Rib-A-Thon Carnage

I was going through my pictures and realized that I forgot to the share picture that pretty much sums up last weeks rib-a-thon carnage. You can probably imagine a bunch of people sitting around those bones feeling fat, dumb, and happy.

Healthy Livin' Tomato and Cabbage Soup

Ok, a few of you have inquired about how I balance a diet of deliciously grilled meats and fish with a healthy lifestyle. "Certainly you can't BBQ 2 inch thick porter house steaks every night of the week?" True, even the BBQB doesn't eat fatty hunks of red meat every night! Here is a recipe that I like to whip up every now and then as a healthy, low fat, low cholesterol meal. In a large pot mix the following:

1. Head of cabbage (Yes a whole head. Freeze what you don't eat)
2. 1 Can of whole peeled tomatoes
   
3. 2-3 Cups of Chicken Stock (In this picture above I used home made turkey stock)
4. Chili powder to taste (I prefer my soup with a nice spicy kick)
5. Garlic powder to taste
6. Salt to taste
7. A few cracks at the fresh ground pepper

Boil all of the ingredients for a good 30 minutes or so to soften the cabbage. I can feel my cholesterol dropping as I right this. Who am I kidding?...This is ridiculous, "TimR" let's go grill some ribeyes!

Where's the seafood and dessert?

I have started to receive some feedback on the site and some people have noticed that I have ignored the seafood category. That's a great point and I will be sure to remedy that soon. I also got called out by my friend Abe for not being able to make desserts on my Weber. She then enlightened my by sharing her recipe for grilled bananas that I plan to get to as well.

Pork Ribs

Nothing beats a rack of ribs. They're pretty easy to do as well. It really comes down to cooking them with indirect heat and smothering them with your favorite BBQ sauce. I personally like my sauce to be a little sweet and tangy. I will often take a generic BBQ sauce and then mix in some extra garlic powder, onion powder, a dash of hot sauce and a little honey. Set up your grill with the coals to one side. You will need an entire sleeve of coals for this. Place the ribs on the opposite side of the grill with the meat side facing down. Cover the grill and cook them for an hour. Flip the ribs over after an hour and smother them with BBQ sauce. Cook for another hour and your done. Couldn't be easier. One rack of ribs this size feeds about 3 people. Be sure to grill them while drinking a few light beers and then wash them down with a nice bottle of red. For sides, I'll usually do beans and slaw.

Chicken Liver Pate

Here is another great appetizer recipe to keep your buddies entertained while they wait for whatever hunk of meat you are preparing.
Ingredients:

1. Pound of chicken livers
2. Couple cloves of garlic
3. Chunk of Butter
4. Pinch of kosher salt
5. Pinch of black pepper
6. Slightly bigger pinch of allspice
7. Few strips of bacon
8. 1 potato
   Boil the garlic for about ten minutes to lessen the bite a little bit. Next sautee the livers in some of the butter until they are brown on the outside but still slightly pink in the middle. Skin and boil the potato until cooked. The potato adds a little volume to the mixture. Sautee the strips of bacon and then combine all of the ingredients into your food processor. Blend the mixture together until it is smooth. To make look more appetizing, put the mixture into bread pan mold to form it into a block. Refridgerate for at least a few hours before serving with either crackers or bread.

Putting it together

What sort gift does the BBQB give for Christmas? A Weber of course! Over the Christmas holiday I had the chance to purchase and put together a brand new Weber grill. I highly suggest you plan ahead and have something ready to grill as soon as you are done to reward yourself. Otherwise its kind of like setting up an aqurium and not having any fish to put in it when you are all set up. By nightfall the BBQB had it broken in with a massive hunk of lamb.

Grilled Chicken

Here is another shot of my spicy grilled chicken. The key to this dish is the marinade. I coated these guys with lemon juice, olive oil, chili powder, garlic powder, onion powder and plenty of cumin. Make sure you grill them for about an hour and a half to make sure they are cooked through. Skip the red wine on this one and stick to light beer. You'll need something to wash down the spicyness

Humus

When your friends come over you'll need to have something ready to keep them busy while you prepare the grill. Put a beer in there hand and point them in the direction of your humus and crackers.
Ingredients:

• 2 Cans of chick peas,
• Pinch of kosher salt,
• Entire bulb of garlic, olive oil.
• Splash of Olive Oil
• Water
  

Cut the top of the garlic off and rub a little but of olive oil on the exposed cloves. Next, wrap the entire bulb tightly in aluminum foil and toss it on the grill or in the oven at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. While thats roasting, boil the chick peas for about 5 minutes and strain them. After they cool a bit toss them in your food processor along with the garlis and salt. Start the food processor and add a healthy splash of olive oil. At this point I also like to add some water. Just keep adding a little but of oil and water until the humus is nice and smooth. That's it. You can also play with this recipe by adding hot chili powder or roasted red peppers.

Steak and Lobster

Here are a few shots from my NYE dinner done in style. The steaks are just small simple NY strip steaks. Just put a healthy amount of sea salt and fresh ground black pepper on each side. Wait until you coals are red hot and slap the meat directly above the flame. Cover the grill and cook them about 3 minutes on each side for medium rare. As you can see these guys are pretty thin. As for the lobsters, just toss them in to a pot of boiling water for about 10 minutes. It can be a little freaky when they try to swim out of the hot water. What I do is just put the lid on and think of how good they are going to taste when they are done. When you serve them make sure you have plenty of fresh garlic in melted butter and a jug or two of your favorite red wine.

XMas Turkey

This turkey is very similar to the one I grilled on Thanksgiving. The difference between the XMas turkey and the T-Day turkey is that this one is served on Christmas Eve. Actually this post gives you a better idea of how its done. Once you try this you will never want to eat turkey any other way again. Remember to marinade this guy for at least a couple of days. Look at the tday post for ingredients on the brine marinade. The largest bird that the standard Weber grill can cook is about 12 lbs. This one was 11 lbs and took 3 hours to cook. You will need to replenish the coals once during this time.

Grilled Asparagus

Grilled veggies always taste delicious and are incredibly easy to do. When I grill asparagus I usually drip a little bit of olive oil then first along with a bit of sea salt. Then just put them directly over the coals for about 5 minutes or so. They should be tender but not mushy. I served these guys along with the leg lamb from the earlier post. Made for a wicked Xmas Day meal!

Grilled Lamb

Here is the play by play for my grilled leg of lamb. This hunk of meat was about 6 or 7 lbs. I marinated it in mustard, salt, pepper, cumin and plenty of rosemary. Another good choice would be to use yogurt. Like usual its best if you marinate the meat for about a day or so. As you can see from the pictures you'll want to use indirect heat. On one side of the grill I put the coals and on the other I have a drip pan to collect the juices. You can turn the drippings into gravy if you like. In order to first seal in the juices, I placed the meat directly over the coals for about 3-4 minutes on each side. Then I transfered the meat away from coals and finished it with indirect heat. This particlar cut took about 1.5 hours to cook. Be sure to serve red wine with a masterpiece like this