Sunday, July 27, 2008

Grills Gone Wild

I am proud to announce another Grill to the fleet! I have purchased a Weber Gold Charcoal Grill. I broke it in last Sunday with some Cedar Planked Salmon Steaks. I also grilled my first bread on it and the taste was great! Both kid's exact words for the bread was "Awesome"!

This evening I will be grilling some T-Bone Steaks, some more bread, shrimp skewers, and some asapragus.

Now, I know most of you out there are great cooks and grillers. I also know some of you (friends & family) own some mighty big and impressive grilling rigs. I'm not competing with you or saying I'm better......I'm just proud of what I have and happy I can cook on it and everybody likes it!!! And to everyone who sent me information on new gas grills, THANK YOU! I have not made any purchases yet, but the Weber Genesis and Holland gas grills got high reguards from you! I did clean and refurbish my current SunBeam GrillMaster grill. Two new wheels and hubcaps, new grease catcher cup & holder, replaced chipped and broken grill rocks, and I removed and scrubbed the grill grates and cleaned the inside and outside good. Bought a new cast iron skillet to grill on, a new cast iron smoker box, a cast iron griddle, and several new accessories for the new Weber and old SunBeam grills. A corner of the garage now looks like a grill store.

From the garden front - I'm getting a few tomatoes from the Tomato patch, but the quantity is not what I would have liked. The bottom leaves and branches are dieing off. They look like shrubs right now. If not for the cages, they would be on the ground. I have several green tomatoes on top at the moment. I am feeding and watering, so I'm not sure of what is going on. Not to mention the birds pecking at the ones that are "just about" ripe. Time for some pie-pan scare-crows!

My Dixon lawnmower has served me faithfully for the last 15 years with only regular maintenance needed. It finally broke on me. The right hand side of the drive transmission locked up. I took it to the local authorized Dixon shop and they rebuilt the cone-drive transmission. Runs great and I should have several more years of service out of it. I did find out that Dixon was bought out by Husqvarna and they closed the Coffeeville, Kansas factory. I was told everything was moved to one of Husqvarna's factories in North Carolina.

May your garden be green and your grill be hot.........till next update....

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Gardenin' & Grillin' Gabbin'

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY! This one is bittersweet as it is the first without Dad, but I am thankful for everything he did and meant to me.

My Gardenia's are just finishing their blooming and it did smell good around those plants the past week or so. I have several Marigolds coming up from last year's seed and speaking of that, I have four tomato plants that came up on their own from seed. I have no idea which variety came up. I only planted four this year to cut down...HA! Now I have eight. I noticed some worms eating on the leaves, so I put a light dustin' of Sevin dust on them. I know, not exactly the "green" way to do it, but sometimes there IS better livin' through chemicals.... I pulled a red tomato from the vine yesterday. It was not very photogenic and it was a little smaller than a baseball, but it is the first pickin' and will be sliced up this evening and go on some grilled burgers. My Hydrangea's are doing well this year, but the past few weeks of almost 100 degree heat and no rain are forcing me to water a little more often. I am trying to reduce my plant and yard watering (excluding tomatoes) to a minimum to conserve water and reduce my water bill. We need that money for gas!

Gas...hmmm, that leads me to propane and grillin'. My wife is wanting me to get a new grill (Bless her!). I would like one that is a little bigger and I am able to control the heat more. I did a lot of internet research this weekend and every blog, website, or comment page all pointed to Weber being the best quality grill on the market. Others (and there are many) may be cheaper and have more bells and whistles, but indications are that they will not last. I'd love to hear from any of you with your grill experiences!

I'm looking at a new Weber Genesis series gas grill and maybe a new Weber charcoal kettle grill as well. I do a lot with my SunBeam GrillMaster Gas Grill, but it has it's limits and sometimes only charcoal will do. I have not bought anything yet as I have only completed the internet research. Now I need to go and "kick the tires" and put my hands on the grill. I'll keep you posted on how that turns out, but in the meantime, the SunBeam GrillMaster will keep on cookin'.

Sometime in the future I will get into composting and recycling......we do a lot of that around here and we never fill up the trashcan before garbage pick-up day.

Hope your Grill stays lit!

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Grillin' Pork Chops

This evening, I tried some new marinades and one of my traditional favorites with some pork chops on the grill. The pork chops had the bone in them and were custom cut at our local butcher shop, Peacock Meats #2 here in Warner Robins. I put four of them in a bag with my traditional marinade. The other four were split with two in a bag with Don's Seasoning Delight from Augusta, Georgia and the other two were marinaded in a Ginger Root Marinade from Hillside Orchard Farms Inc. in Tiger, Georgia. They spent a few hours in the fridge and I laid them out for about 30 minutes before they went on the grill. They grilled nicely and all were good. My traditional marinade was voted 4-0 the best of the three, with the Ginger Root marinade coming in second. Don's was not bad, but it will be used in the future for the crock pot marinade for roast beef. It make's an awesome crock pot roast!
Next, I made two different servings of grilled veggies (zukini & squash). The first was fixed with salt, pepper, a little olive oil, and some Dale's Seasoning Sauce. The second was fixed with salt, pepper, a little olive oil, and some of the Ginger Root Marinade. Hands down, by a 4-0 margine, the Ginger Root Marinade was excellent with grilled veggies.
Next weekend is Memorial Day weekend and I see BBQ chicken & ribs on the grill in my future for the family getting together!

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Spring Time Again

I have not posted in a while. Dad passed away back in October and the winter months were filled with sickness (2008 is the year of the germ) and coaching two Upwards basketball teams at the church. But time heals and spring renews hope.
I got out "The Grill" a couple of weekends ago and grilled some nice T-Bone steaks my wife picked up from a butcher in Hawkinsville. The first grillin' of 2008 and those steaks were good! However, when I started to roll out the grill, the front wheel came off. Seems that the plastic wheel center broke. I grilled with the grill on blocks (nice neighborhood...haha). Well, SunBeam stopped making grills back in 2003, so I found a place on-line in Chicago that sells OEM SunBeam Grillmaster Wheels (no chrome or spinners...sorry). So, I will keep repairing the 10 year old GrillMaster for as long as I can and keep using it.
My tomatoes went into the ground last Saturday. I crushed some eggshells into the planting hole to provide calcium to try and prevent blossom-end rot....we will see if it helps.
Planted some ornamental grasses in the Trellis area and I used the leafblower to clean off the Trellis patio and I put out the ceramic plates onto the table and got out the seat coushions....it is officially open!
My Japanese Snowball bushs do not like living in the Pine Island, so I moved one across the yard with the Forsythia and see how it does there. I replaced it with a dark purple Elephant Ear plant. One of my shrubs in back of the house died over the winter and this may be a blessing is disguise. It would grow and block my view from the Sunroom....constant overtrimming probably did it in. I removed the corpse, er, dead shrub and I have a nice area I am going to plant some colorful (low growing) annuals (this is another weekend). Not to mention the new Geraniums at the front door (Red) and back door (pink). New patio plants, mailbox plant, and a new lantana at the sidewalk patio entrance, shrub trimming, and waalaa, nice plants and a sore back! Last weekend, I did the spring mowing, trimming, and edging. It is not the 18th hole at Augusta, but it isn't bad.
Here's to your garden and grillin"!!!