Team members pass out samples at a Harris Teeter store.

The Home Turf Taste Tour headed through the Carolinas last week, making stops in 5 different cities hitting Harris Teeter, Ingles, Food Lion, Bi-Lo stores and stopping in Charlotte at the Bank of America Stadium on Sunday to tailgate with Carolina Panthers fans!

We’re heading to Philadelphia this week for the Eagles game on Sunday! Stop by 11th street on your way to the stadium to tailgate with Char-Broil…who knows – we may fill you in our juicy little secret – infrared!

Where is the Char-Broil & Miller Lite “Home Turf Taste Tour” stopping this fall? Take a look at the tour schedule: Click Here

Anyone who’s known me for even a little while – knows that I enjoy good food. Sometimes it’s fancy and sometimes it’s simple – as long as it’s good! Something that always seems to make a good meal better is sharing it with friends and family. I think maybe the association of meals and family started as a kid – especially around holiday celebrations. I do remember the big holiday meals of Thanksgiving – usually at one of the homes of my two oldest sisters. These would be day-long events and lot’s of people. The dinner would never be “on time” as my mother and sisters would bustle about and finally deliver to the hungry group a big ol’ turkey and all the trimmings. When I was older and living on my own – there were many holidays where the closest I came to having that traditional meal was sitting at the counter of a Denny’s just off the interstate. And on several occasions, as an invited guest, I was very surprised (or was it unsettled?) to discover that some folks fixed roast beef or a ham for Thanksgiving.

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Julia Child - omnivore.

Much has been written of late about the popularity of cooking shows on Television.  Food network is devoted to food preparation as a form of entertainment.  Perhaps it all started with Julia Child and her original TV show broadcast live in real time.  Love, hate or indifferent to her style – ya gotta admire the way that lady swung her mallet in the kitchen.

One of my favorite quotes attributed to her – so let’s just uphold that notion – is this:

“The only time to eat diet food is while you are waiting for the steak to cook.” ~ Julia Child (1912-2004)

If you are planning to prepare your Thanksgiving meal outdoors this year you may want to make time to read and enter Larry’s contest – posted on his web log, The BBQ Grail. (Hey Canadian friends – You can always cook another one!)

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Do you cook your Thanksgiving Turkey outdoors? If you do and are willing to share your Thanksgiving experience with the readers of the BBQ Grail you could win a prize...The Big Easy Oil-less Infrared Turkey Fryer.

“The contest rules are quite simple. Cook your Thanksgiving Day Turkey outdoors. It doesn’t matter how you cook it as long as it’s cooked outdoors. You can fry it, smoke it, grill it you can even cook it in a dutch oven. It just has to be cooked outdoors. When you’re done eating take a few minutes and write a short story on how you did it and send up a couple of pictures. The pictures need to show you cooking the turkey and a final table picture is also needed. (You can send up to five pictures) If you’d like to include your favorite recipe for outdoor cooked Thanksgiving Day Turkey or a favorite side dish feel free to do so.”

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The prize list is pretty darned impressive!  Thanks Larry…I guess I’m ineligible.

Happy Grilling!

I’ve cooked hundreds of beer can chickens over the years. And it was always a pretty simple process. Open a beer, sample it to perform necessary quality control, place a rinsed, dried and seasoned whole chicken over the can (inserted into empty cavity) and set on a small tray to stabilize – then put it all on the grill or in the oven for about an hour at 400F degrees.

The Chicken Roaster is useful for flavoring chickens.

When The Big Easy came along – beer can chicken was one of the first meals I cooked in it. And nearly every week since. Last year sometime I began using the Chicken Roaster and now prepare chicken with a variety of flavored liquid infusions.

The premise is pretty basic: The chicken is cooked from the outside by indirect heat of the grill, or direct infrared energy in The Big Easy, and the heat also warms the liquid in the beer can or Chicken Roaster . The warming liquid slowly steams into the cavity of the chicken – imparting flavor, adding moisture and helping to cook the bird.  Simple and tasty.

So why on earth have I never thought to prepare a ‘Beer Can Turkey?’ (more…)

Tasty looking oyster - freshly roasted in The Big Easy.

Savannahsmoker posted a tasty looking series of photos that he took earlier today whilst roasting oysters in The Big Easy.  Here’s the post – Users Forums.

Our own Guest Chef of creative cookery in The Big Easy oil-less infrared turkey fryer made his first appearance at a competitive outdoor cooking event this past week.  The focus of the competition was on wild game and while all of the other teams used conventional outdoor cooking rigs for smoking and cooking – Tommy used only The Big Easy. Well 4 of ‘em to be precise.

For those of you who have visited the Users Forums, Tommy is better known as TMB and most likely you will meet him because, if you post a question on the Users Forums,  he’s usually one of the first to pitch in with encouragement and share his helpful tips and experiences.  He’s just that kinda fella.

That’s Tommy in the picture – take a look at the banner he created featuring his team name and slogan. (more…)

At Ease! The Texas-Oklahoma game attendees are very well behaved!

The Texas vs. Oklahoma game had people lining up to hear all about Char-Broil’s juicy little secret…infrared! Thousands of fans in Texas orange and Oklahoma crimson could not wait to learn about the latest grills from Char-Broil – and try the samples that we grilled up!

This week we are heading to Charlotte, NC for the Carolina Panthers vs. NY Giants game on Sunday. Drop by and see us at the corner of W. 3rd and Poplar right down from the stadium! We may just let you in on our little secret!

Where is the Char-Broil & Miller Lite “Home Turf Taste Tour” stopping this fall? Take a look at the tour schedule: Click Here

I get many suggestions and tips on good recipes. Many of which I try out and, believe it or not – once in a while I even have an original idea. For example – this weekend while watching the game we ordered a ham and pineapple pizza. What a great combination of flavors! I really like the balance of sweet and salty. About my third piece …

Half a pineapple - I removed the core, skin and cut into chunks.

“Hey…” I thought out loud, “What if I wrapped bite size chunks of pineapple in bacon and cooked them in The Big Easy or on the grill?”

Everyone grunted their approval and that was good enough for me. Today I was at the store bright and early making my purchases. Half a pineapple and  one small package of apple wood smoked bacon, thick sliced.

C’mon – doesn’t this sound good?

Grilled chunks of fresh sweet pineapple wrapped in crispy salty bacon.  Yeah – me too.

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The holiday season is nearly upon us. I’m hoping you’ll have reason to host a dinner party or two for family and friends – or perhaps something more intimate.  For those smaller meals – or to prepare individual servings for a larger party I have been playing with a recipe for making Smoked & Roasted Boneless Turkey Thighs Stuffed with Sage Dressing.  This is a tasty meal to prepare for yourself or to share with others.  It evokes the taste memory of full-on turkey dinners with all the trimmings. BUT it’s a bit easier on the pocketbook and certainly a bit easier to prepare than a  whole turkey!

For safety reasons I strongly advise against stuffing the cavity of a whole turkey, chicken or other fowl with anything destined to be consumed – only aromatics for flavoring the meat from the inside. (Read my post: Don’t Stuff that Turkey! ) But this is not a whole bird, it’s the meaty and rich tasting dark meat of the thigh – bone removed – stuffed with a basic sage bread stuffing – and the cook is pretty fast.

Smoked & Roasted Boneless Turkey Thigh stuffed with Sage Dressing.

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