Flight Test Chicken

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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

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

Spit-Roasted Chicken

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