking on the pumpkin just a bit. It tastes like brown sugar and oak with a nice sweet pumpkin backbone. Flavor notes of nutmeg and cinnamon are there as well along with light, woody notes on the back end. It gets better as it warms. This beer gets a B+ overall. 10.31% ABV.


Pumple Drumkin Spiced Ale brewed by Cisco Brewers Inc.
Pumple Drumkin Ale is a fall favorite. A deep orange hue and a subtle pie aroma meet a robust malt character in this ale which tastes like toasted pie crust in your mouth. It finishes clean & dry on the palate and leaves you wishing that every day could be autumn on Nantucket! The taste is sweet up front with flavors of pumpkin, caramel and spices. The malt character is hearty but not too heavy. The hops presence is mild but complementary. This beer gets a B+ overall. 6.00% ABV.


Post Road Pumpkin Ale brewed by Brooklyn Brewery
Blended with barley malt, pumpkins became a commonly used beer ingredient for early American Colonialists. Post Road Pumpkin ale brings back this tasty tradition. Hundreds of pounds of pumpkins are blended into the mash of each batch, creating a beer with an orange amber color, warm pumpkin aroma, biscuity malt center, and crisp finish. This is a great beer to add to the table for your holiday dining. This beer gets a B overall. 5.00% ABV.

Have you tried any of these? Are there others you would recommend?

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Going Out to Eat Doesn’t Mean You Have to Let Someone Else Work the Grill

Posted by on October 13, 2011 No comments

If you live in – or visit – Orange County, CA (specifically Los Alamitos), the Joint Forces Training Center there does something a little unusual. At an eatery named Fiddler’s Green, diners can grill their own meats! The restaurant is open to the public and the proceeds (the restaurant is a non-profit) go back to the base.

Their website says you can “Be the Chief by cooking your own Barbequed Meat on the built-in Gas Grills.” They are open for lunch M-F from 11am-2pm & dinner M-Sat from 3:30pm to 11pm. Their lunch menu features sandwiches, burgers, and salads but if you’re interested in the DIY-BBQ-at-a-restaurant, you’ll have to wait ’til dinner! Cooking utensils are provided.

A map of the base, with Fiddler's Green highlighted (Top Left Corner) - Click for a closer view

Interested? Head on out to 4745 Yorktown Ave. At the security gate, you’ll have to present your driver’s license and tell the guard you’re going to Fiddler’s Green, Building 19.

A reviewer on Yelp says the bratwurst is recommended. She also points out that since you’re playing grill master, you can’t really complain if your meat is underdone or overdone. Brilliant on the restaurant’s part, I have to say!

Personally, I love this idea! It’s like one step up from the restaurants where you pick your food and they grill it right in front of you. Gotta love it when somebody takes it to the next level!

Have heard of other cook-it-yourself restaurants? What do you think of the idea?

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Make Your Propane Tank the Talk of the Town (Wait, What?)

Posted by on September 21, 2011 No comments

Okay so maybe you aren’t stricken with Propane Tank Envy. That’s probably only because you’ve never seen a tank quite like this one. And now you can make one yourself. Soon enough, all your friends will be jealous of more than just your awesome propane gas grill. They’ll be jealous of your awesome propane tank, too!

I saw this on instructables.com the other day and I was a little upset that I don’t have a propane tank for any reason. I’m thinking of getting one just to paint it all up and then stick it out back.

Every child loves LEGOs, right? (And, to be fair … I think most adults do, too. It’s just not as socially acceptable to whip out your LEGO playset when your friends are over once you hit age 12. Or, you know, 45. Whatever.) Well then, what are you waiting for? Learn to make your propane tank look like a giant yellow LEGO person head:

Step 1: Paint your gas bottle Starting with a basic LPG/Propane gas bottle, give it a wipe with turpentine to remove any grease and dirt, and then spray it with yellow paint.
Step 2: Paint the face Wait for the yellow to dry thoroughly and then paint your face onto the bottle.  The one on instructables.com used enamel hobby paints and the face was painted freehand, but you could use a stencil and spray paint.
Step 3: Reinstall the gas bottle Wait for the paint to dry and then reinstall the bottle back onto the BBQ. Then sit back and enjoy how much cheerier it makes any barbecue area.

I found this here: Propane Bottle Lego Head and quickly discovered there were other great ways to dress up your propane tank. With Halloween fast-approaching, I thought this one was great, too: Propane Bottle Jack-o-Lantern. Especially since the weather is getting cooler and your propane tank might not be getting as much use on the grill as it did a few weeks ago. It’s kind of nice that in a little while you could be looking at your snow-covered deck and see a little LEGO man peeping through!

Have you ever painted your propane tank? Would you?

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Summer Fest: Broccoli & Cheese Stuffed Chicken

Posted by on September 15, 2011 No comments
Grilled Broccoli

Well, it’s the last day of Summer Fest and even though we’re not *officially* partaking, we still wanted to get in on the fun! The feature ingredient this time around is broccoli. We grilled some up just by itself before we did anything else. Did you know that grilled broccoli is delicious? It is. I’m starting to believe that you can take just about anything and put it on the grill, but we’ll continue to test that theory!

Here’s the video of how we did it!

Click on the pictures to see them full-size:

 

 

 

 

 

After we’d grilled the Broccoli, even though it was delicious by itself, we thought it would be fun to add it to the chicken we were making for the day. We stuffed chicken breasts with the broccoli, grilled them, then added cheese to the top. They were definitely delicious! To see us putting it all together, just check out our video below!

If you’re looking for the recipe, just click the link & you’ll be able to print it off!
Cheesy Broccoli Stuffed Chicken Breasts

Click on a picture below to see it full-size:

Before:

 

 

 

 

 

During:

 

 

 

 

 

After:

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Pizza Recipe on an Outdoor Pizza Oven

Posted by on August 23, 2011 No comments

It’s been a while, but we’re still here! We’ve got some great pizza recipes for you to try today. Usually, when people tell me they make their own pizza at home, I wonder how they possibly have the time to do it! My family has done it before and it’s enjoyable every once in a while, but it’s certainly not something I thought of as a quick and easy weeknight meal. If you’re in the same boat, we’re here to change that! We’ve got some creative pizzas for you to try out and they don’t take long to put together (or cook!). We use a wood fired pizza oven for our pizzas and certainly recommend that you do the same. You can check out the pizza ovens we have available at GasGrillsNow.com and don’t hesitate to call us at 877-669-4669 if you have questions!

Our first great pizza recipe we have for you is a Chicken Pizza.
To make it, you’ll just need the following 5 ingredients:
BBQ sauce, Chicken, Cheese, Onions, and Tomatoes.

Once you’ve got those, this video will show you how to put it all together! Make sure you have a napkin handy so you don’t drool all over your keyboard when you see what it looks like once it’s out of the oven!

Next up, we’ve got my personal favorite pizza recipe: a meat pizza! Again, a simple list of ingredients and a low cooking time make this a great treat on any night of the week. Pizza isn’t just for the weekend anymore! All you’ll need: Pizza sauce, pepperoni, ham, chicken, ground beef, BACON!, and cheese. Check out the video to see how we put it all together & why we used a pizza oven:

Let me attest to the fact that these pizzas both taste delicious!! (Job perk = eating what we film!) As Harold says in the videos, don’t hesitate to give us a call (877-669-4669) to ask us about our residential pizza ovens. Yep, these aren’t just for restaurants -- you can have one in your own back yard!

Have you cooked in a pizza oven before? What’s your favorite homemade pizza recipe?

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