Seems that nearly everyone has a recipe for meatloaf. Some are fancy and some are down right basic. Whichever your taste buds enjoy – I suspect you will enjoy the flavor of your favorite meatloaf recipe when prepared on the grill with a touch of flavorful smoke. This past weekend I had to feed 2 hungry teenage boys and let-me-tell-you, that is not easy on the pocketbook!  So I decided to prepare meatloaf, and I’m talkin a REALLY BIG meatloaf on the grill – so I’d have enough for a main meal and several sandwiches plus a mid-night snack.  I’ve got some tips and tricks to share with you as well as a couple of different  meatloaf recipes, including my favorite “CB’s EZ 3-Meat Meatloaf” that I think is something quite DEE-LISH-US, but you be the judge!

Happy Grilling!

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CB’s EZ Smoked 3-Meat Meatloaf on the Grill

CB's 3 meat meatloaf - Crusty and smokey outside with crispy bacon! See the big ol chunks of garlic and sauteed carrots, celery and onion in this slice?

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One of the more readily available cuts of pork at the grocery store is the pork loin.  Located at the middle top of the porcine, it can be somewhat lean and is often packaged as boneless roast or chops. When it’s cut into chops the chances of over cooking to the point of dry, flavorless and chewy is – well – very easy.  Now I confess I like a roasted pork loin sliced real thin and served with mashed potatoes and pan gravy, that’s good stuff.  But when you are cooking for just 3 and the temperature outside is hovering in the high 70’s, somehow a pork roast with mashed potatoes and gravy just doesn’t sound appealing to make. I came up with this recipe while comparing price tags on packages of beef steak and pork in the meat department at Safeway. I wanted to come up with a tasty meal for 3 people that could be prepared for less than $10.  I think I succeeded in creating something quite DEE-LISH-US, but you be the judge!

Happy Grilling!

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CB’s EZ Grilled Pork Loin Chops with Peach YUM Sauce

Seared pork loin chops finished in peach yum sauce - plated with grilled peach slices and freshly picked green beans.

A pork loin chop can be attractively priced at the grocery store – but prepared carelessly it can also be dry, tough and somewhat flavorless.

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If you enjoy tailgating – be it at the parking lot before the big game or in your back yard – you may want to add these specialty grills and accessories to your roster!

CB500X Portable Charcoal Grill - Great for tailgating

Heat up your next tailgating party with Char-Broil’s CB500X portable charcoal grill!  This grill is small enough to take almost anywhere and it has a generous 240 sq. inches of grilling surface area,  enough to cook for the whole team!  The CB500X boasts two dampers and a temperature gauge for easy heat control.  The heavy guage steel construction ensures that this grill will see you through many tailgating seasons.  $149.99 Save $50 on sale $99.99  – use code E9TGPG at check-out

Grill2Go Express - propane powered table top grilling!

The Grill2Go Express easily goes to all of your tailgating parties.  The grill features 200 sq. inches of cooking space, folding side shelves, tool hooks and LED night light.    $159.99 Sale Price $127.99 – use code E9TGPG at check-out

Flexible Skewers make it easier to manage kabobs on the grill!

FireWire Flexible Grilling Skewers are perfect for use on small grill surfaces. Each generous-sized 100% stainless-steel skewer holds 22 1/2″ of food and make creating and grilling kabobs easy! Set of 2 skewers $15.99 Sale Price $12.79- use code E9TGPG at check-out

There are many more products on sale right now – SAVE 20% ON ALL TAILGATING PRODUCTS! – see them all CLICK HERE

Need some tailgating recipes ideas? CLICK HERE

Happy Grilling!

Race fans at the Sharpie 500 play the Miller Lite bean bag toss to win prizes.

The Char-Broil Grilling Team entertained race fans at the NASCAR Sharpie 500 this past week in Bristol, TN. Thousands of fans sampled juicy Hillshire Farm Miller High Life brats and Bubba Burgers! Folks kept asking us “What’s your secret?”

We had just two words for them: “Char-Broil infrared!”

This week the Char-Broil Grilling Team heads to the capital of country music – Nashville, TN – for the Music City BBQ Festival. Make sure to stop by Riverfront Park and see us! Who knows…we may let you in on our juicy little secret!

CLICK HERE for the 2009 Grilling Tour schedule and locations.

It rained last night.  OK I live in “Seattle” and folks think it rains here all the time. Truth is it doesn’t and this summer has been particularly dry.  So I’ve been kinda lazy about putting on the grill cover after preparing meals.  OK.  I’ve been actually darned lazy about cleaning the grill sometimes too.  I’m sure I’m the only guy on earth who ever ‘conveniently forgets’ to clean the grill after cooking.  ahem.

Fact-of-the-matter is that I’ve been spoiled a bit by the nearly self-cleaning feature of the Quantum, RED and Heatwave infrared grills – which I’ve been using pretty much exclusively.  After grilling I turn up the heat and close the hood.  Maybe place a piece of folded heavy-duty foil on the grates and let em cook at high temperatures in excess of 700F degrees and the gunk and crud just burns to a white ash, like a self-cleaning oven.

dirty grates pile up...

But as I was saying – it rained last night and I’d skipped the cleaning routine and even left the hood open. So this morning it’s all about wiping out the rain water, cleaning the grills – and taking time to inspect parts and such.  Also a good time to really clean the grates – when they are cold – cause they are easier to handle and really get some elbow grease going to town on any spot of gunk that I’ve missed (ignored.)

That’s a good idea for you as well. In a few weeks it’s the traditional end-of-summer week-end and you may be closing up the summer house or getting busy with other plans for fall and winter (sheese – it’s just around the corner!) So this weekend is a good time to pull out the product manual and give your grill a good once over to ensure all the parts are clean and working, the hoses and connections haven’t become loose or frayed. And inspect those burners and Venturi tubes to see that holes are cleared of built-up gunk and check on metal parts that may become corroded from exposure to the elements.  This is especially important if you live in a maritime environment with salt air. If you need new parts – order them now - and have them at the ready to install next spring.

While I hope you have many more weeks of grilling left this year – if you happen to live where winter restricts your use of the grill it’s important to thoroughly clean it out prior to storing it for the winter.  All the excess grease and gunk will attract critters – the 6 & 8 legged insect and spider variety, as well as the 4 legged rodent kind!  Giving your grill a good cleaning and inspection prior to storage will mean one less job in the spring and gives you a sense of comfort knowing that grill is ready and waiting to be put into action on the first good spring day. It also will prolong the life of your grill and that saves you money.

Here are some links to helpful tips and information pages:

Product Manuals

Trouble Shooting

Basic Grilling: Check for Critters

Spring: Fall “Grate” Time for Cleaning

Spring Fall Cleaning Your Barbecue, Grill, Smoker and Other Outdoor Room Appliances

Happy Grilling!

Folks sample Bubba Burgers and Hillshire Farm Miller High Life Brats fresh off the Quantum infrared grill with a squeeze of Buccaneer Blends sauces!

Kennesaw, Georgia is home to the famous Pigs & Peaches BBQ Festival and the Char-Broil Grilling Team took it by storm this past weekend.  Folks could not get enough of Char-Broil and its Juicy Little Secret! The Char-Broil Quantum was the talk of the festival as visitors tried Hillshire Farm Miller High Life brats and Bubba Burgers all weekend long!

The grilling team rolls on to to Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, TN this week for the NASCAR Sharpie 500! Come on by the Vendor Village to say ‘Hey!’ and have a taste of some grilled brats or burgers – we may just fill you in Char-Broil’s little secret!

CLICK HERE for the 2009 Grilling Tour schedule and locations.

Hiya CB!

Here’s something many may not have thought of.

THE GRILL AIN’T JUST FOR GRILLING
IT’S FOR MAKING BEEF STEW TOO!

Why make beef stew in the house and generate all that heat when you can use your grill? Here’s my method. Put about 2 cups of flour in a gallon zip lock bag and mix in ground black pepper, sea salt, onion powder, garlic powder and parsley. Seal and mix thoroughly. Then place a pound of sirloin tips in the bag and mix so that the meat is well coated. Let sit. The better the meat, the better the stew will be! I use Omaha Steak sirloin tips.

Sirloin tips browning with onions in Dutch Oven on grates of grill.

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The first meal I prepared for my mom in my own apartment was a roasted chicken.  Throughout the years, whether fat or lean times, a roasted chicken has been a comfort food for me to prepare and share with friends and family.  It’s something I rarely order at restaurants because it’s a dish that holds so many good memories for me and I enjoy the entire process of shopping, preparing, serving and sharing. Hopefully with the experience of cooking hundreds of roast chickens my skills and techniques have improved and the end result is a delicious example of what I value in shared meals: expressing love.

This past weekend we saw the new movie ‘Julie & Julia.’ Julia Child was not a big influence on my cooking, but after the show I was inspired to prepare a roasted chicken that evening – perhaps in her honor I even came up with a version of ‘herbs aux Provence’ freshly picked from the garden. We shared our meal  at a little table in the garden, by candle light as the evening faded.  May I share our meal with you?

Happy Grilling!

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CB’s EZ Slow Roasted Chicken & Garden Veggies

Lately I’ve been choosing organic and free range chickens.  The simple reason is I think they taste more like the chickens I grew up eating.  There are surely any number of other arguments pro & con, but I choose taste as the determining factor for me.

To prepare the chicken I rinsed and patted it dry, then seasoned it inside and out with sea salt and freshly ground pepper. I stuffed it with a lemon I’d cut in half and squeezed the juice inside the cavity, along with a handful of herbs I picked in the garden – the same as I use on the outside of the bird after rubbing it down with butter.  Yep. Butter. Since this is a slow roast method, I’m not concerned about burning.

Herbs: new growth of sage leaves, rosemary tips, lemon balm, thyme, lavender leaves, all roughly chopped – to which I added 3 large cloves of minced garlic. I guess this was an homage to Julia Child – my own less populated version of ‘herbs aux Provence.’

4lb chicken seasoned with sea salt, freshly ground black pepper, legs tied, stuffed with aromatics & coated with butter, herbs & garlic.

I placed the chicken in a aluminum tray and turned my attention to the veggies.

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Hey, CB!
Greetings from sunny Alabama! We can always tell when it’s fall in Alabama because the smell of football is in the air. In our experience, football smells an awful lot like barbecue! So we have been working on some new recipes for America’s favorite fall and winter comfort foods: chili, stew, chicken cacciatore, osso bucco, and more! And what do these standards have in common? They all begin with a rub and a hot sear, and finish with a delicious liquid and a warm braise. Oh my, who doesn’t love that?

Don’t be intimidated by this compound grilling technique. Readers who grill on a Char-Broil gas grill will have it easy – all they need to do is utilize the temperature knob, and pay close attention to the grill thermometer. Those readers who grill over charcoal have to take one more step*, but it isn’t difficult. Both gas and charcoal grillers will need to devote a large pot with a tight-fitting lid to use on the grill (it may develop some semi-permanent smoke stains over time) or get a large, heavy-duty disposable pan and heavy-duty aluminum foil.

Adjust the foil or duct work in your charcoal grill to better control the heat.

*Note to charcoal grillers: we made a heat deflector by purchasing a rectangular, disposable aluminum roaster and cutting the narrow ends out so that it becomes a “wind tunnel.” We build a modified two-level fire, with ALL the charcoal at one end of the grill and NO charcoal at the other. When we are ready to cool the grill off, we put the deflector over the fire, and shut down the lower vent at the no-charcoal end, and open the top vent on the no-charcoal end. What we’re doing is developing movement of air, or “draw” into the pit under the coals, through the tunnel we made with the aluminum pan, and out the other end. We can regulate the heat the fire puts out by opening and closing the vents on the all-charcoal end of the pit. In the photograph, you can see DAD’s second rendition of a heat deflector, made with commercial venting material. Remember, we are not cooking directly over this baffle – we are cooking inside a covered pot, over the deflector….

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Man-Oh-Man. This recipe got me thinking about comfort food. And do I love comfort food. It was sent to me by a man with 50+ years as a fishing and hunting guide who has forgotten more about outdoor cooking than I’ll ever learn. If you’ve been a visitor to the Users Forums you may recognize his signature – “mr. jig, i fish therefor i am.”  I know him as Dick and he has become a friend over the past few years.

Dick sends me thoughtful emails from time-to-time and ever-so-gently let’s me know when I’ve screwed up. In my book a true friend let’s you know when you’ve stubbed your toe, put your foot in your mouth or have your head in an unusual location.

Take a look at this email he sent me with a mouth watering photo attached. Then click on the link to the recipe. I tell you what – this is DEE-LISH-US! and henceforth will be a regular at our dinner table on days when I need some comfort food!

Happy Grilling!

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These tasty looking short ribs are browned on the grill and finished in Dick's "old Tight Top Griswold Dutch Oven" - consumable comfort.

CB – your personal self-appointed gadfly here.  I am happy to send along my recipe for grilled and braised short ribs.  And you have correctly assessed my mind set. Recipes are available in unlimited quantity. While it is fun to exchange them, generally speaking, recipes do not hold my interest. However techniques for preparing food DO – but outdoor cookery is not complex in execution. Have at this and make it your own. But do trust me when I say it has been proven by time-tested trials.

dick
i fish therefor i am

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For a printable version of this recipe with ingredients and directions click on this link: Mr. Jig’s Grilled & Braised Short Ribs