2 pounds chicken wings
House seasoning
1/2 cup Jamaican jerk sauce
Season wings with house seasoning and grill until done. Let wings stand 5 minutes. Toss the wings in the sauce, let stand 5 minutes and retoss the wings in the sauce remaining in the bowl. Serve immediately.
4 stars
The Outdoors Start at Your Back Porch!
I’ve had this recipe in one form or another for a long time. I keep tweaking it to get it just right. This is the best I’ve had it, and I think I’m going to make it again real soon. Adding the cheese puts it over the top. If you have fresh dill, use it instead of dried– it will taste much better. This goes great at a summer barbecue, camping, or even as a side to a roast in the cooler months. Make sure you keep an eye on it, or it can burn easily.
Recipe:
12″ Dutch oven
350 Degrees
Baking
30 minutes
4 Servings
Ingredients
- 6 Russet potatoes, scalloped
- 1 packet ranch dressing mix
- 1/2 cup milk
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 tablespoon dill
- Liberal shake House seasoning
- 1/2 cup cheddar cheese, shredded
Grease Dutch oven. Scrub and slice potatoes, adding to Dutch oven. Coat potatoes in olive oil. Add seasonings and toss until fully coated. Add milk and retoss to recoat. Top with cheese and bake at 350 degrees for 30 to 40 minutes.
5 Stars
Bon Appetit! The Outdoors Start at Your Back Porch!
I love orange chicken at the local Asian restaurants, so why not take that flavor home? Marrying the tangy orange flavor and the flame of the grill, this chicken not only tastes great, but is good for you too! Recently I’ve been on what I call “The Awareness Diet”, where I count calories to be more aware of my physical health. I’m proud to announce that this diet is actually working, and I’ve lost 7 pounds in 4 weeks! You could even cut out or reduce the brown sugar to lower the calories. Taste good and good for me? Must be a paradox.
Recipe:
Medium Heat
Grilling
20 minutes
4 Servings
Marinade:
- 2 navel oranges, medium
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp crushed black pepper
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
Peel oranges, removing cores on each end. Combine all ingredients in a blender on the highest setting. Marinate chicken overnight in the refrigerator. Grill on medium high heat until chicken reaches 165 degrees internally.
4 Stars
Bon Appetit! The Outdoors Start at Your Back Porch!
The loaded baked potatoes at Outback Steakhouse are extremely good. However, they have a day’s worth of calories (3000) in one serving. In spite of the risks of gorging yourself full on a days caloric intake, I still love eating 2 or 3 loaded baked potatoes. By wrapping the potatoes in foil, you can bake them right in the coals of a fire and they will turn out great. Our scout troop went camping this weekend and these potatoes were a real crowd pleaser for dinner.
Recipe:
Pit Cooking
45 minutes
8 – 12 Servings
Ingredients
- 10 pounds potatoes
- 1-2 cans chili, family size
- 2-3 pounds shredded cheese
- 1-2 packages precooked bacon, chopped
- 1 pound sour cream
- butter
- salt & pepper
Additional toppings to consider:
- chives or green onions, chopped
- olives, sliced
- ham, cubed
- avocado, cubed
- jalepenos
- banana or pepperoncini peppers
- mushrooms, sliced and crushed
- ranch dressing
- bleu cheese crumbles
- grilled onions
Clean potatoes, poke vent holes with a fork and wrap in foil. Place directly on coals or briquettes and cover with coals. Bake 45 minutes, turning occasionally with tongs. Heat chili on a stove until bubbling. Assemble potato according to manufacturer’s preferences.
4 Stars
Bon Appetit! The Outdoors Start at Your Back Porch!
I just got back from a well deserved vacation from the grid, which includes the Blogosphere. I took the family to Arches National Park for 4 days of off-grid adventure and relaxation. I’ve got some good posts coming up, and have a surprise announcement about something I’m pretty excited about so stay tuned!
I had this cool idea to serve steak on a bed of sizzling vegetables, and since I was having a birthday fiesta, I thought I would give it a shot. This dish goes great at any occasion, and the the sizzling cast iron is great ear candy for special occasions.
1 lb mushrooms, sliced
2 yellow onions, sliced
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 green bell pepper, julienned
House seasoning
Sirloin steak, about 1″ thick
Olive oil
Preheat a small cast iron skillet or fajita pan on high on the grill. Reduce heat to medium. Saute the vegetables and garlic in the olive oil until the onions have carmelized. Meanwhile, grill steak to medium rare, seasoning with house seasoning. Return heat to high and top vegetables with steak. Serve immediately and enjoy the sizzle.
5 Stars
For the past several weeks I have been trying to grill the ultimate hamburger. In order to do that, we need to define what the ultimate hamburger is:
1. Juicy
2. Thick
3. Medium to well done
4. Not needing much spice
5. Delicious
The first burger was juicy, thick, lightly spiced, but still mooing. Feeling the heat to get the burgers ready for the already finished meal, in my haste I didn’t check them well enough; hence we ate meat that was far too raw.
Lesson #1: Thou shalt take thy time to do things right. (Thank you Mr. Rogers; your lessons still linger with us.)
The second burger was smarter than his younger burger. He built his house out of sticks… Wrong story, sorry. So the next go round, I let them cook longer. Albeit still in a rush, I didn’t cook them until the juices ran clear. “Medium rare” I lied to myself, and served them up. They were rare, and my wife didn’t much care for the blood on the plate.
Lesson #2: Thou shalt cook them until the juices run clear.
The third burger was not entirely perfect, but very very very close. I defrosted some premade patties that were about 3/4 inch thick, so it passes the thickness test. I lightly spiced them with a fresh batch of house seasoning, so they passed the spice test. I put them on a preheated grill, and cooked one side for about 7 minutes then turned them once and grilled for 7 more. I knew they were juicy because a slight press brought out the sizzle, and the meat thermometer hole shot like a geyser. Yes they were delicious, but one was medium and the other was medium rare. Three lessons on this one:
Lesson #3 Thou shalt not squish the juices out of thine meat.
Lesson #4 Thou shalt check all meat with the meat thermometer.
Lesson #5 Thou shalt calibrate thy meat thermometer, and thou wouldst be better off to not buy a cheap one.
The fourth burger was, well, a good apex to the strange weekend I had over Easter. Nothing seemed to go right, and I’ve been dealing with sick kids all day. Since we missed out on my Mom’s famous marinated chicken, I decided to fire up the grill and do another hamburger. The burger was top-notch. However, I burned the buns while trying to toast them. Thick, juicy, well done: it was perfect; except for the burnt bun.
Lesson #6 Thou shalt cook thy burger first, then thou shalt toast thy bun.
Lesson #7 Even a bad burger is still a burger. Be grateful you have a burger.
A few more lessons from my experience:
Lesson #8 Form thy meat to about 3/4 inch thick. Freeze the patties with wax paper in between them in food saver bags.
Lesson #9 Thou shalt defrost thy meat before grilling. It seals in the flavor better if you can get a good sear.
Lesson #10 Thou shalt preheat thy grill on high to get good sear marks, then reduce thy heat to medium.
What is your experience cooking the ultimate hamburger? Sound off in the comments. Don’t forget! Add a comment to help decide what we’ll be cooking in the iron chef challenge! Leave a comment below with a meat and a veggie or fruit or starch!
1 part pepper
1 part garlic powder
Mix all ingredients thoroughly and store in spice shaker jars.
I’ve always wanted to cook sourdough pizza, so last Monday I called my pal Mark, of Mark’s Black Pot, who is the resident bread expert this side of the Great Plains. The following is the weeklong saga culminating with the best pizza I’ve ever had. Yes fans, it was that good. This post will be split into two sections:
Sourdough Basics
Grilling Pizza
Lets get started:
Sourdough Basics:
Step 1. If you mix it, they will come. We need a nice habitat for our wild yeast friends that will be living in our dough. A week before your party, mix together 1 cup water and 1 cup flour. This is called the starter. It should have the consistency of somewhere between pancake batter and biscuit dough. Leave it out on the counter overnight in a place it won’t be disturbed, not too much heat, and no metal. Stirring, mixing, or bowl. NO METAL. Metal kills yeast.
Step 2. Invite the colony to the party. Now you should have caught some wild yeast bugs and they are happily producing the gas that makes sourdough so yummy. Every night for 5 nights, scoop out half the starter and discard it, replacing it with 1/2 cup water and 1/2 cup flour. This is “feeding” the start. If your kids keep bugging you about getting a dog or cat, tell them they have to take care of yeast for a week. That will be a good test to see if they can handle a multicellular organism.
Step 3. Mix the sponge. The morning of the party, mix 1 cup starter, 2 1/2 cups water, 4 cups flour. Let it ferment for about 6 to 8 hours. This is uncovered, on the counter.
Step 4. Mix the dough. 3 hours to showtime, get the dough started… it will need to raise for 1-2 hours. To the sponge, mix 1 cup flour, 1 egg, 2 tbsp sugar, 3 tbsp oil, and 1 tbsp salt. Mix thoroughly and knead adding flour until it passes the “windowpane test”. If you can stretch a window of dough without it tearing it is ready. Cut the dough into appropriate sized balls and let raise in a warm place for 1-2 hours.
At this point, you can take the dough and make sourdough bread, but we want to make pizza, so with no further ado,
Grilling Pizza
Step 1. Prep your ingredients. Get everything “Mise en Place”. For our pizzas we used:
Tomatoes, sliced
Spinach
Pepperoni, sliced
Sausage
Ham
Mushrooms
Artichoke hearts
Green onion, chopped
Red onion, sliced
Mozzarella cheese, shredded
Tomato sauce
Remember to brown the sausage ahead of time.
Step 2. Make the tomato sauce.
Recipe:
1 15 oz can stewed tomatoes, cubed
1 6 oz can tomato paste
1 tbsp parsley
1 tsp basil
2 tsp garlic powder
Mash tomatoes, mix all ingredients until blended. Let stand 10 minutes prior to use.
Step 3. Roll out the dough. I used my hands only, but you could use a rolling pin. Roll it out on some cornmeal so it doesn’t stick. Put it on a piece of parchment paper and build your pizza. Brush the crust with olive oil after rolling out to get the top crisp.
Step 4. Preheat the pizza stone. If you don’t have a pizza stone, you can use bricks, but it may take longer to heat. Put the stone on the grill, light the grill, close the lid and let it warm up.
Step 5. Place the pizza on the stone. Use the parchment paper to move it. It may char some, but it is only temporary. If you have a pizza peel, use that, otherwise, this works. Once the pizza starts to cook, you can remove the parchment.
Step 6. Bake the pizza from 15-20 minutes on low grill heat. Watch it closely so it doesn’t burn. When done, pull out and put on foil to cool. Cut and enjoy!
Bon Appetit! The Outdoors Start at Your Back Porch!
Back Porch Gourmet 