Slowly Getting Back In The Game?

The porch project (I need to come up with a more clever name for that fiasco) has continued to absorb most of my time, so cooking has gone out the window.  Recognizing that tonight was going to be the last nice night of the year (below freezing temperatures arriving this week) I mandated myself to grill.  The Bride requested a "nice piece of fish" last night, so on the way home from work I stopped by Hyde Park Fish Market where I was informed that they no longer carried Sea Bass, the fish I wanted to cook for her.  Thus, I headed off to Fresh Market, the place the fishmonger recommended I could acquire such a fish now.  I was a little (read: a lot) disappointed that it was previously frozen, but at this stage in the game I was getting frustrated enough and just settled.  I quick stop by my herb garden completed what I needed for the Mediterranean Sea Bass on page 303.

Similar to making a rub first, as in most of the recipes here, I began by making the paste.  It was interesting to use the dried lavender that I had been sitting on since using some to make lavender-infused honey earlier in the summer.  This certainly had a Provencal feel to it.

I had the idea to just toss the fish in the bowl instead of trying to smear the paste on the fish.  This also saved a dish later when it came to washing up after dinner.

While The Forge was heating up, I gathered the little I needed for the super easy Grilled Asparagus With Prosciutto And Orange Mayonnaise on page 373.

The recipe called for both 1 tablespoon of orange juice and 1/2 teaspoon of orange zest, so I just bought one orange to take care of both, as I don't keep orange juice at home.  

I added in both parts of the orange, some lemon juice, and some cayenne before whisking.  If you look closely, you can see the flecks of cayenne.

Asparagus essentially has three parts: the tip, the fleshy stalk, and the woody stalk.  The fleshy stalk and woody stalk will naturally split from each other in the right spot if you take each end of the spear and bend it in the middle.

From there you can line up this piece with the others to see where to cut them.

You can now quickly trim all of your spears to the right length in very little time!

I'm glad I separated the pieces of prosciutto ahead of time, as they were a pain to peel apart.  I would not have been happy standing over a grill trying take them all apart, watching one piece burn before I even had the other pieces separated.

The fish was oddly cut by the amateur person behind the counter at Fresh Market (I've ranted about this before, but was left without a choice today), but I managed to cook it to temperature without scorching or drying the fish.  

The asparagus and prosciutto cooked up rather nicely, and were even done before the fish started to get cold.

This all plated quickly as well, so we were eating in no time at all.

I'll go ahead and say it myself...this looked pretty.  Even better, it smelled heavenly.  Sea Bass, with its high fat content, is naturally tasty; but with the addition of fresh herbs that have a southern French feel to them it becomes exquisite.  The fresh squeeze of lemon adds an acidity that cuts through the fats to create a melded and broad set of flavors.  

The asparagus was good, but I wasn't thrilled with it.  In theory it should have been superb.  I mean, what's not to like?  There's grilled cured pork, mayonnaise-based sauce spiked with cayenne, and my favorite citrus fruit.  Together, they offer a variety of textures and flavors, from sweet to spicy to vegetal.  I appreciated all that they had to offer, but it just didn't float my boat. 

A Trifecta So I Can Finally Catch Up!

With these three entries, I am finally caught up with this blog!  Someone at work even mentioned to me this week that I haven't been very diligent about posting.  Well, my porch (see an earlier entry) has kept me plenty occupied, especially with my local city hall making things "interesting."  But you don't care about that!  On to the recipes!  Earlier last week I needed a quick chicken recipe, and settled on the Magical Mediterranean Marinade on page 51 for two reasons:  First, it was a quick marinade time.  Second, I had almost all of the ingredients in my herb garden and the weather would be turning cold soon. 

This basically consisted of making the rub/marinade and placing in a chicken.  It wasn't exactly rocket science.

Reserving a little of the marinade for a later use, I coated the chicken and went off to run some errands.

 I wanted some veggies with my meal, but they would require far less marination time.  They actually only take about fifteen minutes, so i didn't even start these until after the charcoal had been lit.  I used the reserved marinade that I mentioned earlier.

Once again, thanks to my experience with Weber, I didn't even have to check my grilling times for whole chicken.  They came out looking gorgeous!

 The vegetables also looked rather pleasant, and I cut them into bite-sized bits for plating.

One marinade, two parts of the meal...it worked!

Overall, I liked it a lot, but The Bride was a little more indifferent.  The fresh herbs make a big difference, and the balance of oil and acidity was refreshing.  My favorite part of it all, however, was the wing portion of the chicken.  I am seriously considering filing this recipe for a wing grill out.  I think that if made as part of a variety of different wings it would stand out as something different.  Most wings are either hot and spicy, garlicky (spelling?), or have some other zesty marinade.  Most people don't think "herbal" when thinking of wings, so it could be a nice surprise.  Friends may see this later!

On Sunday The Bride requested steak, and so off to Findlay Market I went!  I had been reading about a cut of beef for years called a tri-tip, but it is hardly seen at most of your local grocery stores.  I had seen it in passing at some of the butchers at Findlay while shopping for other cuts, but this time I was making a conscious decision to finally acquire this cut and check it out.  So I gathered what I needed for the Smoked Santa Maria Tri-Tip on page 108.

Make a rub first...raise your hand if you saw that coming!

The tri-tip was already trimmed of excess fat by the fine butcher at Mackie Meats (my favorite Findlay butcher shop, so I just had to sprinkle on the rub.

I also wanted to do this recipe because I had just made my final fall harvest of heirloom tomatoes, and this recipe called for a fair amount of tomatoes for its salsa.  The chiles also came from my garden, so overall I felt pretty satisfied in how much of this part of the meal I was able to grow myself.

While this meal was coming together, I also needed to cook a chili for a potluck lunch that was going to happen the following day at work.  As I had just picked several pounds of green chiles from my garden, I opted for the tastefully named (but misspelled) Christina's Green Chile on page 167.

On a side note Weber, chile is pepper, chili is a soup-like meal.  While the tri-tip was on the grill, I threw on the tomatillos and chiles for the chili.  With everything on the grill, I cut up the meat for browning.

After ten minutes of direct heat and then twenty minutes of indirect heat, I temped the tri-tip.  It was at a perfect 135 for medium-rare.

Shortly thereafter, the chiles and tomatillos where charred nicely and ready for skin removal.

Sliced thinly across the grain the tri-tip looked simply lovely.

 I had picked up a baguette from Blue Oven Bakery at Findlay.  I sliced that thinly as well, placed on slice of tri-tip, and topped with a bit of salsa.  It's a little classy, no?

So as it turns out, I see what all the fuss is about in regards to tri-tip.  It has the flavor of flank steak, and is only slightly chewier than a NY Strip.  It is certainly a nice change of pace and something to try.  Even better, it will feed a lot of people (impressing along the way) for a rather economic price.  That big bad boy you've seen in the pictures only cost around $15.  While this made a nice dinner, I think it would be better served as an appetizer at a nice meal.  I think I'd actually like to try this cut of meat in the smoker and see what happens!

The pork shoulder cubes began to brown, which I made sure to cook in batches.

The chiles and tomatillos had their skins removed and were then moved to the blender for a bit of pulsing.  The smell was heavenly...then again, I am a sucker for roasted chiles.

After the meat was done browning, I sauteed the onions and garlic, and then added the flour and stock.  The flour thickened up the base properly, and soon it was time to add in the remaining ingredients.

I returned the browned meat to the mix.

This was quickly followed by the green sauce.

A quick stir to incorporate everything and I set it to simmer for an hour.

After that hour, I stirred in the other green ingredients: fresh oregano, lime, and cilantro.  I then loaded it into the crock pot and readied it for work the next day.  At work, it seemed pretty well-received.  Sure, a lot of people I work with can be a little conservative and be somewhat nervous about a green chili, but those who were adventurous spoke of it well.  Personally, I liked it a lot.  It could have been a little stronger in the Scoville department, but for the masses I think it had an appropriate amount of heat.  Flavor-wise, I liked it very much.  The meat was super tender from the simmering, and pork shoulder is always full of good flavor.  The roasted chiles and tomatillos offered a smokey treat, and the herbs rounded it all off.  Two thumbs up from me!

My 100th Post!

Holy crap!  This is my 100th post!  Currently I'm too tired to go back and count recipes, but overall (even with my laziness this summer) I've made some serious headway into the Weber book.  When looking for sides and vegetables, I've noticed that it is becoming more and more difficult as I am running low in recipes in those sections.  I'll keep this short and sweet, but here are some stats that I am able to see through blogspot.

I'll start with what I think is most surprising to me.  The odd variety of countries that my audience is coming from to read a silly blog about grilling amuses me.  When I first discovered the stats button, I couldn't believe that I had people reading my blog in countries like Russia, Singapore, etc.

 

Less impressive, but still interesting (at least to me) is the fact that blogspot can tell which browser people were using when looking at A Guy and His Grill.

Can anyone tell me what this blog looks like on an iPod?  Wow!

Also interesting to me is knowing which of my posts have been popular.  I really can't pin down a good reason why one post gets more hits than another, but one of them is out in the lead by a LARGE margin!

Maybe it is because I used to teach math, but I'm entertained by graphs.  I can't make much of it, other than my "slow" times are quite evident.

So overall I've had a lot of fun with this blog.  My original stated goal has come true, in that I am significantly more confident cooking with charcoal than when I first started.  I can now eyeball amounts of charcoal necessary for various cooking temperatures, and can now even cook certain meals without having to double-check cooking times.  I've even started to improvise some meals without ever looking at the Weber book.  My range of foods that I enjoy has also increased, especially in the fish department.  The biggest drawback, I feel, is that going out to eat is becoming more and more difficult.  I know I can often make the grilled meals I eat at restaurants better and certainly for far less money.  

So what are your thoughts?  Any direction you'd like to see me go?  Is there something I'm not doing that you'd like to see added?  Or worse, is there anything that I do that is annoying that you'd like to see me stop?  I would seriously like to hear from you and see how I can make improvements.  If anything, it would mean a lot to me to read how my audience is enjoying what I do.  Should I keep going?

Bearing Down On A Milestone

So I continue to be lazy...no real surprise there.  I REALLY have to get back into cooking!  In truth, I have been doing some recently, but not much from Weber.  We hit that snap of cold, rainy weather and I was totally ready for it!  I love that kind of weather, and the cooking that usually goes along with it, particularly braising.  This week, however, has some ridiculously good weather, and so I feel compelled to maximize it with a few grilling sessions.  Similar to my last entry, I have been squatting on a recipe that I did quite some time ago, and I also just grilled tonight, so this entry will be a quick one as I am sure that I am hazy on some details.

Let's start with a fish dish that I grilled some weeks ago, the Teriyaki Mahi Mahi With Mango Salsa on page 292.  I selected this recipe because I had recently spotted Mahi Mahi at one of the fishmongers down at Findlay Market.  Capitalizing on that opportunity, I drove down and picked some up while it was still available. 

 

 The recipe calls for a quick dip in a marinade, so I pulled that together.  Teriyaki, from what I can gather, is just soy sauce and sake. 

The best route, I figured, was to use the Ziploc Bag Approach.  

Salsa is salsa.  Chop up stuff and mix it together.  Oh, and do your best to stop "sneaking" bites.

Here it is, fresh from the grill!  Here is something I've learned about fish: trust temperature, not color.  If you look closely at where the fish is "parting" down the middle, it looks slightly pink, and thus you might think underdone.  If you use a temperature probe, however, you will see that the fish is to the proper temperature, and is, in fact, done.  If you decide to keep cooking, the fish will quickly dehydrate and you will be left with overdone fish, of which few people enjoy.  

After some easy plating, it was time for dinner, so I called The Bride in from her TV session and we enjoyed a nice meal.

Overall, from what I can remember, this meal was not very flavorful.  Either it needs more time for marinating than what the recipe calls for (which would be dangerous as the acidity of the marinade would start to "cook" the fish, leaving you with what is called ceviche) or  it needs more seasoning afterwards.  I've never had Mahi Mahi before, but I can tell you that this is the perfect fish for fish tacos.  It shreds into taco-sized pieces quite naturally, and seems almost misused in this recipe.  The salsa was pleasant, but not something I would bring to a party.  Inside a taco with the fish, however, might be a good idea.

Now that we are up to speed, here is today's session!  Yes, I know it's October, but my heirloom tomato plants are FINALLY starting to produce.  It's been a rough summer for them, but now they are getting out of hand.  All summer long I had been saving some tomato-driven recipes, waiting for my heirlooms to be ready so that I could really maximize these recipes.  I've even resisted picking up heirlooms at the farmers' markets this summer for these recipes.  Here is what I collected, all from just today:

The first recipe that I had reserved for my heirlooms is the Steak And Tomato Salad on page 358.  

Usually I have seen flank steaks receive a rather lengthy marinade time, but this one only calls for twenty to thirty minutes.  This seems short, but that will be addressed later.

So I brushed it on and went about preparing the rest of the salad while The Forge achieved Scorned Woman.

 I cut my heirlooms in half (can you guess which one is called Mr. Stripey?) and later would brush olive oil on them before being grilled.

The flank steak came off the grill looking like it should, and instead of the customary five to ten minutes, this recipe has you rest the steak for at least twenty.  I don't know if this helps the normally tough flank cut relax, but like a good soldier I followed my orders.

While the steak was resting I grilled the tomatoes and brought them back inside to cool down while I finished the remaining bits of the salad.

As I began to slice the steak I was quite pleased with how it had turned out.  It was perfectly medium, but when I tasted a slice, I realized that it was a little bland and still just a little tough for my liking.

 

But as I mentioned earlier, this would be addressed.  Upon completion of the slicing, I further cut the steak into salad-sized pieces, and then the recipe has you toss the pieces in more of the dressing.  The acidity in the vinaigrette would help break down the fibrous steak further, making it more tender and flavorful.

Believe it or not, under that pile of steak are grilled heirloom tomatoes, and supposedly some green healthy stuff.

There, that looks better.

The Bride's eyes opened with amazement and she stated, "Holy crap!  Those are awesome tomatoes!"  I thanked my lucky stars that she liked them, because I figure that she has been quite patient with those stupid plants, how much space in our back yard they take up, and just how long they have taken to do anything.  Maybe now she'll let me grow them again next year!  I think she even liked the rest of the salad, as she went back for seconds.  Overall, I liked the salad as well.  When I was able to get a piece of steak, a tomato, and some green stuff all on the same fork, the textures and flavors really played off each other well.  I had never really had hearts of palm before (one of the ingredients you can barely see in my crappy photos) but they were nice and I think added to the overall enjoyment of the salad.

As for the milestone I mentioned in the title, my next post will talk all about that!  However, I did reach a minor one sometime during the last post...I now have over 2,000 views!  WOW!  Thanks everyone!