Bobby Flay Everyday!

St. Francis 2011 & Bobby's Dry-Rub and BBQ Sauce

2011-08-21T13:14:00.000-07:00

This is Bobby Flay's Dry-Rubbed Rib-Eye Steak with Mesa Grill Barbecue Sauce (page 141 of Boy Meets Grill). That is also Mesa Grill Potato Salad (page 225 of the same book) and grilled red peppers. In addition this is my photo entry to the 2011 St. Francis Turn Up The Heat Contest: http://www.stfrancissavortheflavor.com/index.php?p=contest You can see the entry photo at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/66627556@N03/6066373321/in/photostream
Last year I entered the contest with a video, that you can still see through this website and
http://www.youtube.com/user/StFrancisContest#p/a/f/1/Gr1Y4MUFX_U
But last year I learned that residents of Tennessee are not eligible for the contest! My video had more plays than did the contest's eventual winner - but I did not win as I was never eligible in the first place. The good folks at St. Francis contacted me again this year and asked if I would enter this year's contest. I reminded them that I still live in Tennessee and therefore ineligible. They suggested I make a "faux entry" anyway and mention the contest here at Bobby Flay Everyday. So I did. And again, there is no question that this would have been the winner if I lived somewhere else!

I first made the Barbecue Sauce - the recipe is on page 29 of Boy Meets Grill. Guys you must start making your own sauce. If you do you will not go back to bottled sauce again. With bottled sauce you can almost taste the bottle instead of great flavor. You first chop garlic and red onion and throw it into a sizzling hot cast iron skillet over the grill. Use canola oil instead of olive oil because canola oil won't burn and can stand up to the heat better that olive oil. Next throw in chopped tomatoes.

Let all this simmer about 15 minutes then toss in a mixture of red wine vinegar, brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce, molasses, Dijon mustard, honey, smoked paprika, ancho chili power and cayenne. Let all that simmer together for another 20 minutes.

Take it off the grill and allow to cool. It all goes in the processor to become smooth...

You can keep the sauce in the fridge for up to a week - but I don't think you will have it that long!

Next is the dry-rub for the rib-eye steaks. Many of the same flavors and spices are in the rub as went into the sauce: smoked paprika, cayenne and ancho, but also cumin, coriander, dry mustard and oregano. The paprika in this case was special. My brother and sister-in-law brought me a canister of Spanish Paprika back from their recent trip to Spain! Thanks Jeanne and Phillip!

After allowing the steaks to get to room temperature, apply the dry rub and really rub it in with the back of a spoon. Then on to the grill...

The rub goes on only one side of the steaks and the rub side goes down on the grill first. Of course the answer to the age-old question, "How many times do you turn a steak on the grill?" is "only once!" When the steaks turned you can see that the dry-rub formed a terrific crust on the outside of the steak that had unbelievable flavor. I used lump coal for the heat, but I added oak wood for the smoke...

The Big Green Egg was in mid-season form. Take a look at that flavorful smoke pouring out of the stack! I used oak wood chips partly to help the steak pair well with the wine. The wine was St. Francis Old Vine Zinfandel which itself is aged in oak. This wine was a great pairing. There is no way a Pinot Noir, or even a Cab could have stood up to the flavors in this dry-rub and barbecue sauce. It had to be a big, bold, spicy wine just to appear in the same photo with this steak. The St. Francis Old Vine Zin was up to the challenge!

Even the side dishes were big and spicy. The Mesa Grill Potato Salad has jalapeno, green onion, Dijon, red onion, cilantro, garlic, lime juice and cayenne. I found some extra tall red peppers at the store so I cut them into long strips, let them sit in olive oil for about an hour with Kosher salt, ground black pepper and oregano then into the grill basket...

Okay so I won't be named Grill Master of Sonoma County. I won't win the trip to California. But take one look at those steaks and it is clear who should really hold the title! Try these three Bobby Flay recipes and open a bottle of St. Francis and you will be the winner!

Remember - every season is grilling season! PCraig

The Big Green Egg

2011-06-21T15:00:00.000-07:00

For the first 100 consecutive days of 2010, I grilled a different Bobby Flay recipe and reported on the results here on BobbyFlayEveryday (you can view all 100 days and more in the Blog Archive of this blog which is located on the right side of the screen). On January 7, 2010, I grilled Bobby's Rib-Eye with Balsamic-Rosemary Butter (page 26 of Grill It!). On Father's Day 2011, I recreated this great steak recipe - but this time I grilled the steaks, sausage and twice-baked potatoes on my Father's Day present!

Dorothy surprised me with The Big Green Egg! I always wanted one because its a grill but its also a smoker. My original grill, seen in the photo, is a gas grill with a direct gas line hook-up - there are no canisters to continuously change out. I probably would never have made it 100 consecutive days of grilling last year if it were not for the convenience of the fast gas grill start. So now the debate can start in ernest - which is better grilling with gas or over coal. My father had a charcoal grill as I was growing up and he was an expert. He would grill both beef and chicken for the same meal and called it "Hoof & Feather." I must admit that nothing really ever beats a steak over coal. Bobby Flay's opinion, from several of his books, is that you can add flavor to the food that is cooked over gas so that in the end you have the flavor that you would have gotten with charcoal. I think that is true to a point - but nothing really ever beats a steak over coal.

Here is the inaugural lighting of the new Big Green Egg. The Egg weighs a ton. Its is completely ceramic. The airflow vent in the bottom is strategically placed under the fire box where the coal is placed. And this is not just any charcoal - its lump hardwood with no fillers like sawdust. Under no circumstances are you to use lighter fluid to start a charcoal fire. Lighter fluid is toxic and will make the smoke you produce and the food you grill take on a petroleum smell - you don't want that so use fire starters as shown here.

The advantage of gas over coal is the start up time - but let me tell you the Egg was up to hot temperature in no time and the coals were glowing red within less than 10 minutes. That is a little slower but not that much. I added wood chips that had been soaking about one hour. I found what I wanted: Wood Chips from old Jack Daniels whisky barrels! You can use wood chips on a gas grill if you use a smoker box. I think that is probably more trouble than its worth - but these chips in the hardwood coal were terrific!

The Egg got up and smoking within seconds of adding the Wood Chips.

Then in went two Rib-Eyes, a New York Strip, some summer sausage and the twice-baked potatoes.

I also fired up the original gas grill (didn't want it to fell left out) and used it to prepare some fresh spinach and green beans...

The first taste of a high quality steak, grilled over whisky infused wood chips and hardwood coal brought back so many memories.

I will grill steak again over gas some day - but not for a while. Tonight, I am going to use the Big Green Egg's ceramic interior plate and smoke some Baby Back Ribs! This could be serious. If you don't hear from me for a while, please send in a rescue team.

Remember that grilling is more than preparing food. Its relaxing, its time with family, its your heritage and childhood memories. So as Bobby would say - Go Grill It! Paul

Chefmakers at Sea

2011-01-14T14:46:00.000-08:00

The dish in the front is Spring Onion and Herb Orzo, then clockwise you see Chicken Cordon Bleu with ham, Chicken Cordon Bleu without ham, Mahogany Chicken Wings and Mustard Basted Chicken with Rosemary Lemon Chicken thighs. That is a lot of chicken! Its all from a class called "All About Chicken" from Chefmakers Cooking Academy. Oh yes, there is one more unique thing you should know. All these Chicken meals were prepared on Royal Caribbean's Freedom of the Seas sailing in the Atlantic ocean somewhere between Port Canaveral and the Virgin Islands.

Royal Caribbean Cruises are known for there excellent dining, so why would we be cooking ourselves? Well it was very informative and a lot of fun. We ended up taking three different classes at sea from Chefmakers, but specifically from Drew Closs.

This was as far away from grilling as you can get. Not only were we 2,000 miles from my home grill, the ship does not allow any open flame. So no charcoal and no gas grilling allowed. Nevertheless, some of the tricks and techniques we learned will be get back on the grill!

These chicken wings were baked in one of the industrial convection ovens of the Chops Grille onboard the ship - but the same process can be used with indirect heat on the grill.

On another day, in another class we made Manicotti. We cooked the pasta in saute pans instead of boiling. They did not all make it to the table when we started practicing tossing and flipping the pasta in the pans

On another day we made vegetable soup - but it was really a Knife Skills class. We just made lunch from all we learned to cut (planks to strips, strips to dice).

You should check out the Chefmakers website at www.chefmakeratsea.com and think about taking a class the next time you can't see land in any direction!

Winter Solstice Supper

2010-12-22T15:56:00.000-08:00

It had been 350 years since a total lunar eclipse took place on the day of the Winter Solstice. To commemorate the two Heavenly events taking place at the same time, we celebrated by bringing two Earthly events together at the same time: Grilling and Baking!

Solstice means "Sun Standing Still." Each fall the Sun crosses the sky at a slightly lower angle every day. Then on one particular day, the Winter Solstice, the Sun stops getting lower. It holds its lowest position as it across the sky for a day. The next day and every day thereafter, the Sun starts to increase its path-angle across the sky until it stops again at its highest point - that happens on the Summer Solstice. So we grill in the cold for the Winter Solstice and we grill in the heat for the Summer Solstice - and we try to grill every other day in between.

It was cloudy in Tennessee for the Eclipse/Solstice, so try as I might, there was no sightings from beside the grill. But you can see a foil covered pork roast over low heat on the grill.

The idea of a Winter Solstice Supper came from Dorothy's friends in Lincolnton, Maine at the Saltwater Farm. Dorothy took a baking class overlooking the rocky Maine coastline there last summer and I have never eaten better since. We wish we lived closer so we could participate more in Saltwater's "Farm to Table" movement - but we follow what they are doing there and for the Solstice we decided to grill-bake our version of what Saltwater Farms was serving for their Winter Solstice Supper - a Grilled/Baked Pork Pie! Please visit the Saltwater Farms site and you will see what we mean! http://www.saltwaterfarm.com/

First I took a pork roast and covered it with Canola Oil, coarse Kosher salt, ground peppercorns and oregano. I rolled the roast up in foil, fired up the grill and slow roasted the pork for about two hours. In the last half hour I took the roast from the foil and put it right on the grill grates. I also grilled some sweet Italian Sausage!

The pork roast came off the grill tender and juicy. This could have been the entire meal right here, but that is when Dorothy brought her baking "A" game. Butter, chopped onion, slices carrots and fresh sage leaves went into a saute pan and brought to a sizzle.

To this Dorothy added chicken stock and cream - and everything simmered and reduced. Meanwhile. Dorothy prepared the dough, let the dough rise in front of the fireplace and later rolled it out.

I chopped the pork roast and Italian sausage into chucks and everything went into the baking pan. Rolled dough on the bottom, followed by the pork, the sausage, the onion/carrot/sage cream and shredded cheddar cheese!

Then the top crust-dough went on, vents sliced and butter brushed.

Into the oven - maybe 45 minutes - then perfection!

It was cold outside (maybe not cold by Maine standards), but it was warm inside because of this perfect winter evening collaboration - the best of both worlds Grilling & Baking!

We opened a bottle of Sterling Vintner's Collection Cabernet Sauvignon. We visited the Sterling Vineyards in California and rode the tram up the hill to the winery once. But that was 1988 - we have been Sterling fans ever since and always have a bottle on hand. The label said this Cab would go well with roasted pork and mellow cheeses - that sounded exactly like our menu. It was the perfect wine for our perfect collaboration! Please check out their website and plan to go ride the tram to Sterling someday: http://www.sterlingvineyards.com/age_gateway

Hope your Winter Solstice Supper was as memorable as ours. With 'Farm to Table' from Maine, wine from California, and Grill/Baking from Tennessee, the Sun, Moon and Stars seemed to all align. Happy Celestial Holidays - Paul

First Snow/Grill of the season!

2010-12-20T14:54:00.000-08:00

We don't get much snow in Tennessee, but when we do the locals sort of freak out. They buy all the milk at the grocery store, close schools and prove that they don't know how to drive on ice and snow. I can joke about Tennesseans and the snow, because I am one. So when you are snowed in and have no place to go - to me that is the perfect invitation to start grilling. I always say that there is no "grilling season" unless you mean every season. You should never put away the grill - instead get your coat and stand a little closer to the fire.

This is Grill Fire & Ice! Get the fire going and the snow will just get out of the way. In this case the snow got out of the way for Bobby Flay's Turkey Cobb Burger from page 69 of Bobby's Burgers, Fries and Shakes book. The snow does not get out of the way of your wine glass - but the snow is a great wine cooler!

I started with 97% fat free ground turkey and formed it into patties. I treat ground turkey burgers the same as I would ground beef burgers. Don't add a bunch of stuff to the meat when making the patties. If you start adding onions, chopped peppers, tomatoes, etc then pretty soon you are not making burgers, you are making meat loaf instead - these are char-grilled burgers, not meat loaf with some kind of tomato sauce slathered over the top! Form the patties and press a crater in one side, then season with coarse kosher salt and ground peppercorns. What's the crater for? That is one of Bobby Flay's best tips. If you push down a crater in the center of the patty then when it plumps up on the grill it will return to the proper burger shape. Without the crater the burger will puff up in the middle and look like a flying saucer. Now there is nothing wrong with a flying saucer burger, but some lesser grillers have a tendency to press down on the burger to make it flat. When they do this they squeeze out all the flavorful juices leaving you with dry, tasteless burgers. This is why one of the Commandments of the Grill is: thou shalt not press down on a burger with a spatula. Before these turkey burgers hit the grill I brushed on some Canola Oil and I did sprinkle on some basil that I had been saving since growing it last summer.

Canola or Olive Oil on grill meats? The best is Canola because it flames up at a much hotter temperature than Olive Oil. If you use Olive Oil the extreme heat of the grill will cause flare ups that can overly char the meat and gives a burnt (not smoked) flavor. A second Commandment of the Grill that is in use here is: Thou shalt turn a burger on the grill once and only once. Flipping burgers sounds like what teenagers do for a part time job - this is grown-up grilling not kids stuff. Turning the burger more than once just is inviting the juices to leave your burger and asking for a shoe-leather consistency. This Commandment goes for steaks as well. After the burger turn, I added Pepper-Jack cheese to the burgers and covered them with a pan - another terrific Bobby Flay tip. Use a pan over the burgers to melt the cheese. You can't have partially melted cheese on a burger - its just not done. So get a pan that is deep enough to cover the burgers without touching the burgers. Let the heat from the grill get caught in the pan so that the burger gets heat from all sides - especially the top side where the cheese is. Check out this fully melted cheese under the pan!

When the burgers came off the grill, we topped them with the ingredients that made this a "cobb" burger: tomato, bacon slices, avocado, and romaine lettuce with a dressing of red wine vinegar, lemon juice, Dijon mustard and Worcestershire sauce. On the side we prepared Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill Potato Salad - you can find that recipe on page 225 of Boy Meets Grill.

Once again we proved that no matter if its sunny and 90 degrees or snowing and 12 - its always the right time to fire up the grill! Happy Holidays and Grill! Grill! Grill! Paul

Apple Sage Thanksgiving Turkey

2010-11-26T14:07:00.000-08:00

From Bobby Flay's television show "Boy Meets Grill" this is an Apple Sage glazed turkey! We had a big crowd coming over so I got a big bird. I got this one from Tag'z Five Star Meats and it weighed in at about 15 pounds. It all started the day before when I prepared the glaze. I put the cast iron skillet over the grill and seared some chopped red onions, garlic and a serrano chili. Meanwhile, I cored and peeled four Granny Smith apples and chopped them into small chunks. Then all the grilled onions, chili, garlic, and apples went into a large pot together with apple cider vinegar, apple juice, brown sugar, some molasses and (I couldn't resist) a pour of Jack Daniels old number 7.

The pot went over the grill and allowed to simmer and reduce for about 20 minutes. The smell was terrific! The apples turned golden brown and then I added the Sage. After coming off the grill and cooling, I used the food processor to produce the puree glaze. I stored the glaze in the fridge until the next morning - Thanksgiving Day.

Wisdom of the Grill. Here is another great Bobby Flay trick. I rotated the turkey over the grill for about three hours, but I placed a metal pan under the turkey. During the three hours I kept the pan filled with liquids - alternating water, chicken broth and apple juice. The liquid would come to a boil and steam rose up and continuously basted the turkey from below.

You can see the flame curling around the pan and the chicken broth in a rolling boil. This kept the turkey moist and enhanced the flavor even more. As the turkey turned for the last our, I basted with the Apple Sage glaze. During the final 30 minutes or so, I removed the pan and let the bird turn over a direct flame - the glaze carmelized and this gave the turkey a crust on the skin but without drying out the inside. I was looking for an internal temperature of 160 degrees, but like all meats its best to bring them off the grill and let them stand for several minutes before carving. I let the turkey reach about 157 degrees before I took it off the grill. I knew the temp would continue to rise a little even after coming off - that insured that I got the best temp without overshooting and drying it out. As you know dry turkey is not good - even though we have all endured it before!

The turkey carving must be just as strategic as the turkey grilling. Rule 1: Don't use an electric knife. Use a regular knife that is very sharp. Cut away the legs and wings first then slice the breasts. Carve straight down from either side of the breast bone all the way through. Rule 2: Don't shave off the turkey breast diagonally into thin slices. If you do that only the top piece will have any of the skin. Why go to all that trouble to glaze the turkey for hours only to have glaze on one piece? Instead, with the turkey breast carved off in one large piece, you can cut across and get glaze-skin in every piece:

Check that out. The legs and wings on the right. The properly carved turkey breast on the left with glaze on every slice!

What to drink? The 2010 Georges Dubceuf Beaujolais Nouveau of course. I went to Tim's Premium Wines and got three bottles. I have gotten three bottles every year a decade. Here is the collection going back to 2002.

Of the three bottle each year, we give one to my father. We drink one with the turkey. We save one for the collection. To be honest it is far from the best wine I ever drank, but I just like the story. The "nouveau" means "new." This is the newest wine of the year. This wine was still grapes growing in France just last August. Every year this wine is blessed by the Pope and then FedEx flies only a limited number of cases around the world. There are parties in Japan to mark the arrival of the year's Nouveau. Tim gets only about 24 bottles each year - he hold three for me!

Snacks before the Turkey and during the first football game? Zig and Julie put out the cheeses and identified each one on Dorothy cheese slate!

Late fall / early winter is a great time of year. The air gets chilled, footballs fly, the Nouveau arrives, the family gathers, the turkey turns over the grill. So don't put those grills away! Winter grilling season is about to begin - its a great time of year. From Zig, Julie, Rose, Anne, Floyd, Jeannie, Phillip, Stevie, Dorothy and myself, I hope you had a great Thanksgiving and remember - every season is grilling season. No matter the temperature and no matter the menu from hot dogs to the Thanksgiving Turkey - just grill it!

Paul

Bobby in Nashville!

2010-10-25T11:49:00.000-07:00

Welcome Bobby Flay to Nashville! I got a chance to meet Bobby Flay - the namesake of BobbyFlayEveryday - this morning at the Williams Sonoma store in Green Hills/Nashville. In the photo I was telling Bobby that I had grilled a different Bobby Flay recipe everyday for 100 consecutive days earlier this year. He said, "That was a lot of work!" It was, but it was also a lot of fun, a lot of learning, and a lot of relaxing at the grill. Bobby was in town to autograph his new book!

I actually have already grilled some of the recipes in this book during the 100 days as I got the recipe right off the TV show - Throwdown! Looks like I have another 100 days of grill ideas to go! Throwdown! the book, joined my Bobby Flay Library. The brown book at the end is the journal where I make notes from Bobby's TV shows.

I was able to give Bobby Flay the address to this website, so Bobby if you did get the chance to check out the site you can look on the right side of the screen and find the Blog Archive (just above the links to your website, your Twitter and where I direct readers to buy your other books on amazon). I hope you get the time to take a look. If you do here are a few of my very favorite Bobby Flay postings and videos!

>>>Super Bowl Super Burger - February 8, 2010 - with a video!

>>>Valentine's Flay Triple Play - February 15, 2010 - with a video!

>>>From Mesa Grill - January 24, 2010

>>>Tag'z - January 8, 2010

>>>San Gennaro and Yazoo - January 5, 2010

>>>Snowball Salmon - February 3, 2010

>>>Final Four Wings - March 28, 2010

>>>Filet Mignon Nirvana - April 2, 2010

>>>Special Edition: Cinco de Mayo - May 6, 2010 - with a two part video!

Bobby, I really enjoyed meeting you today - but I also really enjoyed looking back at some of my favorite BobbyFlayEveryday recipes and photos. I think the grill is calling and with my new book in hand it proves - "Every season is grilling season!" Paul

Back to School BBQ

2010-08-29T12:55:00.000-07:00

These are unbelievable Back Back Ribs with home-grilled Bourbon Barbecue Sauce. It is back to school this week so we decided to send the 2010 Summer out with a big flavor bang. Dorothy and I are college professors and we teach year-round, so "back to school" does not have the same meaning it did when I our kids were young, but the start of school still feels like the end of Summer to me. There is nothing better than spending an summer afternoon watching some baseball, having a few really cold ones, listening to Kenny Chesney's "Summertime" and letting some Baby Backs slow roast for three hours on the grill. Here's how we did it.

I started in the morning by making a dry-rub. In a small bowl I mixed to together paprika, coarse Kosher salt, Turbinado sugar, light brown sugar, with chipotle and chili powders. I stretched out the Baby Backs on a tray, peeled off the interior membrane (don't forget to do that!) and doused the ribs with some sweet Kentucky Bourbon. With the ribs wet with bourbon, I sprinkled on the rub - both sides. I started a three-hour clock in my head from grill light to first bite. When that clock started, I covered the ribs in foil and lit the grill. I set the grill on low and placed the ribs on an upper grill rack. This method really turns your grill into an oven. The ribs never are exposed to direct flame, so they roast low and slow.

Remember one of the virtues of the grill is that it forces you to slow down and put yourself on the pace of the grill. This is one of the main reasons that you would want to grill on a week-night during a busy week for instance. Your first thought is that you would not have time - but that is the whole point. The grill forces you to make time and while the grill is doing its work you can talk to your family, listen to some music, open a bottle of wine, watch a ball game - the grill helps you do the things that matter. The stuff we fail to do when we are in a fast-food hurry. You can also use a long grill time to overlap your other preparations. I had the Kentucky Bourbon out, so I decided to make a Bourbon BBQ Sauce and Dorothy made Bourbon BBQ Beans and Skillet Cornbread - the aromas were making the neighbors crazy! I started the sauce by grilling some onions in a skillet with butter and some bacon drippings from Dorothy's beans. When the onions were ready I threw in tomato paste and tomato sauce (instead of ketchup), molasses, honey, dry mustard, chipotle chilies, and then I poured in the bourbon - a lot of bourbon. I have not provided any measurements because I never really measure anything. I keep track of proportions. I know I like equal portions of honey and molasses, but I couldn't tell you how many tablespoons or ounces or cups I use. I use what looks and feels like enough and I taste and make adjustments along the way. This sauce was blended together and placed on the grill under the ribs. The sauce simmered for at least two hours.

The sauce tasted more like bourdon during the first hour, but by the second hour all the flavors came together into a thick sweet sauce with a kick. Meanwhile, Dorothy soaked a combination of Great Northern Beans and Red Beans, then simmered them through several cycles. I don't know all the ingredients she used, but at one point she cooked up some super thick cut bacon and she had onions chopped and garlic from the press - and the rest of the bourbon. The beans were baking during the last hour that the ribs were on the grill.

And if that were not enough she had cornmeal, buttermilk, sugar, honey and I don't know what else going into a cast iron skillet to make ranch-style Cornbread. When it was done it was almost like cake. It had great cornbread flavor, but it was also sweet. Those BBQ ribs and beans had some big flavors but the Skillet Cornbread cooled everything off and balanced the feast.

After three hours it was time for the big unveiling of the Baby Backs. The phrase "fall off the bone" is probably over-used but is the correct description here. I opened the foil and brushed on some of the Bourbon BBQ Sauce and let it sit and soak it in.

According to the planet's orbital mechanics, the end of summer does not occur until the Equinox - but that is still about a month away. For others, the end of summer happens when the kicker's toe hits the football on the first kickoff of the football season. Still others think that summer ends when the State Fair ends, or on Labor Day. For us, because we are teachers, we don't think of the new year as January 1st, but as the first day of classes in "the fall." That is when summer ends. Sadly, summer ends for some when they cover and/or put away the grill - but this, of course, is a mortal sin of the grill. Grill season never ends - not with summer or fall or Thanksgiving or the Super Bowl or the Final Four or when pitcher and catchers report to spring training. Covering your grill against the elements is allowed - but never put away your old friend. We have so much to grill - and the grill creates for us plenty of time to do it.

So keep your tongs at the ready. Don't put away your charcoal, your pepper mills, your grill gloves, and your secret recipes. It is the end of summer - the perfect time to Grill It! Paul

One last thing: The St. Francis Turn Up the Heat Contest is over in two days! My YouTube video entry into the contest to become the Sonoma Grillmaster has more views than any other. You can see that video and the entire collection at http://www.youtube.com/user/StFrancisContest#p/f/21/Gr1Y4MUFX_U.
The judges start their deliberation on September 1st, with the finalist notified by September 15th. Wish me luck!

Sunset Sail & Grill

2010-08-02T13:11:00.000-07:00

Check out these bacon-wrapped Beef Filets with roasted peppers and Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill Potato Salad! Best of all, this right-off-the-grill meal was prepared and eaten with Dorothy and Floyd on the Sailboat Allegre.

The temperature topped 97 degrees today, so in an attempt to beat the heat we planned to sail and grill-out near sunset. We pushed off the dock at about 7:00 pm and sailed north toward Percy Priest Dam. There was only light winds - but enough to fill the jib as we turned southeast back toward the open water. After about an hour we sailed parallel to the lake's eastern edge and found a secluded cove. We guided Allegre into position at mid-channel and dropped the Danforth Anchor into about 12 feet of water. The sun disappeared over the cove's western shore and cast a silhouette of trees on the peninsula's horizon. It was time for the air to cool, the stars to come out and to light the grill.

Dorothy gave me a portable boat grill last year - but I had not used it yet. I first had to mount the grill support to the aft railing, then attached the grill itself. The grill has a small canister of propane (you can just see it attached under the grill and in front of the Merc outboard motor). My first attempt to get the propane flowing failed, but eventually the flames came alive hanging out over the water. Earlier in the day, Dorothy had prepared the Mesa Grill Potato Salad with sliced new potatoes, mayo, dijon mustard, fresh chopped poblano chili, green onion, red onion, cilantro and spiced with cayenne, chipotle, sea salt and ground black peppercorns. It is important to mix all the ingredients over the potatoes while they are still hot from cooking. This way all they flavors will absorb right into the potatoes. The dish is usually served cold, but mixing while its still hot makes all the difference! You can find the recipe in Bobby Flay's Boy Meets Grill. She put the complete potato salad in a large plastic container and into the cooler. I sliced up red, green and orange bell peppers and a Vidalia onion and threw them into a large mixing bowl. Over the peppers and onion went olive oil, salt and pepper. After mixing everything together well, I poured out approximately one third of the peppers and onion onto a sheet of foil and added more olive oil and seasoning. Then I folded the foil over and tucked in all sides to make a pouch. I made three pouches for the three sailors/diners on Allegre. Later on the boat, I just threw the pepper & onion filled foil pouches on the grill. You can see them in the photo hanging on to the stern of the boat. When they got good and hot, I pierced the foil so that steam/smoke could escape - this perfectly roasted the peppers and onions on the grill without ever actually touching them! Then came the bacon-wrapped beef filets

True grillers can bring excellent food off of any grill anywhere! These filets were seasoned with olive oil, sea salt and ground pepper and taken to the lake in a plastic container. The time spent in the container mixing with the olive oil before grilling made these guys almost fork-cut tender. And, as we know, everything goes better with bacon. Using bacon around steak is always a good idea. Not just because of the flavor, but as a thermometer - when the bacon is done on the outside, the steak is medium on the inside. By the time we got everything off the grill and onto the plates it was completely dark. We ate and toasted by the light of lantern hung from the boom, a candle and the stars.

The wine came from Allegre's wine "cellar." It was a Cabernet from Black Opal that we were not sure would be good, since it had been on the sailboat all summer. Wine should not be agitated. It should not get vibration or frequent sloshing. The wine bottle should also lay on its side in a cool dark place. When the bottle is on its side the wine inside will come in contact with the cork and keep it moist. If the cork dries out, it will allow air in the bottle and ruin the wine. This is why standing a bottle of wine up on top of the refrigerator is the worst place to keep your wine because the cork will dry and the fridge constantly vibrates. Some people prefer a screw-top to avoid the whole cork-dry problem. Me, I like the ceremony of opening a bottle of wine with a cork. This Cab had been on its side in a cool dark place, but had been rocking in the waves in the boat for months. But - the wine was terrific and paired well with those big grill flavors of steak, peppers and spices in the potato salad. Once in the glass, you do want the wine to swirl so that air mixes in and brings out the aroma and flavor. On the sailboat, the waves took care of the wine swirling for us.

The prominent mid-summer stars are Altair, Deneb and Vega. These three form the "Summer Triangle." Altair is the one farthest South, Deneb is East and Vega is West. If you draw a line in your mind from Altair up between Deneb and Vega that line points to Polaris, the North Star. Knowing the direction of North is important to sailors and pilots. There was not a cloud in the sky as I turned off the grill fire. The Summer Triangle stood directly over the Allegre in the cove, so we named it The Summer Triangle Cove then I hoisted the Danforth from the bottom of the lake, kept the line through the triangle that points North on my right and sailed to the harbor lights on the horizon.

I grill on land and sea. I will have to figure out how it do it in the air as well! But no matter where you are - grill it! Paul

Please check out the St. Francis "Turn Up The Heat" contest and take a look at my video. I am trying to win a return trip to the St. Francis winery in Sonoma and the title of Grill Master - so follow this link to the website and let me know what you think.

http://www.youtube.com/user/StFrancisContest#p/a/f/1/Gr1Y4MUFX_U

Tossed Steak

2010-07-18T12:26:00.000-07:00

Tossed Sirloin Steak with peppers and onions in a new grill basket. When you know a griller, there is an endless number of great gift ideas you can go with. Dorothy found this grill basket on sale and once again proved that there is always something you can get for the griller who has everything. This started by mixing a marinade in a bowl using balsamic vinegar, garlic, olive oil, brown sugar and red wine. I sliced red, yellow and orange bell peppers into strips and the sirloin steak into cubes. The peppers and steak sat in the marinade, with occasional stirring, for two hours. In the meantime, I sliced some onions into chunks. When it was time to grill, I poured the steak and peppers into the grill basket and caught the marinade in a tray underneath. I got the grill going hot and brought the grill basket over the heat. I continuously flipped the basket - like flipping an omelet - but without worrying that anything would fly out of the basket. I basted the peppers and meat with the marinade right through the screen top. It was ready in about 10 to 12 minutes and we poured it all over a bed of brown rice - fast and perfect.

We didn't get grill marks on the steak because they were never directly on the grill grates and were being tossed while they cooked - but the steak had great flavor and was extremely tender.

What to Drink? The grill basket had a card that said this type of basket grilling is common in Spain. I don't have any independent confirmation that this is true, but we went with it and paired the Tossed Streak and Peppers with a wine from Spain. It was the 2007 Don Romon from the Campo de Borja region of Spain. I must admit I know less about Spanish wines that others so I did a little research. Campo de Borja is in northeastern Spain where wine has been made since the 12th century. Don Romon is one of only 17 wineries in the region. Camp de Borja specializes in the Garnacha grape. The bottle just said "Red Wine" but it is just being modest. The Garnacha grape makes a wine that is more than just table wine. The bottle we had was like a Cab, but bigger and bolder. By that I mean it had more fruit and spice in the flavor - and that was a great match with the Tossed Steak and Peppers that had been marinated in red wine, garlic, balsamic vinegar, salt and ground pepper. Its all about the flavor and the wine that goes with it!

What's on YouTube? As you may know, I entered the St. Francis Winery's Turn Up the Heat Contest. I am trying to win the title of St. Francis Master Griller and a return trip to their Sonoma Winery. Mine was the first video up on there site when the contest started. Now there are several other videos, but honestly these other videos are no match! Go watch my video and let me know what you think. The contest winner will be announced sometime in September. Here is the link:
http://www.youtube.com/user/StFrancisContest#p/a/f/1/Gr1Y4MUFX_U

Keep grilling and Turn Up The Heat this summer! Paul

Fourth of July Grill Out

2010-07-05T14:30:00.000-07:00

The Fourth of July is when we watch baseball, parades and fireworks, but it is also a nationwide grill out. We had relatives over so I tried to have something for everyone. Clockwise from the pickle in the photo is a bacon-cheese burger, an Italian sausage dog with grilled peppers and onions, cole slaw, Mesa Grill Potato Salad, and Molasses and Honey baby back ribs. All these were grilled using Bobby Flay techniques and recipes. I must say that I think the rubs were the best. Four hours before dinner I pulled out the slab and seasoned it with salt, pepper, garlic and chili powder. I covered the slab with no-stick aluminum foil and placed it on the upper rack of the grill over low heat. I let the grill do its work for the first hour undisturbed. I turned the ribs over during the second hour and prepared the sauce. In a sauce pan over the grill I combined molasses, honey, brown sugar, salt, garlic and ancho chili powder. During the third hour I opened the foil over the top of the slab and slathered on the sauce. I recovered the ribs with the foil - still on low heat - and let the sauce ooze and bubble down over the slab inside the foil. I know people say that their ribs fell off the bone. The meat on these ribs did not fall off the bone - why would you really want that anyway? But they did melt in the mouth. These were the most tender and the most juicy ribs I ever grilled. The secret is not the sauce - although this sauce was terrific - the secret is the long grill time over the low heat. I also grilled a few burgers and dogs...

PS - Remember to check out the St. Francis Winery's Turn Up The Heat Contest. I have a video on their site and I hope that video will win me the title of Grill King of Sonoma Valley! Go watch the video at
http://www.youtube.com/user/StFrancisContest#p/a/f/1/Gr1Y4MUFX_U

Happy Fourth and keep grillin' Paul

Father's Day Burger Blowout

2010-06-21T14:05:00.000-07:00

Dorothy picked up a magazine at the grocery store the other day because it had a Bobby Flay Texas Burger Blowout recipe inside.

The recipe is actually the Dallas Burger from Bobby Flay's Burger, Fries and Shakes book (page 37). The feast also included Mesa Grill Potato Salad (page 225 of Boy Meets Grill) and Buttermilk Onion Rings (page 101 of Burger, Fries and Shakes). It was Father's Day and it was a scorcher on the grill!

But no weather conditions keep the True Keepers of the Flame off the grill! I think this must have been the hottest grill-lighting temperature so far here at Bobby Flay Everyday. The coldest was 9 degrees last January, but like I said nothing stops a griller. I started by roasting the potatoes in the cast iron skillet which was right on the grill.

In a separate bowl I mixed together the Mesa Grill ingredients: mayo, Dijon mustard, lime juice, chopped red and green onion, sliced jalapeno pepper, fresh cilantro, together with chipotle, garlic, cayenne, Kosher salt and ground black pepper. When the potatoes came off the grill, they went right into the bowl with the Mesa Grill ingredients. The Mesa Grill ingredients were cool, but the potatoes came off smoking hot. It is important to mix these together while the potatoes are still hot so they will absorb the spicy flavors through and through. After mixing, the potatoes were allowed to cool to room temperature. Next came what turned out to be the surprise star of the show - the Buttermilk Onion Rings.

I first sliced two Vidalia Onions crossways into rings. They really need to be Vidalias because these onions really become very sweet over the heat of the grill. Then I set up an assembly line - the onions followed by three pans. The first and third pan contains flour with Kosher salt, ground black pepper and ground cayenne all mixed in. The second pan was filled with buttermilk, salt and pepper. One ring at a time, the onions went down the assembly line: flour, buttermilk, flour and then on to the cast iron skillet over high heat on the grill. Look back at today's first photo and you will see that the flour formed a golden brown crust around the onion rings that was terrific with that kick of cayenne! I had never made the Buttermilk Onion Rings before - but I will again - they were crunchy on the outside, while the onions inside were tender and sweet. The Dallas Burgers were on the grill at the same time as the onion rings.

Earlier in the day, Dorothy made the homemade cole slaw that goes with the Dallas Burger. She used the processor for the cabbage, then added grated carrots, mayo, sugar, celery seeds, apple cider vinegar, salt and pepper. I seasoned the burgers as they went on the grill with canola oil, ancho chili powder, paprika, dry mustard, cumin, coriander, oregano, cayenne, salt and pepper. I seasoned the burgers this time on both sides to really pile on the flavor and because I knew that the cole slaw would cool it down once it got to the bun. I turned the burgers once - because, as we know, grill commandments #1 is, "Thou Shalt Not Flip Your Burger Multiple Times." Multiple turns just allows juices to escape and that goes along with grill commandment #2 which is, "Thou Shalt Not Press Your Burger Down On The Grill." Pressing the burger down just squeezes out the juice which will leave your burger dry and leather-like. To finish off, I toasted some thin Whole Wheat buns on the grill, melted some cheddar, placed the burgers and topped them the cole slaw and cold dill pickle slices - Fabulous on Father's Day!

If you are around my age (50ish) then I would bet your Father grilled like the pros. My father was traveling on Father's day so I did not get to see him, but I called and caught up with him as he drove across Arkansas. My own kids called and Facebooked. Dorothy made Father's Day perfect in two additional ways. First she made my favor cake - German Chocolate, but with a secret topping. I saw walnuts and chocolate chips on the counter as she was creating - I don't know what else, but I was fantastic!

The second thing she did to make Father's Day perfect is to write about her own father, who sadly passed away seventeen years ago. Please go read her words and see her photos at

http://designdenizen.blogspot.com/2010/06/heres-to-my-father.html

My Dad taught me well in all things, but especially on the grill. He had an old kettle-type grill that lived in the backyard most of the time, but he would place it on the floorboard of our car's back seat and take it with us to grill when we would hike and camp. His specialty is "Hoof and Feather." That's right he grills both beef and chicken at the same time! He insists that everyone gets some of both right off the grill. So thanks Dad, and all Dads, for all the life lessons you taught. Some of those lessons, like patience, the value of a family meal and insisting on quality, were learned over the grill! Yet another reason to Grill It! and pass it on. Paul

PS - Remember to check out the St. Francis Winery's Turn Up The Heat Contest. I have a video on their site and I hope that video will win me the title of Grill King of Sonoma Valley! Go watch the video at
http://www.youtube.com/user/StFrancisContest#p/a/f/1/Gr1Y4MUFX_U

Memorial Day with St. Francis

2010-05-31T11:08:00.000-07:00

Great for Memorial Day and the unofficial first grilling day of summer, this is a Filet of Beef grilled with a Coffee-Cocoa rub, cheese grits and grilled asparagus - all paired with the St. Francis Old Vine Zinfandel!

The Contest

On May 12, I got and email from Matthew Smith. Matthew is an account executive at Nike Communications in New York City. Matthew said that he was a reader of this blog and was sending advanced notice about the “St. Francis Turn Up The Heat” contest that he was working on. You may remember that I featured the St. Francis wins previously here at Bobbyflayeveryday and that Dorothy and I visited the St. Francis winery several years ago. I already knew that St. Francis has some great wines so I was excited to hear about the contest. To enter the contest, a person must make a video of themselves grilling a favorite summer recipe and pair it with a St. Francis wine – they didn’t have to ask me twice – I was already going to be grilling and pairing with St. Francis sometime this summer, so why not for Memorial Day and why not on camera! The theme of the contest is “St. Francis’ Quest for the Holy Grill.” Anyone who has followed this blog understands that this is really no quest at all. The location of the Holy Grill is not a secret hidden away since the Dark Ages. No, the Holy Grill is in my courtyard.

Here is the Treasure Map from St. Francis to the Holy Grill that I used in the video! Part of the Challenge was to pair some bold grilling flavors with a bold St. Francis wine. I chose to pair three grilled dishes with three different St. Francis wines. The contest video could not be very long – which was a real hardship. There was no way I could comfortably demonstrate one recipe/wine match so quickly, let alone three. So, I had to really cut down my original plan. In the video you see all three, but I really only was able to demonstrate one. All three are here on the blog however!

The video

Go watch the video and watch it on the contest website:
http://www.youtube.com/user/StFrancisContest#p/a/f/1/Gr1Y4MUFX_U

The contest will be judged by a panel of celebrity grilling “gurus.” The gurus will use the following point system to judge the videos:

40 Points: How well your video shows and explains how your grilling recipe turns up the heat to create the boldest flavors

20 Points: How well does your recipe pairs with St. Francis wines

20 Points: Demonstration of the recipe preparation

20 Points: Overall creativity of video

The finalist will be announced in August and the winners will be announced on September 15. Now I am going for the win because the first prize is:

"A trip for 2 to Sonoma County with VIP visit to St. Francis Winery; Vineyards. Round-trip air transportation for two between San Francisco, CA and a major airport in U.S. nearest winner’s home, 2 nights’ accommodations and 1 day VIP experience at St. Francis Winery; Vineyards, double-occupancy hotel accommodations, airport transfers between airport and winery, and private tour and winery experience."

I don’t know how the grilling gurus will rate my video, but I would love to see what you readers think! After watching the video, please use the judges point system above and send me the score you come up with!

There were a few things that I had to leave out of my original script so that I could keep the video under the time limit. One major point that I wished I had more time for was my theme of “Preparing for the Pairing.” Most people give very little thought to the wine until its time to sit down for the meal and the meal itself has already been prepared. This means that the food/wine match is pretty mush left up to chance and getting a excellent pairing is sort of hit-or-miss. My theory is that you start planning for the meal and the wine at the same time, so its not dumb luck that everything goes together well. As I describe the menu below, I will talk you through my “wine strategy” for each course.

The Menu - Appetizer

The appetizer was a Salmon-Spread-Bread. I plank grilled salmon for another meal several days before the St. Francis challenge but I grilled some extra salmon then for this appetizer. I started by cutting up the salmon but it just flaked off into chunks. I put the mound of salmon chunks in a bowl and mixed it up with cream cheese. Then added dried, crushed basil and dill from Dorothy’s herb gardens. I then sliced a loaf of long French bread on the bias that made small oval shaped pieces of bread. I brushed the bread with butter and put them on the grill to toast. Later we spread the salmon, cream cheese and herb mix on the toasted French bread.

We paired that with the St. Francis Chardonnay. I did a little research on the wines and here is what is said about this Chardonnay: “Rich with notes of citrus, melon and vanilla, this Chardonnay is a fresh expression of this hand-picked classic varietal. The grapes are 100% whole cluster pressed and fermented in different lots, then barrel aged for six months in French and American oak barrels prior blending. The barrel component adds a toasty complexity to the finished wine, complimenting the fruit and pear aromas on the nose. Medium to full-bodied, this Chardonnay has ripe fruit flavors, crisp high acid in the mouth and a rich lingering finish.”

My wine strategy in pairing the Salmon-Spread-Bread and the St. Francis Chardonnay keyed in on the wine’s aging in oak barrels that would give it a toasty, vanilla flavor that would go with the toasted French bread. Also the Chardonnay had great fruit flavors (all the St. Francis wines do) and that went great with the cream cheese and bold salmon flavor of the spread. This wine can stand alone and would be a great summer afternoon sipping wine. You could drink this wine with no food at all after a sunset sail! But I think it was great as a snack or appetizer with the my Salmon-Spread-Bread.

The Menu - Main Course

I went to visit my friend Mike Taglio and his family at Tag'z Five Star Meats. Please go check out their website at http://tagz5starmeats.com/. I asked Mike for his advice on a Filet of Beef - aka Filet Mignon. He brought out a filet that he said "was the best the cow has to offer!" Mike trimmed it up for me and when I left his store, I knew I had the best cut of beef in town. As you will see on the video, I made the rub with ground expresso coffee beans, cocoa powder, sage, Kosher coarse salt, ground red pepper and ground black pepper! I was going for the bold flavors that would match up with the wine, but I also wanted the rub to form an outside crust. You can see from the photo above the crust was forming. The wine I paired with the Filet of Beef with Coffee-Cocoa rub was the St. Francis Old Vine Zinfandel and I used three grilling techniques for my "wine strategy." I prepared the filet to insure an excellent pair with this wine. Grill Technique #1. I grilled the filet using indirect heat on an Oak Plank. For salmon, I usually use a Cedar Plank. Sometimes for BBQing beef I use a Hickory Plank. But when I read about the St. Francis Zin this is what I discovered: "The grapes for our 2007 Old Vines Zinfandel program must meet certain criteria to be included in this classic California wine. The vines must be at least 50 years old; many are as old as hundred years old. Once fully ripened the grapes are hand-picked, crushed then fermented in stainless steel tanks for twelve to eighteen days, then pressed and pumped to new American oak barrels for twelve to fifteen months of aging. The wine is then bottled and held for an additional four to eight months until release. This distinct “old world style” Zinfandel displays deep aromas of ripe black cherries and boysenberries laced with licorice, shadowed by spicy toasted oak notes that carry into a long luscious finish." I used an Oak Plank because I wanted the flavor of the oak in the meat to match the oak flavor in the wine. Also notice that I cut two strips of the Oak Plank off the end and laid them across the plank. I think that anytime you can incorporate power tools into your grilling then you get extra credit! When the filet had been rolled in the rub, I placed it over those strips. This held the filet off the surface to insure that the smoke from the plank surrounded the filet while on the grill. Grill Technique #2. I covered the filet and the plank with a pan for most of the grill time.

The pan trapped some of the smoke coming off the plank and further infused the filet with the smoky flavor. Using this technique I was actually turning the grill into a grill-oven-smoker combination! Grill Technique #3. I made a Wine Reduction sauce using the very same wine that later would be paired to drink with the filet. In addition to the St. Francis Zin, the wine sauce had chopped shallots, Kosher salt, ground black pepper and butter. This was all put together in a sauce pan over the grill and allowed to simmer down to about half its original volume.

Remember a "commandment" of the grill is Never grill with a wine that you would not drink. In other words, we never use any kind of cooking wine - we use the real thing or nothing at all! When the sauce had reduced down, I injected the sauce right into the filet so that the wine was inside the meat as it grilled. What better way to insure that food and wine will go together than to grill the food using the wine! Later, I also poured the wine sauce over the filet on the plate just before eating - perfect!

The Menu - Dessert

Dorothy made a terrific chocolate bundt cake. It was moist because of several secret ingredients she uses, but you will have to ask her about those ingredients yourself - they are a closely guarded secret!

While the cake was baking, I was at the grill and put together a sauce to be poured over the cake. I matched one more St. Francis wine. This time it was the Sonoma County Merlot. When you read about this Merlot it will be clear why I prepared the sauce the way I did: "Our 2006 Sonoma County Merlot is composed of hand picked grapes from vineyards through out Sonoma County. After fermentation is complete the wine is aged in American and French oak barrels for a full twenty-three months. Spicy herb and vanilla overtones give way to luscious plum and cherry flavors on the palate, with hints of chocolate and generous tannins on the finish. A true varietal classic with marked Sonoma County style." All I had to see was cherries and chocolate! In a sauce pan over the grill, I combined pitted dark sweet cherries with sugar, and a little cinnamon. Once the sugar had melted, I poured in the St. Francis Merlot - leaving plenty to drink with the cake later of course! I don't know how this could have been any better - maybe adding a scoop of vanilla ice cream would have made this reach dessert nirvana!

I entered the St. Francis Turn Up The Heat Contest on the first day. You can learn about the contest at http://www.stfsavortheflavor.com/index.php?p=home

and all the great St. Francis Wines at http://www.stfranciswinery.com/

St. Francis is a great winery to visit. I hope to go there again, but this time as the Grill Champion!

Memorial Day is the unofficial start of summer. The official start is, of course, on the Summer Solstice which this year will be on June 21st at 6:28 AM CDT. But I don't like it when I hear people refer to Memorial Day as the first day of Grilling Season. The whole point of this blog is to send the message that there is no one grilling season and if you look back over the history of this site you will see that I grilled in all weather. Go see "Grilling in the Snow" at http://www.youtube.com/user/dvcraig1101#p/u/6/M4DNoHGEafw If you are just now firing up the grill for the first time in a while - welcome back! Check out some of the recipes here on bobbyflayeveryday that you may have missed. It doesn't matter if you just started grilling or never stopped, remember - Just Grill It! Paul

Special Edition: Cinco de Mayo!

2010-05-06T10:33:00.000-07:00

Cinco de Mayo is one of the great days of the year for grillers, so I just had to make a Special Edition for this special day. The menu came from three different Bobby Flay sources. The main course was from Bobby Flay's book, Grilling for Life (page 167) Smoky and Fiery Skirt Steak Fajitas with all the trimmings. The salad was from Bobby Flay's television show, Grill It! a Chunky and Crunchy Avocado Salad. And the special Cinco de Mayo drink was the signature cocktail at Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill, the Cactus Pear Margarita. The drink can be found on page 27 of the Mesa Grill Cookbook.

VIDEO - Watch this Cinco de Mayo Fiesta being prepared on YouTube!
Watch Part 1 at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkCf65aJRv8
Watch Part 2 at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qAKIIx3Dbg

The Cactus Pear Margarita is a whole story of its own. Several years ago, Dorothy and I were in San Antonio on the Riverwalk. We stopped at a bar and sat right along side the river. On the menu of specialty margaritas was a "Prickly Pear" margarita. A prickly pear is another name for cactus. I had never heard of a cactus margarita, but I was in Texas so I ordered it. It was great! I had another Cactus Pear Margarita on a second trip to San Antonio, but was never able to find it in Tennessee. I asked bartenders around here about it - but they never heard of it. I even had guys a Whole Foods look up Prickly Pear Syrup on their inventory list - nothing. Then I got Bobby Flay's book The Mesa Grill Cookbook and there it was! Best of all, Bobby included a place to order Prickly Pear Cactus Syrup. I went to www.cherisdesertharvest.com and ordered the biggest bottle they had. FedEx delivered it and I kept it for Cinco de Mayo.

Using Bobby's recipe, I mixed two parts Tequila, with one part Triple Sec, one part Cheri's Desert Harvest Prickly Pear Cactus Syrup, and the juice from half a lime in a pitcher. Then came the best part. I brought "Snowie" out for the summer season. A few Father's Days ago, Dorothy got me a commercial grade snow cone machine! It may be the best gift I ever got. Its official name is "Snowie Little Blizzard," but we just call it Snowie for short.

You put ice cubes in the top of Snowie, turn it on and it throws out snow cone ice. Then I poured my Cactus Pear margarita mix from the pitcher over the ice and threw in another slice of lime. It was like I was back on the river in San Antonio again!

For the Avocado Salad and Fajita trimmings, I rounded up the freshest ingredients that I could find. Since it was Cinco de Mayo, I wanted as much stuff from Mexico as possible - everything you see here came from Mexico except the red onion. The Chunky and Crunchy Avocado Salad was made with Haas Avocados, diced tomatoes, black olives, cumin, smoked paprika, white wine vinegar, olive oil, parsley, kosher salt and ground black peppercorns. I scooped out the avocados with a mellon baller, mixed it all together and then before serving crunched up some blue corn tortilla chips over the top. I got the butcher to get me a cut of skirt steak - the only kind of steak that you should really use for fajitas. The only problem with skirt steak is that it can be tough if you don't marinade it and grill it correctly. I marinaded the skirt steak for six hours and grilled over low heat - it turned out tender and juicy. The marinade was olive oil, red wine vinegar, garlic, kosher salt, ground pepper and a dash of cayenne. I kept the marinade and basted the skirt steak while it sizzled on the grill.

Wisdom of the Grill: It is imperative that you allow the skirt steak to rest after it comes off the grill. If you cut into the steak right away, the juices will just run out on you. Wait at least 4 or 5 minutes and then, for skirt steak fajitas cut the steak in thin slices across the grain of the meat. Which way is the grain? On some steaks it is not easy to see, but you will have no problem seeing the direction of the meat grain on the skirt steak.

After I turned the skirt steak over, I placed it on a higher grill grate to reduce the heat and slow down the grill time to insure tenderness. That also gave room to put the fajita trimmings on the grill. I sliced long-ways a green, a yellow and a red bell pepper, a poblano chili and a red onion. All this went into a container with olive oil, salt, pepper, ancho chili powder and lime juice and sat for about an hour before I dump the mixture into a grill skillet. The grill skillet has small holes across it to allow the heat and flame through. The peppers and onion got crispy and slightly charred - just how you want it. I put it all together. The Skirt Steak Fajitas, the Avocado Salad and the Cactus Pear Margarita - Cinco de Mayo!

There are more great grilling dates to come, so check in occasionally at Bobby Flay Everyday! But whatever you do - fire up and Grill It! Paul

One Hundred

2010-04-10T07:28:00.000-07:00

Wow! What do you think about the glaze on this salmon? This is Red Chili-Honey Glazed Salmon with Black Bean Sauce. The recipe can be found on page 116 of Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill Cookbook. The preparation of a smoked salmon always starts for me at Tag'z Five Star Meats. Mike and Trisha Taglio run the best butcher shop anywhere and their products have been the star of the show here on Bobby Flay Everyday since day one! Please check out their new website at http://www.tagz5starmeats.com/

When I got home with the salmon, I started by soaking a cedar plank and making the Black Bean sauce. It is sort of like refried beans - but so much more. You put it together in a processor. The ingredients are black beans, onion, garlic, adobo sauce, ground cumin, olive oil and Kosher salt. The processor whips the mix into a paste, which I set aside, but later I baked with Monterey Jack cheese melting over the top. The salmon glaze came next. It was honey, ancho chili powder, Dijon mustard, Kosher salt and fresh ground pepper. I whipped all that together in a small pan and took it out to the grill. When we were ready to light the fire, I scored the top of the salmon in a diagonal pattern so that the glaze could get right down in every groove. I brought the cedar plank out of the water and put it right on the grill. The key here is to let the plank heat up to the point that it is smoking and popping, then flip it over. Put the salmon, skin side down, on the smoking plank and let the grill and the smoke go to work. I closed the grill hood so that the smoke could build up inside. I opened the hood only to brush on more glaze and to get a temperature reading. I like the salmon to reach an internal temperature of 130. This gives you a medium level of doneness - well done is just too done for salmon. It will dry out and even change from that classic orange color to gray if you over cook it - so don't get too far from the grill when the salmon is on the plank. The salmon will reach 130 in about 10 to 15 minutes. When the salmon is right, take a grill spatula and just slide the fish off the plank. The skin will stay on the plank, leaving you with the perfectly grilled salmon filet ready for the plate. We added the Black Bean sauce and some brown rice and we were ready for a feast. You must try this cedar plank method of smoking a salmon. The cost of wild salmon has shot through the roof, but don't let that stop you from trying this. You can save money buying farm raised salmon. Wild salmon is much better than farm raised, but even if you use farm raised salmon, this recipe and plank technique is well worth it!

Well this completes 100 consecutive days of Bobby Flay Everyday and its going to be the last. I kept the grill fires burning through the dead of winter into what most people consider grill season. My coldest grill night was 9 degrees and as you can see from some of the videos that snow and thunderstorms did not stop me. Along the way we learned a whole lot of new grill techniques, new flavors and new spices. We paired up some great wines, listened to an eclectic mix of music and watched the college bowls, the Saints become champions, Duke win the Final Four and we threw out the first pitch of spring training - all from over the grill. Now its your turn. Take these recipes, tips and wisdoms of the grill and put them to your own test. I will keep grilling too. I plan to go back and grill again some of my favorites from the past 100 days on the grill. Plus there are dozens of great Bobby Flay grill recipes that we never even got to - you can find them all in Bobby's great books. Hopefully this summer, Dorothy and I will make a trip to New York and if we do you can bet I'm going to eat at Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill - the home of so many great grill memories. So as Bobby says at the end of his show - "Just Grill It!"

Thanks, Paul

Spicy Quesadillas

2010-04-09T12:10:00.000-07:00

Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill Cookbook (page 82) brings us Spicy Chicken with Caramelized Onion Quesadillas with Mixed Tomato Salsa. This was quick and easy. Great for a weeknight after work. The chicken was grilled over direct heat, but at a low setting. The onions, also over direct heat. The salsa was just chopped tomatoes, lime juice, garlic, chopped jalapeno chilies, cilantro, salt and pepper. When the chicken was done I sliced both the chicken and onions into strips. With everything ready, I assembled everything together in a whole wheat tortilla and added shredded Monterey Jack cheese. It was not too spicy, but the quesadillas did have a kick. The whole meal took less that 20 minutes to prepare - so like I said a great, fast weeknight grill.

Weather Report. Pollen. Where we are the tree pollen is everywhere. I heard that the especially cold and wet winter we had has made the kick-off of allergy season worse. Thunderstorms rolled through the other night and cleared the air some - but that yellow pollen didn't wash all away completely - instead it piled up between the bricks in the courtyard. The storms did bring cooler weather - great grilling weather! Paul

California Burger

2010-04-08T13:58:00.000-07:00

The California Burger! from Bobby Flay's Burgers, Fries & Shakes, page 34. Check out that avocados relish on top of this burger. It was made with Haas Avocados, onion, lime juice, and cilantro. The burger was grilled the Bobby Flay way with canola oil, coarse Kosher salt and ground black pepper over the outside and nothing but beef on the inside. I used the basting pan method to melt the cheese. The basting method is really the only way to get the cheese perfectly melted. After the burger turns (and you only turn a burger once), lay the cheese over the burger top and cover the burger with a pan. The pan has to be tall enough so that it does not actually touch any part of the burger, but the grill heat gets trapped in the pan. This delivers equal heat on all sides of the burger and completely melts the cheess. In this case the cheese was a Colby-Jack.

It was a great coincidence that while I was preparing the California Burgers that a delivery from California was made to our house. It was this month's package from the Wine of the Month Club!

Our friend Paul Kalemkiarian, of the Original Wine of the Month Club, in Monrovia, California makes some terrific selections every month. And look, this month he also sent along a Wine of the Month Club binder so I can keep all his newsletters handy. Where I live in Tennessee, we just don't have access to as many different wines and the rest of the country, so Paul's Wine of the Month Club is double great for us. We get to try wines that we otherwise would never be able to get. Go to their website and check them out: http://www.wineofthemonthclub.com/
You really should consider joining this club - even if you are not in Tennessee, but especially if you are!

The arrival of this month's Wine of the Month Club package was cause for celebration. I mentioned this on a previous blog, but I believe I am growing the world's smallest vineyard - three plants. Here it is last January and here it is today. The leaves have just appeared this week.

This is the third year of these vines. This is the year they are supposed to produce grapes - but we will see if they actually do. They are Sangiovese, the grape that makes Chainti. If we do get grapes, I am not really sure what to do with them!

I think I will stick to grilling, not wine making! Paul

Cuban-Style Pork

2010-04-07T12:27:00.000-07:00

Direct from Bobby Flay's television show Grill It! (Sunday mornings on the Food Network) this is Cuban-Style Pork with Grilled Roma Tomato and Basil Pesto. This was an excellent blend of flavors! I bought some butterfly cut, bonelss pork chops and when I got them home I pounded them. Using a mallet and with the chops under wax paper, I pounded until the chops flattened out to about 1/4 inch thick. I took careful notes while watching the TV show and put together a marinade of lime juice, orange juice, garlic and oregano. The thin chops were in the marinade a little over an hour. When we were ready for the grill, I layered in swiss cheese, black forest ham, and kosher dill pickles. That's right pickle went right into the chops before going to the grill. Because the chops were butterfly cut and flattened out they folded over easily around the stuffing. I brushed the outside of the chops with canola oil and they went right on the grill. Also from my notes, I cut two roma tomatoes in half longways and scooped out the inside. With the inside scooped out the long tomatoes looked like canoes. I filled the canoe with chopped basil, olive oil, garlic, parsansean cheese and mozzarella cheese. After the chops turned on the grill the tomatoes went on an upper grill rack - the romas got tender and all the cheese melted - it was a great side dish. When the pork was done (I wanted an internal temperature of about 160) I took them off and sliced the pork into strips. You can see the ham, pickles and swiss cheese oozing from this pork sandwich with no bread. I topped it all off with some cilantro, lime and orange juice, olive oil, Kosher salt and ground pepper.

What to Drink? A cool afternoon, under the gazebo sipping wine. It was a Chardonnay and Pinot Grigio blend from Tuscany - The Banfi LeRime. It was unseasonably warm, so this really was special. Usually a blend like this would have a distinct citrus flavor. Since the Cuban pork was marinated in citrus juices, I thought it would go together well - and it would have if any of the wine had been left when dinner was served!

Afternoon sipping wine and evening grill fires - the perfect pairing. Paul

Championship Chicken

2010-04-06T12:59:00.000-07:00

Grilled Chicken Burgers with Green Onion Mayo direct from Bobby Flay's Grilling for Life page 114. This is a great twist on the traditional burger. It was light, but had great flavor. Lets face it chicken by itself is pretty boring - you gotta jazz it up some. The jazz in this case was a marinade of Dijon mustard, canola oil, chipotle, lime juice, honey, chopped green onions and cilantro. I cut some chicken breast thin and into sections that would fit on a bun. The chicken sat in the marinade for about an hour. I did not rinse off the marinade when it was time to go to the grill, but let it stay on thick. I used indirect heat, by placing the chicken on foil over the grill. The marinade cooked right in as the chicken grilled. It didn't take long since I had cut the chicken thin - about 5 minutes on each side. I got some green onions at the store - the kind that are white at the end and green through the stem. The recipe called for both white and green parts, so I chopped up several stems for both the marinade and the Mayo. I mixed the chopped green onion parts with regular mayo, but added garlic, lime juice, Kosher salt and ground pepper. You really can't see the green onions in the mayo in the photo above, but trust me this was mayo with a tangy kick. I assembled the Chicken Burgers on grill-toasted whole wheat buns, with two chicken pieces, a slice of swiss cheese, lettuce and the Green Onion Mayo. It was a quick grill-meal that turned out to be great game food.

National Championship. This was probably the best final game in years. I went in pulling for Duke - they were the only team that I picked for the Final Four that actually made it to the final game. But I must admit, if Gordon Heywood would have hit that last half-court shot to win the championship, it would have been terrific. It just bounce away. But the reason it was such a great game was that every player left everything they had on the floor and it was not decided by a silly mistake. Remember when Georgetown lost when Fred Brown accidently threw the ball to James Worthy (North Carolina) denying a winning shot opportunity. Michael Jordan hit the shot that put the Tarheels up by one before that last infamous play. And Remember when Chris Webber called a Michigan timeout in the last seconds of the championship game against (again) North Carolina. The problem was that Michigan had used up all their timeouts. The mistake was a technical foul that lead to Tarheel free throws and possesion of the ball - sealing the victory. So, its great that the game last night will be remembered for great team play and heart, not a silly mistake. I didn't try it but I bet that if you Google Fred Brown, that pass will come up. He made thousands of passes and great plays before, but he will always be remembered for that one silly mistake. The stakes are high when history is on the line. If you don't think one second in the title game can change a life, just Google Lorenzo Charles and see what comes up - "the dunk heard round the world." I still think Whittenburg was taking a shot - not making a pass. But whatever his true intent, it became the greatest pass and dunk play in history. NC State. Coach Jimmy V. Immortal. If Heywood's half-court shot had fallen threw the net last night - it would have topped them all. I am happy Coach K got #4 - but one shot for immortality? That would have meant more.

Go out and grill like a champion! Paul

BBQ Ribs

2010-04-05T12:47:00.000-07:00

Try not to drool on your computer over these Espresso-Rubbed BBQ Ribs with Mustard-Vinegar Basting Sauce - from Bobby Flay's Grilling for Life page 151. BBQ Ribs are tough to beat normally, but this rub and sauce made them truely unbeatable. The dry rub was made with ground espresso beans, ancho chili powder, paprika, dark brown sugar, dry mustard, ground cumin, dried oregano, ginger, cayenne, Kosher salt and ground black pepper. I brushed the ribs with olive oil first then spread on the rub - using the back of a spoon to really work it in. I set the grill on low heat and placed the ribs on foil to provide indirect heat. I closed the grill hood and walked away - for about a hour. The key to great ribs is to go "low and slow." Low heat for a long time. During that first hour I made the sauce: grilled onion, garlic, red wine vinegar, sugar, Dijon mustard, coriander seeds and Worcestershire sauce. Those ingredients went into the small sauce pan one at a time over the grill. After the first hour, I started brushing on the sauce about every 15 minutes. The ribs were on the grill a total of 2 hours and 15 minutes. The photo was taken, with the sauce still in the pan, at about 2 hours in. While I was slaving over the ribs (actually I had my feet up with a drink in hand), Dorothy pulled out a Bobby Flay recipe for coleslaw from Grill It! The hot spicy ribs and the cool coleslaw were a perfect match! I can't make ribs all that often, just because of the time it takes, but when you can plan the time, these are well worth the wait!

Play ball! Major League Baseball started yesterday, with most of the opening day games today. I always pull for the Atlanta Braves and have for decades. I actually used to listen to the games on WSM radio when Hank Aaron was playing. I don't admit that much because it is starting to sound a little like saying "I walked to school, three miles in the snow, uphill both ways!" But I listened on the radio and kept a score card long before Aaron (the only true homerun king) hit #715. Then TBS put all the Braves games on cable TV and they because "Americas Team" in the 1980s since they (and the Cubs) were the only teams seen every night coast to coast. Then came the great pitchers - Glavin, Avery, Smoltz and later Maddox. Its a shame they only won one title with that crew. Now they are not on TV all the time and they are on different networks, so they are harder to follow. I will still keep an eye on them and hopefully catch a game or two in ATL this summer.

Congratulations to the Nashville Predators for making the NHL playoffs! Today it hit 80 degrees for the first time! Drop the puck, play ball and light the grill - its officially spring! Paul

Twice Grilled Peppers

2010-04-04T15:09:00.000-07:00

These look great and tastes better! From Bobby Flay's Grilling for Life, page 54, this is Twice-Grilled Peppers with Buffalo Mozzarella and Caper-Basil Vinaigrette. We were going out, so we used this great recipe as a pre-concert appetizer. The key was the twice-grilled technique. I got one yellow, one orange and two red bell peppers. I removed one grill grate and lit the fire. With one of the two grill grates gone, the direct flame was exposed. I placed the peppers right down in the flame. On a previous blog, I showed the step-by-step method for roasting perfect bell peppers (complete with photos) - but here it is again: The peppers go right into the flame. Turn them several times so that all sides of the pepper become black with char. Bring them off the flame and immediately into a plastic sealable bag. Let them sit in the bag and cool - condensation will form on the inside of the bag. In about 15 minutes the peppers will have cooled enough to handle them. Take them out and slide your thumbs across the charred surface - the char and the outside skin will just slide off leaving the original color underneath. In this case, I sliced the peppers into strips and took out the seeds. This is a roasted pepper and they taste great just like this - but the twice-grilled recipe called for the peppers to crisp up a bit, so back to the grill they went. This time I used the grill grate on the other side, laying out the pepper strips until they went from tender to slightly crispy. This was best of both worlds - roasted and grilled. Meanwhile I made the vinaigrette. It was red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, garlic, Kosher salt, ground pepper, olive oil, a few capers and basil leaves. I added fresh (not from a shrink wrap package) Buffalo Mozzarella to the peppers and spooned on the vinaigrette - perfect!

The Concert? Train at the Ryman. The group Train is from San Francisco and their music is the kind that you instantly recognize when you hear it, even if you didn't know it was from Train. Their music is on television (CSI New York) and in commercials. It was a great show. Go to their website and listen - you will recognize most of what you hear - even if you don't know the song's name or even who Train is.
http://www.trainline.com/us/home

The concert was at the historic Ryman Auditorium. If you are not familiar, the Ryman was the long-time home of the Grand Ole Opery. The Opery still performs there in the winter months. The Ryman was built in 1892. Now here is the thing. When you go to the Ryman you need to get caught up in the history of the place. You need to keep in mind that every country music legend and a surprising number of non-country legends have played there for over a 100 years. You must keep all this in mind to take your mind off the fact that its really not a very good venue. The stage is on the side of the room, not at one end, so unless you are sitting right in front of the stage, you will never see the drummer in the back. Once we say the Los Lonely Boys at the Ryman - another great concert. Mid-way through the lead signer said, "It is our great privilege to welcome a special unexpected guest to the stage - Ronnie Milsap!" We never saw him. He never came forward on the stage and we were sitting on the side. I don't know for sure if he was really there. You should try to get seats in the balcony, because the main floor is mostly flat and the overhanging balcony makes it seem that you are watching the stage through a slit. There are no individual chairs - its all church pews. Part of the reason its called the "mother church." I guess people in the 1800s were shorter than we are today, because the pews are too close together for any comfort. I am just under six feet tall. After a Ryman concert I have a red mark across my knees from the pew just in front. All that being said, you still should make a show at the Ryman once in your life. The room is small, compared to arena shows, so you really do get to see the artists up close (at least when they come to the front of the stage!). I have never passed on a show that I really wanted to see because it was at the Ryman - so I guess the limited view and limited space is a small price to pay. Check it out at http://www.ryman.com/

Plenty of space for more grilling! Paul

Blue Cheese Burger

2010-04-04T13:43:00.000-07:00

Direct from Bobby Flay's Grill It! (page 50) this is a Blue Cheese Sirloin Burger! You can get more fancy on the grill, but you can't get much better than a burger from the grill. I used the Bobby Flay burger technique for the perfect burger - No fillers. Nothing is mixed into the meat. No tomatoes. No bread crumbs, no onion, nothing. When you do that eventually (according to Bobby) "you are just making meat loaf." Instead you get some quality ground beef, in this case ground sirloin, and add only canola oil, kosher salt and ground pepper to the outside of the burger patty. Make a crater in one side of the patty. This is Bobby's technique for preventing the burger to bulge in the middle. As we have said several times here at Bobby Flay Everyday, there is actually no problem with a bulging burger - its just the juices inside - but some people cannot resist the temptation to press the burger bulge down flat with a spatula. If you do that all those great juices just go to waste and you end up with a dry burger. That is why under no circumstances do you press down on a burger - its just not done. In this case, the burger was topped with blue cheese that I sliced off a wedge and melted over the burger. Terrific! We also prepared a cobb salad since it also has blue cheese. This was a great, light, early spring meal off the grill.

The final four is set. Duke and Butler. Butler is a great story - small school (4,200 students), playing for the championship in their hometown, a coach that looks like a grad assistant - but I will still pull for Duke. I don't really understand why Duke is the school that everyone loves to hate. Yes, in order to attend Duke you must either have a better than 75% 3-point jumpshot or a trust fund. But Coach K always puts a team on the court that plays with great fundamentals, stays out of jail, and more often than not graduates. I can't hate a team that works hard, takes a charge, runs actual plays on the court and has a coach that wants to be there. Coach K could have been an NBA coach years ago (remember when we was courted by the Lakers! That would have been a match made in hell). Coach K make more than $4 million a year, but he didn't start that way. He started like the Butler coach (his name is Brad Stevens by the way) at a school that nobody thought of as a basketball school, and worked his way up. If Butler's coach, stays at Butler after the championship game, then I will be his biggest fan and hope he can do there what Coach K has done at Duke.

It will be a great finish and a great story no matter which team wins. Its not like that every year, so we celebrate on the grill. Blue Cheese is not actually blue - but blue is the team color of both Butler and Duke - maybe we call these Championship Blue Cheese Burgers!
Paul

Filet Mignon Nirvana

2010-04-02T12:57:00.000-07:00

Grill Nirvana: Defined as reaching perfection with the grill; being one with the grill; finding inner peace via the grill. Grill Nirvana is achieved only after the griller has gained the wisdom of perfect grill clarity. This highest level of spiritual attainment can be reached with Bobby Flay's Black Pepper and Molasses-Glazed Filet Mignon (Boy Meets Grill, page 150). This must be in the top five Bobby Flay recipes that I have grilled to date. Just take a look at that perfect crust and that perfect glaze. This Filet Mignon was cuttable with a fork. I started by brushing olive oil on the filets and dusted them with Kosher salt and ground black peppercorns. When the filets hit the grill, I had the heat up high to sear the meat and get that pepper-crush started. But quickly I lowered the heat and let the filet grill/bake to insure it kept that classic filet tenderness. When the filets turned, I brushed on the Molasses Glaze (more on that in a moment). The heat was high enough to caramelize the glaze into the meat, but not so high that the glaze would burn. On the other side of the grill I laid asparagus crossways over the grill grates. I used Bobby's asparagus grilling techniques and his recipe that uses ground pepper, olive oil and feta cheese (Grill It! page 12). Filet Mignon is usually a small, but thick cut of meat, so be careful to get it cooked all the way through with prolonged, low heat. I was aiming for an internal temperature of about 140 - just past medium. That temperature proved to be perfect.

The Glaze. Filet Mignon is known to be very tender, but not always that flavorful, so the glaze made all the difference. I chopped onions, garlic and gingerroot and one-after-the-other let them cook in olive oil in a sauce pan on the grill. Then I added - are you ready - Dark Rum from Barbados. We try to pick up rums from different Caribbean countries when we visit. We have Tortuga from Grand Caymen. We have Appleton from Jamaica. We have Monte Gay from Barbados. We even have some Havana Club from Cuba. For this recipe I used Cockspur from Barbados. The aroma of that rum reducing down with the ginger, garlic and onions was almost as good as the Filet Mignon itself. When the rum had boiled down almost to dry, I added a little orange juice and a lot of molasses.

The aroma was even better than before! The Molasses-Rum reduced down even further with constant stirring. As I said before, when the filets turned, I brushed this glaze all over them and I must admit that before they were all the way done, I dipped the filets into the sauce pan to soak up all the remaining glaze. None of this could go to waste!

All the grill recipes here on Bobby Flay Everyday come from Bobby's many grill books. I will always give you the book and the page number where you can find - and hopefully duplicate the grill recipes I try here. And remember you can buy the books and DVDs through this website. Check out the lower right side of the page - link to Amazon from here - get some of Bobby's books and then follow along!

I don't know if I can top this grill nirvana experience - but I will keep trying! Paul

Spanish Spice Steaks

2010-04-01T08:25:00.000-07:00

From Grill It! by Bobby Flay (page 34), this is Spanish Spice-Rubbed Steak with Red Wine Vinegar Steak Sauce. There are very few things better in this world than a sizzling New York Strip on the grill! About 15 minutes before grill time, I took the steaks out of the fridge. The steaks came from Tag'z Five Star Meats earlier in the day, so they had not been in the fridge very long, but you still want to bring them to near room temperature before they hit the grill. I put together the Spanish Spice rub with paprika, cumin, dry mustard, ground pepper and just a little olive oil. With the back of a spoon I rubbed the spices into one side of the meat. With spices this big, you shouldn't rub on both sides - one side is plenty - remember it's the steak, not the spices that should be the star of the show. The steak sauce took a little longer, but was well worth the time. I first roasted some red bell peppers, then chopped them up. Into a processor went the red peppers, red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, honey, molasses, Worcestershire, Kosher salt and ground pepper. The processor turned all of this into a thin sauce - but I didn't want a thin sauce, so I put it all in a small pan over the grill and let it reduce down until thick. You can see the consistency of the sauce in the photo and also see that red pepper color. It was all excellent together - steak - sauce - rub!

Wisdom of the grill. With a little knowledge and some practice you can get a lot of function out of a grill. It doesn't have to be just meat over flame. A grill can be like an oven, like a fryer, like a toaster and it can also be a steamer. The veggies in the photo were steamed on the grill. Given a choice between veggies and a hunk of meat - I take the meat. I think veggies are just garnish to the real meal. But if you must do veggies, you should at least do them right. I first took green beans, carrots, califlower and brocoli, put some butter spray over them, added salt and ground pepper and tossed them in my open grill skillet. Its an "open" skillet because it has small holes all over the bottom to allow direct heat up through. The veggies stayed in the skillet only a short time. I pulled out two sheets of foil, added more butter spray and then scooped the veggies onto the center of the foil. I added more butter, salt and pepper, then folded the foil over enclosing the veggies in a packet. The packets went right back on the grill. After about two minutes I flipped the packets and poked holes in the top of the foil with a fork. When I did this steam came streaming out of the holes. I left the packets on the grill - steaming - for another five minutes. Be careful when you unfold the foil - the remaining steam will be ready to escape. The veggies went right from foil packets to the plate in one step. We have a regular, in-house, veggie steamer, but when we use it the veggie flavor seems to leave with the steam, and its difficult to season the veggies over boiling water. The on-the-grill foil method traps the flavor and holds the seasoning. Like I said, if you must have veggies, you might as well do it right!

Grilling - its all about doing it right! Paul

Flight Test Chicken

2010-03-31T12:33:00.000-07:00

Grilled Chicken Salad Sandwich with Whole Grain Mustard Mayo and Grilled Rye & Pump Bread from Boy Meets Grill page 79. This is a great, fast, week-night grill recipe. I grilled thin slices of chicken breast on the grill with butter spray, salt and ground pepper - thats all. Meanwhile I mixed the dressing that would turn this into a grilled chicken salad. It was mayo, whole grain mustard, chopped celery, red onion, lemon juice, parsley and thyme. When the chicken came off the grill, I let it rest and cool, then sliced it across the grain into chunks. The chicken chunks went into the dressing and got all stirred up. The Rye and Pumpernickel bread was sprayed with butter and put right on the grill until the slices were toasted but not crispy. I added the bacon - because everything is better with bacon. On the side was a Kosher dill pickle and a beefsteak tomato with mozzarella, parm and oregano. It only took 30 minutes from start to finish.

Weather Report. Great flying weather. And a great day for some flight testing experiments.

That is the wing of a Diamond DA20 airplane that I was flying this morning. As a class experiment, a student taped down strips of yarn all over the wing as you can see in the photo. In this shot the airflow is pushing the yarn straight back and in straight lines. We did several maneuvers that made those yarn tufts dance. At various times the yarn stood up, or went round-and-round, and even bent forward depending on what I was doing with the rest of the airplane. What was doing including slow flight, inverted flight, stalls and multiple turn spins. I have no still shots of all that, because I was too busy getting back right side up to take any photos, but we shot HD video from a mounted camera down the wing to see all the action. And what is that red funnel doing trailing the wing? On the way to the airport, I stopped by a hardware store and picked up two funnels. We attached the funnel to each wingtip with fishing line. We were hoping that the funnels would get caught up in the "wingtip vortex" and spin around in that airflow. It worked. You can't tell that it is twirling in this still shot, but the video captured it. I will be using these videos and more for training advanced pilots about "unusual attitudes" and, most importantly how to escape from a bad situation. I wish those pilots in Buffalo last year had taken my course.

Deliberately throwing an airplane out of control, just to bring it back is pretty exciting - time for something a little more relaxing - Time to fire up the grill! Paul

Green Chili & Red Pepper Stuffed Chicken

2010-03-30T10:00:00.000-07:00

You gotta try this one! Its Grilled Chicken Breasts stuffed with Cheese and Green Chili-Cilantro sauce from Bobby Flay's Grilling for Life page 124. I started by chopping up poblano chilies, a red onion and two garlic cloves, then added lime juice, honey, olive oil, kosher salt and ground pepper into a processor. I added cilantro after the entire mixture was blended into a chucky sauce. I put the sauce aside and then went to work on the stuffing. It was mozzarella and feta cheese, with chopped black olives, roasted and chopped red peppers, thyme, and olive oil. When I was at the store, I found some thin sliced chicken breasts - about a 1/4 inche at their thickest point. The thin chicken slices were the base where I spooned on the stuffing. Then I rolled up the chicken with the stuffing inside, tieing it off with a wire. It looked like a chicken canoli! I grilled the rolled chicken first with direct heat to get the outside char and later with indirect heat to bake the chicken through. Once on the plate, I sliced it across the middle and spooned on the Poblano-Cilantro sauce. Yes it was spicy - but the lime juice and honey balanced the poblanos, onions and cilantro. Like I said, you gotta try this one!

What was on? Sugarland. The group that goes by the name Sugarland is Jennifer Nettles and some other guy. I am sure that "the other guy" is really good, but lets face it - this group is nowhere without Nettles. I am not a huge country music fan -even after growing up in Nashville, but I know what I like no matter what the label. Sugarland is good stuff and great in concert too. We saw them at last summer's CMA festival. Check then out at http://www.sugarlandmusic.com/
Try to figure out who the other guy is and ask yourself - did this guy make some kind of deal with the devil to be on the same stage with Jennifer Nettles?

Back to the grill stage! Paul

Pepper-Olive Salmon

2010-03-29T11:49:00.000-07:00

From Grilling for Life by Bobby Flay (page 100), this is Grilled Salmon and Peppers with Black Olive Relish. Properly grilled Salmon is just so good - and as an added bonus, its healthy. I used the cedar plank technique again. You can see the plank smoking a salmon on the grill on a previous blog entry. You soak the plank for several hours, held underwater in the sink. Bring it out of the water and right to the grill. Let one side of the plank heat up to the point where it starts smoking and popping. Turn the plank over and place the salmon, skin-side down on the smoldering plank. Close the grill hood and let the grill and the smoke go to work. It reaches an internal temperature of about 130 in less than 20 minutes. The only seasoning on the salmon when on the plank for this recipe was canola oil, kosher salt and ground pepper. Before the plank hit the grill, I sliced up some red & yellow bell peppers. I had them in a pan with canola oil over the grill to cook and become tender. When the peppers were done I stirred them into a bowl with the black olives, garlic, parsley, thyme, red winr vinegar, and honey. Properly grilled peppers (either roasted, direct heat or indirect heat) have a slightly sweet taste, but when you mix in this Black Oil Relish - which includes honey - they really becomes tangy. Eventually the Peppers and Olive relish topped the salmon. The tangy relish with that peppery salmon was terrific. Another grill recipe you must try!

I successfully picked only one of the Final Four - Duke. The brackets were very unpredictable this year, but I think that is a okay. Good thing the grill is so predictable! Paul

Final Four Wings

2010-03-28T14:15:00.000-07:00

Game time is wing time. These are Chipotle-Honey-Glazed Chicken Wings with Toasted Sesame Seeds and Green Onion from Grill It! page 79. These were the perfect combination of heat and sweet that produced tangy wings with a kick. I don't especially like super spicy wings that are extra spicy just so they can claim to be the hottest. I don't like them if they are named "three mile island" or "lava flow" wings. These Bobby Flay wings had chipotle, cumin, ancho chili, paprika and coriander, so it had its share of heat, but they also had canola oil, honey and Dijon mustard to balance with sweet. I will stack these wings up against any at any wing joint from coast to coast - they are perfect. I brushed on the glaze after the wings made their last turn on the grill. I did this last because I didn't want the honey to burn. Then when they came off I spooned on more of the glaze. I toasted the sesame seeds and onion in a small sauce pan and sprinkled them on over the glazed wings to finish it off. These wings were worthy of a championship.

The Final Four. My bracket has only one possible Final Four team left.

Duke plays later today, and even though this is the 18th anniversary of Laettner's shot to beat Kentucky, they could still lose to Baylor. If that happens, I will have missed the entire Final Four. I don't think that has happened in 25 years. I used to run a NCAA pole back in the late 1980s and early 1990s in North Carolina with my college students. For one dollar, a student would draw a name out of a hat. The names were of the 64 teams in the NCAA tournament that year. That generated $64. These were all pilot students. Back then you could rent an airplane for about $35/hour, so the student who pulled out the team that ultimately won the championship would get one free hour of flight time. The rest of the money went to a scholarship fund. One year we ran three different contests. This method was probably illegal, since technically it was gambling inside a state college - but we called it a "drawing" not a "lottery" and we always got away with it. Flight time for basketball - a pretty good deal. Of course that was also back when college basketball really was college basketball. Now the NCAA is just the junior varsity for the NBA. Kentucky, with its freshman starters bound for this year's NBA draft, lost - so they are one-and done. You can't create a dynasty (and a true following) with players who are on your team only one year. So maybe all these NCAA upsets have been a good thing. It would be nice to see a college basketball player hoist the championship trophy in his senior year. It would be nice to see a real student athlete cut down the nets after working and studying for four years, instead of a kid in his second semester making a cut and run. But on the other hand, college is supposed to prepare students for a productive and profitable career. If a 19 year old, with two semesters under his belt can make $50 million (more money in one year than a pilot will make in a lifetime of protecting the safety of others), then I guess college did its job. Nevertheless, since all my teams are out, I will support the team with the most seniors and a coach without a multi-million dollar shoe deal. Go Butler?!

Grilling always puts you in the Final Four - regardless of your year in school or grade point average.
Paul

French Chicken Salad Sandwiches

2010-03-27T13:36:00.000-07:00

Grilled Chicken Nicoise Sandwiches from Bobby Flay's Grill It! page 258. This is really just a jazzed up chicken salad sandwich with one difference from the actual recipe. I used grilled chicken instead of grilled tuna. I figured tuna was the chicken of the sea - but I was on dry land - so I went with chicken instead. But no matter if you use chicken or tuna, what made these sandwiches terrific was the dressing and the bread. Bobby reports that this recipe is reminiscent of a classic that originated in Nice, France. The dressing was olive oil, red onion, lemon juice, honey, cayenne, garlic and mayo. I mixed this all up together and set it aside while I grilled the chicken breast filets. I used indirect heat on the chicken, which means it takes a little longer, but insures that it will be tender. When the chicken was ready I brought it off the grill and let cool on a cutting board. I thinly sliced the chicken when it was cool enough to handle and then shredded the pieces. Next came the dressing - I poured it on and stirred it in. The chicken soaked up the dressing as I added basil, salt and some capers. The capers (little pea shaped pods) added a salty taste - but I didn't mix in too many. I lightly toasted a two foot long French baguette and then sliced it long-ways and then across into four sandwiches. Then came the chicken/dressing combination. I stuffed the sandwiches as you can see and it was a feast ready to go.

Since this was a sandwich with origins in France, I thought it would be fitting to included a little French wine.

Here are two special bottles of French wine. They are special because they are from France. You think I'm crazy now right? All French wine is from France and you can pick up as many bottles of French wine as you like in any wine/liquor store. All that is true, but these bottle were actually purchased in France and flown across the Atlantic to my house by a friend of ours who is a Boeing 777 Captain for United Airlines. He makes a couple trips to Paris, France every month. An airliner's captain has a special luggage area where he/she stores their own personal stuff for the flight. These bottles came over in that special cargo hold. When you buy French wine in the U.S. it has been imported by some U.S. company and has some English on the label that lets you know who imported it. Not these bottles. There is no English on these, because they were not imported via an American company. Now after telling you all this, it is difficult to say that we did not open either bottle to drink with our French inspired sandwiches. I just couldn't open them - not yet. The story of their Atlantic crossing needs more time to age. We ended up having an American Chardonnay from Hogue with the chicken salad and it was great.

In general we prefer American wines to French wines. I certainly am not an expert and my opinion is not worth much, but the French (old world) wines seem dull in color and flavor when compared to American wines. The American (new world) wines are called "fruit forward" because you really can taste the fruit whereas French wines are, like I said, more understated (dull). The French wines kind of taste like they have been down in a musty, dusty cellar - and there are thousands of people that prefer that - to each his own!

Speaking of French and American wines - you need to watch the movie Bottle Shock if you have nit already. It is the 1970's story of when an American wine beat a French wine for the first time and put California on the wine map. We take it for granted that America wine is world class, but it was not always so. Watch Bottle Shock and learn the story. You can get the DVD and a bottle of the wine that made history from my friends at Wine of the Month Club. Go to: http://www.wineofthemonthclub.com/product/bsp/wine-gift-baskets

More New World wines and New World Grilling on the way!

Paul

Thunderstorm Grilled Chicken

2010-03-26T09:30:00.000-07:00

Take a look! Grilled Chicken Cutlets with Lemon, Black Pepper and Arugula-Tomato Salad from Bobby Flay's Grilling for Life, page 120. This is an easy mid-week meal, so give this a try sometime on a Wednesday or Thursday. When I got home from work, I first pounded the chicken. I put regular boneless chicken breasts between two sheets of wax paper and hit it a hundred times with a mallet. This is a good stress relieving exercise after just getting home from work! The pounding flattened out the chicken into thin cutlets which were great later for quick grilling. Following Bobby's instructions, I marinated the cutlets with chopped shallots, lemon juice, olive oil, lots of ground pepper and I threw in some red wine vinegar. I put the cutlets in the mixture, then turned them over to insure they were coated and put them in the fridge. Then I watched the first part of the first NCAA game. After about an hour in the marinade, I took the chicken to the grill and put them over flames. I turned the cutlets after only a couple of minutes. I wanted that high heat to sear the meat and get those great grill marks, but then I moved the chicken to a cooler part of the grill to allow some indirect heat to cook the chicken through. This technique produces a crispy outside, but keeps the inside tender and juicy. It is easy to over grill a thin piece of chicken. If you over grill you end up with a dry piece of leather. Preparing the salad took just a few minutes as the chicken finished off. The salad is just lettuce, sliced tomato and shaved parmesan cheese with olive oil and red wine vinegar over the top. The whole meal - from pounding to plate took less time than it took Butler to upset Syracuse. My broken bracket suffers more busting.

If you have not done so already, check out the lower right side of this page. There you will find all the great Bobby Flay grill books, used here on Bobby Flay Everyday! Pick up a couple of these books and follow along. I will always give you the book and page reference for every grill feast. And if you purchase through this blog site, you get a discount from Amazon.

Weather Report. Springtime in Tennessee - which means noisy weather!

Cold air and warm air do not play well together. The warm air had settled in over the past several days, so when some colder air came sweeping through at grill time, a battle ensued. The warm air is lighter (think of a hot air balloon rising when heat is added into the bottom of the balloon), so when the thicker, colder air approaches, the warm air rises and gets out of the way, which allows the cold air to just slide in underneath. But the rising warm air forms vertical clouds as it is pushed upward and this produces thunderstorms. The line of thunderstorms, as you can see in the photo, is just the rising air on the leading edge of the oncoming cold air. This time of year, its not summer (warm air), but winter (cold air) is not quite over, so the warm and cold shift back and forth jockeying for position like armies across a battle line. This is why the spring across America is thunderstorm and tornado season. The United States is not so far north that it is always cold and not so far south that it is always warm - we are in the middle - between two armies. The thunderstorm and tornados are just collateral damage in the war between warm and cold air. This makes it difficult, but not impossible to grill.

The storm hit just about the time I was firing up the grill. Big drops (like the ones splashing here) means there is more violent turbulence up in the thunderstorm, because the drops get thrown together before they get flushed out the bottom of the cloud. The storm begins with that rising warm air - but what goes up, must come down. Like a fountain, the air and water drops eventually stop going up and start coming back down. When they do, they come down hard and fast. That is also why it gets suddenly cooler under a thunderstorm. The air and the drops that are striking the ground have come from 25 or 30 thousand feet up - and it is always below freezing up that high.

The good news is that lines of thunderstorms pass on leaving behind, cool, clean, fresh air - great grilling weather. Of course, I think every weather is great grilling weather!
Paul

Game Hens

2010-03-25T11:36:00.000-07:00

Cornish Game Hens with Sausage-Wild Rice from Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill Cookbook (page 145)! I know what you are thinking. Isn't Cornish Game Hens a little to high-brow for Bobby Flay Everyday? I thought about that and determined that it was okay because, 1) it is a Bobby Flay recipe and 2) I grilled these guys over an open fire on a turning spit - not in an oven. They did turn out great, but really that wild rice was the star of the show. I started by grilling chopped opnion in canola over in the pan on that upper grate. Then I added sausage chunks, then chicken stock and brought it all to a boil. The cooked wild rice came next with garlic, thyme, more stock and feta cheese. I basted the hens as they turned throughout their grill time with butter and added kosher salt and ground pepper. The hens were done when the internal temperature reached 130 degrees. I cut the hens just like a chicken when I took them off the spit - then piled on that cheese-sausage-wild rice.

Getting ready for the next round of NCAA.

Here is part of my bracket. As you can see, it is a disaster! But I am not alone. I saw that 5.4 million people filled out an electronic bracket on the ESPN site, but going into todays games, only 54 people have a perfectly correct bracket! 54 out of 5.4 million - that means only .00001% are correct. Or said another way, I am among the 99.9999% (including the President) whose bracket has been busted. Two of my Final Four picks, including my pick for National Champion, are still alive - so we will see how it all turns out.

More Hoops and Grill fires on the way!

Paul

Red-Chili Rubbed Salmon

2010-03-24T11:47:00.000-07:00

Red-Chili Rubbed Salmon from Boy Meets Grill, page 92. Just look at this golden salmon smoking on a cedar plank over the grill! This all started with a trip to Tag'z Five Star meats. They had a wild salmon filet that weighed in at five pounds, but they let me get just two, one-pound slices. When I got home, I soaked the cedar plank in the sink and prepared the rub for the salmon. The rub was made with ancho chili powder, cumin, brown sugar, cinnamon and olive oil. The plank went first to the grill with the rough side down. I let the plank start to heat up until it started popping. I flipped the plank over so that the charred and smoking side was up and laid the salmon, skin-side down on the plank. Then I just let the grill and the plank do its work. Close the grill hood, don't turn the salmon, you just let it bake and get surrounded by the cedar smoke. I was shooting for an internal temperature of just about 130 degrees - you can easily overcook salmon leaving you with a dry, non-pink, piece of fish - so watch it carefully. When we got to about 110 degrees, I brushed on the rub. The smell of that cedar smoke and then that chili, brown sugar, cinnamon rub bubbling over the salmon, brought the neighbors out of their homes! You must try smoking a salmon and you must try this Red-Chili rub.

Weather Report. It may finally be spring. And spring reminds me of Spring Training. For several years I completed my annual flight simulator training for a Cessna 404 in Orlando, Florida at Simcom. I would arrange this training during spring break. I told people that I was going during spring break so that I would not miss teaching my classes when the semester was in session - but the real reason was so that I could combine this official trip with some unofficial business: Baseball and Seaplanes. After several long days in the classroom and flight simulator, we would extend our trip a few more days. Friends of mine would also find their way to Orlando for those few days. What was going on?

Spring Training in the Grapefruit League! We would barnstorm the east coast of Florida hopping from one small ballpark to the next - sometimes two games a day. We always saw the Braves, Mets, Nationals, Astros, Marlins, Cardinals, Dodgers and Indians in their springtime home stadiums. Check it all out at
http://www.floridagrapefruitleague.com/
One of our favorite towns and ballparks was not on the coast but in Winter Haven, because not only was it the home of the Cleveland Indians (until they moved to Arizona last year) but also home to Jack Brown's Seaplane Base. Several years ago a friend and I got our seaplane pilot certificates at Jack Browns, then in subsequent years, we would just go fly the floats for fun.

This is me returning from my Commercial Pilot Seaplane flight test. I don't look very happy - but I did pass the test. On a typical Seaplane/Baseball day would start on smooth, glassy water. We would fly, just past dawn with the doors open so we could smell the oranges as we leaped over the groves. Then we would drop into a lake, skim across the water, jump back into the air, hop over a land bridge and splash into another lake. The unique thing about Winter Haven is that it is surrounded by about 30 interconnected lakes. The baseball stadium is even named "Chain of Lakes" stadium. You can make 20 or 25 splash landings in an hour flying around Winter Haven in 20 or 25 different lakes - it is fantastic! Go see the Seaplane Base at http://www.gate.net/~seaplane/index.htm By noon we are ready to go to the ball park. It never mattered which teams were playing or which players we would see. We did see baseball superstars, but we also saw prospects that we had never heard of before. Once in the late innings the Dodgers put a guy on the mound wearing number 168 on his uniform!

I didn't get to do any of that this year and I really miss it. I always looked forward to smelling those oranges from 300 feet up and dodging aligators in those lakes. Going to a baseball game under the hot sun, when it is snowing back home is amazing. I always looked forward to that first long draw of ice cold beer and opening my eyes over a field of green and the crack of a bat. It is a right of spring.

Grilling is a right of spring too, so fire up the grill and play ball!
Paul

Sweet & Sour Grilled Chicken

2010-03-23T12:01:00.000-07:00

Take a look - Sweet and Sour Grilled Chicken! From Bobby Flay's book Grill It! page 77. This recipe really worked - that traditional "sweet-and-sour" tang really jumped out as a glaze over grilled chicken breasts. I started by combining red wine vinegar, white vinegar, pineapple juice, sugar, a few chopped jalapenos and ginger in a pan over the grill. That came to a boil and I let it simmer and thicken for about 30 minutes. When it started becoming the consistency of syrup, I tossed in cilantro and both red and yellow peppers. That all simmered together for another 15 minutes while I grilled the chicken. I used only canola oil, salt and pepper on the chicken and allowed the grill to char the outside while leaving the inside done - but juicy and tender. I brushed some of the glaze on the chicken from the pan when it was still on the grill, but later poured the glaze and peppers over everything!

What to Drink? We went for the Cline Ancient Vines Mourvedre. We have had it before and love it. The bottle said that it would have aromas of Dark Plum, Chocolate and Oak. This reminded me of a question one of you readers asked not long ago. The question was, "If wine is made from grapes, how is it possible for wine to smell and taste like different fruits?" Good question. Fortunately, I have a friend who teaches Virticulture and has an earned doctorate in wine. That's right, he is a Wine Doctor! I introduced you to Dr. Tony Johnston in a previous blog. Here is how Tony answered the question:

"Wine is fermented by yeasts and bacteria who, as they do their work, add 'extra stuff' to the wine. This extra stuff can be very flavorful. In addition, the yeasts and bacteria are making many chemical changes to the grape juice and fruit which ends up as flavors and odors. Finally, our brains are wired to relate everything we eat to something we're familiar with. Therefore as we smell and taste a wine, we pick up hints of aroma and flavor that remind us of fruits, vegetables and even inedible things we've smelled before. When you combine the fact that our sense of smell is linked to our sense of taste, we can even taste and smell things like tar, tobacco, wet dogs, old leather, and lots of things we'd never dream of licking, much less tasting."

That makes perfect sense right! So the next time you open a bottle, do so without reading the label first. See if you can detect the aromas first then check to see what aromas the label claims it has. When Dorothy and I took Tony's wine appreciation class several year ago, the course had no textbook but it did have an "Aroma Wheel"

I call it the "power of suggestion" wheel because I can start smelling something after I have been told that that particular aroma is possible. The wheel has dozens of possible wine aromas and it divides the aromas into catagories.

The "Fruity" catagory, for instance, lists dried fruit, tree fruit and tropical fruit and subdivides that into individual aromas of melon, apple, raisin, etc. It is very helpful in narrowing down aromas. Tony's class also came with a special glass.

Instead of a solid stem, this glass as small bowl within what would have been the stem. If you pour in the wine just enough to fill that bottom space, then...

you can lay the glass over without slipping any wine out! This where the movie "sideways" got its name. Over a white cloth, you can now easily see the color of the wine, the clarity, the thickness and of course the aroma. And all this happens before the really good part - tasting the wine!

Trying to identify the aromas and tastes of different wines is part of the fun. You can actually get pretty good at it if you practice. Wine practice! More wine practice and grilling practice to come! Paul

Glazed Pork Chops & The Perfect Gazebo

2010-03-22T10:23:00.000-07:00

From Boy Gets Grill (page 234) this is Pork Chops with Worcestershire-Honey Glaze and Grilled Sweet Onions. The Pork Chops were grilled with only a brushing of canola oil, kosher salt and ground pepper. The glaze was made separately with Worcestershire sauce, red pepper flakes, olive oil, salt, pepper and honey. The sweet onions were sliced across, brushed with canola oil with salt and pepper and placed right on the grill. After the chops turned, I brushed on the Worcestershire-Honey glaze, and I kept brushing until the meat was done. Everything came off the grill at once and I stacked one grilled onion on a chop for the photo. We added red and yellow tomatoes and wild rice to complete the meal. We also used the extra Worcestershire-Honey glaze as a dipping sauce along side the dish - terrific!

You can get Boy Gets Grill and the other Bobby Flay books that contain the recipes for Bobby Flay Everyday through this blog. The Bobby Flay Everyday blog is now an Amazon Associate! You can get the exact recipes from the books and get a discount by going through this blog! So follow along and pick up some of these great Bobby Flay books!

The Grill Light. With the change to Daylight Savings Time last week, I have been grilling more in the daylight - a welcome change. But that means that I won't need my trusty Grill Light as much. You may have seen the light on my last video.

The Grill Light was a gift from Dorothy, but the fact that I even needed a grill light was because my gazebo builder refused to permanently install one. We once had one of those stand-alone, canvas covered gazebos. We tried to anchor it down with some left over house bricks, but the thing almost took off anyway in a thunderstorm once, so we decided to get a permanent gazebo that couldn't blow away. That led us to Andy Englehart. Andy is a carpenter, a designer, an architect, a craftsman and a perfectionist. We told him our idea, but within a week, he changed it. He brought over some magazines and photos of a "real" bungalow style gazebo. Pretty soon it was his project not mine. He saw in his head what I couldn't - the best thing I did was just trust him. I did and the results were incredible.

This is the home of Bobby Flay Everyday! Sometimes I just sit and look at the craftsmanship that Andy and his co-worker Jeff, put into the project. I know that I don't have the skills and the patience and the vision to have designed and constructed something so perfect.

Andy used California Red Cedar and bought a special saw blade just to make the precise cuts. Buying that blade probably used up all his profits, but Andy cared more about perfection than dollars - quite an unusual guy in these times!

After the cuts were made in his workshop, Jeff brought the beams over on his flat bed truck and they assembled the pieces like a giant lincoln-log set. Just look at all those complex angles, curves and joints that he cut. They all fit together with the precision of a surgeon. I feel so guilty that I sit and admire Andy's gazebo everyday without him there; that I don't tell him every day how grateful I am for his passion. And its more than a gazebo - its the idea of the gazebo. Its the idea that skill and craftmanship still exist. There are still people who can sign their work with pride and know that it is the best it could possibly be. There are still people who really care about craftsmanship. I remember all this while I am on the grill. Because you can't fail to give it your best when you are standing under perfection. It was because of this perfection that Andy refused to install a light hanging off his gazebo that would shine down on my grill. When I asked him to do this, he acted as if I had asked him to paint a mustache on the Mona Lisa. He refused, so Dorothy got me the Grill Light.

Coach Lombardi said, "perfection may not be attainable, but if we strive for perfection, we might catch excellence." There are very few examples of perfection in the world - but I have one in my courtyard. Paul

Grilled French Toast

2010-03-21T13:36:00.000-07:00

This is borrowed from a recent episode of Thowdown with Bobby Flay. Bobby challenged a restaurant owner in New Jersey that specialized in a stuffed french toast brunch. Bobby actually lost this Throwdown, but his version of french toast inspired this version. I started by breaking some eggs, adding cream and a little maple syrup. I soaked some whole wheat bread in the egg mix and heated up a cast iron skillet on the grill. Dorothy mixed together some cream cheese and cream for the filling. The french toast hit the skillet with a sizzle. When the toast was done we added blueberries to the filling then stacked it all up. The other guy on Throwdown cut a pocket in thick bread for his filling. Bobby put his filling between two slices of the french toast, and that is what we did. We sifted on some powdered sugar, poured on more syrup and we were ready for a great brunch!

New Feature here at Bobby Flay Everyday! This blog is now an Amazon Associate. As you know, when I fix a Bobby Flay recipe from one of his books, I always give the title of the book and the page where that recipe can be found. Unless you have the book of course, it would be hard to follow the exact recipe - until now. You can buy the Bobby Flay books and DVDs that are used here at Bobby Flay Everyday by linking to Amazon from this page. And best of all, you get a discount when you go through my blog. Just check out the lower right column of the blog! Thanks for this tip Dave - so sorry about the Jayhawks...

The first day of Spring brought snow in the mid-west and rain to Tennessee - lots of rain. Not to worry, when I get the grill fired up and close the hood, the rain just steams away. In the last 77 days I have grilled when it was 9 degrees, I grilled during a thunderstorm, and in the snow - today in the rain. I probably have forgotten how to grill when it is sunny and 80 - but I'll give it my best shot if/when that weather ever happens again. Paul

Sirloin-Cheese Explosion Flatbread

2010-03-20T08:55:00.000-07:00

Friday night just always seems like a pizza night! From Bobby Flay's television show, Grill It! this is flat bread pizza on the grill. In his book Boy Meets Grill, Bobby gives us the go-ahead to use some store-bought pizza dough. Someday I will try to make the dough from scratch using Bobby's recipe, but for today I wanted to get dinner ready faster (the NCAA was on). Bobby puts the dough right on the grill grates - but I guess I have not been that adventurous yet - I still use a cookie sheet. I first grilled a sirloin steak. Sirloin is a leaner cut of beef, which means less fat, but also less flavor and less juicyness. When I am just eating a steak I prefer a strip or rib-eye that has more marbling of fat and therefore flavor, but sirloin is still terrific and would only be one of the ingredients on the flat bread pizza. I rolled out the dough and pushed it into the four corners of the cookie sheet. Dorothy thinly sliced some roma tomatoes and we spaced them out all over the dough. Next came thin slices of the sirloin followed by a cheese explosion: Parmigiano-Reggiano, Romano, Mozzarella, and Monterey Jack. Then over the top I drizzled a Basil Oil that I whipped together in the processor. It was just fresh basil leaves, salt, ground pepper and olive oil. You can see in the photo that the oil is infusing in the cheese and the crust is getting toasty. I kept the grill on low heat and the dough baked and the cheese melted in about 15 minutes.

What to Drink? Pizza Wine! I understand that beer and pizza is the traditional combination, and I can't argue that it can be a great match - but try a red blend next time with pizza and see what you think. We had a St. Francis Red which was a blend of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and Zinfandel. St. Francis is in Sonoma County California and it is a great winery to visit. We went there a couple years ago. St. Francis is the patron saint of small animals and pets - we brought home a couple bottles of St. Francis and two holy metals that our two Collies now wear on their collars. It was at St. Francis that I decided it would be very cool to work for a Northern California winery in the wine tasting room - maybe a retirement job. I think it would be great to just talk to people all day about wine. Everyone is always in a good mood. There are no disgruntled customers at a wine tasting. This particular red blend from St. Francis was just perfect with the steak and cheese and crusty pizza. Grill a flatbread and open a St. Francis Red and its a party.

The weather was finally spring-like and to celebrate we took Allegre out of her slip. We packed a picnic, crossed the lake, found an isolated island cove, dropped the sails and threw the Danforth anchor overboard. So here is an interesting question. Who in the photo is closer to heaven?

The guy flying the airplane (contrails seen through the rigging) or the guy laying on a sailboat. I have been both guys before at different times. I guess the answer depends on which one you are doing at the moment. Grilling is pretty close too. More near-misses with heaven from the sky, water and grill to come! Paul

Firehouse Fra Diavolo BBQ

2010-03-19T16:21:00.000-07:00

Porterhouse Steaks with Fra Diavolo Barbecue Sauce and Tomato-Pepper Salad, from Bobby Flay's Boy Gets Grill, page 206. The steak was great, but really the star of this show was the Fra Diavolo sauce, making this an Italian-American feast. It started with cooking some onions in olive oil in a pan over the grill. After they got going, I added garlic, red pepper flakes, tomato puree, tomato paste, brown sugar, honey, basil, kosher salt, ground pepper and some red wine for good measure. This all simmered on the grill for about 30 minutes becoming a thick paste-like sauce. I brushed the sauce on the steaks after they turned on the grill. Meanwhile, I roasted some red peppers and threw them in a bowl with diced roma tomatoes, red wine, garlic, pepper and parsley. I wrapped the "crusty" bread in foil and let it heat through on an upper grill grate. It all came together on the plate with the Tomato-Pepper salad over the top. This was very hard to beat!

Bobby said that he grilled this same meal for the fireman at the Arthur Avenue firehouse in the Bronx. Somehow that reminded me of the one day I spent as a fireman. I had a student once, Mike Skapura, who went to college in the day and fought fires at night. We made a bet - I really don't remember what the bet was about, but I lost. As a result, I had to spend 24-hours as an on-duty fire fighter. He got permission for me to do this from the top brass at the fire department after I signed a waiver that if I got hurt or killed on the job, I would not sue the city. The daytime part of my 24 hours was hard work. We went out to a housing development and flushed out the hydrants (Dorothy would call it the Johnny Pump). Then we rolled out hose along a dead end street. I was carrying tools, loading the truck, sweeping the floor - the guys were really having fun with me. For dinner Mike cooked up some firehouse spaghetti - Mike was authentic Italian and so was his spaghetti! Then it happened - an actual fire call. The guys were disappointed when they learned it was only a car fire and not a fully engulfed "structure fire." I rode in the back seat with two junior firemen. Mike sat in the right front seat. Sirens blaring we streaked across town. When we arrived at the fire, Mike jumped out of the truck cab, came around to my door and said "YOU STAY IN THE TRUCK!" Then he was gone and I didn't argue - I stayed behind. Mike's team had the fire out in less than five minutes, but that excitement drove these fire fighters the rest of the shift. I don't think anyone slept. I left with new respect for these hard working guys who never thought twice about putting themselves in danger for total strangers. Thanks Mike (where ever you are now) for the spaghetti, for the education, for the rush and for keeping a rookie safe in the truck.

More firehouse grilling to come!
Paul

Mesa Grill Burger

2010-03-18T09:56:00.000-07:00

This eight-layer, stacked-high burger is the The Mesa Grill burger with double cheddar cheese, and grilled onion. It comes from Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill Cookbook page 162. These burgers just keep getting better and better. Here it is from top to bottom: Layer 1- whole wheat bun that was butter sprayed and toasted on the grill. Layer 2 - thick slice of beefsteak tomato. Layer 3 - thick cut bacon, crispy from the grill. Layer 4 - half a pound of ground Angus beef grilled with canola oil, kosher salt and ground pepper. Layer 5 - two slices of sharp cheddar cheese that was melted over the burgers using the "basting pan" method (see previous blog and video for that technique). Layer 6 - a slice of Vidalia onion that was grilled with canola oil, salt and pepper. Layer 7 - fresh romaine lettuce leaves. Layer 8 - bun top, also toasted from the grill. On the side - Kosher Dill pickle spears. A cheesburger from paradise.

Also on the side are Bobby's Grilled Potatoes with Spicy Tomato Mayonnaise from Grill it! page 179. This was sort of a potato salad, but with a kick. I started by roasting two roma tomatoes right on the grill grates until they were charred on all sides. I slices up the hot tomatoes and tossed them into a processor with mayo, parlsey, chilpole chilies, paprika, three garlic cloves, and ground black pepper. The processor turned all this into a great tasting dressing. I partially cookd the red potatoes and them took them to the grill. In a pan over the grill, I let the potatoes sear and then I threw in some of the Spicy Tomato Mayo. The mayo was so good that we even spread it on the burger buns!

Let the Bracket Busting Begin! Our brackets are all filled out and ready to go. Dorothy and I always fill them out separately and then compare later. For the first time in 20 years, we both have the same two teams in the final game: Kentucky and Kansas, and we both picked Kentucky to win it all. I looked at President Obama's bracket. He also has Kentucky and Kansas in the final game, but takes Kansas to win it all. We will see how smart that is (Kentucky has more electoral votes).

Grillin' and Hoops to come! Paul

Breakfast Quesadillas

2010-03-17T09:33:00.000-07:00

From the Mesa Grill Cookbook (page 256) here are some breakfast quesadillas with grilled ham, Colby-Jack cheese and home fries. Grilling a breakfast and still getting to work has its challenges - but this was very fast. I grilled a ham steak under a brick and then sliced it into strips. The potatoes were in a pan over the grill with some canola oil, salt and pepper. When I got the eggs scrambled, I constructed the quesadillas into whole wheat tortillas and wrapped them up.

Weather Report. Gloomy. I don't think that the term "gloomy" is an official weather service descriptor, but it still fits. The only way to have seen the Sun here in what seems like weeks, would have been to file an IFR flight plan to "VFR Conditions on top." That flight plan request is risky however in a small airplane because the clear skies above the clouds may be higher than a light airplane can climb! You could reach the highest altitude your airplane could achieve and still be in the clouds on a day like today. That would really be gloomy! So I guess we will stay on the ground and wait it out.

You can't depend on the clouds to break, but you can depend on the grill to light.

Paul

Grilled Ice Cream?

2010-03-16T07:08:00.001-07:00

Okay no the Ice Cream was not on the grill - but everything else on this Ice Cream Sundae was! Coming to us from Bobby Flay's book Boy Gets Grill (page 252) this is a Toasted Pecans, Carmel Sauce, Sundae. I toasted the pecans in a pan over the grill with a little butter and vanilla extract. While that was going on I melted down come carmel squares together with some butter in another pan - but all over the grill. I wished I had added some milk or cream to the carmel to make it more sauce-like. When the hot carmel was poured over the cold ice cream, it harded up into a shell. It was still good, but did not mix up with the ice cream. This was definately a one-plate, two-spoon desert - and who would have expected dessert from the grill - especially an ice cream dessert from the grill!

Check out the blogs of some of my followers. Go to see Dorothy's new blog on design at http://designdenizen.blogspot.com/
Today she is "Searching for the Sun."

And don't forget Tim Miles' blog all about wine
http://chillwineandliquor.blogspot.com/
Tim has got several articles up on the blog that you need to read about wine, buying wine, storing wine, etc on "Explaining the Miles of Wine."

More grilled desserts and blogging from friends to come!
Happy 75! This is the 75th consecutive day of Bobby Flay Everyday!
Paul

Soft Tacos

2010-03-15T08:15:00.001-07:00

New Mexico-style Soft Tacos with Hacked Chicken and Salsa Verde from Bobby Flay Cooks American, page 39. Another terrific recipe in the books! The chicken I used was actually left over from a previous meal - the night I spit-roasted a whole chicken. I shredded the ckicken and sauted it in chicken stock together with

ancho chili powder, chopped poblanos, garlic, cilantro, and olive oil in a pan over the grill. While that all was simmering together, I toasted some whole wheat tortillas and melted Monterry Jack over them on an upper grill rack. When it was all ready, I assembled the soft tacos with some salsa that was also left over from last night. It was quick, easy, economical and tasted great!

What was on? The Brackets! I have not made copies or filled my NCAA bracket out yet, but it is a yearly tradition. We over analyze every aspect of the seeding, game locations, and bracket pairings. In the paper today the Univ of Tennessee coach and players are whinning about their #6 seed. Don't they know, there is no crying in the brackets. They didn't even show up to play at the SEC tournament and I don't think they have ever run an organized play. I hope they are one-and-done and go back to Knoxville embarassed. Maybe someone over their carees about their crying - but nowhere else. Mississippi State should have taken UT's place in the tournament just on effort alone.

More Bracketology and Grillology to come!

Paul

Tomatillo & Roasted Pepper Salsa

2010-03-14T13:05:00.000-07:00

On page 40 of Bobby Flay Cooks American, you will find the recipe for Tomatillo-Red Pepper Relish – but really it was more like a salsa. The ingredients include roasted red pepper, tomatillos, red onion, lime juice, olive oil, honey, chopped cilantro and fresh ground pepper.

Wisdom of the Grill. Roasting a pepper on the grill is quick, easy and really brings out the flavor. You begin but placing the pepper right in the fire. Not over the fire or near the fire – right in the fire.

It just takes a few minutes for the outside of the pepper to start to char. Use tongs and move the pepper around in the flame to get it roasted evenly all over.

When the char surrounds the entire pepper, bring it out of the flame and directly into a sealable plastic bag. The pepper’s heat and moisture will fog up the inside of the bag and it will begin to sweat. This is good, because the charred skin is separating from the roasted pepper underneath.

After about 15 minutes and when the pepper is cool enough to handle, you can just slide the charred skin right off. It will just come off in your hand – no scrapping needed. If any char is left on the pepper you can just wash it off.

Now you are ready to slice the pepper. Inside you will find the seeds, but just cut the top off and dump them all at once into the trash. Now just cut the pepper into slices and you are ready to go. I have seen jars of roasted peppers in the supermarket for up to $10. The pepper itself costs less that one dollar and roasting it yourself doesn’t cost anymore than your time – but not much time. The whole process took no more than 30 minutes. You could easily do this while other things were grilling and overlap the time. Roast your own peppers from now on, save the extra money and they will taste so much better from your grill than from a jar!

After the peppers were roasted, I sliced up the rest of the ingredients: Red Onion, Cilantro and Tomatillos. The tomatillo is actually not a tomato even though sometimes it is referred to as a green tomato (tomate verde) in Spanish and Mexican recipes. I learned that it is actually in the gooseberry family! Who knew?

You can see the finished product back in that first photo, together with some blue corn chips. The tomatillos were actually a little sour tasting, but the lime juice and honey provided the balance for this terrific red pepper roasted game-watching treat - not your typical chips and salsa!

Paul

Buffalo Burger

2010-03-13T10:08:00.000-08:00

Spicy Buffalo-Style Burger with Celery-Carrot Slaw and Blue Cheese Dressing - page 49 of Grill It! This is Bobby Flay’s version of Buffalo Wings but this time that flavor is on a burger – and it really worked. It began with grilling the burgers the Bobby Flay way. You can see me demonstrate the techniques in a video at http://www.youtube.com/user/dvcraig1101#p/u/3/UBPkkIKK99k

It is a simple approach. Never mix stuff into the ground beef before making the patties. Some people put in onion, and tomatoes and other ingredients, but as Bobby says, if you do that too much pretty soon you are just making meat loaf! So, no extras go into the burger – everything goes over the burger. Get some really good ground beef, like ground sirloin for instance, and form into patties. Using your thumb, push into one side of the patty to make a small crater. When the burgers are on the grill, they will plump up with the juices inside and unless you make the crater the burger will form a bulge. There is actually no problem with having a bulging burger, but to so some it is too big a temptation. It never happens on Bobby Flay Everyday, but some want to press down on the burger with a spatula and squeeze out the bulge. This just pushes the juices out and leaves you with a dry, less flavorful burger in the end. So one of the great wisdoms of the grill is: Never press down on a burger! Once the patties were formed, I brushed on canola oil and generously added kosher salt and ground pepper. Meanwhile, Dorothy made the slaw. Normally cole slaw is made with cabbage, but this was made with celery instead. I really don't like cabbage all that much so I was really wanting to try this. The recipe calls for thinly chopped celery and carrots with mayo, lemon juice, chives, pepper, and blue cheese. In the burger recipe Bobby gives us the go-ahead to use our favorite store-bought buffalo wings sauce, so I went with Texas Pete. I brushed that sauce on the burgers while they were on the grill and as you can see in the photo, I also drizzled some right on the burger when it was on the bun. The Texas Pete was great - but it was hot. The Celery-Carrot-Mayo-Blue Cheese slaw however was smooth and creamy. They were a perfect complement! I put some of the slaw right over the burger, added some pickles and this became the best burger anywhere!

What to Drink? In the book Grill It! Bobby says that he can polish off a whole platter of buffalo chicken wings with a few beers. We were having a few buffalo burgers, so we figures a few beers would be a great match.

Dorothy has a taste for crafted dark stouts. The darker the better and the more chocolate or coffee taste the better. Her favorite among this group has actual Kona Coffee right in the beer - that's Pipeline.

Mix together the following ingredients: A Friday night, temperatures in the 50's, Bobby's Buffalo Burgers, Blue Cheese Slaw, a few Brews, under a Gazebo and with essential Eric Clapton playing. What do you get? An almost perfect night!

Paul

If you missed yesterdays video of the Spit-Roasted Rotisserie Chicken, check it out at

http://www.youtube.com/user/dvcraig1101#p/u/0/n8tNQltUE60

Bobby Flay Everyday! Episode 4: Rotisserie Chicken

2010-03-12T13:07:00.001-08:00

Spit-Roasted Chicken

2010-03-12T11:10:00.000-08:00

There is hardly anything better than meat turning over a flame! This is Spit-Roasted Chicken with Grilled Lemon and Clementine Sauce from Bobby Flay Cooks American, page 126. In the photo the Chicken was about 2/3 done. It got even more golden and crispy before it came off the rotisserie. It started earlier in the day with a marinade of orange juice (the substitute for clementine), lemon juice, olive oil, garlic, cloves, thyme, kosher salt and ground black pepper. I mixed all that together and put it all in two bowls. The first bowl was just big enough to put in the whole chicken, the second I set aside to use later as a baste. The chicken sat in the marinade for about four hours. I took the grill grates off the grill and got the rotisserie motor out. When we were ready, I brought the chicken out of the marinade and got it on the stick. My set up has two skewers that come in from each side. Since it gets extremely hot, the set-screw adjustment on the skewers can only be turned using a pair of pliers. You gotta love it when pliers become a grill tool! I lit the fire and started the bird turning over the flame. I basted the chicken several times during the roasting with the marinade from the second bowl and on occasion, I would stop the rotisserie and inject the marinade right into the chicken. I kept track of the internal temperature - I was shooting for 160 degrees. When we got up to about 125, I tossed some new red potatoes into the grill basket and let them roast up with olive oil, salt, pepper and parsley. The chicken was just small enough to allow clearance for the upper grill rack. A big turkey takes up all that space and so I had never had both the rotisserie and the rack going at the same time before. Through most of the roasting the fire was set at medium with the hood closed so that the heat would be kept in like an oven. But unlike an oven, toward the end I turned up the heat to finish the chicken with a golden brown and crispy skin. The marinade and juices would drip off the turning bird and on to the grill plate below - this caused an occasional flare up of fire that further charred the chicken gave it that great off-the-grill flavor. The marinade before roasting and the marinade over the chicken and injected into the chicken while roasting really did its job. The chicken had the idea of citrus flavor - but that was not over powering. The inside was tender and juicy while the skin was crispy and smoky. Everything you see on the grill cost less that six bucks and we had plenty of chicken leftover that will surely find its way into another dish. Roasting a chicken is much more healthy than frying a chicken, so when you add it all up - healthy, cheap, great tasting and fun - this was another successful Bobby Flay grilling adventure!

Make sure to watch the YouTube video of this Spit-Roasted, Rotisserie Chicken recipe at
http://www.youtube.com/user/dvcraig1101#p/u/0/n8tNQltUE60
And check out the other Bobby Flay Everyday videos:
Super Bowl - Miami Burgers at http://www.youtube.com/user/dvcraig1101#p/u/3/UBPkkIKK99k
Valentine's Day Triple Play at http://www.youtube.com/user/dvcraig1101#p/u/1/aW9f1oW5uuE
Introduction in the Snow at http://www.youtube.com/user/dvcraig1101#p/u/4/yqziQ7h42zo

One more thing - you must go see Dorothy's new blog on design. She has been an "after hours designer" for most of her life. She has several blogs already, but this one starts off by featuring Allegre (the sailboat). Check it out at http://designdenizen.blogspot.com/
Paul

Spicy Rubbed Steak & Wine Throwdown

2010-03-11T10:55:00.000-08:00

Hey Mike! Look at your New York Strips on the grill! This is Bobby Flay's Spice-Rubbed steaks from his book Bobby Flay cooks American (page 138). I started with a trip to Tag'z Five Star Meats, where Mike Taglio runs the best butcher shop anywhere.

We talked about how we love all kinds of food from the grill. He grew up in the north. I grew up in the south. We talked about how much fun it is to grill from other cultures. Its "home fries" in the north and its "grits" in the south - but its all great stuff. We agreed that if Bobby Flay ever actually came to town, we would make our first stop at Tag'z! Then Mike picked out these great steaks. The spice rub was made with ancho chili powder, paprika, ground black pepper, dry mustard, coriander, dried and crushed oregano, ground cumin and kosher salt. I brushed the steaks with olive oil and then, using the back of a spoon, I rubbed in the spices. The oil (Olive or Canola) should go right on the food, not the grill grates themselves. With the grill blazing, I put the steaks on with the spice side down. The sizzle and the sear is heard instantly. With the steaks grilling on one side, I added oil and more spice rub to the side facing up and then let the grill do its work. When I turned the steaks, I also tossed on some Asparagus that also had Olive Oil, pepper and salt added. Now take a look at that spice-rub crust on those steaks! That is what you want to see. I turned the heat down and closed the lid so the grill would cook the streaks through and char the Asparagus. No extra sauces or glazes or mops are needed on this steak. Excellent steak with the right spices is all you need. If you need a sauce to make it great, then something is wrong. The steak should be great standing alone - this one really reached that standard.

What to drink? It was a Wine Throwdown! We brought together some wines that we had been given and decided to do a cost and taste comparison.

The two wines in the throwdown were Cabernets. The first was Darby & Joan, an Australian and the second was Robert Mondavi's Solaire from Paso Robles, California. The third wine was a Marquis Phillips Merlot that was in the fridge - so we brought it out. All these were inexpensive wines, but the Darby & Joan was very inexpensive at about $8. The Solaire was about $17.

In the photo the Solaire are the closest two glasses, the Darby are the two in the middle, the Phillips are the two glasses that are farthest away. I guess in this case, you really do get what you pay for. Dorothy and I each independently rated each wine for color, aroma and taste. Comparing notes we decided that the Darby was thin in color and taste. The aroma was "chemical." The Solaire, on the other hand, was deep and dark but translucent and clear ruby in color. The aroma also had a somewhat alcohol-chemical smell, but I also got raisins and Dorothy got honey and dried fruit. She always can tell you what the label says about smell and taste before reading it. The taste was somewhat acidic but also peppery-spicy and dry - the opposite of sweet. Hands down the Solaire was the winner, but they were all okay. That being said, none were quite as good as some of my favorite Cabs. We drank the Solaire with dinner and its spicy kick went along well with the spice-rub steaks. The Darby will be used soon when red wine is called for in a recipe.

What was on? What else - Billy Joel's classic Scenes from an Italian Restaurant.

A bottle of white, a bottle of red,
Perhaps a bottle of rosé instead.
We'll get a table near the street
In our old familiar place
You and I - face to face.

Wine tastings are popular at restaurants and bars these days, and we really like to attend them - but its just as much fun to stage your own Wine Throwdown at home. We will do it again with White Wines as soon as it gets a little warmer. In the meantime, grill up some steaks, get some Red Wines and ask yourself, "Are you ready for a Throwdown?"

Paul

Grilled Potato Salad

2010-03-10T08:21:00.000-08:00

On page 84 of Bobby Flay’s Boy Gets Grill you will find a side dish that has the power to stand alone - its Grilled Potato Salad with Scallions and Blue Cheese Vinaigrette. This turned out to be terrific. I first partially cooked about a dozen new red potatoes after cutting them in halves and thirds. In a plastic bowl I stirred together red wine vinegar, finely chopped shallots, Dijon mustard, honey, olive oil and about half a cup of crumbled Blue Cheese. I say about a half a cup. I don’t know for sure, because I don’t really measure anything – I just go with what seems right and I add more of things I know I like (more honey in this case). I smashed some of the larger Blue Cheese chucks against the side of the bowl to get it a little smoother.

I have a grill skillet that has small holes all across the bottom and sides - you saw it in a photo a few blogs back. This allows the contents to get some direct heat, but keeps smaller items from getting away like they would if placed right on the grill grates. I tossed the red potatoes, un-peeled, into the hole-covered grill skillet and let them finish cooking and browning. I flipped the potatoes in the skillet a time or two to get all sides some direct heat, but none got away.

Once the potatoes were done on the inside and a little crispy on the outside, I put them all in the bowl and poured on the Blue Cheese – Olive Oil – Honey Mustard – Red Wine sauce and mixed it all up – topped with chopped scallions. It was definitely not your standard Mayo or Mustard saturated Potato Salad – it was much better.

Like I said, a grilled potato salad that stands alone with any meal!

Paul

Horseradish

2010-03-09T00:18:00.000-08:00

From Bobby Flay’s Grill It! (Page 27) this is Grilled Rib Eye Steak with Horseradish sauce. The sauce is a combination of Horseradish, sour cream and chives. When it came to food, my father once called me a “Young-Foogie” (not an Old-Foogie) because I didn’t try a lot of different things. I guess horseradish was one of those things. I didn’t need to try horseradish, because I knew before trying it that I would not like it. Guess what – I don’t like horseradish – I was right all along. But in this sauce the bite of the horseradish is tempered by the sour cream. I really don’t like sour cream, that much by itself either – but together on a Rib Eye it really is a great blend of flavors. I made the sauce first and put it in the fridge for about an hour while I got everything else ready. The Rib Eye was grilled the Booby Flay way – canola oil on both sides with a generous dusting of Kosher salt and ground pepper. The salt, but especially the pepper together with flame, forms a crust on the outside of the steak – perfect. When the steaks came off the grill, I let them rest first, then dobbed on the sauce. I added some fresh thyme and this became a steak meal that could have been served in the finest steakhouses nationwide. When you grill with Bobby Flay you gotta have an open mind to new ingredients and especially new spices. I am now a Horseradish user.

What was on? Jackson Browne. It had been awhile since I had listened to The Pretender. It’s a great song and great album about hard work and struggle but about never giving up. It’s a look at life’s tough journey.

“Caught between the longing for love
And the struggle for the legal tender”

I think singer-song writers tell the best stories. Maybe I think that because I am from Nashville, but no matter where you are from you must agree that Jackson Browne is one of the best singer-song writers of any genre and in any time.

“And when the morning light comes streaming in
I’ll get up and do it again. Amen”

Grill it again – Amen

Maple Chicken

2010-03-08T04:24:00.000-08:00

From Grill It! (page 73) this is Bobby Flay's Grilled Chicken breast with Tangerine-Maple-Black pepper glaze. I first put a sauté on some chopped red onions. They smell great when sizzling up in canola oil in the skillet over the grill. Once the onions were tender, I added in Orange Zest and Orange Juice and sprigs of Thyme. All that came to a boil and then simmered until it reduced and thickened. I let that cool but not for very long, because I stirred in Maple Syrup. This formed the glaze that I brushed on the chicken in the last few minutes. This turned out to have a hot-tangy taste that terrific.

Wisdom of the Grill. Some grillers make a tragic mistake of putting on barbeque sauces and glazes on the meat too early. These sauces and glazes have sugar in them and sugar will burn quickly. If you put the sauce or glaze on too soon, it will just make a charred-burned mess. You want some caramelization and some crispyness to the sauce or glaze – but you don’t want it blackened. Use a grill brush and get your timing down.

What was on? The Oscars. I think Sandra Bullock is great, by I think her winning was an upset and probably somewhat of a reach. We usually try to see all the films nominated for best picture, but this year there were just too many of them - ten. Last year when their were only five, the biggest selling movie, the Dark Knight was not nominated - it was #6 and therefore didn't make the cut. That sent the Dark Knight's large audience to watching other shows on Oscar night, so this year they didn't make that same "mistake" and they brought in every film that had sold any tickets at all. It was watered down. That being said, we need to go see The Hurt Locker.

The grill is nominated and wins every year!

Paul

Grilled Antipasto

2010-03-06T19:47:00.000-08:00

Beautiful! This is Grilled Antipasto with Gorgonzola Vinaigrette from page 32 of Grilling for Life. I started the Bobby Flay's version of Antipasto, but Dorothy interceded. This is Bobby's Antipasto with Dorothy's Grandmother's influence. The red and yellow bell peppers are right off the grill, but we added a few ingredients. From the top are the peppers, Parmesan, Tomatoes, Provolone, smoked ham, Hot Coppicola, Genoa Salami, with black olives and Buffalo Mozzarella in the center. We were out on the town, so this Antipasto plate was perfect for late-night snacking when we got home.

The extra ingredients that came from Dorothy's grandmother came directly from her memory. Much of the American culinary heritage has been passed down from generation to generation by word of mouth. It would probably be a good idea for you to write down the recipes and memories that have been passes down to you from your family. It is part of your family tree and part of who you are. Prepare a "family tree" menu this week!

Paul

T-Bone

2010-03-06T08:06:00.000-08:00

Non-serious grillers need to step aside for this Grilled T-Bone Steak with Garlic-Chili Oil. This is from Grilling for Life by Bobby Flay, page 162 and it one of the best grilling recipes in any of Bobby's books. Try this and you will soon be considered a serious griller yourself, if you are not already! The oil-glaze was just Olive Oil, fresh thyme, red pepper flakes, roasted garlic, kosher salt and ground back peppercorns. I just stirred all that together and set it aside while the T-Bones hit the grill. I also sliced up some red and yellow bell peppers, covered them with some olive oil spray and ground in some salt and pepper. I put the bell peppers in my open grill skillet. You can see that the skillet is covered with small holes that allows the heat and the occasional flame up into the skillet. I kept tossing the skillet to move the peppers around over the heat and you can see the result - nicely charred roasted peppers. The T-Bones went to the grill with only a brushing of olive oil and a dusting of kosher salt and ground pepper. As always, we turn the streak only once. This is the Eleventh Commandment - thou shalt not turn a steak more than one time on the grill. The 12th Commandment is - never pierce a sausage with a fork while on the grill - but that lesson is for another day. The steaks hit the grill grates on the side that has the greatest amount of salt and pepper. This will insure that a crispy steak crust will develop. When the steaks turned, I added a brushing of the Garlic-Chili oil and let those flavors smoke right in. From the photo you can see the thyme and red pepper flakes grilled into the meat. That pepper crust and that oil-glaze made this one of the best steaks to ever come off my grill. I placed one of the T-Bones into the skillet with the peppers for the photo, but that is also what it looked like on the plate - plate perfection!

Wisdom of the Grill. The T-Bone is really two steaks in one, so this is the steak you want when you really want a big steak. The "T" shaped bone separates the two steaks of a T-Bone. On one side, the larger side, is a New York Strip. Many times a New York Strip or a Strip Steak is all the steak you need and it stands alone. The other side of the T, the smaller side, is the Tenderloin. The difference between a T-Bone and a Porterhouse is the size of the Tenderloin section. Just like grillers have their own specialties and techniques, there are variations in the definition between T-Bone and Porterhouse. A steak house may call a steak a Porterhouse, because it implies that it is larger than a T-Bone, when in fact what they serve is a T-Bone. Since the definition is somewhat unclear, I looked it up. The US Department of Agriculture's Institutional Meat Purchase Specifications states that the tenderloin must be at least 1.25 inches (32 mm) thick at its widest to be classified a porterhouse. Similarly, the USDA says that the tenderloin must be at least ½ inch (13 mm) thick for the steak to be classified a T-bone. I don't use a tape measure in my grilling, so by any name, use the Bobby Flay grilling methods and the Garlic-Chili oil from this recipe and all you will need to call it is - good!

Paul

Buffalo Mozzarella

2010-03-05T06:38:00.000-08:00

From Bobby Flay’s Book Boy Gets Grill (page 58) this is Fresh Buffalo Mozzarella with Red and Yellow Tomatoes and Basil Vinaigrette. I mixed together the vinaigrette with fresh basil leaves, olive oil, white wine vinegar, kosher salt and ground pepper. To get the basil leaves chopped and blended, I used the processor to make a great, green-yellow sauce that I then set aside a few hours. When the right time came, I sliced both the red and yellow tomatoes. Yellow tomatoes are relatively new to me, but I really like them. They just have a different, sweeter taste and I think I like them better than red tomatoes alone.

But the star of this show was the Mozzarella. Bobby warns us to use only the best, freshest Mozzarella possible or “leave it out!” I have been guilty of buying those shrink-wrapped white cheese globs before, but the difference between that and the real think is dramatic. The only flavor difference that is more dramatic that this, that I can think of, would be the difference between a chunk of pineapple from a can of fruit cocktail and a slice of pineapple cut right from the fruit whiling standing in the field where the pineapple grew. I grew up eating fruit cocktail from a can, so I never knew what pineapple was supposed to taste like until one day I had a slice while standing in a field on Oahu. Mozzarella is almost the same way. And this is not just Mozzarella. Mozzarella is sort of a generic name for Italian white cheese. No, this is Buffalo Mozzarella or Mozzarella di Bufala, made from domesticated water Buffalo milk. It is worth driving across town to get the real thing – which is what I did in this case.
After the tomatoes and Buffalo Mozzarella were placed together, I drizzled on the basil/olive oil/white wine vinegar sauce. This was a meal in itself! It was light, probably healthy, and quick to prepare. Give it a try yourself – but don’t you the shrink-wrap glob! Paul

Grilled Quesadillas

2010-03-04T09:11:00.000-08:00

Check this out! Grilled Steak Quesadillas, with Blue Cheese and Monterey Jack. You can find this in Bobby Flay’s book, Boy Gets Grill, page 46. I used some thin slices strip steak which I covered in oil, salt and ground pepper before it hit the grill. Since the steak was so thin it grilled up fast. I probably only had it on the grill three or four minutes per side. When the steaks came off, I let them rest in the open until they were just cool enough to handle and I cut them in strips. I built the quesadillas from the plate up. First with a whole grain tortilla, then two layers of steak strips, the top layer criss-crossing the bottom layer, then grilled peppers, then blue cheese and Monterey Jack. Just a few minutes back on the grill melted the cheeses and it all came together. This was not too spicy. Quesadillas don't always have to be mexican in flavor base. It can be just about anything - think of a tortilla as just another way to pile a sandwich.

Weather Report. Sunny and 60's for the first time in I don't know when. I goin' out to take advantage.

Grilling in the spring is right around the corner!

Paul

Steak Salad

2010-03-03T10:08:00.000-08:00

Steak Salad with Blue Cheese and Cherry Tomato-Hot Sauce Dressing come from Bobby Flay’s Boy Gets Grill page 202. This was a great, fast and light meal after a day’s work. Putting it all together was simple. I first mixed up the dressing. The recipe calls for red wine vinegar, Dijon mustard, chipotles, honey, canola oil, chopped tomatoes, salt, ground pepper, and cilantro. I stirred all that up and set it aside. Meanwhile the grill was heating up. I had some bacon-wrapped beef filets that I brushed with oil and dusted them with kosher salt and ground pepper. I also cut up one green and two red bell peppers into large enough slices that they could not slip through the grill grates and I literally slung then across the grill just to hear them sizzle. When the steaks were done, I let them rest under foil while I put all the other salad ingredients together – lettuce, sliced tomatoes, olives, onion and crumbled blue cheese. I cut the filets into strips and assembled it all on the plate with the green and red grilled pepper strips. Last I spooned on the Tomato-Hot Sauce Dressing and it was ready to go.

Wisdom of the Grill. I wanted an internal temperature in the beef filets of about 135 degrees, a little more rare than normal, but I wanted the filets to finish cooking threw while they rested under foil. Remember you get about 10 extra degrees after the steaks come off. If you want 140 and you pull them off the grill at 140, you will likely get 150. This is why some grillers overshoot the target and end up with over done, dry meats. One of the secrets of the grill is to plan for the extra time so that you don’t overshoot.

I can’t think of anytime when an Overshoot is a good thing. It’s no good in golf. It’s no good when landing an airplane on a runway. It’s no good when putting a sailboat back in the slip and its no good on the grill.

May you always hit your target – especially on the grill!
Paul

Followers Wanted! I have been getting many emails and comments about Bobby Flay Everyday - so if you stop in occasionally, please consider becoming a follower. Maybe someday, Bobby Flay will sign in!

Cuban Chicken BBQ Sauce

2010-03-02T08:15:00.000-08:00

This is Crispy Capon Breast with Cuban Barbeque Sauce from Boy Gets Grill (page 194). Capon? I learned that Capon is a large male chicken that is older than a roaster or a fryer. My store didn't have any, but Bobby does allow a substitution - I used the largest chicken breast I could find. The Cuban barbeque sauce used just about everything in the fridge and pantry. It had Orange juice, Orange zest, red and white wine vinegar, sugar, onion, garlic, canola oil, habanero chilies, tomatoes, ketchup, molasses, brown sugar, honey, Dijon mustard, ancho chili powder, Worcestershire sauce, kosher salt and ground pepper. I mixed all that together in stages over the grill in a long pan until it was bubbling. It stayed on the grill, with lower heat and frequent stirring, for another half hour. You can see that it reduced down to a very think sauce. I basted the chicken with some of the sauce while it was grilling and then later when it was on the plate I spooned on more. That sauce was terrific - it was tangy and sweet (from the OJ and honey) but also had a kick (from the habaneros and ancho). That was a lot of ingredients. I wasn't sure they would all come together into one flavor, but it worked.

I started watching the evening news as I was pulling out all the ingredients. Have you ever noticed that the only commercials on the evening news are for retirement plans and drugs for heart attacks, high blood pressure and a whole host of "made up" aliments. Drug companies like to tell us we have something wrong -get us all worried - then sell us the drug to fix it. We didn't even know there was a problem until they let us know - how thoughtful of them. I think that Restless Leg Syndrome was even too silly for the drug companies, so they stopped advertising that one. And for some marketing reason all these drugs must have names that contain a letter from the end of the alphabet (x, q, y, z). You know the ones I mean. Doctors are supposed to tell you what is wrong, we shouldn't be telling the doctors our own diagnosis and suggesting the drug we want to take - but how many times have you heard "ask your doctor about..." And the side effects that they are required to report are far worse than the original problem. But here is the overriding problem. I guess the advertisers figure that the only people still watching the evening news are retired people who need these financial plans drugs. Eventually these old, poor, sick people will die off and nobody will watch news at a predetermined time anymore. Have you ever seen an ipod advertisement on the eveningg news? No. These drug commercials are the first sign of the death of the evening news. My kids are as informed about the world as anyone, but they get their news on the internet when and where they want. When they are my age the retirement plans and made-up drug commercials will have to be on Facebook or YouTube or whatever it will be called then. Growing up my father watched the Huntley-Brinkley report every night - "Good night Chet." We were not a Walter Kronkite family - "That's the way it is.." Since I grew up getting news only between 5:30 and 6:00 central time, I still do it. But I'm the last of this news breed - but I must pay the price for being last by enduring those made-up drug commercials.

No commercials on the grill!

Paul

Open Face Steak

2010-03-01T14:12:00.000-08:00

Open-Faced Steak Sandwiches on Rosemary/Olive Oil Bread with aged Provolone and Caramelized Onions - from Bobby Flay's book Grill It! page 37. Is there anything better than a Ribeye sandwich? I brushed olive oil on both sides of the steak and ground on a generous layer of pepper and salt. I sliced a red onion into strips and tossed them in a small pan with Balsamic Vinegar. That pan went right on the grill so it would start simmering the flavor into the onions. The steaks sizzled up perfectly with the pepper forming an outside crust. Just what you want for a steak - crispy outside, tender inside. When the steaks were done, I brought them off the grill and under a foil tent to rest. While the steak juices were collecting in the meat during the rest, I toasted the bread and melted Provolone over the slices. The onions came out of the Balsamic Vinegar and directly on the grill so they would be crispy as well. The Balsamic gave them a sweet flavor but the grill fire made sure they were not soggy. We piled up all the ingredients, parsley on top and we were all set.

What to Drink? The wine of the week this week at Tim's Premium Wines is Chilensis Reserva Carmenere. If you have never tried a Carmenere you must put it on your list. Carmenere's come almost exclusively from Chile. This particular one is from the Maule Valley - which is south of Santiago - and therefore right in the earthquake zone. That 8.8 earthquake that hit on Saturday had its epicenter in the ocean, just off the coast from where this wine was produced. Carmenere's are all about big flavor and this one was another great example. It is fruity, but dried fruit, not sweet. It has a deep ruby color that light can't quite manage to get through. It was great with the steak. Steak and Red Wine is the greatest grill/grape combination.

The USA didn't win the hockey game - but it was a great game. When the overtime started, everyone knew that the next goal would produce a hero good for the next 20 years. We were going to see live a shot that, like Eruzione's shot against the Soviets, would be replayed the rest of our lives. And that is exactly what happened - but not from one of Eruzione's countrymen. Interesting that all the Canadian goals were scored by players from American NHL teams. Dorothy didn't think something was right about that.

An Olympic Gold Medal Sudden Death Goal was uncertain - but a Grill Goal is something you can count on. Paul

Andouille & Mesa Grits

2010-02-28T13:00:00.000-08:00

Taken from Bobby Flay’s television show, Grill It! This is Andouille Sausage, Mesa Grits and Scrambled Eggs - a terrific brunch from off the grill! Andouille (pronounced Ann Do Wee) Sausage is Cajun. It is made from smoked pork, pepper, onion, wine and spices that make it flavorful with a kick. I scrambled the eggs with cream, Monterey Jack cheese, kosher salt and ground black pepper in the big cast iron skillet on the grill. Next to the skillet I had the Andouilles grilling and sizzling. Meanwhile, Dorothy prepared the Mesa Grill Grits from the Bobby Flay Mesa Grill Cookbook (page 265). Dorothy is from Brooklyn, but she does love the southern delicacy of grits, especially cheese grits. Bobby’s version adds cream, garlic, and fresh chopped cilantro. I must admit that those grits were the best thing on the plate. The hot-spice of the Andouilles was perfectly tamed by the smooth creamy grits.

Go Team USA! It won't be like 1980, but it will be cool to see the USA Hockey Team take the gold on Canadian ice. In 1980, professionals could not play and no Soviet Union players played in the NHL. So really the USSR team in 1980 was the best pro team in the world while the USA team was a bunch of college kids. When they beat the Soviet team, it was as if the Super Bowl Champion New Orleans Saints lost to the University of Northern Iowa - it was that big. And that doesn't even factor in all the cold war tensions. We are not at the brink of war with Canada, and most of the Team Canada players play here in the USA on NHL teams - so it is no where near the same - but still it would be cool.

http://hockey.teamusa.org/

Paul

Grilled BLT

2010-02-27T11:15:00.000-08:00

Classic BLT from the Grill! This was a great, fast, light Friday night dinner. The recipe is from Boy Gets Grill by Bobby Flay, page 238 - Grilled Bacon, Lettuce, Tomato and Cheese Sandwich. I grilled the bacon across the grill grates and did not loose a single strip. I used a little butter spray on the Whole Wheat bread and toasted the slices on an upper grate. The sandwich came together with a big slice of tomato, romaine lettuce and that is real Buffalo Mozzarella piled on. We cut the sandwiches in half for easy griping, added a big Kosher Dill pickle on the side and we were good. There is hardly anything better than a really good sandwich when you have fresh ingredients - especially the bread. This bread was soft and fresh from the store's bakery.

I remember sandwich building and eating contests on Saturdays in my house growing up. My mother would put out a bunch of sandwich fixin's like bread (I think it was always white bread), "package meat" (which was thin slices of ham or turkey that came in a plastic pouch), and then anything else that could be pulled from the fridge. It was probably a really creative way to get rid of leftovers. The trick was to build the tallest sandwich - but that was not enough - to win, you had to eat the whole thing. Potato chips in the sandwich was standard, because they added height. It wasn't until years later that I discovered that Bobby Flay's signature burger has potato chips on it and at Bobby's Burger Palace he will add chips on any burger for free. See my previous blog on the Signature Burger for more on that. I once won the contest with an Apple Sandwich. It had all the regular ingredients, but I added apple slices because they were thick, not necessarily because apples on a deli sandwich would taste good or makes good sense - but I ate it and I won. I bet my parents didn't think they were creating a life-long memory with a sandwich game. Funny that the little things make such a big difference in the long run. But back to the Grilled BLT...

This proves that even standard favorites like a Classic BLT can be better from the grill. So, it is true that everything is better with bacon and everything is better from the grill. These are eternal truths. These are known facts.

More theories proven, more truths confirmed and more grilling to come!
Paul

Throw a Brick

2010-02-26T10:26:00.000-08:00

Here is Bricked Rosemary Chicken with Lemon - from Bobby Flay's Grilling for Life, page 136. Under the brick the chicken got a little blackened, but it was still tender and juicy on the inside. The marinade for the chicken was olive oil, lemon juice, lemon zest, and fresh rosemary. I bought a whole frier chicken and had the store butcher butterfly cut it by taking out the back bone and laying it open. When you buy chicken by the piece, like thighs, legs, wings, breasts, you pay more to have the cutting done. But if you buy the whole chicken, the butcher will cut it up for free - so you get what you want for about half price! After marinating the butterfly chicken, it went onto the grill and under the brick.

What to Drink? White Truck. From the same folks that bring us Red Truck wine, White Truck is a blend of California whites. One of the characteristics of many white wines is their citrus flavors. We thought that would pair well with the chicken that also had lemon in the marinade. It worked. Red and/or White Truck will work for you as well, so give them a try sometime. http://www.redtruckwine.com/redtruck/index.jsp

Sometimes when a flight student unexpectedly does poorly on a flight test, we call that "throwing a brick." It happens. A really good student, does something really dumb on the flight test, right in front of the pilot examiner. They had never made that mistake before and it is a safe bet that they will never make that same mistake again. The mistake came out of no where. We didn't see it coming - they just Threw a Brick. In flight training, throwing a brick is a bad thing - in grilling it can be a good thing - as long as the brick is wrapped in foil and on top of a chicken!

More brick throwing (the good kind) and more grilling to come!

Paul

Steak Sandwich

2010-02-25T06:04:00.001-08:00

From Bobby Flay Cooks American page 37, this is a Steak Sandwich on Toasted Garlic Bread with Cheddar, Tomato-Olive relish and Skillet fries. This all started with a stop at Tag'z Five Star Meats for a couple of New York Strips. Mike's steaks are always the best in town. Look at the blog titled Tag'z from back in January to learn more and see the photos. The relish was quick and easy to fix. I chopped tomatoes, and mixed them with black olives, basil leaves, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, kosher salt and ground pepper. I put the relish aside so all those flavors could work their way into each other. Then I prepared the Skillet Fries. I first partially cooked some sliced potatos. When they were cool enough to handle, I cut them into smaller cubes. I slices a red and yellow bell pepper and chopped a red onion. I placed the big cast iron skillet on the grill after brushing a light coating of olive oil and let it heat up. I tossed in the onion first to get it started, then all the other ingredients - plus more olive oil with salt and pepper.

The potatos ended up with a hash brown-type texture. The peppers blended well and it smelled wonderful sizzling all together next to the steaks. When the steaks were done, I let them rest before slicing them into strips. In the meantime, I toasted a hoagie roll with garlic butter on an upper grate of the grill. Next, I put slices of the steak under sharp cheddar cheese and put it all back on the grill to melt. Finally, I topped the steak and cheese with the relish, put the Skillet Fries/Peppers on the side and it was dinner time!

Weather Report: It is still cold and windy. I have a fellow blogger and follower in
St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. He is grilling tonight in much better weather! His blog is My Year on the Grill. Check it out http://yearonthegrill.blogspot.com/

No matter your Latitude - when you grill - its a good day.
Paul

Santa Fe Burger

2010-02-24T12:43:00.000-08:00

Santa Fe Burger from Bobby Flay's Burgers, Fries & Shakes book - page 63. This turned out to be an excellent cold night burger. I grilled the burgers the Bobby Flay way to begin with. Check out the video of me demonstrating the Bobby Flay burger grilling technique, including the use of a basting pan at http://www.youtube.com/user/dvcraig1101#p/a/u/2/UBPkkIKK99k

I began by roasting a Poblano Chili. Poblanos have a great taste when they are roasted - not over poweringly spicy - just great flavor. You roast a Poblano just like any other pepper. You place the pepper right in the flames. Turn it over and get both sides completely charred. Then you grab the pepper with tongs and place it in a plastic zip-lock type bag. While in the bag the pepper will sweat and cool. In about 15 minutes open the bag and the outer charred skin will just fall off, leaving you with a great roasted pepper. When the burgers were about done, I covered them in Pepper-Jack cheese and covered them with the basting pan so that the cheese would completely melt. Coming off the grill, I poured on some Queso Sauce, crumbled blue corn tortillas and, as you can see, two strips of roasted Poblanos. Those are Grilled Steak Fries in the background of the photo - also from the same book, page 91. The smooth Queso counteracted the spicy Pepper-Jack and all went together great with that perfectly grilled burger and those Poblanos. You need to try this recipe out for certain!

I have spent some time in Santa Fe, New Mexico. When I was there, I had wonderful Mexican food. I guess with all that great Mexican, I never tried a regular burger while I was there. I don't think this burger would stack up against the best Mexican food around - but it was still very good. The burger will do until you are in Santa Fe again.

Paul

Pounded Sage-Orange Chicken

2010-02-24T12:29:00.000-08:00

From Bobby Flay's Grilling for Life (page 122), this is Grilled Chicken Breasts with Fontina and Prosciutto with Sage-Orange Vinaigrette. I put together the Sage-Orange sauce first with white wine vinegar, garlic, orange zest, sage leaves and olive oil in a processor. For the chicken I took two sheets of wax paper and put the chicken between the sheets. Then I pounded the chicken with a mallet until it was about 1/4 inch flat. Making it flat made it possible to layer on Prosciutto, the shredded Fontina, two sage leaves and roll it all up. I held it together with wooden toothpicks that I soaked in water beforehand. Once on the grill, I cooked the chicken on three sides, so that it was done all the way through but also so the heat would be even to melt the Fontina inside. When the chicken came off the grill, I spooned on the Sage-Orange sauce and it all came together.

Weather Report. Cold Again. Over the weekend the Sun came out and the temperature rose to above 60 for the first time this year. We actually were able to put some wind in some sails on Sunday. But now its back to below freezing and windy - it is less than a month until the start of Spring - bring it on!

Sorry, but we had a temporary interruption in our internet service. That is why this blog entry is late getting up on Bobby Flay Everyday.

The internet may have stopped, but the grill keeps going!

Paul

Filet Mignon!

2010-02-22T06:54:00.001-08:00

Check this out! Grilled Beef Filet with Arugula and Parmesan from Bobby Flay's Grilling for Life book page 160. I started by making the dressing for the salad. It was chopped red onion, lemon juice, olive oil with salt and pepper. Then came the steaks - but not just any steak - this was Filet Mignon. I couldn't afford to grill this for a large group, but for two it was not that much more. Brush canola oil on both sides of the meat and then be generous with the kosher salt and ground black peppercorns. I first seared the filets in a cast iron skillet that had been lightly brushed with oil and allowed to heat up on the grill. Just about two minutes of searing per side, then on to the regular grill grates. I was shooting to grill the filets to medium (about 140 degrees) but remember that steaks continue to cook even after they come off the grill, so factor that in. If you wait until your thermometer reads 140, its too late. I left the filets "rest" under foil for about five minutes and then cut them into slices. You can see from the photo that the filets are juicy with a hint of pink running through the middle. The thing about Filet Mignon is the tenderness of the meat. These required only a fork to cut and they simply melt in your mouth. I also chopped up the Arugula, together with sliced tomato and shaved Parmesan and drizzled on the dressing. One of the very best meals yet on Bobby Flay Everyday!

What to Drink? A gift bottle from my father of Colores del Sol Malbec from Mendoza, Argentina. How did he know this was the perfect wine for Filet Mignon? It was. It had a deep flavor of fruit and spice that was complementary to the pepper spiced filets. Check them out at: www.ColoresdelSolwines.com

My sister sent me a message on Facebook that the Bobby Flay recipes here on Bobby Flay Everyday looked great but were no good to her - because she still would have to cook them. I invited her over and said that I would grill for her, but that would miss the point. We grill not just for the food, but for the experience of grilling. Remember Steve Martin said "You just can play a sad song on the banjo." Well, you just can be in a bad mood while you are grilling. So when you have had a stressful day, a hectic day, a frustrating day - grill that day. Grilling is relaxing and stress free. Grilling is cheaper than therapy.

More Grilling and more therapy to come!

Paul

Huevos Rancheros

2010-02-21T15:17:00.000-08:00

From Bobby Flay Cooks American (page 30) this is Ranch-Style Eggs with Chorizo and Tomato-Red Chili Sauce. This would be a great start to any day. I began by searing chopped red onions and garlic in olive oil and red wine in a pan on the grill. Then I added tomatoes, ancho chili powder and honey and let the sauce simmer for about 15 minutes. Once the sauce had reduced down I put the pan on an upper grate and went to work on the eggs. I used a big cast iron skillet. The eggs and sausage went in together with some cream and Monterey Jack cheese. The eggs cook up quickly in the hot skillet so it does require constant stirring with a wooden spoon. When the eggs were ready I stacked everything together on a wheat tortilla. Eggs & Sausage first, then the sauce poured over the top with more cheese. After the photo I rolled up the tortilla into a breakfast burrito. That Tomato-Chili sauce was perfect!

But I did run into a problem however. The market did not have Chorizo, which really surprised me. So I had to improvise. I had to use some sausage from a previous dish – yesterday’s flatbread dish. I know this sounds crazy, but taking toppings off of last night’s pizza and putting them in this morning’s eggs is not a new idea. In fact it has an official name: Eggs a la Williams. Like most guys my age, we have known our oldest friends for about 25+ years. I met Mike Williams on my very first day of college and that has been more than 35 years ago. Living and cooking in the dorm was an eye opening experience. Mike had his own take. He really would scavenge ingredients from off of a pizza that had been delivered the night before and toss them in scrambled eggs the next day. He called it Eggs a la Williams. Now before you think this is gross, think again. What normally goes into an omelet? Green peppers, diced ham, onions, cheese, mushrooms – these are also pizza toppings! The idea is not so far fetched after all. It is also economical, non-wasteful and very innovative. Living in the dorm is the same thing as saying you are poor, so we had to be very resourceful. I had a meal ticket for the cafeteria, but that was not open in the middle of the night or on weekends. There should be a dormroom cooking blog. But probably today’s college kids would not be as innovative as we were. Another friend, "The Clooose," would turn a twin-burner hot plate upside down. He would hang one burner over the edge of his desk and place books on the other end so the unit would not fall off the desk. Then he would turn on the burner that was suspended upside down and let it get hot. He then would hold whatever was for dinner up under the burner and let it heat up like it was a broiler. This method worked great until the day in which he turned on the wrong burner – the one sitting directly on the desk! Never disrespect dorm cooking because it was creative thinking in action. Long live Eggs a la Williams!

Paul

Epic Flatbread

2010-02-20T10:51:00.000-08:00

One of the American Snowboarders won the Silver Medal and said her experience was "Epic." This is Grilled Flatbread from Bobby Flay's Boy Meets Grill (page 36). It was probably worthy of the Gold Medal and therefore is also "Epic." I started by pushing the pizza dough across the pan and into the edges. I spooned on some tomato gravy (not called sauce) and layered on Mozzarella cheese. Next came fresh sliced tomatoes and basil leaves. We added one more ingredient, that is not actually part of Bobby's original recipe - grilled Sweet Italian Sausage. This all went on the grill and the dough baked over medium heat in about ten minutes. We sliced the flatbread into squares added a salad and we had an epic meal.

What to Drink? Maquis-Philips Grenache which is the wine of the week from Tim's Premium Wine. Here is what Tim had to say about it in his blog this week.

WOW these are AWSOME. Another fantastic import from the Grateful Palate. These babies are dense with a heavy mouthfeel of longlasting fruit. We only have one case of each Merlot and Grenache. The grapes are all sourced from McLaren Vale in Australia. They are pretty high in alchohol around 16%, but they are oh so yummy…The Grenache received 89 points from Parker and is medium ruby colored with cedar and earth notes, with ripe cherry notes. Both of these fantastic wines are only $14.99 each… Come and get them. Until next time, drink more wine.

Tim was right. This wine was great and it was great with the flatbread. Some wines are just great pizza wines. Pizza wines are always red and often are red blends. I have nothing against beer and pizza, but if you are a beer and pizza person, try a pizza wine next time!

Recycling Day. We try to recycle everything that is used for Bobby Flay Everyday. Glass, plastic bags, plastic bottles, cardboard, newspapers and cans. Here is my local recycling center - I encourage you to find your local drop off, or sign up for curbside pickup, and recycle all you can.
Dorothy purchased a mixed-media art sculpture last year from a collection called Use and Refuse - so recycling can also be art. Keep as much potential art out of the landfill as possible.

Happy 50th! This is the 50th blog entry of Bobby Flay Everyday! 50 days of grilling...and counting.
Paul

Signature Burger

2010-02-19T13:35:00.000-08:00

Crunchburger (aka the signature burger) from Burgers, Fries and Shakes page 40. This is the house burger at Bobby Burger Palace, also known as BBP. Now take a moment and go see Bobby talking about burgers on the BBP website http://www.bobbysburgerpalace.com/

This burger was terrific. I started with high quality ground beef, cooked the Bobby Flay way - with a crater in the middle to prevent "flying saucer" patties and with only canola oil, salt and pepper as the seasoning. The American cheese was melted using the Basting Pan method. You can see me using the basting pan method on my Super Bowl grilling video: http://www.youtube.com/user/dvcraig1101#p/a/u/1/UBPkkIKK99k

After the burger was done, I added a think tomato and a grilled red onion slice. Now what makes this burger the BBP Signature Burger is the potato chips - that's right, potato chips go right on the burger. You get a mouthful of juicy burger and salty chips in every bite. The reason that this is the Signature Burger is because it comes with potato chips standard. But every other burger at BBP can also be "crunchified." Bobby will add potato chips to any burger for no extra charge and there is even a "Get Crunchified" t-shirt.

Other websites and YouTube. Check out Tim's website at http://www.chillwineandliquor.blogspot.com

and also, if you haven't already seen it, check out three Bobby Flay recipes on the grill at once at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aW9f1oW5uuE

Chips on a Burger from the grill - hardly anything is better!

Paul

Mango Chicken

2010-02-17T22:09:00.000-08:00

Check it out - Jerked Chicken with Mango-Cilantro relish and barbequed red onion, from Boy Meets Grill, Page 59. This was a mid-week treat. I found some Mangos from Equador at the grocery so I picked them up and figured I could use them sometime. Sure enough Bobby Flay had a recipe to go with them. I first peeled and chopped up the Mangoes then added cilantro, lime juice, orange juice, olive oil, and red onions. I grilled the chicken as usual with olive oil, kosher salt and fresh ground pepper. After the chicken was grilled to perfection – approaching 160 degrees interior temperature – the rest was easy. I just scooped the Mango mixture onto the chicken, added some rice and we were ready to eat. It was very tangy and sweet, but that was offset to some degree by the pepper on the chicken. It was a tasty combination – great in the winter, but probably even better in the summer.

The View. I got the chance to fly through and above the clouds today. It has been a while since I looked down on the clouds - lately the clouds have been filled with ice and therefore off limits. In time we flew out past the clouds and could see a snowscape as far as the visibility and the curvature of the Earth would allow. Looking down on the Earth is a great treat and privilege. Man’s ability to get this view is only a little over 100 years old. It is true, from above, there are no human boundaries - only God-made ones like mountain ridges and river valleys. Looking down resets your perspective. Everything that seems so important on the ground is so small when seen from up here. Everyday stress, cares, and concerns are put in their place when you are flying above them. Eventually I had to come down. Landing again surrounds you again with the cares again. After returning from the sky you truly understand the saying: Don’t sweat the small stuff because its all small stuff.

Don’t forget to check out the third episode of Bobby Flay Everyday on YouTube. The latest installment is from Valentine’s Day so I won’t blame you if you missed it! Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aW9f1oW5uuE

Back on the ground, maybe the grill is the next best stress reducer to flying. More grilling and stress relief to come.
Paul

Chimichurri Streak

2010-02-16T19:51:00.000-08:00

From Bobby Flay’s book Boy Gets Grill (page 204) this is Black Pepper-Crusted Strip Steak with Chimichurri. This really turned out great and you should try it sometime! I made the chimmichurri by combining parsley leaves, cilantro, garlic, chopped serrano chilies, honey, Dijon mustard, salt, pepper and olive oil in a food processor. You can see that it made a great, green colored sauce due to the parsley, cilantro and Serrano chilies. I grilled the strip steaks as usual with a brushing of canola oil, kosher salt and fresh ground pepper. I pre-baked some potatoes and then put them on the grill as well with salt and pepper. When the steaks were about done – about 140 degrees interior temperature – I brushed on some chimichurri. When the steaks came off the grill, I topped them with more of the sauce as you can see in the photo. The chimichurri was not too spicy but had great complementary flavor to the steak.

What was on? Olympic Alpine Skiing. My favorite event of the Winter Olympics is the Downhill. I have been watching it since Jean Claude Killy. In 1968 Killy won the triple crown of skiing – The Downhill, the Giant Slalom and the Slalom – in Grenoble, France. Except for Killy, Peggy Fleming and Apollo 8, 1968 was a terrible year. But I remember Killy and Fleming and later Franz Klammer in 1976 at Innsbruck. Klammer won the Downhill when I was in college and I remember going over to the Learning Resource Center on campus so my friends and I could watch it on a color TV using headsets for the sound. It was sort of like a library and we got in trouble when we cheered Klammer’s victory in the otherwise quite room. The reason that the Downhill is the best Winter Olympic event is because there are no judges. The fastest person down the hill wins – no subjective opinions, no Russian judges, just speed. This is the way God intended sport to be – one person against one mountain with no other human interaction. The Downhill is the best event until the next 100-meter sprint in the next Summer Olympics. And again at the next 100-meter race, the fastest man alive will be crowded with no judges to interfere. Just the fastest guy across the line. Period.

Grilling on the other hand is not fast. In fact, it is supposed to be slow and relaxing. Count on more speed down the mountains of Canada to come, but also count on more slow grilling to come.

Paul

Muffuletta

2010-02-16T15:51:00.000-08:00

This sandwich recipe originated in New Orleans in 1906 - Bobby Flay updated it and put it in Grill It! page 66. This is Grilled Chicken "Muffuletta" Sandwich with Spicy Olive Relish. I started with chicken breasts from Tag'z Five Star Meats. As usual the chicken from Tag'z is the largest and best quality anywhere. The olive relish was quick and easy. I chopped up red peppers, yellow peppers, serrano chilies and a red onion and put them on a pan to cook on the grill. Meanwhile, I cut up green olives, garlic, parsley, salt and pepper and mixed all that together with red wine vinegar and olive oil. So I had a hot portion on the grill and a cool portion in a separate pan. I grilled the chicken as usual with olive oil, kosher salt and ground pepper. When the chicken was almost done, I toasted a hero roll on an upper grate of the grill and put provolone cheese on the chicken and another slice on the roll. When the chicken came off the grill, the cheese has melted so I put both the hot and cool parts of the relish together and spooned it all over the chicken. It was messy, but really good. I grilled a "stop light" of peppers (red, yellow and green) as a side dish and we were ready to go!

Weather Report. Blowing snow flurries continue to fall, but no more accumulation is expected. Instead it just got colder. I wonder sometimes how it will be to grill in the summer again. I have a friend named Don Culp. He is known as Captain Culp because he was once an airline captain for Transcontinental and Western Airlines (TWA before it was known as Trans World Airlines). Captain Culp is in his 90s now and does not fly anymore, but when he was in his 70s he flew rings around 20-year-old flight instructors. He would not allow any complaints about the weather, especially hot weather. As he walked out to the airplane, in 90+ degree heat, to give another flight test he would say "Its better than blowing snow!" Which meant you could fly in the heat, but you probably couldn't fly in blowing snow, so stop complaining and start flying. Today we had blowing snow - which reminded me of Captain Culp which reminded me of the heat of the summer which reminded me that I won't always be grilling in the snow!

But until the 90+ degree heat is back - we keep grilling - even in blowing snow.

Paul

Valentine's Flay Triple Play

2010-02-15T08:59:00.000-08:00

Bobby Flay Triple Play for Valentine's Day. This is Grilled Thick-Cut Ribeye from Boy Gets Grill page 218. Cabernet-Shallot Reduction sauce to go on the steak from Grill It! page 33. And from the Mesa Grill Cookbook, page 193, Twice-Baked Potatoes. Go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aW9f1oW5uuE to see the video of this menu! I started off with the Cabernet-Shallot sauce by chopping the shallots and grilling them in my big iron skillet with olive oil. Once they started getting brown, I poured in about 2/3 bottle of Black Opel Cabernet. Remember Bobby's rule is that you can't cook with wine that is not good enough to drink. The Black Opel is not expensive, but it came at #2 in a taste test last year held by The Tennessean newspaper - so I used it for the reduction sauce and by the glass. I let the red wine sauce simmer down while I put on the Ribeyes. The steak was brushed with canola oil and seasons with just kosher salt and ground pepper. The potatoes were baked ahead of time, bit the all the potato inside was scooped out. I mixed the potato with milk, butter, sour cream and chopped chives until it was like mashed potatoes - then I spooned it all back into the potato skins with cheese and baked them again on the grill. When the sauce had reduced down to a thick consistency, I poured it from the skillet into a small pan, but I left some of the sauce in the skillet. The final trick was that I took the steaks off the grill grates and put them in the skillet with the remaining sauce. I turned up the heat and allowed the Cabernet-Shallot sauce top sear into the meat. Watch the video and you will see the whole process!

Dessert? Dorothy's made-from-scratch Classic Genoise with Chocolate Ganache! In other words a great chocolate cake.

With dinner and with the cake we had a wine from Tim Miles' Valentine's Day recommendation list: Layer Cake Shiraz. Tim said it was "100% Australian Shiraz brimming with Raspberry fruit and a long layered finish. It's a great choice with dark chocolate or fondue." He was right - Genoise with Chocolate Ganache and a wine called Layer Cake! Perfect!

Watch the video @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aW9f1oW5uuE
Paul

Chicken under a Brick

2010-02-14T10:31:00.000-08:00

A brick for grilling? From Bobby Flay's television show, Grill It! this is Butterflied Chicken with a Basil, Oregano and Red Wine glaze. On the show, Bobby has a guest griller and one ingredient is grilled two different ways. Bobby's guest on this show made a version of Beer Can Chicken - Bobby made this Italian spiced version. When I got to the store I found a small whole chicken, but I had the butcher "butterfly" cut it. That means the backbone is cut along the chicken so that it can open out as you can see in the photo. The butterfly cut makes it possible for you to grill the entire chicken right on the grates. Turning the bird over is also no problem - just flip the whole thing. I added the brick. It is just a brick left over from when the house was built that I wrapped in foil. Placing the brick right on the chicken flattens it out even more than the butterfly cut alone, and insures even heat and even cooking throughout. After turning the chicken for the last time, I brushed on the mixture of fresh basil, oregano, olive oil and red wine that I had chopped up in the processor.

Buying a whole chicken is much cheaper than buying it in pieces. The butcher won't charge any extra for making the butterfly cut, so it is also a way to save a little money. I grilled this chicken for about four bucks and we will have leftovers. Legs and wings for the game later!

What to Drink? Since we were grilling up Italian spiced chicken, I wanted an Italian wine. Italy has hundreds of different grape variates, but for this meal I wanted a Sangiovese. This is the grape that makes Chianti and comes from Tuscany. At Tim's Premium Wine store I found a Sangiovese from Ecco Domani (which translates to "Here's Tomorrow"). Sangiovese is not overpowering or spicy. It is dry (which means "not sweet") so it goes well with food that is also not too spicy. This was a great match.

Did you see Booby Flay this morning on the CBS Sunday Morning show? Here is the clip you should see for Valentine's Day:
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6207446n&tag=related;photovideo

Valentine's Day is all about great matches. More about matches between people and between grilled food and wine to come.
Paul

Grilled Appetizer before the Peas

2010-02-13T15:21:00.000-08:00

From Bobby Flay's book Boy Gets Grill (page 63) this is Grilled Bread Panzanella. I grilled this appetizer because we were away from home at normal grilling time - it ended up being most of a meal. I chopped up tomatoes, red onion, and garlic. Then mixed in red wine vinegar, kosher salt and ground pepper and let all the ingredients set together in a covered container. I grilled the "crusty" bread after brushing both sides with olive oil. After they came off the grill, I wrapped them in foil and the whole dish became portable. When we served it up we added shredded Mozzarella. We put it together more like a brushetta than Bobby's original recipe. Bobby's version called for the grilled bread to be cut into cubes and mixed in with all the other ingredients makes it more like a salad or side dish. We left the bread cut in slices off the grill, so we could take it with us easier.

Where were we going? The Black Eyed Peas concert!

Over Christmas break, our son Ziggy was in Nashville. I told him that I had gotten tickets to the Black Eyed Peas. He said "What the heck!" and he texted his girlfriend that his old parents were going to this concert. So I was ready to not like it. I already know their music - how could you miss it these days, but I was ready to quickly dismiss them. I was ready to say that they were not as good as some of my favorites from 20 (and 30) years ago. But as Dorothy put it, "They were freaky good." I was a terrific show. Will.i.am is part concert emcee, part impromptu songwriter, part rapper, but all showman. He is the real deal as an entertainer. And Fergie - I'm sorry to my generation, but she is better than Linda Ronstadt and Pat Benatar combined.

The show started with a computer generated face on huge screens telling is that the show was being downloaded. The face looked like a circuit board, spoke like Max Headroom, but gave off the essence of the Wizard of Oz. In fact there were Wizard of Oz throwbacks all night. Will.i.am wore a series of metallic masks that looked like his actual face and hair - was he the 2010 Tin Man? The concert was three guys and a girl taking us on a journey. The was no yellow brick road, but there was a stage that cut out into the crowd. When Fergie went down that runway, the security guards - dressed in yellow - stood shoulder to shoulder against the mosh pit. The show actually was downloaded and all computer generated except for the voices. At times you couldn't tell who on stage was real and who was a life size video projected on the screen. Everyone dressed and danced like robots all night. The Black Eyed Peas are made up one African American (will.i.am), one Mexican American (Taboo), one Filipino (Apl de ap), and Fergie (the chick pea) - the crowd was very eclectic as well. Three generations of a Filipino family sat right behind us and they went crazy when Apl de ap came out in what looked like a South Pacific war headdress. There were parents with their kids (not real young kids - the warm up act was Ludacris). And, Ziggy we were not the oldest folks there! I may have been to a better concert - but I can't remember when. Check them out at http://www.blackeyedpeas.com/

The Peas move on through there world tour and the grilling moves on as well.

Paul