Carnage du Jour - 01 November 2016

"Do we have anything we can do on the grill? It's a beautiful night."

I love being asked questions like that.

The answer was that we had smoked sausage, hot dogs, and half of a beef tenderloin.
I also got to use my new chimney-type charcoal starter, so double bonus!

The sausage and hot dogs were just the normal "put them on and cook them, smearing mustard (Nance's) on the smoked sausage as it cooks" kind of thing, but what you really want to know about is the beef tenderloin.

I made a rub of dry mustard, rubbed thyme, onion powder, and a touch of salt. I rubbed that on the beef and let it sit a bit before taking it to the grill.
The beef got cooked over semi-indirect heat (semi- because I wanted a bit of a crust on it, but not too much) while we also grilled some rainbow carrots and golden beets.
(There was also a pot of yellow rice going inside with a half can of Red Gold diced tomatoes with chipotle added toward the end of the cooking.)

Once everything was done, the beef rested briefly and then sliced, Heidi took her plate to the table while I finished filling my own. Before I could join her, she came back and told me the extra little piece I had dropped on her plate was the best piece of meat she had ever put in her mouth.
I'm not sure I'd go quite that far, but oh my was that a delicious tenderloin.

Highly recommended.

Carnage du Jour - 04 June 2016

Tenderloin - but this time it wasn't pork, it was beef.

I had bought a whole beef tenderloin some time ago and cut it into two two-pound-ish roasts, cooking one and freezing the other.

Well, as I said, that was some time ago and it was time to cook the remaining, now-thawed portion.

Since my trusty Better Homes & Gardens cookbook told me that tenderloin should be roasted at a higher temperature than most cuts (it might have been 425 rather than 350?), I thought I'd do it on my (also trusty) Weber grill.

The fire was doing its thing, getting ready in the chimney starter, so I pulled out the roast and gave it a liberal rubbing of kosher salt, dried thyme, and dry mustard. At the same time I was lightly marinating some fresh Michigan asparagus in a mixture of balsamic vinaigrette and green goddess dressings, as well as preparing some cheese-stuffed mushroom caps for the grill.
Simply grilling it for something on the order of 25 minutes (turning it every 5 or 10, eventually checking with my instant read thermometer for an internal 140) with the other items joining after a few minutes was all it took.

I have to admit that this was one of the most successful beef tenderloins I've ever done, and the sides were so good as to evince the comment from Heidi that she didn't know which of the three items was her favourite.

Delicious and highly recommended.

Carnage du Jour - 17 July 2014

Chicken.
Boneless breasts and thighs.
What to do with them to make them delicious on the grill?

How about this:

• Salt and pepper all around.
• A glaze made of spicy sweet mustard, maple syrup, Colman's dry mustard, and a bit of hot sauce.

 Smear that glaze on and grill, smearing more as they pieces turn.

Well, we'll say this about that - it was beyond tasty. It got the "you can make this any time you want" seal of approval from Heidi.

Enough said?
Highly recommended - please enjoy responsibly.