Author Archives: Dustin - Page 2

Grilled Banana Sundae

Posted by on April 15, 2011 13 comments

For recipe Friday we will be going away from the main attraction and focusing on desert. According to the 2011 Weber GrillWatch Survey desert was listed as the most challenging to grill. Cooking a desert on the grill is becoming more popular each year. I found a recipe for grilled bananas and decided to turn that into a sundae. My initial thought that grilling the banana would be easy. It was not too bad, but it was fairly messy to do.

Ingredients

  • 4 Bananas
  • 1 T Lemon Juice
  • 1 C Brown Sugar
  • 1 Tsp Ground Cinnamon
  • Ice Cream
  • Any toppings you want

Directions

  1. Preheat your grill. Low Heat.
  2. Cut the bananas in half lengthwise then widthwise.
  3. Sprinkle the lemon juice on the banana pieces.
  4. Mix the brown sugar and cinnamon together.
  5. Roll the banana pieces in the mixture to coat them.
  6. Put the bananas on the grill and cook on each side for 3-5 minutes.
  7. Take them off the grill and make your sundae.

Thoughts/Tips
I did not follow the recipe exactly and I just eyeballed some lemon juice on the bananas. Don’t do that. What happened with mine is I put too much on and it coated well, but quickly melted the mixture into a thick liquid.  If I just used the little lemon juice that was called for this would have cut down on that happening. This also caused a nice little mess on the grill.

Even with this little mess up they turned out very good. Serve them right away so the bananas stay warm. The vanilla ice cream with the warm bananas go perfect together.

Try them out and let me know how they turned out in the comments.

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Summer Beer Spotlight: Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy

Posted by on April 13, 2011 2 comments

Now that spring is in full swing brewers start pushing out their summer beers.  Summer beer is by far my favorite specialty batches of beer because there is nothing better than a specially brewed beer meant for a hot day. They also go perfect with grilling out. As I try new summer brews I will throw up a spotlight on it here.

The summer beer today is Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy. I discovered this beer last year and it quickly became one of my favorite beers. I was like a kid in a candy store a couple weeks ago when I saw the local grocery store setting up a display with it in it.

Leinenkugel’s is based out of Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin and is the seventh oldest brewery in the US. Summer Shandy is a their summer seasonal beer and is available on the market from April through August. What makes this a summer beer you ask? Well it is a blend of wheat and pale barley with a splash of lemonade. When you try this for the first time make sure it is a nice sunny 80-90 degree day out. Spend a little time outside then come in and open up the refrigerator and then drink one.  Good stuff.

Have you tried Summer Shandy? Let me know what you think in the comments.

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Grill Tip: Wind & Your Grill

Posted by on April 11, 2011 No comments

I just experienced this last night when grilling out steaks. It was a windy evening and when I grill steaks I like to have the internal temperature of the grill somewhere around 450-500 degrees. With the wind whipping across my grill I could only get it to roughly 325 degrees and several times the wind blew out the flame completely on my gas grill. This caused all the cooking times to be pushed way back. Nothing more frustrating when planning other dishes and the time gets all thrown all out of sync. It was pretty much impossible to get any nice grill marks on the food as well.

Grill Tip: When grilling take the wind direction into consideration. On a windy day you will want your grill to be blocked from the wind as much as possible. Wind cutting across your grill will cause it to not get as hot as needed. If you have a wide open space and there is no way to position the grill from the wind, consider adding some landscaping that can block the wind from your grilling area.

I already have plans this year to put in a living fence that should block some of the wind on those windy days.

Is your grill protected from the wind when grilling?

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The Grilled Onion Blossom: The Best Onion You Will Ever Have

Posted by on April 8, 2011 15 comments


Grilling out this weekend? Want a simple side that will leave your guests speechless and make you feel like Chef Gordon Ramsey? Yes you say? Read on…

This grilled onion blossom requires practically no work and turns an onion into a side dish and not an afterthought. I love onions with my steak and I am always looking for creative ways to prepare the onion and that is how I stumbled across this recipe. Now lets get to how you actually make this.

Ingredients

  • 1 large sweet onion
  • 1 1/2 T butter
  • garlic salt to taste
  • ground black pepper to taste
  • olive oil

Directions

  • Preheat your grill to high heat
  • Peel the onion and slice it into 6-8 wedges, but leave the base of the onion still intact.
  • Pull apart the wedges slightly
  • Coat the inside of the onion with the butter, garlic salt and pepper
  • Drizzle some olive oil over the onion
  • Wrap the onion with aluminum foil
  • Place on the grill and cook for 30-45 minutes.

That’s it. Very simple. This is a very inexpensive side to have with your meal when grilling out. It is also a great starting point to create your own flavor. Try some cajun seasoning, or real garlic instead of garlic salt, or seasoned salt instead of the garlic salt. There are a lot of possibilities with this. One of my favorite additions is Worcestershire sauce. Try it out, mix it up and let me know in the comments below how it was.

 

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Grill Safety – What You Need To Check on Your Gas Grill Today

Posted by on April 6, 2011 8 comments

It looks like a lot of the country is going to go into a warm up over the next few days and through the weekend. If you are pulling out your grill for the first time then you will want to give it a good cleaning. (See previous posts: Deep Cleaning Your Grill Grates and Cleaning the Inside of Your Gas Grill ) Besides giving your grill a cleaning before you cook on it the first time you will also want to check items on your grill to ensure your safety this grilling season.

Check your burners. Make sure your burners on your gas grill are free of debris and there are no cracks, holes or splits. If there are you will want to replace this burner before using your grill.

Check all hoses on your gas grill. The hoses that connect your gas to your grill will need inspected. Years of use can cause them to become cracked and cause gas to leak out. If you suspect that there is any signs of this then replace the tube immediately. This is a dangerous situation.

Make sure the venturi tubes are clean and clear. Venturi tubes is the section of your gas burners that get the gas to the burner. There are special brushes that are made to clean just this part. Why you need to make sure these are clean is because if there is something in there it can cause the gas to backup and cause an explosion on startup. Small critters like spiders often find their way into these tubes.

Test your propane tank for leaks. You will want to check your propane tank for leaks either if it is still the one from last season or a new one you exchanged out for this season. To test this get a mix of soapy water and either spray it on the tank or brush it on. Watch for any bubbles coming out. If there are then that tank has a leak and you will want to take it in and get it exchanged.

Run your grill and test for leaks. Once everything is cleaned and checked put your propane tank on your grill and fire it up. Use another soapy water solution to test for any gas leaks on the tubes that connect the tank to your grill. These will be holes that would not have been noticeable when you checked it for cracks.

If you are firing up your grill for the first time this week/weekend make sure you follow these tips to make sure you have a safe grill for cooking on. For more grill safety tips to follow read this: Grill Safety Tips.

How often do you check your grill for safety?

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What is the Meat Grading System and Why You Should Care

Posted by on April 4, 2011 2 comments

Here in the U.S. all meat has to pass through a mandatory federal inspection. This is completed by the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) and paid for by tax dollars. They ensure all meat products are safe, wholesome and correctly labeled and packaged. After meat has passed through FSIS the producers and processors of the meat can request that their meat is graded for quality by a licensed federal grader. The agency that grades all our meat is, USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service. This service is not paid for with tax dollars and is paid for by the producer or processor of the meat.

Meat is graded on the tenderness, juiciness, and flavor of the meat. When grading meat they grade the entire carcass and then the grade is stamped on it. When it is cut into its respective “cuts” the packaging will show the grade that particular piece of meat came from. There are two ways meat is graded. One being quality grades and the other being yield grades. The one most people see and think of is quality grades and that is what will go over in this post. Quality grades are based on the age of the animal and the marbling of the meat. Marbling is the flecks of white fat you see distributed throughout the meat.

What are the quality grades of meat?

  1. Prime Grade is the best of the best and going to be the more expensive piece of meat. This meat come from young, well fed cattle.
  2. Choice Grade is still high quality meat, but will have a little less marbling than the prime grade.
  3. Select Grade is going to be leaner than the higher meet grades, but will lack some of the flavor and juiciness of those higher grades.
  4. Standard & Commercial Grades will usually not show a grade when looking at it in the store. This will be your typical “store brand” meat.
  5. Utility, Cutter, and Canner Grades are never seen in the stores as such. This type of meat is used to make ground beef and processed meat products.

In summary the best grade is going to come from young cattle that has a good amount of marbling.

Which steak below has the better grade?

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Gourmet Burgers You Must Try This Weekend

Posted by on April 1, 2011 4 comments

We have made it to another Friday and it is time for the weekend! Hopefully you are in an area that will give you weather to grill, unlike here in Ohio where it has been unseasonably cool with snow. Even if it is cold where you are might as well still grill up these burgers because they are that good.

The recipe I am sharing with you today is called, Bay Area Burgers. I found this on the web and it had some great reviews along with some negative. The positives out weighed the negatives and I was ready to try something new in the burger arena, so I decided to try them (with some modifications). I made these this past weekend when I was down visiting my family. I had to make regular burgers as well since I have never tried this recipe before and well it was a good possibility it would come out tasting terrible. Below is the recipe and after the recipe I will give you my final verdict on these gourmet burgers.

Ingredients

  • 1lb ground beef
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced (I used the bottled kind, not fresh)
  • 2 T extra virgin olive oil
  • 1 1/2 T worcestershire sauce
  • 1 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1 tsp. freshly ground black pepper
  • 1/2 tsp. dried basil leaves
  • fresh mozzarella
  • red onion
  • lettuce
  • tomato
  • rosemary foccacia bread

Directions

Put the ground beef in a bowl and add the garlic, olive oil, salt, black pepper, basil, and worcestershire sauce. Now it’s time to get your hands dirty and get in there and mix it all up together. Once it is mixed well divide it out into 4 balls and make your patties.

Preheat the grill. Once the grill is preheated take the burgers and put them on the grill. Make sure you make an indentation in the middle of the burger with your thumb before putting them on. Your burger will thank you. Now cook until your desired doneness has been reached.

You could put these on a regular hamburger bun, but does a gourmet burger really deserve to be sitting on a common hamburger bun? I don’t think so. Take your fresh loaf of rosemary foccacia bread and slice it in half and then cut it into sections to create your own bun. Get out the fresh mozzarella and cut off slices for your burger. When it is all said and done you will have one the best dressed burgers you will ever see.

The Verdict

These burgers were really good with amazing flavor. With the bread you probably are not going to want to eat it like a traditional burger. A fork will probably be needed, unless you have a big mouth. Like I said at the start I did not make all the burgers this way because I was not sure how they would turn out. Well it turns out I should have made them all that way. People that I did not expect to eat them, ate them and people I thought would eat them didn’t get to eat them because of that.

If you are looking to dress up a burger every now and then you will definitely want to try out this recipe. Great recipe. I already have it back on my list to cook again once we can break this cold, snowy weather here.

Leave a comment below and give your review of these burgers after you try them out.


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Grill Charms: Changing The Way You Grill

Posted by on March 30, 2011 17 comments

Grill Charms are still a relatively new grilling accessory that is gaining more popularity each year. Grill Charms were created by Leslie Haywood out of Charleston, SC and are round, stainless steel charms that distinguishes your food on your grill as you cook. The stem of the charm makes it so you can put them on your food before putting it on the grill and it won’t fall out as you flip and turn your food.

Grill Charms History

A lot of people are still unfamiliar with what a Grill Charm is, but it has been around for several years. I happened to first hear about them about 3 years ago from a show on CNBC, The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch. He had a segment on the show, One Minute to Millions, where he asked two people in business about the selected persons business idea and they critiqued it if it was a good idea or not. The one gentlemen when all said and done voted it was not a big idea, the lady voted it was a big idea and Donny Deutsch voted it was a big idea. I would have to say the person that voted it was not got it wrong. If you want to see that segment it is posted here at youtube. Grill Charms – One Minute to Millions.

At that time I thought this product was a great idea, but I did forget about it until about a year later when I saw the inventor of these on tv again. This time she was on the ABC show, Shark Tank. If your not familiar with this show then head over to ABC to read about it. Shark Tank is a great show and it just started its second season last Friday, so check it out. Grill Charms left Shark Tank with a $50,000 investment from a successful internet and technology mogul, Robert Herjavec.

The Review

I finally got my hands on a set of these Grill Charms after hearing about it over 3 years ago. Each pack comes with 6 charms and come in 4 different collections: Steak Collection, Spicy Collection, Charmed Life Collection, and the Pink Collection(10% of the proceeds go to help find a cure for breast cancer). With everyone having their own preference on how they want their meat cooked on the grill these charms make life simple. You will have no doubt with these which steak is medium or medium well, which chicken has hot spices and not, which item is for someone with a food allergy. You can see that there are a lot of possibilities for these.

Grill Charms will give you the ability to cook for multiple people with different spices/marinades on each one and never have to worry about getting the wrong one. Bottom line: If you grill then you need a set of these.

You can buy them here: Grill Charms
We are also giving a set away along with a new Weber Gas Grill here: Weber Gas Grill – Grill Charm Giveaway

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Cleaning The Inside of Your Gas Grill

Posted by on March 28, 2011 42 comments

In a continuation of last weeks post on how to deep clean your grill grates we are going to show you how to clean the inside of your grill. Cleaning the inside of your grill will vary from a charcoal grill to a gas grill. The cleaning in the post is with a gas grill.

I unfortunately neglected my grill over the years and failed to ever really clean it. I would say a lot of people do this. Get a grill, cook the food, brush the grates off for the next use and that is the extent of cleaning. Not cleaning the inside of a gas grill can quickly become a fire hazard.

As small pieces of food and grease fall down to the bottom they burn up some and then become hard after the grill cools. Then the next time you go grill it does this again and continues to build up the gunk. These pieces can catch on fire as your cooking and if one of those pieces falls down to the grease drip pan then you could start a pretty dangerous fire. You definitely do not want this. This is why you want to give the inside of your grill a good cleaning each year and always empty out your drip pan as needed during the cooking season.

As long as you keep up with cleaning the inside of your grill on a regular basis it won’t take long to do.

  1. Remove your grill grates.
  2. Scrape of any loose debris from your heat plates or heat tents that are covering your burners.
  3. If they are really bad you can soak these in a soapy/baking soda mix for an hour and scrub.
  4. Brush or scrape all loose debris on the bottom of your grill into the removable catch all pan.
  5. Remove the pan and dump out all the debris.
  6. If the inside is still very dirty you can spray it with a grill cleaner and let it sit then scrub/brush the inside. If you do this you will want to hose out the inside.
  7. Put the catch all pan back.
  8. Put the heat plates/heat tents back over the burners.
  9. Put the grill grates back.

Find more information on: Cleaning Your Grill.

How often do you give the inside of your grill a good cleaning?

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Carne Asada – Mexican Flare On The Grill

Posted by on March 25, 2011 13 comments

Recipe Friday is here! Nothing is better than trying out new recipes and sharing it with others. Stay with us here at Gas Grills Now and each Friday you will receive a new recipe that you can try on your grill this weekend.

Today I am going to share with you a recipe for Carne Asada on the grill. I love Mexican food, but I have always stuck to the traditional ground beef and chicken when cooking at home. I found a recipe online for carne asada and it had some pretty good reviews. Below is how you make it.

Ingredients

  • 1-3 lbs. Skirt Steak or Flank Steak (thinner the better)
  • 1 lime, juiced (I used 3 tablespoons of lime juice)
  • 1 lemon juiced (I used 3 tablespoons of lemon juice)
  • 1 orange, juiced or 1/2 cup orange juice (I used the 1/2 cup of oj)
  • 2 T chili powder
  • 2 T ground cumin
  • 1-1/2 T dried oregano leaves
  • 1-1/2 T fresh chopped cilantro
  • garlic cloves coarsely chopped to taste (I used the jar kind and put 1/2 tablespoon in)
  • 1 medium onion, sliced

You want to get all the ingredients for this a day ahead of time. Put your steak in a zip lock bag and then mix together all the other ingredients. When finished pour this mixture over the steak in the ziplock bag. Now put it in the refrigerator and let it marinate for 24 hours. The more it marinates the better it is.

After they have marinated fire up the grill and pre-heat it. I drained out all the juice from the bag and put all the onions in a foil pouch and put them on the grill first to cook. After the onions have started cooking I placed the steak on the grill. Cooking times will vary here depending on how much steak you used and how thin it is. Mine only took about 10 minutes to cook up.

You can eat the steak and onions by itself or pair it up with a tortilla. I went the tortilla route with a little white rice, cheese and sour cream. The meat had an amazing flavor from marinating over night as did the onions. I think I actually liked the onions more than the steak. Check out the photo gallery below of the meal.

Side note:
I love Chipotle rice and thought it would be perfect to go with this meal. Here is a quick recipe to make a Chipotle like rice. Not exactly the same, but still good nonetheless. You will need basmati rice, fresh cilantro, lime juice and salt (kosher salt works well). Just cook the rice as directed and mix in some cilantro, lime juice and salt to taste and then you will have some Chipotle like rice with your meal!

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