The What

I took a nice sized glob of butter and whipped it with some diced garlic. After doing so, I cut into the sides of two steaks so that they were basically cut in half, but not all the way. I then filled each steak with the garlic-butter mixture and grilled em up.

If It Didn’t Work, Why Try It Again?

I think that it could work, I just think that I underestimated how long it would take to cook them. Unfortunately they turned out a little too well down. Still good, just grilled too long. I think that maybe next time thicker steaks might be in order and a closer eye on them while they are cooking.

Tonight I decided to stray away from meat and grill something a little healthier. The following is my recipe for Bradford’s Grilled Stuffed Portobello Mushroom Caps.

Ingredients

• 4 portobello mushroom caps
• 10 oz fresh washed baby spinach
• 1 small – medium vidalia onion
• 1 cup italian croutons
• 3 tablespoons safflower oil
• 3 tablespoons lemon juice
• 3 teaspoons soy sauce
• 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 1/4 teaspoon rosemary
• 3/4 cup chopped tomatoes
• 3/4 cup mozzerella cheese
• 1/4 – 1/3 cup fresh combined dill, parsley, chives and/or garlic chives

(Note: Not 1/4 – 1/3 cup of each, but total)

• 2 tablespoons minced garlic
• 1/4 italian bread crumbs
• 2x dash of black pepper
• 2x double dash of sea salt

Prep The Caps

Cut off the stems, mince, and set aside. Clean out the mushroom gills and discard.

Brush Mixture

Combine the safflower oil, lemon juice, and soy sauce. Mix together and brush all of the mushroom caps with the mixture. Divide remaining Brush Mixture into a 1/4 amount and a 3/4 amount then set aside for later use.

Filling Mixture

Combine rosemary, tomatoes, dill, parsley, diced mushroom stems, 1x salt, 1x pepper, rosemary, croutons, and garlic to create Filling Mixture Base.

Dice the onion, heat saucepan with extra virgin olive oil on medium to medium high and cook onion about 5 minutes, until golden. Place spinach in a separate saucepan with 1/4 cup water and cook over medium heat for about 2 minutes (or until wilted). Remove from heat, drain all excess liquid, let spinach cool for a minute or two, then chop the spinach on a cutting board (be careful in case it is hot!). Add 3/4 of remaining Brush Mixture and butter to saucepan. Place back on medium heat until butter is mostly melted. Once the butter is melted add the Filling Mixture Base, spinach, onions, mix, and cook for 2-4 minutes, stirring often. Remove from heat and combine mixture with 1/4 cup mozzerella cheese, mixing the cheese in.

Topping Mixture

Combine bread crumbs, 1x salt, 1x pepper, and 1/2 cup mozzerella cheese in a bowl.

Grilling Instructions

Preheat grill to medium heat. Place unstuffed caps on grill and cook for 4-8 minutes.

Remove from grill and fill each cap with the Filling Mixture. Once filled, top each cap with the Topping Mixture. Brush top of mixture with remaining Brush Mixture about half way through grilling.

Place caps back on grill (cap side down, stuffing side up) back on grill and grill for an additional 5-10 minutes.

Serve and enjoy! They turned out GREAT.

Tonight’s menu is a spicy italian white wine garlic and onion mix, marinate, and grill.

You’ll want to start with the spices themselves. The spices I used were:

• Onion Powder
• Garlic Powder
• Garlic Salt
• Thyme
• Parsley
• Basil
• Oregano (just a few dashes)
• Red Pepper
• Dried and powdered red and green bell peppers
• Orange Peel
• Paprika
• Black Pepper
• A dash of Cumin
• A dash (or three) of Lawry’s Seasoned Salt

Once you have ground the spices together prepare a mixture of about 1/4 cup water, 1/4 extra virgin olive oil, a dash of vinegar, and some white wine.

You’ll want to take about 1/4 of the spice mixture and put it in a shaker for use right before grilling. Mix the remaining 3/4 of the spices with the liquid mixture.

Wash your chicken breasts, cut off any excess fat, and place in a plastic bag (or other container). Pour in the mix and make certain all the breasts are thoroughly coated. Place the chicken in the refrigerator and marinate for at least 30 minutes. I marinated mine for about two hours.

Once the chicken is ready, fire up your grill, wait until it is nice and hot, and slap those puppies on! But wait!! When you put them on the grill make sure to sprinkle half of the remaining 1/4 spices on top of them. Do this quickly so it will stick and then immediately turn them over. Once turned, sprinkle the remaining spices on them and then let grill. Turn your chicken from time to time and make certain not to undercook (or overcook) your meat. If you can grill them over indirect heat, that is the best way to go. It will take longer, but the chicken will turn out very nice. If you need an internal temp to guide you, shoot for between 160-170 degrees F.

Add your favorite side dishes and serve. I made up some long grain wild rice and some maple syrup, brown sugar and honey carrots. They complimented the dish very well and dinner turned out great! I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

In any event, the Chicken turned out beautifully and I wanted to share photos with everyone, I really did. I was rushed and didn’t have time to do so however. It seems my grill had soot plugging the burners and I had to tear off the front panel of the grill and clean the burners out with a wire coat hanger. There was no way around this as the flames were shooting out of the front panel. It took me about 2 hours to fix the grill, some prep time for the chicken, and about 2 hours to cook the chicken. We ended up with a very late supper around 8:45pm and we were all so hungry that photos completely escaped me.

HOWEVER, I do have a great recipe to share with everyone! I have to say that this was one of the juiciest pieces of chicken I have ever had. I used Beer this time around, but I think that next time I make this I will likely be using pineapple juice or Coca-cola instead of Beer to see how it affects the flavor.

The Recipe

The dry rub: Paprika, Chili Powder, Onion Powder, Garlic Powder, Minced Onion, Cumin, Thyme, Parsley, Smokey Sweet Bell Pepper Seasoning, Sea Salt, Black Pepper

Prep the chicken: Drink half a can of beer (or whatever drink you choose) then poke extra holes into top of beer can. Sprinkle some of your dry rub into the can. Wash the chicken thoroughly. Once rinsed, thinly coat with vegetable oil. Sprinkle dry rub inside chicken and then place chicken on top of beer can (preferably using a beer can chicken wire frame holder). Coat chicken with rest of dry rub.

Grill it: Get your grill heated up to about 350 degrees. Place chicken on grill, but NOT over direct flame. If charcoal, make sure to put the coals on either side so that center is free of direct heat. Unfortunately, this recipe does not work with some grills. It is also a good idea to place the chicken inside of some sort of pan to catch the drippings and such. Cook for about 1 hour and 30 minutes, until the skin is golden-brown and crispy, then coat the chicken with your favorite BBQ sauce. Continue grilling for approximately 30 more minutes. BE CAREFUL in removing the chicken! Remember, you have a can of boiling beer in there!!

That’s that! We served ours with pasta salad, green beans, and some spinach asiago cheese bread. This weekend is my buddy Steve’s birthday so we also celebrated after dinner with his favorite: carrot cake!

It is pretty banged up and I am going to need to order a few replacement pieces for it, but it looks like it will likely still work. Good thing because I’m supposed to be grilling for friends tonight! In additon to the door being banged up, some of the knobs are broken, the starter button is cracked, and there is a big dent in the side of the hood (pictured right).

Tonight I’ll be making BeerCan Chicken and I’ll make certain post the recipe for the dry rub I use, cooking the chicken itself, as well as photos.

In addition to a banged up grill, my cable has been out since I woke up on Sunday. It sounds like my provider is having power issues, in about 25% of the cities they serve. Ouch!! So in order to work on my websites today I had to head over to a local coffee shop. This is one of the nice things about webmastering, you can work from virtually anywhere!

Well I started my adventure today by heading over to my Coffee House of choice, CornerStone Coffee. It is about 2 miles away from my home and a very quaint little place with wireless and comfortable sitting areas. To my surprise, they are closed. Not just closed, but out of business closed!

The next stop in my quest for some Internet Access (by cell phone GPS) led me to il Bacio Caffe. Also closed down!! It looks like the Starbucks and Biggby Coffee chains have run these great establishments out of business.

While the loss of these establishments is unfortunate I had quite a bit to do today, so I shot over to BiggBy Coffee in Lansing. Sure enough they were open and busy! Unfortunately for me though, they were having Internet issues completely unrelated to my ISP. LOL, I just couldn’t win today, could I?

No problem though, I spoke with those who were running the Coffee Shop and with a little bit of troubleshooting everyone was online again. With all the pitfalls I ran into today, I didn’t get nearly as much as I had hoped accomplished today, but it was a bit of fun. This type of thing would frazzle most people, and would have certainly frustrated me if I had anything super-pressing to get to. Luckily I didn’t, so I enjoyed my little trip around town.