Live from Kansas City!

The weather is bright and sunny and the morning air is filled with smoke. It must be the National Championship of BBQ! This morning the action started early as the teams fired up their grills before dawn getting ready. Over 50,000 people are expected to converge on the Kansas City Royal with the judging done on Sunday morning. Of course I'm here grilling BBQ Pizzas and looking to see how GrillGrates are received by the professional BBQ community. My new friends at Kingfisher Kookers put GrillGrates on their grill!
Grilled barbecue pizza is now at the top of our Grate Pizza list after having so much fun in Kansas City. And I know what to do with leftover chicken or pork, grill pizza of course.

The WHOLE FISH and NOTHING But the FISH

I love grilling fish. We especially like to grill fish we catch, and this tasty meal of Yellowtail Snapper was delicious and delivered a lot more meat by grilling them whole. Yellowtail Snapper are fun to catch and even better to eat; they filet beautifully but you need a mess of them to make a reasonable meal. We caught some nice size fish recently and we decided to grill them whole, one fish per person. Gutting and scaling the fish is an easy cleaning chore and grilling was a feast for the eyes that became a fun feast at the table too. My dinner companions relished getting every morsel of tender meat from their fish and picked their meal clean to the bone literally. Its amazing how much meat is in the head cavity that normally ends up as chum or food for the sharks and rays. Yellowtail snapper are a beautiful fish in the water, in the cooler and on the grill!

Here's how we grilled the Yellowtail:

• Gut and scale
• Make 2-3 slits on each side of the meat
  
• Sliced oranges go in the body cavity
• Lemon Pepper seasoning
  
• Marinade with butter 2-3x
  
• Grill 3-4 minutes a side, basting a couple of times- low t0 medium/low heat 350F
• Areas of skin will fall away where you can check for doneness
  

Nothing for the sharks left from this feast!

Grilled BEETS!

I ate my first Beet, another milestone in my quest to improve my limited vegetable intake. My wife wanted to try Beets on the grill and I had no choice but to truly try it and maybe even like them. Actually these photos are the third time we've grilled beets in the last two weeks. They're growing on me and they sure add color to the meal. For the first time in my life I am actually trying to improve my eating habits and my diet. Beets were a big accomplishment for me!

Here's how we grilled them:

• We peeled them and quartered them like potatoes
  
• Coat with olive oil
• Like potatoes, beets need 20-30 minutes to cook on the grill and become soft
• Grill at medium to low heat 350-400F

Burning Fat

Thats what we told the butcher when we asked for some chunks of trimmed fat to use in a grilling demo. Mary from Cook's Warehouse in Atlanta asked us to come up with a way of demonstrating the flame-up control of GrillGrates. I've demo'd a lot of pizzas, pasta, fish and veggies, but never had really thought how to demo flare-up control. So we put our heads together and came up with the idea of burning fat. Of course we tested the concept first and then did it a couple of times at Cooks Warehouse to show their staff and customers.

Burning fat really shows the mechanism of flare-ups. Juices dripping into the grill or marinades and sauces its all fire starter when it hits the flame or coals. Susan and I enjoyed grilling at Cook's Warehouse in Decatur last Saturday, and I am glad Marc dropped by because I did not even stop to take a picture. Susan made some fabulous pizza and pasta after a trip to DeKalb farmers market. Back home, I got some more fat from the butcher again to take a few pictures and video. This will be a different kind of burning the fat video! Thank you Mary and the crew at Cook's Warehouse. Everyone has been so friendly and supportive, no wonder the stores are so successful! I hope we'll be back grilling at one of the fabulous Cook's Warehouse locations again soon.

Grilled Leftovers

I love leftovers. I have been known to hide good next day meals from my own children. My middle child has developed a taste for leftovers and this summer in particular I found myself hiding stuff from Julia- sorry honey, I love you, but I love left overs too!

This past weekend I got that breakfast fritata and there was enough sliced steak left over for a steak sandwich for lunch to boot. Friday night's grilled dinner for two left me two fine leftover meals on Saturday courtesy of my wife. I am loved and I love leftovers! Grilled leftovers are as good as it gets.

Dinner for TWO- Fill the Grill

We filled the grill last night! I had to leave a little room on the grill for the one steak we planned to split. My wife loves this dinner for two because she uses one of everything:

• One Potato thickly sliced
  
• One Zucchini- sliced into four lengths
  
• One Onion- thickly sliced
  
• One Red Pepper- sliced into quarters
• One Skewer of mushrooms, ok she cheated here
  
• One Steak

The potatoes went on first, followed 15 minutes later by the the rest of the vegetables. It was a pretty site before the meat hit the grill. Last but not least the sirloin was grilled and taken off on the rare side. I pulled the veggies off first and made a nice looking plate again leaving room for the steak.

I cleared my plate! The potatoes were perfectly roasted and the vegetables were all at their best. I probably had 4 slices of the sirloin, where in the past I would have eaten the whole thing and maybe a few of the onions and mushrooms. My meal was 3/4 plants, 1 /4 beef. I'm shaking my head even as I type!

Dinner for two- with leftovers. Breakfast fritata coming right up.

Limit Time with Grill- WHAT????

The American Institute for Cancer Research recently published an update urging people to change their grilling habits and reduce the amount of grilling they do. Newspapers picked it up and last week ABC news thought it was newsworthy enough after Consumer Reports issues a warning too? Give me a break!

Lets see:
1) Don't burn or char your meat. DUH- most of us actually get this one, nothing new here. I don't char my steaks anyway- I like them seared and rare!
2) Pre-heat meats in a microwave - WHAT? The microwave is likely to go down as the worst invention for cooking, I mean scrambling food molecules.
3) Grill at 325F or less- HUH? I do like my steak seared at least. Above 500F searing does turn into charring but 325F is just not quite hot enough unless you are doing chicken or a roast.
4) Flip meat often to keep surface temp down? I like to keep the lid down and try to keep track of time. Purists say only once, I have to go for the cross-hatch so I flip 4x
5) Place aluminum foil with small holes over the grates to prevent juices from flaring up and depositing carcinogens onto the meat. Sounds more like pan searing than grilling. GrillGrates does act in a similar manner, but we're pitching a juicier outcome
6) Indirect cooking only- that hurts too. Drippings won't burn into HCA's and deposit on the food. Sounds like a stretch, but there seems to be some science to this one.

Come on- grilling is one of the healthiest ways to cook, just don't burn your meats- that is all. Cooking a wider variety of foods and less meat in general is a lot more healthy for you than timidly grilling in foil at 325F! I keep thinking there must not be enough real news for this kind of bunk to occupy prime time.