Making Zucchini on the Grill

We have a vegetable basket for the grill, so I tried grilling zucchini as a side dish.

Two things to keep in mind: first, zucchini shrinks when cooking. Just because there's a layer covering the entire bottom of the basket, it won't look like enough 20 minutes from now. Cut some more.

Second: keep an eye on things and don't trust what the knob on your burners say. The basket straddled the center and right burner, and both were between Medium and Low, closer to low. Everything looked good, so I ran inside a few minutes to work on salad. I was gone about 5 minutes when I came back and found the those slices over the center burner turning brown and smoking a little. Another reason to cook extra.

The stuff that didn't burn came out okay. I just wish I'd made more.
I also baked some plain Idaho potatoes. Next time, those will have to be spiced up a little.

Ultimate Bacon Burger

We first fired up the grill at the end of May, when the weather first started getting warmer (before it got way too hot). And my first big Sunday breakfast consisted of eggs cooked in the cast iron skillet and I even toasted a bagel on the grill. Somehow, I never got around to taking a picture of it. Oh, well. It turned out pretty well.

Anyway, Fathers Day rolled around, and, somehow, there was no bacon involved. How is that again? There should be extra bacon on Fathers Day. I made up for it a few days later.

I saw the following on the Internet many times before, so I decided to try it, sans hot dogs. With the franks added, it's supposed to look like a cooked turtle. Without them, it's just meat and a whole lot of bacon.



Simple to make: there are two pre-maid hamburger patties (total weight: 1/2 pound) and 6 slices of bacon. Yes, that's a lot of bacon in one serving, but if anyone didn't want me to make that, there should have been bacon of Fathers Day!

It was interesting, and a little icky, weaving the bacon, and it almost didn't make it around the two burgers stacked in the center.

Cooked it on the grill a lower-than-usual flame for a longer time, and flipped it a couple of times.

Tasted good.

On Top of Ol' Frankie! (All Covered with *Stuff*!)

There was a time, when I was a kid, when I had two choices when it came to topping a hot dog: ketchup or mustard. And you had to be careful where you were because some people were adamant (okay, I didn't know that word back then, but they "insisted -- a lot!") that mustard goes on franks and ketchup (or catsup back then) goes on burgers.

Now let's not get into which kind of mustard: yellow stuff, which looked icky the first time I saw it; Gulden's, the brown stuff in the jar; or Kozi-- Kazi-- Czoski-- the other spicy brown mustard that my father bought sometimes for his pastrami sandwiches. (You could wash the jar out when you were done and it was a drinking glass, with a handle.)

No, let's not get into that. There are only two things that are important now:
First, I know more people who prefer ketchup and wouldn't even consider mustard.
Second, I'm bored of just plain ketchup.

That means finding other toppings.

Disclaimer: I don't eat beans, so chili is right out. Don't even suggest it.

I like sauerkraut, when we have it. And if it's hot. Be careful not to stain your pots. (DO NOT cover it! I am NOT kidding.) And I'll skip the ketchup. Maybe try mustard.

Onions are good, if someone else made them.

So what else is there?

That's the beauty of eating three hot dogs in one sitting. You can try things out.

Frank #1 got a folded slice of American cheese in the bun, under the dog, and a quarter wedge of crunchy kosher dill on top. And ketchup.
My wife had a problem with the combo, as has her sister on a past occasion.
"Pickle on a hot dog?"

What do you think relish is?
"Big difference between relish and kosher dill pickles."

True. Relish is generally too sweet. My mother used to buy India Relish (IIRC) instead of Pickle Relish. And I avoid the overly bright green kind.

Can someone tell me if it was an old Popeye cartoon or maybe an Abbott and Costello bit, which included the phrase "with a pickle for a nickel and the mustard on top" when someone was buying a hot dog? Really, I am not the weird one here. (At least, not with regards to this.)

Frank #2 grossed my daughter out because I tried some salsa, which is good on everything else. She had a point. I won't be doing that again.

Frank #3 had one of the more filling options for toppings you can have: veggies. Now, I'm not talking strange stuff like Californians with their Pineapple-topped pizzas. There was some leftover broccoli-rabe, which my wife heated up. Okay, it was her idea, but it was a good one, so I copied it.

Other Vegetables to try:
Escarole
Swiss chard

I like them. They're leafy. Problem is, they aren't likely to be in the house any time soon unless I go get them with one specific purpose in mind. (Mwu-ha-ha!)

Any other suggestions? (Do you like how I'm assuming that someone is not only reading this blog, but reading this far, and still planning on responding?)

Baking Breakfast on the Grill

Sunday morning I decided to cook my breakfast outdoors. It was a last-minute idea, so I had to raid the fridge for ingredients.

Years ago, I had a recipe that I used with the kids on Mothers Day morning, which was basically a couple slices of bread, the top slice with a hole cut out, and an egg was dropped in. Then it was put into the oven to bake for a while. Unfortunately, I have to find that recipe because I don't remember the temperature or the amount of time and I'm not experimenting.

Anyway, it was too hot to use the oven, and I was too lazy to empty it of all the trays and pans (and restock them later). So I went to the grill and used my trusty cast-iron pan.

Ingredients: one oversized bagel with almost no hole to speak of,
one egg,
butter,
shredded cheddar cheese,
jalapenos (one of my go to items, keep a jar in the fridge for the summer)

What I didn't add, but should have:
bacon -- none in the house, and I would've had to clean up
salsa -- didn't think of it, and I couldn't use very much anyway.
ham -- there was a slice in the fridge, but I didn't notice it
salt -- this I just forget. When the ham or bacon, it isn't necessary. I added it later, but it wasn't the same.

Procedure
Preheat the grill. When it's hot turn off the middle burner.
Put the pan on the middle burner. Add a little butter.
Carefully, cut a cone-shaped hole in the middle of the top of the bagel into the center. After that you can make it a cup-shaped hole.
If you can see out the bottom of the bagel, stuff some bread into the hole and press it down.
(If the bagel had any appreciable hole whatsoever, you can't do this. Get a nice-sized roll, or use two slices of bread.)

Put the bagel in the pan. Drop some butter into the top of the bagel.
Slice up a couple pieces of jalapenos and drop it in.
Crack an egg and plop it in. It's up to you whether you want to scramble it first, or just drop it in, or to crack the yolk afterward.
Cover with shredded cheese.

I let it bake on the center burner with the other two on high for 10-15 minutes.
Just to be sure, at the end, I put the center burner on low for about 3 minutes, to make sure the egg was cooked.

Results
I enjoyed this, but it could've used salt.
Also, I should have gotten out a little earlier so I wouldn't have had the sun right on my back as I was cooking. If I do this again, get an earlier start.

Live and learn. But that's the point of this blog.