Thanksgiving Dinner continued

Gary made his fresh mashed pototatoes, Mom brought cranberry sauce, Cathy prepared Trees and Raisins and rolls, and we were ready to start the buffet line.  Minkie was just exhausted but a great meal and a good time was had by all.  Happy Thanksgiving!

PS-  Gary made the pie crust and I made Cindy's Pecan pie and pumpkin pie served with fresh whipped cream.

Thanksgiving morning and turkey prep

 We got up at 6am to light the grill and prepare the turkey.  We added onions, herbs and orange from the brine to the cavity of the turkey.  The grill was filled with Big Green Egg lump charcoal and lighted with starter.

We dressed the turkey with olive oil, garlic salt and California pepper.  We added fresh herbs to the cavity along with an orange, 1/2 lemon, halved whole garlic, 1/2 onion, thyme, rosemary and sage. .  We struggled a bit with the fire temp.  Gary was able to evenly distribute the hot coals to where we finally got the temp to maintain at 350 degrees.  We added a 1/4 cup of apple chips to the fire.  It was 7:25am when we got the turkey on after placing the Big Green Egg plate setter with legs up, we filled the drip pan with 1 carrot, an orange, rosemary and thyme along with vegetable broth.  After about 1/2 hr we were able to maintain the grill temp at 270 degrees.

 My Dad came over to help me with the dressing.  I had gotten Nancy Nahon's recipe from Mona McCann this week.  It called for 2 baked boxes of Jiffy cornbread which Dad cooked yesterday.  I had left out a 24 ou loaf of white bread out on a cookie sheet.  Dad began tearing the bread's up and mixing them together.  We ended up only using one Jiffy and half of the bread for our 9 x 13 baking dish.  In the meantime, I was boiling all of the giblets in water over high heat on the stove.  I chopped an onion and half of a bunch of celery then put it in a saucepan with 1/2 stick of butter.  To that we added fresh sage which I had chopped.  We sauted that until done and added some vegetable broth to the giblet mixture.  Dad added the celery and onion to the bread mixture which he had put in the baking dish.  We added salt and pepper to the giblet mixture and poured what we thought we needed on the bread mixture.  We placed a few whole sage leaves to the top.  We baked the dressing at 350 degrees for 45 minutes

At 10:30am we checked the turkey and it was done at 170, inside the breast temp.  We brought it in to rest.  The dressing was done in 40 minutes and looked beautiful.

Thanksgiving Eve 2011

So excited to try the turkey on the Big Green Egg.  I talked to several friends and looked at web recipes for my plans.  One of my friends, Ronnie, picked up a fresh turkey for us on the Farmer's Market last Saturday from Autumn Olive Farms.  It is around a 16.3 lb bird.  I've keep in the frig at 36 degrees.  We prepared a brine of 1/2 c brown sugar, 1/2 c of sugar, 1 orange rind, 3 sprigs of fresh rosemary, 1 c kosher salt, 2 onions quartered, 1 halved garlic and 16 c of H2O.  We put that in our Playmate and topped it with ice.  The outside temp was 40 degrees so we were able to keep it out back.

Sunday night with BGE pork, cauliflower and a table of family

A couple of Sunday's ago I lighted the grill to cook Hormel Lemon-Pepper pork tenderloin and some pork chops.  These were grilled for around 25 minutes at 350 degrees.

I grilled the asparagus while Gary boiled cauliflower and mashed it with butter and skim milk. He  used Penzey's Garlic Salt for flavor and we added chives from the garden.  Notice that the Turkey plates were out in anticipation of another Big Green Egg smoked turkey for Thanksgiving.

Friday night dinner

After a long and busy week we did not want to go out so I decided to stop by Smillies for chicken tenders and take some frozen shrimp from Sam's to cook on the grill.  The corn looked fresh and I also got some brocollini to try.  I put olive oil and fresh garden herbs(oregano, parsley and basil) along with salt and pepper on the shrimp and Lake Shore Drive Seasoning from The Spice House in Evanston, Ill on the chicken.  Gary helped me make some fresh salsa and guac for the side.   I also boiled purple and brown new potatoes from Homegrown Foods.  Yummy and easy meal on a beautiful Friday night.

Summer catch up

Just some photo's of Big Green Egg cooking over the last month.  I've learned how to regulate and evenly distribute the heat.  I've cooked the chicken, salmon, turkey burgers and turkey sausages without anything but the BGE lump charcoal.  The flavor is so good.  We've been using the chicken for wraps and salad, as you can see above.  It's been fun to cook a bunch of food on Sunday to simplify the week:)

Return from a Weekend trip- Chicken Breasts- June 5, 2011

We returned on Sunday from a trip to a Pulhoz win, stopping at Whole Foods.  I had to show the photo of their veggie displays.  We even ate breakfast there before doing a little shopping.  So, we have a big outdoor grill at work and Kirk had grilled chicken breasts with Santa Maria seasoning on them on Friday.  I went to Harter House and purchased 4.  Started up the grill, put on the breasts at 350.  I turned them a couple of times for a total of almost 25 minutes.  they were delicious and made great wraps for lunch with avocados and locally made Float Trip pickles.

Friday night Salmon- June 3rd, 2011

Friday night in June sounded like a good time to attempt to get some Copper River salmon so I went to Dillons after work and got a pound and a half.  Rather than marinate in the bag I just put the fish on our fish platter and put olive oil, light soy sauce, brown sugar, garlic salt and California pepper.  I started the fire, prepared the asparagus with olive oil and sea salt then waited until the egg reached 400 degrees.  I placed the fish directly on the grill and held the temperature at 350.  The salmon cooked for around 20 minutes and easily came off the grill onto the fish platter.  I put the asparagus on the Green Egg grill pan which I had sprayed with Pam and cooked them for 7 minutes.  For a side i had orzo salad from The Traveling Chef, Jennifer Smith.  We had a nice salad and a great 1997 bottle of Silver Oak. It was a pleasure to have our first meal of the season being outside on the patio.  Simple meal and great tastes.

Saturday night Pizza

Last night we did not go to the lake and Gary had gone on a 25 mile bike ride, so we decided to try pizza again on the BGE. I lit the grill and got it to 500 degrees. We used a Pillsbury Pizza Crust which Gary rolled out and placed on the wooden paddle. I configured the grill as before with the grate, plate topper top up and our pizza stone. We added Kraft Mozzarella cheese to the top of the crust then added asparagus from the farmer's market, sliced red onions, Cherry Cherub tomatoes cut in half, roasted red pepper and mushrooms. We topped it with Kraft Parmesan cheese, basil and oregano from our garden, Penzey's Garlic Salt and California Pepper, and Penzey's Pizza Herbs. I cooked the pizza for 15 minutes at 400 degrees. We took the pizza and stone off and sliced the pizza from there. It was delicious and the crust was perfect!

James' Pork Tenderloin

Last week we ran into Sally and James while walking and collaborated on dinner. James was cooking plain pork tenderloin which he had rubbed with Jack's Gourmet Seasoning from Outdoor Home and he used hickory wood chips for flavoring. He cooked the tenderloin to a temp of 145 at 325 degrees on the BGE, about 20 minutes. It was a bit underdone so Sal put it in the oven for 10 minutes. While the pork was in the oven he cooked our asparagus and mushrooms brushed with with basel olive oil. The flavor of the meat was really smoky and good! Nice mid-week dinner.

Mother's Day Pizza May 8th

Pizza has been one of the things I had really been wanting to try on the GBE. Gary and I make our own pizza's in the our oven alot so we wanted to see if there was really a difference. I ran the menu by Mom and it sounded good to her. I googled and read several blogs and posts about how to do it. I decided to heat the grill to 500 degrees then put the grate on with the BGE plate setter, plate side up on top of it. The reason for that is that you need the pizza at the level of the grill opening in order to get it off without dropping or messing it up. We always use the Pillsbury pizza crust mix which you add a 1/2 c of water to and let it rise a bit. Gary has made homemade crusts but they really are not any better than the Pillsbury crust. We were having my folks and Randy so we decided to make 2 pizza's and have a nice big salad. I quickly put the pizza stone on the hot plate setter to get it heated up. We made our crusts, Gary rolled out the dough on the Corian countertop with some of flour underneath then put the crust on our Williams Sonoma wooden pizza paddle with Quaker's corn meal on it. We always use Kraft Mozzerella shredded cheese for the base then we added bits of hamburger meat, chopped red onion, chopped tomatoes, and fresh chopped mushrooms. We put Kraft parmesan shredded cheese on the top along with Penzey's Garlic and California Pepper. We added some oregano and were ready to put it on the grill. The temp was around 500 degrees when we opened the lid and Gary quickly slid the pizza on. The temp went down but I got it backup to 400. I am getting better with regulating the temp, thank goodness. It has taken a year. The pizza's got rave reviews with a wonderful flavor! We can't wait to grill another pizza!

Friday night Tilapia- May 7th

Dillons had some nice looking tilapia last week so I bought some for Friday night. One of my favorite BGE blogs is Mr. T;s Big Green Egg Recipe Blog. When I googled for a tilapia recipe I should have known he would have a good one. His was Baked Breaded Tilapia. The breading was made with 1/4 c bread crumbs which I made from a couple of old frozen hamburger buns in the Cuinsinart, pepper, Sea Salt, 1 T fresh lemon juice(Gary thought I put too much), 1/4 c Mayo, 1/4 c shredded parmesan cheese and some fresh parsley from the garden. I spread it on top of the fish. I put the fish in a BGE pan which I had sprayed with Pam and put the fish in the BGE at around 400 degrees for 15 minutes. The tilapia needs something since it is so mild and this did the trick. Did the potatoes in foil with rosemary and asparagus on the grill also. Very Good!

Back to the BGE- March 23rd

James was coming over for dinner so I got salmon at Dillons at lunch. I put it in a large baggy with lite soy sauce, couple of T. of honey, and a dash of brown sugar. This is close to what is recommended on the BGE website. James helped me with the fire which I have been struggling with since I got my egg a year ago. He helped me spread the coals out so the fire was not uneven. We got the temp up to 400 degrees and put the salmon on. We were able to keep the fire at 350 and cooked around 5 minutes on each side. I put olive oil on some asparagus and put it on a pan on the grill for 5 minutes. Then made a quick box of couscous with pine nuts along with a fresh salad and we had a great, quick weeknight meal.