Notes on Indirect Grilling Chicken

Our AC is out for the weekend, so it seemed like the time to grill dinner, and keep all that heat outside.

My gas grill, it turns out, runs pretty hot.  The instructions I had said to set the temp on Medium, and use indirect grilling for 50-60 minoutes.  I checked my drumsticks after 25 minutes, and they were done.  They came out pretty darn tasty, but I never gt the chance to baste them, which would have given them a little more terriyaki flavor.

So, next time:
1. Preheat Grill.
2. Turn off third burner, turn second as far down as it will go.
3. Reduce heat on first burner to medium (5 second hold).
4. Grill chicken over third burner with the lid closed for 15 minutes.
5. Baste.
6. Cook for another 10 minutes.

Bread!

So I found this recipe in my feeds, and stripped it down to the basics: 3 cups of flour, a half-tablespoon of salt, 2 teaspoons of yeast, 1.25 cups of water, and a teaspoon of honey to feed the yeast. Oh, and melted butter brushed on the side of the panand over the top of the loaf after it rises. The result:

Pumpkin Waffles

My wife is very fond of pumpkin.  Pumpkin pie, pumpkin latte, pumpkin donuts, pumpkin risotto, you name it.  So this morning she wanted Pumpkin waffles.  Now, I've never made waffles, aside from assisting my dad, so this is more than a little intimidating.  Nevertheless, i do like to spoil my wife, so after a little searching, I turned up this recipe.  They turned out pretty well, although it took some experimenting to get the cook time right.  Turns out that between 5:00 and 5:30 produces a nice crisp waffle, without burning.

Roasted Chicken Thighs

Sorry I haven't posted much lately.  My cholesterol levels came back high, and the doc has me on a diet, for the first time in my life.  That kind of knocked me off cooking for a while, but I'm starting to get back on track.

So I made this chicken recipe tonight.  I thought the flavors in the marinade sounded intriguing, and they were, indeed.  Only problem is, it came out a little tough.  Not chewy, but a little tough to get off the bone.  Should I cook it longer, or did I cook it too long?  I roasted it for 25 minutes, checked the temperature, and it was only about 149, so I put it back in for 5 minutes, and it came out at ~162.  Any ideas?

Orange Braised Pork Loin

For my first attempt at braising, I tried this recipe.  I used my cast iron dutch oven, because it has a lot less volume than the non-stick one I got for Christmas, so I figured that would provide better liquid-to-meat contact.  It came out well, and turned out to go well with leftover potato glue.  One thing that I noticed, though, was that it dried out pretty quickly once sliced.  Fortunately, the sauce corrected that problem pretty well.  I tried to use my digital thermometer to tell when it was done, but it never read above 111 degrees.  The meat definitely cooked, so I'm not sure if there was a problem with the thermometer, or if there was some other cause.  I didn't think to check with an instant-read thermometer.  Next time, I'll have to do that.

Mashed Potatoes Fail

I was inspired by the success of the mashed potatoes I made for the 4th, and I had about a pound of potatoes left over, so I tried to make garlic mashed potatoes.  I thin-sliced the potatoes in the food processor, and set them to simmer.  While they were doing that, I chopped up two BIG cloves of garlic.  After draining out the potatoes, I sauteed the garlic in the same pot with a little bit of olive oil, some salt and pepper, and a pinch of red pepper flakes.  As before, I used water to keep the garlic from browning.  Then I returned the whole mess, garlic, potatoes, and all, to the food processor, and turned it on.  The result had a great flavor, but was gluey.  Did I just over-process it all, or do I need to stick with hand-mashing the potatoes altogether?

Grilled Steaks and Corn-on-the-cob

I've tried grilling things before, but could never seem to get the heat quite right.  My grill's idea of "medium heat" seems to be rather higher than most of the recipes I've tried.  So I had to come up with some way of measuring the heat.  I don't have a suitable thermometer, so I found the "hand method," and tried that for tonight's steaks.  It worked pretty well, and (more importantly) fixed a variable for me.  The next step is to start fiddling around with cooking times at a similar heat.  Tonight's 1 inch thick strip steaks were cooked at medium heat (4-5 seconds before hand must be pulled away) for 5 minutes on the first side, and 4 minutes on the second.  Done-ness ranged from medium rare to medium, depending on the thickness of the steak at that particular point.  I'm pretty happy with that, but I'll have to play with those times a little to accommodate other folks, who may like their steaks a little more well done.  One other note on the steaks: before putting them on the grill, I seasoned them with a mix of kosher salt and fresh-ground black pepper, and let them sit for about fife minutes.

Corn-on-the-cob is pretty straightforward.  Once the corn is shucked (hungry roommates are handy for this task), just drop it in a stock-pot of boiling water (I like to salt my water just a little), cover, and let it boil for 8-9 minutes.  Pull it out of the water, and you're done!