Ultimate Backyard Barbecue - Dessert

Grilled pineapple with white wine soaked raisins atop vanilla ice cream rolled in toasted coconut served with a special ingredient. 

EASY ALERT: Take raisins, soak them in white wine overnight in the fridge in a re-sealable container, don’t go crazy on the wine you just want to saturate them. The next day take some unsweetened coconut and toast it in a pan, let cool in the fridge. Cut a pineapple into spears and grill them with a little maple syrup and paprika until they are soft. Cut them into pieces but present them beside the ice cream like a spear. Take your very cold super creamy vanilla ice cream from the freezer, using a good ice cream scoop form it into balls and roll them in your coconut. Sprinkle on some wine soaked raisins… Oh yeah and pour in some Rickard’s Dark beer, like a float, of beer, a beer float. It’s crazy but people do like it because it’s great.

Titles change the destiny of your posts

July 21, 2011:

Well that post has been sitting on my PlayBook for a while, it would be nice if I could blog from the PlayBook but it’s yet another thing it can’t do, like allow me to copy text from an e-mail I've received, or create more than one playlist at a time…

Happy Thursday sports-fans! What a week, found some cool things!!!

Little City Farm – CHECK IT OUT, really want to check out what they do first hand-ish!

Salt Your Weeds! Don’t Spray… I told this to my neighbour the other day and then realized that I’m a history geek, salting the earth isn’t new to me but if you haven’t read about it then it’s new to you. Believe me it’s effective… The best way to kill weeds (and grasses, basically everything green) on a walkway or driveway.

BIXI is coming to Waterloo region… or so I’ve read from the Record, something about RIM already having a few operational stands. Don't know what it is? Check out BIXI here.

I made garlic scape pesto the other day, it was okay but it needs tweaking, and more lemon.  

Anyway, more video for our growing library of grilling video’s around barbecue headquarters. GrillPro and Broil King. We were shooting footage to illustrate the wonderful grilling lifestyle Wednesday and I was charged with the menu but also an acting role. I love skewered foods for quickly feeding a lot of people without plates. I read recently that the more time a meal takes to consume the less you’ll actually eat, the better and more full you’ll feel. In other words if you scarf a dinner in 20 minutes you’re going to crash soon thereafter and you’ve probably ploughed back more than you would have say if you paced yourself / had small portions over a couple hours. Try these stick foods at your next get together, cook a few at a time, make your guest talk rather than inject food into their traps:

Chicken Satays:

Cut 4 large chicken breasts into long thin strips

Cut up ¼ of a bag of frozen mangos into small cubes

Julienne 4 green onions also into long thin strips

Zig zag the chicken, onions, and mangos up a wooden bamboo skewer so that each item, apart from the little mango cubes is skewered several times along its length. Should look like a chicken snake on the skewer. That’s right, CHICKEN SLITHERING SNAKE. Put these into a dish that they can marinade in…

Marinade:

2 tablespoons fresh ginger minced

2 shallots diced

2 cloves of garlic minced

2 minced red chili peppers or 1 tablespoon dried or chili flake

2 tablespoons peanut oil

2 tablespoons soya sauce

Drizzle of honey

Mix the marinade up and pour over the chicken, let stand for 20 minutes at room temperature.

Grill, they cook quickly but they are chicken so don’t rush!

Heat up a nice satay sauce and serve away.

Grilled Parmesan Corn

Simple, get two aluminum foil trays... Put melted butter in one and Parmesan cheese in the other, lightly pepper your cheese. Shuck your corn cobs and cut they in half so that you have two small cobs. Skewer them completely through if you can and roll them first in the butter, then in the parm. To the grill! Grill your corn like steak, you want nice golden sear marks in more than one place and their going to take between ten and fifteen minutes to cook.

Enjoy!

Mmmmmm Pic-in-ic Basket

Picnic baskets are outstanding, you can build up a simple collage of your favorite things and mix and match your flavours. I love cured meats, cheeses, olives, and crackers; try some of these next time your want something savory.

Raincoast Crisps – I haven’t found a flavour that I don’t like, they’re the best.

Almond, blue cheese, or jalapeno stuffed olives – all so good and a great way to accent a martini too!

Cured meats, salami, supressata, shinker mager, etc.

Applewood smoked cheddar – My favorite cheddar, I’m going to make some soon

La Sauvagine – eat your heart out brie cheese

Blue Haze – so blue so good

Fresh cherries – thanks fruitland!

Enjoy

…the Jazz Festival far exceeded my expectations and involved an act-of-too-nice-edness story. We were new, never been to one of these before but excited nonetheless. We got lawn seats, nobody told us that you would need to get there super early and sit inches from another listener sprawled out with lawn chairs and coolers of? So when we showed up late without chairs the abbreviated letters S.O.L. were the only thing that came to mind. I explained it as clearly as that to one person working there, then their boss, then her boss and then I was shown to my new seats, in the Trius Red lounge where we’d have our own chair, a waitress, and an umbrella, now we’re talkin’. They mentioned it would be on the house and I was touched. The jazz was amazing and wine complimented it well. FUN AND 1/2, highly recommended and I shall return!

Still waiting for some member of the flight crew to arrive so that we can fly to Minneapolis (ps. Travelling to Minneapolis really helped me type Minneapolis much more quickly, practice makes perfect.). Tangent over… time to fly!

Ever in Eau Claire??? Eat at the Green Mill, better yet stay at the Holiday Inn next door too because the food is soo good and soo cheap! Some of the better pizzas I’ve had.

CHeers!

Turkey Bolognese

Okay, so this recipe isn't actually bolognese but it does sound better to call it one. The ingredients make it a nice cousin with a killer twist!

(Recipe serves 4)
You'll need:

1 lb. ground turkey
1 heaping tablespoon green curry paste
1 tablespoon of Cumin
Black pepper
2 cloves of fresh garlic
1/2 dozen tomatoes chopped
2 or 3 green onions chopped
1 cup Parmesan cheese

and are you ready for this one...
100 g of Lachsschinken cured pork loin. Genießen Freunden!

and your favorite family size box of pasta or make it fresh, but make it for 4!

Brown you ground turkey in a large sauce pan, as it's cooking slice your Lachsschinken into long thin strips and add it in too. Season with pepper, cumin, and the green curry paste. As it's browning add the green onions and garlic continue to brown everything in the pan. Deglaze with white wine, I used tequila as I'm injured and all out of white wine, and beer... Now add your tomatoes, simmer everything down; I like my sauce saucy so I cook it pretty far down so that the tomatoes start to break but you could just hit it with some heat and have juicy chunks of tomatoes if that's what tickles your fancy. Stir in the Parmesan cheese and serve generously over a heap of pasta.
Serve alongside a spinach salad with strips of Lachsschinken, edamame beans, bean sprouts, paprika and honey dusted walnuts (Glass lock container, ingredients, shake), and Feige's Gourmet Oil and Vinegar Dressing which my mom lovingly brings from Listowel from time to time, it's such a sweet small town find. 2 part meals are always boring so have a nice warm loaf of bread to tear apart and try different dipping plates like red chili flake olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

liebe es zu kochen !

Zoup's up!

Fast food and chain food seem to have the same problem; their food is horrible for you because they're too busy worrying about a business model that can work everywhere with the same caliber of under qualified staff... No offense McDonald's employees but most of you don't have any business in the restaurant business. They make the jobs specific enough and simple enough that anyone can do it with little to no training, effort, or pay, and yet the "quality" is consistent and nobody get's food poisoning, that's really the bottom line for mass food.

However, there are a few chains that I like; had mentioned a few month's back that I'm a sucker for Chick-Fil-A. They just opened up a can 'o Zoup in Waterloo Town Square and I gotta say, I like it... They have a huge soup assortment and although most are loaded with salt and everything else that isn't that great for you in large quantities, their menu is attractive. Their double baked potato soup is great and I'm surprised that they make a lobster bisque, haven't had enough lobster bisque's to say how it is but I like it. Anyway, it's something different which is always nice, it's the first Canadian location also cool, and they have creative salads and sandwiches on their menu which is ingeniously displayed on TV screens behind the counter... Finally someone used TV screens for the menu, I thought McD would do it first but I'm glad it's done, if only tablet menu's were more practical we could do away with print all together...

I'm rambling, I may get onto my theories on print media and Canada Post later... Anywho, remember that every Zoup comes with a big 'ol bun (because it's an American chain and bread is cheap and fills you up!). Although they have lots of soup and cool other menu items, every drink is a fountain Coke product, sweet high fructose corn syrup!.. That's okay you can buy a bottle of Coke water... Most of their locations are in the Northeastern United States; and you can order online to make sure your lunch order is warm and waiting for you when you arrive. Grab a big 'ol bowl of Zoup today!

I've seen some of the early GrillPro YouTube video's, they're pretty good. I love teaching people, so hopefully this can be a nice way to teach people about all of the great grilling products out there... Manufactured by GrillPro... Who I work for... Well, you gotta eat!

Flat Tire

Friday,

I'm thrilled to announce that I sprained my ankle last night; in other words, this is day one of being a one wheeled man... PS. having one wheel sucks. I have a short attention span and not being able to come and go and ride, and run, and jump as I please is really my idea of hell. I use time off work to work on projects that I didn't have time to work on while I was working, relaxation is not my forte.
I'm sitting in my backyard watching the world go by because right now I'm too slow to catch it, I can hobble about with my crutches but it's no set of working legs. Side note, how do I get my dog to work with me in regards to lawn care? He pees on my grass and the patch he pees on dies while everything around it grows greener than the rest of the lawn. I have a chain of green islands running throughout my backyard... There must be a solution... More to come?

Days later
It's now Monday, I'm doing a poor job at staying down and keeping my foot up... I've been to the beach, a father's day get together and now back to work, aka doing more than I should be. The swelling in my foot tells me I'm doing something wrong and all of the muscles that are pulling the weight for one dead limb are exhausted.
Oh well, I'm coming up with a way that I can cook an entire meal in the kitchen without my whole foot filling with fluid. Good things to come! Dog note, apart from watering each dog urine spot in my backyard immediately after it's created there really isn't a great remedy for dog spotting on my lawn. Some people suggested training him to pee in a specific graveled or pebbled spot but that's not something I'm interested in doing, it's his yard too. I'm not giving the dog pills and the rest of the remedies are too weird to mention... Well he's lucky he's cute...   

Cooper!

F$@#%!

I have a personal policy where I never write anything on a bad day, it's generally negative and not your proverbial best foot forward. Although I'm having a bad day, I had a great time teaching and cooking lunch with some new recruits about barbecue headquarters today. And so here’s how that went, argh!..

Today was a little challenging, we had a few food allergies to contend with and I’m not a big fan of making one thing for the group and another for someone with allergies; we all eat the same thing and work together preparing it. I don’t do all of the cooking in these sessions either, actually I do very little of it. I supervise and instruct as much as possible and then demonstrate where necessary, it’s important for the process and I feel that people take more away from doing rather than watching.

Anyway, we prepared a simple menu: New York strip loin steaks with home made steak spice, a sesame stir fry, butternut squash and roasted garlic mashed potatoes, and grilled pork tenderloin.

Steak!

I’ve grilled a lot of steak, I spent the first two years working at Broil King grilling and steak was on the menu demo after demo store after store. People love steak and grilling it properly is important. Check out The Perfect Steak for grilling instructions and remember the rule of thumb. Before you start, make sure you have defrosted steaks, do not grill frozen steak. Once your steaks are defrosted pat them dry to remove any excess water or blood then make the following rub:

Homemade Steak Spice:

¼ cup course salt or salt flake

1 tablespoon fennel seeds

1 tablespoon of fresh minced garlic

1 tablespoon of fresh minced rosemary

1 tablespoon course ground pepper

1 teaspoon of fresh thyme, I use lemon thyme; easy to grow in Southern Ontario

Mix your spices, coat your steaks in olive oil and generously rub the steak spice on your steak. Let them sit out at room temperature for about 20 minutes while your grill preheats. Grill! 

Sesame Stir Fry

This one is easy on the grill; all of the work is in the vegetable prep:

You’ll need

A grilling wok, holes or no holes both work

Lots of heat, it’s the most important part of a stir fry

Carrots, julienne them

Green onions, julienne them also

Bean sprouts

Snow peas, clean them properly. Remove the head and tough stringy spine.

Chicken, cut into strips

Sesame seeds

Peanut oil

Sesame oil

Chili flakes

Fresh garlic, minced

Fresh ginger, also minced

Pepper

Coat your chicken generously in peanut oil and toss it in the wok, you want to hear insta-sizzle. The chicken will cook quickly so you’ll want everything else that you’ve prepared before hand nearby. As the chicken is cooking season it with chili flakes and pepper. As you chicken starts to brown add your carrots; wait a few more minutes and add the rest of your vegetables, they all cook at different rates so you’ll want to add them accordingly. For example bean sprouts cook in no time but carrots can take quite a while. As you add the last of you vegetables add your garlic and ginger, a dash of sesame oil and more chili flakes. Don’t over cook your veggies, once the carrots are soft enough to eat you’re pretty much done; nobody likes limp pea pods and dry chicken. Your medley should have a nice golden brown sear on it while maintaining that fresh vegetable crunch.

Butternut Squash and Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes

Super easy recipe ahoy!

2 lbs. of red potatoes

1 small butternut squash

1 clove of garlic

1/2 cup of milk or cream it’s your health we all know what tastes better

¼ cup of butter

Pepper

Wash and cut up the red potatoes, leave the skins on they won’t kill you. Put them in a pot completely submerged and boil until they’re soft enough to slide off of a fork after being pierced. While your water is heating peel, core and cube your butternut squash. Lay the cubes out on a baking tray and coat with olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast in the oven for about 20 minutes at 375°F turning once at the half. While you're roasting the squash, chop the top off of your garlic clove to expose each bud, then wrap it in aluminum foil and drizzle a little olive oil into the bulb; wrap it up and roast in the oven with the squash. Garlic is roasted when it feels squishy soft. Hold on a minute, Jen just found out what happens when you put hot parsnips in a magic bullet blender, boom!

Alright where was I, everything will probably finish cooking about the same time… Drain and mash your potatoes, mash the squash in also and squeeze the softened roasted garlic into the mix and as you can imagine keep mashing. Side note, Pampered Chef has the coolest potato masher ever! CHECK IT OUT! Add milk and butter, mash mash mash, season with pepper. Done-zo!

Grilled Pork tenderloin

I’ve been using this recipe for quite a few years, nobody complains so I keep using it. Add your defrosted pork tenderloin to a glass locking container or a zipper lock freezer bag. Add a generous amount of sherry, real maple syrup, and the steak spice from above… Steak spice not just for steak. Let this marinade for 30 minutes at room temperature or 1 hour in the fridge. Grill!

At this point you could slice and serve to your guests as a great piece of meat but the following is also fun. Toast some thin slices of French bread, sauté strips of red onion and red pepper in a little olive oil and lemon thyme. Stack it up! Toasted bread on the bottom, slice of pork tenderloin, sautéed vegetables, a drizzle of balsamic vinegar or balsamic glaze and to top it all off a pinch of alfalfa sprouts. A pretty handy appetizer.

Bon Appetit

Post from: Wednesday June 8, 2011

PS: I'm on YouTube, new line of Broil King Grilling Accessories. Great Stuff, the stone grill set is my favorite!