Shrimp and Grits? Yup, Y’all Can Grill That!

Grilled shrimp?  Check.  Grilled grits?  Check. BACON GRAVY???  CHECK.  Best shrimp and grits recipe ever.

Ingredients:

Grilled grits (recipe here)
1.5 pounds fresh shrimp
Juice of one lemon
I teaspoon Cajun seasoning
6 pieces thick bacon, chopped
1 medium onion, chopped
1 garlic clove, minced
2 tablespoons flour
1 cup chicken stock
1 tsp salt
¼ cup green onions

Directions:

1.    Peel and devein shrimp.
2.    Combine shrimp with lemon juice and Cajun seasoning. Set aside.
3.    Fry chopped bacon over medium heat until brown.

4.    Add chopped onion, garlic.  Sauté 5 minutes, stirring frequently.  Savor this moment.  Bacon, garlic and onion all cooking together produces the greatest aroma on the planet - soak it in!
5.    Add flour, sauté another 5 minutes, stirring frequently.

 
6.    Stir in chicken stock and salt, reduce heat to warm.
7.    Grill grit cakes (about 4 minutes on each side, see full recipe here) and shrimp (about three minutes on each side).  Remove from grill.

 8.    Stir shrimp and green onions into gravy, serve over grits, and enjoy!

Grilled Grits Recipe

As someone who grew up in South Carolina, and who has regularly driven 45 minutes each way to reach the nearest Waffle House since moving to DC, I have eaten my fair share of grits.  I’ve had them a hundred different ways, but my new favorite method of cooking them is, of course, grilling them in grit cakes.  If you’re looking for a way to spice up your grit-life, you gotta try this recipe for grilled grits. 

Ingredients:

1 cup grits
2 tablespoons butter
½ cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 tsp salt

Directions:

1.    Prepare grits according to directions.  Stone-ground grits would be ideal, but quick grits are fine.  Instant grits are gross; don’t use them.
2.    As grits finish cooking, stir in butter and cheese.
3.    Pour into greased casserole dish. Place on cooling rack and allow to cool completely. Then cover and place in refrigerator until you’re ready to grill (leave in the fridge for at least 30 minutes).
4.    Invert grits onto cutting board, cut into four pieces.
5.    Spray grill grate with cooking spray. Cook grit cakes until lightly brown, about 4 minutes on each side.

This recipe for grilled grits is perfect for shrimp and grits.

Enchiladas? Yeah, You Can Grill That!

Tonight, I accepted a challenge to grill enchiladas.  These are actually quadruple grilled – the chicken is grilled, the onions are grilled, the tortillas are warmed on the grill, and, finally, the enchiladas themselves are cooked over the grill.

Definitely a success.

Want to grill enchiladas at home?  Try this awesome recipe.

Ingredients (serves 4):

2 large boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1 packet taco seasoning
1 medium-sized onion
2 cans enchilada sauce
2 to 3 cups of cheese
8 soft flour tortillas

Directions:

1.    Cut chicken breasts half.  Rub with taco seasoning (you really only need half the packet).
2.    Cut onion in half vertically, through the root and stem.  In each half, cut away the stem.  Then cut each half horizontally toward the root, but do not cut through the root.  Now make a few lengthwise cuts, without cutting through the root.

The result should be a “blooming” onion that looks like this:

3.    Brush onion with olive oil on both sides.
4.    Grill the chicken until it is no longer pink, about 6-8 minutes on each side, depending on the thickness of the chicken. 

5.    Grill onion while chicken is cooking.  Start with flat-side down.  Turn over when you turn the chicken, and remove onions and chicken at the same time.

6.    Cook tortillas quickly over grill, three at a time, for just about 15-20 seconds on each side.

7.    Cut away stems from both halves of onion.  Quickly chop.
8.    Using a knife and fork, shred chicken.  Stir chopped onions and chicken together.

9.    Coat bottom of cast-iron pan with enchilada sauce.
10.    Now it’s time to put your enchiladas together.  For each enchilada, spoon the chicken/onion mixture into a tortilla, top with cheese, drizzle with enchilada sauce, and fold.  Place in cast iron pan.

11.    Once you’ve put together all the enchiladas, top with remaining enchilada sauce and then cover with cheese.

12.    Place pan on grill and cook for 15-20 minutes, until cheese is fully melted and bubbly.  Remove and enjoy!

If you like this recipe, please be sure to click on the links below to share it! And don’t forget to follow @youcangrillthat on Twitter!

Follow @YouCanGrillThat on Twitter!

We’re on Twitter!  Follow @YouCanGrillThat for recipes, previews, updates, photos and other general grilling-related awesomeness in 140 characters or less. It’s also a great place to throw down challenges.  So start following @YouCanGrillThat today!

Best Macaroni and Cheese Recipe Ever (Hint: It’s Grilled)

This blog began with a theory – everything tastes better grilled.  The challenge to grill macaroni and cheese put my theory to the ultimate test.  I mean, honestly, how can you improve on macaroni and cheese?

Well, turns out you can.  And guess how?  By grilling it.  Grilled macaroni and cheese is one of the best things I’ve ever eaten.

 
Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients (serves 8-10):

1 pound elbow macaroni
6 cups sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
4 cups milk
1 stick butter
½ cup flour
Salt
Pepper

Directions:

1.    Boil macaroni a minute or two less than directed, so that it’s slightly al dente.  Strain and run under cold water.
2.    Heat milk over medium-high heat.
3.    While milk is warming, melt butter over medium heat.  Once the butter is bubbly, whisk in flour.  Cook for one minute, whisking constantly.
4.    Slowly add milk to butter-flour mixture.  Cook, whisking constantly, until it begins to thicken.
5.    Remove from heat.  Add salt and pepper to taste.
6.    Stir in 4 cups of cheese.
7.    Add macaroni, stir well.
8.    Pour into large cast-iron pan.
9.    Top with remaining two cups of cheese.
10.    Place pan onto center of grill.  Cover and cook for 35 minutes.

Now, sit back and enjoy your bubbly, cheesy, gooey macaroni and cheese, with a perfect hint of grilled flavor.  Simply amazing.  We ate with grilled T-bones and some grilled fresh zucchini.

If you like this recipe, please be sure to click on the links below to share it! And don’t forget to follow @youcangrillthat on Twitter! 

How to Grill Apples

If you’re looking for a great grilled dessert, give this recipe for grilled apples a shot. 

Ingredients (serves 2):

One apple
Butter – 3 tablespoons
Brown Sugar – 2 tablespoons
Honey
Cinnamon

Directions:

1.    Core the apple.  If you have a corer, then I imagine this step is pretty easy.  If not, be careful not to chop off a finger.

2.    Cut apple into slices.

3.    Melt butter.  Stir in brown sugar and a little honey.

4.    Dip each slice of apple, coating both sides, in the brown sugar glaze.  Reserve remaining glaze.
5.    Grill on medium-high heat, covered, for 8 minutes.  Turn over, brush tops with glaze, cover, and cook an additional 8 minutes.

6.    Remove, place over vanilla ice cream, drizzle with honey and sprinkle with cinnamon. Enjoy!

If you like this recipe, please be sure to click on the links below to share it! And don’t forget to follow @youcangrillthat on Twitter! 

Strong to the Finish, ‘Cause I Eats Me Grilled Spinach

Spinach is one of the healthiest vegetables out there, but who wants to eat spinach salads every day?  Cooking spinach on the grill adds a great flavor that you obviously won't get sauteing it.

So, here’s a great, easy recipe for grilled spinach.

Ingredients:

Spinach
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Lemon juice

Directions:

1.    Wash spinach carefully.  It can be gritty if you don’t.
2.    Remove stems from spinach.  This is pretty boring and by far the worst part of grilling spinach.  If you have a child that has misbehaved, instead of grounding them, make them remove stems from spinach.  For my fellow DC people – this also makes a great intern project.

3.    Drizzle with olive oil, a little lemon juice, and then add salt and pepper to taste.
4.    Place on vegetable grate, and grill for 3 minutes, covered.

5.    Stir with spatula, re-cover, and grill another 2-3 minutes, or until wilted.  Remove and serve.  

This grilled spinach recipe goes really well with grilled red bell peppers.  We ate both with some grilled chicken.  Highly recommend giving this recipe a try if you’re looking for a healthy, tasty, grilled side dish. 

If you like this recipe, please be sure to click on the links below to share it! And don’t forget to follow @youcangrillthat on Twitter! 

How to Grill Red Bell Peppers

Red bell peppers are a really quick and easy vegetable to cook on the grill.  They add great color to your plate, and they have three times as much vitamin C as an orange.  It’s no secret that red peppers are a great choice to grill, so they don’t really fit in with the theme of this blog, but they go great with grilled spinach (recipe above) so I wanted to share this quick, easy recipe for grilled red peppers.

Ingredients:

Red bell peppers
Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper

Directions:

1.    Cut the red pepper into large, length-wise slices.
2.    Brush with olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper.

3.    Place on grill, skin-side down, over medium-high heat.  Cook, covered, for 6-8 minutes.

4.    Turn over, cook another 3-4 minutes, and serve.

If you like this recipe, please be sure to click on the links below to share it! And don’t forget to follow @youcangrillthat on Twitter! 

Challenge Accepted! Grilled Pineapple.

I LOVE fresh pineapple, but I have to admit, I was always a little intimidated about cutting into one, so I never bought a whole one until this week.  What an idiot!  Cutting a pineapple is really easy, and totally worth it.

Sorry I didn’t take pictures as I was doing it, but bear with me, because it’s as simple as it sounds:

1.    Chop off the top and bottom.
2.    Cut off the peel by slicing along the sides.  Voila, it’s peeled.
3.    For easy grilling, slice it, and then cut out the center of each slice.  You can also just cut a few slices for dessert, then chop up the rest to eat over the next couple days.

Grilled pineapple over vanilla ice cream makes a great dessert.  Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

Pineapple slices
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon honey
Cinnamon

Directions:

1.    Melt butter and stir in brown sugar and honey, along with a sprinkle of cinnamon, to form a glaze.
2.    Brush both sides of pineapple slices with glaze.  Set aside remaining glaze.
3.    Grill pineapple over medium-high heat for about 3-4 minutes on each side.

4.    Serve over vanilla ice cream, with remaining glaze drizzled over the top.

If you like this recipe, please be sure to click on the links below to share it! And don’t forget to follow @youcangrillthat on Twitter!

Grilled Lobster Tail – Oh, You Fancy Huh?

Few things on this earth taste better than fresh, grilled lobster.  So if you’re in the mood for a special evening to impress your special lady (or special man, we don't discriminate here at "Yeah, You Can Grill That"), give this recipe a shot.

Ingredients:

2 lobster tails
Butter
Garlic clove

Directions:

1.    Wait for your local grocery store to overstock on lobster tails and sell them at half-price.  Alternatively, you can secure a high-paying job.  Your choice (I went with the former).
2.    Using kitchen shears, butterfly the lobster tails, cutting through the shell up to about half an inch above the tail.
3.    Mince the garlic, melt butter, and stir together.  If you don’t have fresh garlic, just stir some garlic powder into the melted butter.
4.    Baste the lobster tails with the melted butter and garlic.
5.    Place on grill, meat-side down, over medium-high heat and cook for about 4-5 minutes.
6.    Turn over, baste again (be careful to avoid flare-ups), and cook another 2-3 minutes.  The lobster is done when it is opaque.  Enjoy!

If you like this recipe, please be sure to click on the links below to share it! And don’t forget to follow @youcangrillthat on Twitter!

Grilled pasta? You magnificent bastard.

The premise of this blog is that everything tastes better grilled.  Pasta is no exception.  It soaks in the flavor from the grill and tastes incredible.  Here’s the recipe.

Ingredients:

Pasta (Spaghetti, Angel Hair, whatever)
Olive oil
Salt

Directions:

1.    Boil water and add the pasta.  Cook it for half the directed time, then strain.
2.    Stir in a splash of olive oil and a little salt.
3.    Grill, on a vegetable grate, for about 4-5 minutes, covered.  Stir halfway through to prevent the pasta from getting crunchy.

It goes great topped with (grilled) Cajun shrimp and (grilled) broccoli.

Challenge accepted - grilled lettuce

Tonight I accepted my first challenge – grilled lettuce.  I went with hearts of Romaine, and it was not only really easy, but tasted amazing.  Even our dog, who has shunned lettuce in the past, tore into the scraps.

I kept it really simple – just a little olive oil, some salt and pepper, and little cheese on top.

Ingredients (serves 2):

One heart of Romaine
Olive Oil
Salt
Pepper
Cheese (optional)

Directions:

1.    Cut the Romaine heart in half.  Brush both sides of each half with olive oil, and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
2.    Place the two halves, flat side down, on the grill.  Cook for a few minutes until it’s good and crispy.
3.    Flip the lettuce over.  If you want cheese, go ahead and add some over the top now (I used shredded mozzarella).  Cook a few more minutes until the bottom side is crispy, then remove.

I’m sure it would be great with any salad dressing, but we enjoyed it with just the olive oil, salt and pepper, and ate it with cheesy grilled chicken pitas.

 Trust me - this picture does not do the final product justice.

Next time, we’re going to try it in a grilled chicken Caesar salad – where the “grilled” applies to both the chicken and the salad.

Challenge one complete!  Can't wait for new ideas.

Grilled carrots? Grilled carrots!

Ever tried grilled carrots?  Until tonight, me neither.  But guess what?  They’re awesome.

They’re also pretty easy to make.  Here goes . . .

Ingredients:

Whole carrots
Olive oil
Salt
Pepper
Butter or Margarine
Brown Sugar
Honey (optional)

Directions:

1.    While your coals are getting hot, clean and peel the carrots.  Brush them generously with olive oil, and sprinkle with salt and pepper.
2.    Place carrots on the grill over medium heat and cover.
3.    Cook for 25 minutes (longer for thicker carrots), turning four times.
4.    While carrots are cooking, melt butter or margarine (say, 3 tablesoons).  Add a couple spoonfuls of brown sugar and a little bit of honey and whisk to form glaze.
5.    For the last five minutes of cooking, brush with glaze.  Remove from grill after 25 minutes of total cooking time, or when carrots are soft.  Glaze again after they’re off the grill.  Enjoy.

I ate them with a grilled rib eye and some grilled sweet potatoes, recipe here.

If you like this recipe, please be sure to click on the links below to share it! And don’t forget to follow @youcangrillthat on Twitter! 

Sweet potatoes? Yeah, you can grill that.

Sweet potatoes are delicious.  They’re also a super-food.  Best of all, you can grill them.  I’ll be experimenting with some different sweet potato recipes (and will definitely accept suggestions), but here’s one to get started.

Ingredients:

Sweet potatoes
Butter or margarine
Brown sugar
Salt
Pepper
Rosemary

Directions:

1.  While coals are getting hot, chop sweet potatoes into bite-sized pieces.  Lay out one square of aluminum foil for each serving.  Place one serving of potatoes in the center of each piece of foil.
2. Sprinkle potatoes with salt, pepper, rosemary, and brown sugar, all to taste.  Add a pad of butter or margarine to each.
3. Fold in sides of foil to form a ball, and place on grill.  Cook over medium heat, covered, without turning.  Cook for about 20-25 minutes for firmer potatoes, 25-30 minutes if you’d like them softer.  Remove from heat and enjoy.

I served with grilled rib eye and grilled carrots (recipe here).

If you like this recipe, please be sure to click on the links below to share it! And don’t forget to follow @youcangrillthat on Twitter! 

Broccoli, Potatoes, and Salmon

Like most people, my early experiences with grilling were primarily limited to meat – hamburgers, hot dogs, steaks, pork chops, etc – and an occasional ear of corn.  Then one day, while racing from the kitchen, where my potatoes were cooking, to the patio, where my steaks were now overcooking, I thought, “This would be a lot easier if I could just cook everything out here.  Wait – why can’t I just cook everything out here?”  Since then, I’ve tried to find ways to cook just about anything on the grill – meat, fish, starches, vegetables, desserts, and everything in between.  On this blog, I’ll be sharing my adventures as I try to cook entire meals using just the grill. 

With spring arriving in Washington, DC with full force yesterday, I began my experiment last night with a meal of salmon, roasted potatoes, and broccoli with cheese.  Here are the ingredients and step-by-step directions if you’d like to give this meal a try:

Ingredients (serves 2):

One large salmon filet or two smaller filets
Marinade of your choice
2 potatoes
Butter or margarine
Salt, pepper, other spices for potatoes
2 large broccoli spears
Olive oil
Lemon juice
Shredded cheese



Directions:

1.    Start the charcoal in the chimney starter.  If you’re not already using a chimney starter, go to Amazon and order one right now, and say good-bye to lighter fluid forever.  You’re welcome.
2.    Marinate the salmon.  I wish I could tell you I made a fancy, homemade marinade, but I just used one I bought at the store, a Harris Teeter-brand red wine Dijon marinade I selected mostly because it was on sale.  Spoiler alert: it was delicious.
3.    While the coals are getting hot and the salmon getting tasty, chop the potatoes into bite-sized pieces.  Then place each serving onto a sheet of aluminum foil.  Sprinkle with salt, pepper and whatever other spices you want.  I used a Cajun spice mix.  You can also add chopped onions, peppers, etc.  Add a pad of butter or margarine, then close the aluminum foil over the potatoes to form a ball.
4.    Sprinkle the broccoli with salt and pepper.  Put in a large plastic back, add a splash of olive oil, sprinkle in some lemon juice, and shake.  Add some shredded cheese (I used mozzarella, but cheddar, parmesan or anything else would work just fine).  Then shake again.
5.    Lay out a sheet of foil over an oven pan.  Place the salmon on the foil, skin-side down, and fold up the sides to form a tray.
6.    By now, the coals should be about ready.  When they are, put the aluminum foil balls with the potatoes over direct heat.  Cover grill.  Set a timer for 15 minutes.  Have a beer. 
7.    After 15 minutes, move the potatoes to the outside of the grill.  Add the broccoli to the outside as well so it will cook over indirect heat.  Re-cover grill.  Set time for 5 minutes.
8.    Leaving the salmon on the foil, place it in the center of the grill.  Re-cover.  The salmon will cook for about 10 minutes, and should not be turned.  Turn over broccoli once, halfway through it’s 15 minute cooking time.
9.    When the salmon flakes easily, it’s ready to go.  Everything else should be ready at the same time.  So take it all off the grill, and dig in.

If you like this recipe, please be sure to click on the links below to share it! And don’t forget to follow @youcangrillthat on Twitter!