Monday's Question of the Day - July 28, 2014

Ok; where has July gone!?!  I've been very busy this morning trying to bring some order back to my house.  I've got sauce simmering in my slow cooker; loaded with chunks of beef and 2 diced zucchinis from my garden.  My 4 year old is super excited for dinner.  She seriously keeps talking about it and dinner isn't for 6 hours yet!  We havevn't even gotten to lunch!  Oh!  I also was able to add some fresh basil from my potted herbs out back.  Too bad I didn't grow any oregano this year!  Something has been nibbling at the Basil; but I was able to get some nice leaves and my fingers smell amazing for it! 

So along the lines of food and using up your summer things:

When grilling; Gas or Charcoal?

A few years ago my parents bought DH a charcoal grill for Father's day.  We only grill maybe once a month and I know they say charcoal isn't the best; but man does it taste good!  Sometimes I wonder if we shouldn't have gotten gas instead (they asked which we wanted).  I don't have much experience with gas to know if it's faster to heat up; but that's one reason we don't use the grill more.  My cousin's husband almost always grills bacon on the gas grill when we visit my family.  Then he'll fire it back up later to do burgers or steaks or chicken.  And veggies...  Oh yummy grilled veggies!  He's really got "the touch" when it comes to grilling.  And we benefit!     The last time we grilled here we cooked several things just to make the most of it.  Even shrimp packets and packets of peppers and onions.  Which is what I now really want for dinner instead of my sauce...    The zucchini and summer squash I'm trying to use up would do nicely there as well!   

Ooh, I love basil!

My family uses gas for the convenience, but my friend recently got a mini charcoal grill for their studio space and we had a little backyard BBQ with it a few weeks back. I think I prefer gas for the convenience too but we've had sausages over a charcoal grill twice now and that little smokiness is sooooo good. It's also easier to gently roast marshmallows on.

Mmmm......I love nice, warm, toasty crunchy on the outside, chewy gooey on the inside marshmallows! 

We have one of both; a Weber gas model and, a Weber kettle.  I like them for different reasons but we do use the gas more, as it is more convenient.  I like being able to flip a switch and be done with it.  But, I do like the taste of coal better.

We have a Char-broil gas grill and it gets used very often. We do everything on the grill during the summer and even during the winter, when we can shovel a path out to the grill. We bought the rotisserie for the grill; works great for Cornish hens and pork roasts. I also use the gas grill for canning food in our pressure canner. So our grill really gets a good work out.

We'd like to get a charcoal grill at some point, but we're kind of looking for a new, larger gas grill, too. (When we do the larger family dinners, it's difficult to fit a huge pork shoulder on the grill, for pulled pork, and then find room for wings, kebobs, and the like.)

And someday, I'd really to get a smoker. We just don't know what kind.

I really prefer charcoal grills, but they just don't work where we live. Seems there's always a chilly wind blowing off of the ocean (and hitting the grill) and it's just too much work to keep a charcoal grill going for any length of time. It was fine for burgers, dogs, fish, things that take 10 minutes to cook, but food like chicken that takes 30+ minutes was too much of a hassle. And who wants to go through all the trouble of firing up a charcoal grill (I use a chimney) but cook on it for only 10 minutes?

Charcoal was so easy in Texas, I guess the heat helped things along, but after trying for years in this cold wind, I gave up and we have a Weber Q grill (with propane). LOVE it and its constant heat source. 

Actually I recently purchased an indoor grill and it makes delicious food.  It has a regular thermostat as an oven does and also has the grates inside.  I've made sausage and peppers & onions in it and it just came out fantastic.  I, of course made steaks on it also, it sits right on my counter top. 

For me it's great since I don't have to go out into the heat and humidity to have grilled food.  For me it works.

LaRussa said:

 
Actually I recently purchased an indoor grill and it makes delicious food.  It has a regular thermostat as an oven does and also has the grates inside.  I've made sausage and peppers & onions in it and it just came out fantastic.  I, of course made steaks on it also, it sits right on my counter top. 

For me it's great since I don't have to go out into the heat and humidity to have grilled food.  For me it works.

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I have to look up indoor grills.  We have a George Forman one (several actually) and I do like them; except cleaning it afterward.    Your grill sounds different though.  I've got plans to cook some sausage links for sub sandwiches tonight with the leftover sauce I made on Monday.  Grilling them would be awesome!

A smoker would be nice to have too!  My cousin's husband and FIL made a couple smoked briskets during one of our visits.  They were amazing!    

MoochNNoodles said:

 
I have to look up indoor grills.  We have a George Forman one (several actually) and I do like them; except cleaning it afterward. 

  Your grill sounds different though.  I've got plans to cook some sausage links for sub sandwiches tonight with the leftover sauce I made on Monday.  Grilling them would be awesome!

A smoker would be nice to have too!  My cousin's husband and FIL made a couple smoked briskets during one of our visits.  They were amazing! 

  

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I have a grill from Aroma and cleaning is as easy as cleaning  a teflon skillet.  Here is what it looks like, hope this works:

http://www.aroma-housewares.com/kitchen/appliances/ASP-238B.html

I really like it a lot

We have a couple Foreman grills, including the circular Party grill. I like the Party grill because you can arrange a ton of food on that thing and have room for everything.

LaRussa said:

 
I have a grill from Aroma and cleaning is as easy as cleaning  a teflon skillet.  Here is what it looks like, hope this works:

http://www.aroma-housewares.com/kitchen/appliances/ASP-238B.html

I really like it a lot

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That looks neat!  It's different because it's deep with a lid.  We have the George Foreman that you can change out the plates for washing or to make waffles, etc; but it's still a pain to clean.  The top plate on the regular style ones has lots of little notches.  It's still a great tool; just not as convenient as I'd hoped in the cleaning department!  It's still easier than our first ones that you couldnt remove the plates for cleaning.  

I don't think I've heard of the party grill.  That's another thing to look up!  I know my mother's (a different brand) died a couple years ago and she never replaced it.  It's not too early to think of Christmas gifts!  They might like something deep like the Aroma grill too...It looks nice and versatile. 

The party time grill looks like the infusion grill above, but it's not quite the same thing. A few years ago, we visited with friends in northwest PA and she had one. I loved it, thought it was really neat. I couldn't find one anywhere. And then one Black Friday, we happened to be at KMart and they had one. Just one. With a free GF sandwich-type grill. I grabbed it. And we've used it often. It is a bugger to clean though; the grill comes off, but you still can't put it into water. Thankfully, the grill itself cleans up nice, but it's just a hassle to deal with it. The center of the grill has a hole and there's a small metal cup that you can put water or marinade or sauce into the cup, then put the cup in the hole. It heats up along with the food and you can brush the sauce on the food as you go. It came with some small BBQ skewers that we use and a spatula. And a small container to hold the grease.

It is big. I can put chicken breasts or pork chops, along with potato halves or slices, along with zucchini spears or slices, or anything like that. We can pretty much grill our entire dinner on that grill. Works great for small kebobs. 

I don't think you can find a party time grill, unless maybe through eBay or Amazon, something like that. It was really hard to find for us and that was quite a few years ago now. We just happened to stumble across ours.

I like Carol's Aroma grill....it looks nice.