EDF Cooking Contest--Grilling Challenge

[Mermade]

O.K. I'm back from camping. As promised, I'm posting pics of all of my roughing-it fare. I'll post our meals in order, as a sort of culinary trip report. To save room in the car, we decided to keep the Smokey Joe at home and do all of our grilling over an open wood fire in the fire pit.

Camping = little or no light in the dark, so I apologize for dark pics.

Grilled Herbed Chicken Thighs and Corn on the Cob

I rubbed the thighs with garlic salt, ground pepper, rosemary, and thyme. The herbs were cut from our garden.



I grilled the breasts over the wood fire.



The corn I placed in the ash near the fire and rotated frequently. Here is a photo of the finished product.



A close-up of the thighs:

[Mermade]

Camping: Saturday Breakfast

Fried Eggs, Sausage and Toast

Jingleheimer always makes breakfast on the weekend and camping weekends are no exception.

He fried up Farmer John's sausage.



Then, he fried up the eggs in the sausage fat.



He also fried toast. Which we had with apricot jam. I didn't get a photo of that. Here's another shot of fatty breakfast deliciousness.

[Mermade]

Camping: Saturday Lunch

Brats

Hey, I'm a Midwest girl and sometimes you have to have a good brat. These are Johnsonville Originals. I didn't do anything fancy with these. I just grilled them on the open fire until done.



I added standard condiments: spicy brown mustard, ketchup, and pickle relish. I forgot to bring an onion. I know some will complain about putting ketchup on a brat, but, whatever, I like it. I served them with watermelon and, guilty pleasure, potato chips w/ French onion dip.

[Mermade]

Camping: Dinner Saturday Night

Spit-grilled Honey Mustard Pork Tenderloin, Grilled Baby Pears, Fire-Roasted Potatoes w/ Red Grapes


This was the most fun. I wanted to use up this pork tenderloin I had in the freezer, so I thawed it and we took it on our trip with no real plans for it. After we were at the campsite, Jingleheimer got the idea to put together a makeshift spit and cook the tenderloin rotisserie style. He whittled a branch into a spit to spear the tenderloin and then found a log that would serve to hold it in the fire pit.



He took over the job of rotating the tenderloin while I made the rest.

My son (he's 4) helped me make the potatoes. I sliced Yukon Golds almost but not all the way through and placed a sliver of butter between each slice, then he salted, peppered and wrapped each potato in aluminum foil and took them over to Jingleheimer to place near the fire.



I made a honey mustard glaze. Parts mustard and honey to taste. We basted the tenderloin as we turned it.



While this was cooking. I halved some pears, melted some butter in a pan and covered the pears in butter, then I put the pears on the grill. Here is a photo of the whole operation going on in the pit with two separate fires.



Here's a close up of the tenderloin:



Here's a photo of dinner plated.

[pokah5]

the tenderloin looks great!

[SamIAm]

Mermaid, those grilling pics are SO cool. It's exactly the kind of thing opening-up the contest should bring. Awesome job. I'm especially impressed by the make-shift spit!

I'm in SE Asia, so I'm not cooking. I'll try to make my own stuff when I get back, but here are couple grill related pics:

There are tons of street vendors in lao and thailand that grill random fish and birds, but I'm a little sketched-out by meat that's sitting for who-knows-how-long. We've been sticking to more vegetarian vendors.

The local Hepatitis A stand in Bangkok:


We did have a traditional dessert where they grill sticky rice in bamboo.





To be honest, looking over my pics so far, I'm surprised there aren't more grill-related photos. I'll post my sauteing, frying, and braising pics in a new EDF thread when we get back to the states. We've been basically eating our way across Asia, so there are pics a plenty. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[ElSapo]

[ QUOTE ]
This was the most fun. I wanted to use up this pork tenderloin I had in the freezer, so I thawed it and we took it on our trip with no real plans for it. After we were at the campsite, Jingleheimer got the idea to put together a makeshift spit and cook the tenderloin rotisserie style. He whittled a branch into a spit to spear the tenderloin and then found a log that would serve to hold it in the fire pit.

[/ QUOTE ]

Did you have any trouble with the stick burning? Did you soak it beforehand? No fears of it breaking?

[Mermade]

El Sapo--We poured water over the supporting log and the spit before cooking, but didn't soak them for any length of time. The log didn't burn at all. The spit blackened a little bit but didn't burn or char in any significant way. He used a thick branch that he'd scavenged from the ground that was naturally bowed, but strong. It didn't bend at all with the weight of the tenderloin. Jinglehimer was watching and turning constantly so if the spit had caught fire or if he'd spied weakness, he would have just aborted the effort.

[Gildwulf]

I wish I took pictures but I grilled dinner for 6 friends last night.

Step 1- pick up high quality meat at Cumbrae's. The usual suspects were:

-2 chicken burgers
-2 steak burgers
-2 lamb burgers
-6 gourmet all-beef hot dogs

total cost about $25 but very much worth it. They use 35 days dry-aged Cumbrae beef exclusively. The burgers were prepared with all kinds of fun stuff inside as well (some nuts, green onions, oil, salt, pepper etc.).

Other ingredients
-1 red pepper
-1 green pepper
-3 yukon potatoes
-6 pieces of corn

For the corn, i pulled off the outer husk and removed the silk, leaving the inner husk in tact. That took about 10 minutes. Then I soaked them in water for approximately 30 minutes. After absorbing the water, I peeled back the husk, smeared each piece of corn with butter and sprinkled salt and pepper on.

I cooked the corn (with the inner husk on) with a propane grill for about 20 minutes (flipped it about 4 times) and the burgers for 5 minutes on each side.

The hotdogs I cooked on the grill in 3-4 minutes until they were blistered on each side.

The potatoes I sliced up, smeared with olive oil and montreal steak spice and oregano and cooked on my george forman grill inside for 10 minutes or so. Peppers were also on the grill, smeared with salt, pepper and olive oil. Buns were toasted in the oven.

Again, I wish I had pictures but the end result was simple and amazing and took about an hour including prep.

link to cumbraes

[Mermade]

BretWeir--Asparagus on the grill is great. This is a standard veg in our house. I like to add some minced garlic as well as the olive oil and let it sit for a sec before going on the grill. I love garlic. It looks like the polenta turned out well. Did you have any problems with sticking?