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Posts Tagged ‘barbeque’

I love s’mores. But, I always find that while my MOUTH may want a second one, the sugar hits me like a truck and I just can’t handle it. And I find that while I have the perfect way to make s’mores, it’s a lot of work.

Enter: The S’more Sundae

Ingredients:

• Waffle cones (it HAS to be waffle, the bigger the better)
• Mini marshmallows
• Mini chocolate chips
• Strawberries
• Bananas

The fruit pieces weren’t nearly small enough. Make them LITTLE so they fit in the cone better!

Cut the fruit up into tiny pieces. And when I say tiny, I mean the smaller the better! I recommend putting each ingredient into its own bowl so if somebody doesn’t like something, they don’t have to eat it!

This is your chance to control and blend the flavors how YOU want it.

Layer the ingredients into a waffle cone. I recommend starting with two or three chocolate chips since nothing else fits into the tip of the waffle cone.

It could have held a bit more!

Continue layering until the cone is as full as you can get it! Then, wrap it loosely in foil. It will probably look something like a taco.

You don’t want to wrap the foil too tightly or the sundae starts to burn.

Toast for three to five minutes over low heat. You want to heat the marshmallows and fruit and lightly melt the chocolate. But the chocolate can scorch and burn so keep an eye on it! I’ve tried this over mostly-cool charcoal briquettes and on a regular propane barbeque. Both work well. Carefully open the foil packet.

We had already cooked (and eaten!) steaks so the coals weren’t very hot.

You can mix it all together with a spoon and eat or eat it in layer. I prefer it in layers. And I don’t scoop it out of the cone with a spoon but just carefully nibble the cone and sundae together.

Other suggested ingredient combinations:

• Carmel chips
• Granny smith apples
• Walnuts
• Marshmallows

• Blueberries
• Chocolate chips
• Marshmallows

• Canned mandarin oranges
• Marshmallows

You can buy chips in caramel, carob, white chocolate, and peanut butter so the possibilities are endless!

If you follow me on Facebook at all, you’ll have seen my mentions all summer long about how I think barbequed plums should be a food group. I read about putting stone fruit (like plums or peaches) on a barbeque in a magazine. But when I went to find the recipe (or the how-to) I couldn’t remember where I’d found the information.

So, I just figured it out with trial and error!

INGREDIENTS

• 2-3 Stone-fruit like plums (or peaches) per person

Cut the plum in half and remove the pit. Make sure you’ve removed and stickers! If you wash it first (I don’t bother) make sure that it is fully dried.

Pre-heat your propane or gas grill and use a wire brush to knock off any dirt, grit or other crusty items.

Once the grill is hot, place the plum fruit side down. Now, this is really important: the fruit should sizzle when you put it on the grill. If not, the grill isn’t hot enough and you should remove the plum half and wait for the grill to get hotter.

Here’s the other important thing I found through trial and error: Don’t fuss with the plums! Just leave it there. Close the lid. Walk away. Leave it alone! I go for at LEAST two minutes, but maybe a bit longer depending on the size of the fruit.

After a couple of minutes, carefully flip the plum over to the skin side. I use tongs since my plums always fall off my spatula. (Can you tell I’ve been making this for lunch all summer?)

Again, leave that plum alone. The skin will start to slide off — that’s fine. Once the plum is hot all the way through and the skin begins to get crispy or burnt, you’re all done. Again, from experience, I turn off the grill so I can get my plate REALLY close to the plums; at this point they tend to nearly fall apart when you grab them with the tongs.

I serve this with a beef kielbasa sausage (fully-cooked so I’m just heating it on the grill). I start the sausage and plums at the same time but the plums take longer to cook so I put THEM on my grill hotspot and the sausage somewhere cooler.

A note about peaches:

Canned peaches DO NOT WORK. (I’ve tried) And if it’s between plums and peaches: take the plums. The peaches have a fuzzy skin not a waxy skin like a plum and the fuzz burns and the skin blackens and it’s just not as good.

Now STAWBERRIES on the other hand… Strawberries aren’t bad!

Ah summer! I love LOVE cooking on my barbeque! I especially love it because even when I’m not camping, I’m still cooking outside.

This is one of EatStayPlay.com “Royal” Family’s favorite summer dinners.

INGREDIENTS

• Cooked, whole shrimp. Thawed. (With or without tail, up to you; I prefer without)
• Dill weed
• Extra virgin olive oil

Mix olive oil and dill weed in a glass bowl. Toss the shrimp in the dill/oil mixture until well coated. The longer you can let it sit, the better!

(I don’t measure anything for this recipe, just dump it in. Dill weed is expensive in the stores but it is so good on shrimp don’t be shy about using it.)

Thread shrimp onto skewers. Metal works best since it will heat the shrimp from the inside.

Heat the barbeque. Make sure that it is completely hot before placing the shrimp onto the barbeque. Heat until hot all the way through, turning once. I always like to brush them with any leftover dill/oil mixture.

The trick to barbequing shrimp is to just heat them up — not to COOK them! If you over cook them they get dry, tough and tasteless. Warmed shrimp get the lovely grill marks and are hot, juicy and tender.

Don’t worry if they don’t come out perfectly the first time! It takes practice!

I found what looked like a really neat recipe in one of ESP Boss’ magazines a few weeks ago and just HAD to try it out on last weekend’s camping trip. Of course, I modified the recipe to use “real” ingredients. I just figure that if you’re only using a little bit, why do you REALLY need to subject yourself to the grossness of low-fat mayo and nonfat yogurt?!

INGREDIENTS

• 2 TBS mayonnaise
• 2 TBS plain yogurt (We went all-out and had yummy Greek yogurt!)
• 1/2 tsp chili powder (or to taste)
• 1 lime, quartered
• 4 ears of corn

Combine mayonnaise, yogurt and chili powder in a bowl. We made this before we left for camping so the flavors had about 36 hours to blend. I think it made a big difference so I recommend doing that!

Grill the corn over the campfire. Here’s how: Fun Food Fridays: Barbeque Corn on the Cob (But forgo stuffing butter into the corn husks during cooking!)

Once cooked, smear liberally with the sauce and sprinkle with lime juice. Yummy!

Don't mind my teeth marks -- I couldn't help myself & had to try it!

The original recipe called for shredding Cotija or Parmesan cheese as a topping but I’m not a fan of either so I left it off. Trust me, there was plenty of flavor!

When I collected the ears of corn from the fire, 2 were done and two were only done on one side. I took off all the charred husks, wrapped them loosely in foil, and plunked them back on the grill. By the time we’d eaten our steaks and first ear, the next ears were ready!

Readers Weigh In:

• Low-fat, nonfat — gross or what?!
  Do you soak your corn before cooking it over open flame?
  Tin foil: yes or no?

I’ve got a huge garden this year, and I planted about 15 jalapeno plants. The first year I planted jalapenos, I planted 6 and then couldn’t figure out why I had planted so many!  Jalapenos are usually eaten pickled so I wasn’t sure what to do with them…

Now, I know exactly why MORE is BETTER:

Jalapeno poppers!

INGREDIENTS:

• 3-4 raw jalapenos per person
• Brick cream cheese
• Bacon strips
• Toothpicks or skewers

If you’re using toothpicks or wooden skewers, put them in water to soak so they won’t burn when you grill the popper.

Wash the jalapeno s and remove the seeds and stems. (But, keep the jalapeno in one piece!) When you are removing the seeds and stems, be sure not to run any water. The chili oils get into the air when you cut into the jalapeno; running water makes the oils settle so you breathe them. NOT fun to be coughing all the time in the kitchen!

Be sure to pat them completely dry.

I use a potato peeler to scoop out the seeds. Another tip is to also remove the ribs of the chili: the parts where the seeds attach to the chili wall. That area also carries a lot of “heat”.

Fill the jalapeno with cream cheese.I smash as much as I possibly can into the body of the pepper. You can use the back of a spoon or your fingers to fill the pepper. Just be sure you don’t rub your face at all when you’re handling these bad boys!

Wrap a slice of bacon all the way around the jalapeno (once) and secure with the tooth pick. You might want to cut the bacon strip in half so it’s not as long. This will reduce the cooking time.

Grill the popper on a tabletop barbeque until the bacon is done and the cheese is melted. Because the peppers have a lot of moisture in them, you won’t be able to get the bacon crispy. Be careful handling and eating the poppers, that cheese will be really hot.

Enjoy!

You can substitute any type of cheese you like for the brick of cream cheese. I don’t recommend the spreadable cream cheese (the one that comes in the little plastic tub), because it’s too soft and will melt and run out of the jalapeno before the bacon is done.

When Nicole & I were camping last weekend, we bought 5 ears of corn at the grocery store in Williams. Nicole wanted to try barbequing them! Neither one of us had ever made grilled corn on the cob but we were up to the challenge.

INGREDIENTS

• Ears of corn, in husks
• Butter, salt and pepper (to taste)
• Tin foil (optional)

Begin by peeling back the husks to remove the silk. The trick to this seemed to be to gently peel it away from the corn so the husk doesn’t rip completely off the ear. Tugging firmly on the silk (in line with the ear of corn) seemed to be the best way to remove the silk.

The more of the silk you can remove, the better.

Remove any parts of the corn that are bruised, damaged, or eaten by worms!

Then, we mashed butter along the corn before pulling the husks back into place. (I’m not sure if that HAS to be done, but we did it!) Don’t expect the husks to completely cover the kernels; it’ll be okay.

We cooked the corn directly on the grill over the fire. We probably SHOULD have started the fire earlier so there were less flames and more coals (also less smoke!) but it did work. I kept pushing the burning logs more under the grill so the heat would be more or less even, but every time I did, the flames would leap up and catch the corn husks on fire. But the corn has a high moisture content so it didn’t burn.

Don't be alarmed if the corn catches on fire! It'll still taste fine.

Cook about 20 minutes. You’ll want to use metal tongs to flip the corn over half-way through cooking. We also rotated them on the grill at that time too so all ears were evenly over the hottest part of the fire.

The corn turned out tender and juicy! The smoke (and ignited husks) gave the corn a great smoky flavor. If you don’t LIKE the taste of smoke (Nicole doesn’t!) then wrap the corn loosely in tin foil before cooking.

Wrap the foil loosely so the corn can steam; pull the foil too tight and the corn will scorch.

Like any time you’re eating corn on the cob, expect to get dirty! Have plenty of paper towels on hand. Handling the ears also turned my hands (and shirt) black since they were well charred on the outermost layer.

Serve with lots of butter, salt & pepper! And napkins!

If you like fish, then you’re in for a treat when you have lake-fresh trout cooked in camp! Trout is a moist, sweet fish. The flesh is anywhere from white to pink to orange.

You’ll also need a table top barbeque and a fish basket to prepare this recipe. Here are links to a barbeque and a fish basket.

INGREDIENTS

• 3-8 Trout (cleaned)
• Lemon slices (circles, not wedges)
• Onion slices (optional)
• Salt and pepper
• Olive oil

Completely clean each fish. (There is no need to scale the trout because the skin becomes crispy as it’s being cooked, just discard the skin upon serving and the trout meat remains moist.)

Lightly brush each fish with the olive oil on both sides and in the body cavity. Place lemon slices (a circle, not a wedge) inside each fish. This can also be substituted for onion slices. If you’re really daring: try both!

Salt and pepper the inside of the fish, to taste.

Spray the fish basket with a no-stick cooking spray before adding fish. Cook in a fish basket, on a barbeque, until the skin lightly flakes away from the body of the fish. Flip the basket after you’ve tested the fish on one side. The trout will cook faster if you keep the lid of the barbeque closed. Cooking temperatures of barbeques vary, keep an eye on your fish.

Remove the skin and serve. Be careful of the little tiny trout bones!

If your lake trout are small like we get here in Arizona (about 6 inches in body length after cleaning) then you might want to eat them during the day. Trout have a ton of teeny tiny bones so I prefer to eat them for lunch (sunlight) rather than for dinner (lantern light).