cooking – The Business of Creativity

A few days ago I posted a tweet that I had grilled up some of my famous garlic grilled potatoes & veggies and that the kids were digging in. A bunch of people asked for the recipe. Since I usually don’t work from recipes (I hate playing by other people’s rules if you’ve not noticed….) I promised to document the next batch and share the secrets.

I’m going to risk it and send this to my mailing list too… I beg your indulgence…

Here we go.

Open a beer or a bottle of wine, maybe mix up a Marg…

Then, gather all the ingredients. Start with:

Olive Oil
Lowery’s Seasoning Salt
Fresh Ground Pepper
Fresh Crushed Garlic
Parmesan Cheese (optional)
Fresh Basil (optional, but worth it…)
Potatoes – Medium/Large
Other veggies of choice: bell peppers, zucchinis, and mushrooms are wonderful. Eggplant (which I hate) is one of my wife’s favorites.

Get all the stuff ready. (Sorry about the poor lighting.)

Get a big mixing bowl – biggest you can find.

Mix up the goodness:

In the mixing bowl, pour in a few tablespoons – maybe around 1/4 cup of olive oil.
Liberally add some Lowery’s salt.
Generous fresh ground pepper.
Several nice sections of crushed garlic.
Fresh Basil if you have it.
Grated Parmesan if you’re in the mood.

Now, go turn on your grill – nice and hot – then come back in to start cutting potatoes.

Cut the potatoes along the long axis of the spud. Try to get them as uniform as you can at around 3/16 of an inch thick – give or take. Try not to cut wedges or the slices won’t cook evenly. I always do the potatoes first because if you put more porous veggies in the bottom of the bowl, they soak up all the olive oil and get kind of nasty. The potatoes don’t absorb the oil like the others.

Now it’s time to cut the other veggies. Go ahead and add them to the same bowl.

All the veggies in the bowl with the potatoes.

Now mix it all up. You MUST do this with your hands because you’ll want to separate all the potato slices to make sure they get coated with the oil mixture on all surfaces. Watch out, they’re slippery. You’ll probably have to claim a 10-second rule at least once.

Open another beer or pour another glass of wine.

Now, head out to the grill. It should be nice and hot by now. Brush off the burners and turn the heat down to about 2/3 max. Your grill is your grill, so it’ll probably take a few practice rounds on these to find the right setting. You don’t want the heat to high, or the potatoes will burn on the outside without cooking all the way through. If your fire is too low, then you don’t get the right surface crunchiness.

The potatoes take the longest to cook.

Line ’em up.

I have a thermometer on the grill. I’ve found that the perfect temp to turn the potatoes is every time the temp hits 300 degrees. I don’t really trust that thermometer, but if you have a thermometer on your grill, make note of the reading.

As the potatoes get nice and crispy on the outside, move them to the upper tray of the grill to continue cooking in the middle without burning. Then start adding the rest of your meal. If you’re doing bell peppers, always put them skin-side up to begin with so they can cook through without burning.

Tonight we had a nice spicy sausage for the grown-ups and some all-natural hot-dogs for the kids. Notice the quartered pepper and the zucchinis (some halved, some quartered). As the veggies get done, just move them up to the top tray too. If you’re doing mushrooms, I’ve found that it’s just as nice to just put them all up in the very top swing-tray and let them slow-cook.

Depending on the meat you’re cooking (if you’re eating meat), you might want to crank up the heat. If we were doing steak or pork chops, I’d crank the heat up to high to cook the meat. Sausages need a little more patience.

Enjoy.

Here’s something you might not think of on your own – the grilled potatoes are WONDERFUL with a side of Caesar dressing, and you can never have enough parmesan cheese for me.

Now, if you have kids, stand back because you don’t want to get between them and the food.

It looks like we’re finished, but we’re not.

Get another beer. Pick out a movie. Have the kids wash up.

Now, make some popcorn and put it in the veggie bowl. YUMMY!

Use the mixing bowl for your popcorn. MMMMMM

Let me know if you have any questions or comments. Give it a try, then come back here and post your reviews.

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I’ve been posting tweets about my daughter Tobin’s favorite meal over the last few weeks. Every week, each of the kids gets to request one evening’s meal. Tobin picks my Garlic Roast Chicken, mashed potatoes, and some vegetable. This is a really simple, but wonderful meal.

Here goes.

Preheat the oven to 375. Make sure your whole roasting chicken is completely thawed, rinse it well, and get rid of the yucky bits tucked inside.

Put the bird breast-up on a broiler tray, then rub it down generously with butter or margarine mixed with crushed garlic. I use a good 1/3 head of garlic crushed, then tuck whole cloves or at least large chunks into strategic places in the bird to roast up. Put a bunch inside the cavity of the bird too if you like. We love roasted garlic around here.

Next give the whole thing a generous sprinkling of fresh cracked black pepper and a few nice pinches of margarita salt.

It should look something like this:

Then, pop it in the oven for about 1:20-1:40. The meat thermometer should be around 180-185 when it’s done. You’ll be treated to the wonderful smells and sizzling sounds starting about 15 minutes after putting the bird in the oven.

After that 1:20-1:40, it’ll look something like this.

Let it sit for about 10 minutes while you get everything ready, then carve and serve.

Here’s the great part:

Combine the drippings in the bottom of the broiler pan in a soup pot with the carcass after the meal, add enough water to just cover the carcass, boil everything for a while, and strain for some of the best chicken soup stock you could ever enjoy.

That’s it. Simple.

Tag: cooking

Houchin’s Famous Garlic Grillin’

By Request: Garlic Roast Chicken Recipe