Grilling Season
Finally! Spring has sprung, and extreme heat is ready to be applied to various meats. I just wish we had more time to enjoy grilling or really anything fun to do. Unfortunately, our work schedules have been hectic.
We do have a trip to Kansas next month to look forward to, though. Soon after, Pan is no longer an intern!
Labels: chicken, grilling
Coffee Steaks and Yams
Happy
National French Fries Day!
We had a little time today to make some nice rubs and get a little creative, so we decided to grill some coffee-crusted
flat-iron steaks and bake some sweet potato fries.
This is the uncooked steak with only the rub, which consisted of a lot of paprika, espresso, brown sugar, and some other stuff.
Sliced sweet potatoes. (duh)
The finished product.
It was a pretty good meal, overall. The steaks were really moist and tender with a somewhat crispy crust and the sweet potato fries were seasoned really well by Pan. We also dipped some of the fries in mayo, which was a nice touch. The coffee rub was really good, and we made a lot of it, so I'm sure we'll be having other coffee-crusted beef items sometime soon.
Labels: cooking, grilling, steak, sweet potato
Where's the beef?
So, I wasn't originally planning on blogging this, because it's not really all that special, exciting, interesting, etc. But, then I saw and tasted the finished product, and Pan ran and got the camera.
Basically, we took a roast, marinated it in a marinade recipe from Pan's mom, and grilled it over charcoal and hickory. This is the first time I've actually used wood in my grilling, and I think it may have spurred me to use wood every time I grill. The hickory smoke was extremely strong and helped get the fire hotter than charcoal normally does. It made for a very tasty roast and a very hickory-smelling me for the rest of the evening.
(Action shot!!)
And here was the finished juicy and delicious product.
Labels: beef, cooking, grilling, roast
Porktacular!
So, we decided to grill some good stuff for Memorial Day, as I think we are required, by law, to grill on this holiday. We came up with a couple pork tenderloins and potato packets. We had never grilled pork tenderloins, but had just cooked them in the oven, previously. I wasn't really sure what I was doing or how to grill them, but in winging it, the product turned out delicious.
On the grill in the below picture, the potato packets (mine seasoned with worcestershire and the lady's seasoned with garlic and rosemary) are on the left, and both tenderloins were seasoned with a homemade dry rub of a whole bunch o'stuff, consisting of paprika, kosher salt, cumin, and some other junk. The tenderloin on the left was cooked with only the dry rub (in order to form a good crust) and the one on the right was glazed with a thrown-together concoction of cumin, the dry rub, liquid smoke, dijon mustard, worcestershire, and molasses.
And here is the finished product, with an action(!) shot of slicing the tenderloin:
(zoom in and check out the unintentional baby smoke ring)
The end result was ridiculously good and was possibly the best pork product I've had in years. The non-glazed tenderloin was actually far better, because of the crust, which helped retain the juiciness of the pork. The glazed tenderloin was still pretty good, but the glaze added so much flavor, that it actually overshadowed the interplay of flavors in the pork and the rub. In sum, I would definitely recommend heavily applying a rub and grilling pork tenderloins. The end.
Labels: cooking, grilling, Memorial Day, pork
