Smores!

I had a very busy week at work with lots of overtime. That is why I am writing this blog on Friday and not Wednesday. I even had to go to work on Sunday, which I'll tell you about in a minute. Saturday was a pretty good day. Even though it was raining off and on all day I grilled twice. After Isabella got up from nap, I made smores on the grill!
     We put the chocolate between the graham crackers with a marshmallow on all but one. The last one we used marshmallow cream because it doesn't have gelatin in it. Isabella is a allergic to beef and most gelatin is made from cow. The completed smores were put in the Pampered Chef flexible grilling basket.  

Next they got grilled for a few minutes on medium heat. I kept rotating them to heat evenly. I grilled them till the marshmallow and cracker started to get toastly. 

Isabella likes to eat her's deconstructed

MMM! Yummy!

 We definitely will be making smores that way more often. For dinner, I grilled various vegetables. I skewered some onion slices and grilled them with salt and pepper. A sweet potato and a couple russet potatoes got cut into slices. The slices were tossed with olive oil, salt, and pepper. I grilled them on the grill till they were a nice golden color.

 I also cut a zucchini lengthwise and grilled it with salt and pepper. We enjoy grilled mini sweet peppers and so I skewered and grilled them.

The veggies got mixed together in a bowl when they were done.

To go along with the veggies, I made bruschetta. I took some bread out of the freezer and sliced it. I buttered both sides of bread. On each slice, I put a piece of turkey lunchmeat and cheese. It then got grilled until the bread was toasted and the cheese melty. 

Lastly, I cut up some plums and tossed with sugar and cinnamon. The plums were grilled on each side for a few minutes. 

 Sunday, we got the bathtub ready for Isabella to take her first bath in just the tub. Up to this point she has just taken baths in little kid tubs. As we were finishing that up, I got a call from one of the companies I work for. They needed me to come fix a plane and since I am director of maintenance, I had to go. Stacy and I decided to make it a family trip. So we loaded Isabella up and drove the almost 90 miles to Talkeetna. I was able to fix the plane. Isabella was a good helper. She had so much fun and didn't want to leave when it was time to come home.

I hope everybody was a good week! I'll catch you all next time.
Matt

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Grilled Meatballs!

This weekend was a good one. We were just busy enough and had fun. Saturday, we went to a garden fair in Palmer. That was fun. We walked around looking at all the plants and art that people had for sale. They had live music and we sat and listened to a summer youth band. Isabella and I split a blueberry and strawberry shortcake. Then we went to a booth that was a kids farmers market. The lady running the booth read a story about where soup comes from. Then she gave all the kids $5 in play money to spend at the market. Isabella picked what she wanted. We got 5 potatoes, a bunch of radishes, bunch of green onions, celery, a zucchini, and 2 small cups of cherry tomatoes.  It was nice getting all those fresh Alaska grown veggies for free.
      While Isabella napped, I made pulled pork nachos. I took some pulled pork out of the freezer that I had made before. The pork went on top of tortilla chips with green onions, grilled corn, and cheese. The whole thing went in the oven till the cheese was melted and the pork heated up. I also made a cherry blueberry pie filling using frozen cherries and blueberries. I used this recipe for the filling and substituted refrigerated pie crusts for the crust. I added about a cup of frozen blueberries, the zest and juice of a clementine orange, and the zest of half a lemon to the filling also.  I put the bottom crust in a buttered cast iron skillet, poured the filling on top, and put the top crust on. The top crust was sprinkled with sugar before I put it in the oven. The pie came out nice and golden brown and the filling was gelled.

For dinner I grilled quesadillas. I put 2 cans of drained red beans, minced garlic, salsa, taco seasoning, sweet onion, and sweet pepper in the food processor and processed till smooth. Then I cooked the bean mixture for a bit.  Next, I spread the bean mixture onto tortillas and added cheese. I grilled them over medium heat and gave them a quarter turn before flipping them. I grilled them till they had nice grill marks and were crispy.

 Sunday morning, I mixed up some ciabatta  bread dough to let it rise for dinner. Here is the super easy recipe. Stacy had made a coffee cake for breakfast so I put the bread dough in the warm oven to rise all day. To cook it, I put the dough in my buttered cast iron skillet and threw it on the grill at low heat. The bread got cooked till it was a golden color.

During Isabella's nap, I made meatballs. I mixed mild Italian sausage, eggs, Italian bread crumbs, sweet peppers, parmesean cheese, minced garlic, and pepper. I formed them into balls and froze them for a couple hours till it was time to grill them. I grilled the meatballs on my Pampered Chef Roasting Pan and Can Holder Pan. I use this pan almost every weekend and is one of my favorites. I grilled the meatballs over medium heat and turned them a few times. I left them alone too long a few times so they got a little dark. We really liked them though.

The spaghetti sauce was a combination of homemade and canned. I can't ever just use a spaghetti sauce straight out of the can or jar. I started out by sauteing onions, peppers, and carrots in olive oil for about 10 minutes. I salt and peppered the veggies at this time. Then I added a can of diced tomatoes and cooked for a few more minutes on medium heat. After that, I added a can and half a jar of sauce and parmasean  cheese and simmered on low for at least half an hour or more. The pasta which was linguine and elbows was cooked and added to the sauce.

Here is Isabella's plate of noodles and meatball!

 Finally as a side dish, I grilled sweet peppers and radishes. We wanted a way to use the radishes that we got at the farmers market that wasn't eating them raw. I found various recipes for grilled radishes and picked one I liked. The radishes got sliced and added to a foil packet with the peppers. To the veggies, I added salt and pepper and olive oil. The packet then got grilled for about 25 minutes. We all liked the radishes, even Stacy who normally doesn't like them.

Well that's all for this week. I hope everybody has a good week!

Matt

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Burgers!

   I hope everybody had a good week. It was pretty busy with work, but I was home at a normal time Friday night. Saturday was a busy filled with lots of monthly shopping and errands. I even got my hair cut. It was time, since the last time was February or March. We took advantage of a good special and picked up a pizza for dinner.
   Sunday, I made breakfast. I cooked up bacon for breakfast and some to go on dinner. The bacon was cooked in my cast iron skillet. When I was done cooking the bacon I poured the grease out and made a dutch baby in it. See my post "Dutch Baby" for the recipe. We all love them.
   While Isabella took her nap later, I prepped dinner. I made Isabella moose burger sliders and Stacy and I regular hamburgers. In both sets of burger I added: olive oil, salt, pepper, dehydrated onion, shredded mozzarella cheese, crumbled bacon, Pampered Chef Smoky Applewood rub, and Worcestershire sauce. I formed the burgers into patties and put a depression in the top of each one. I had heard that the depression helps keep your burgers from shrinking too much. So I tried it and it seemed to help. The burgers went into the freezer until it was time to grill them.  I also cut regular and sweet potatoes into fries. Plus a couple onion slices got skewered.
     When it was time to make dinner, I heated the grill. I seasoned the fries with oil, salt, pepper and more applewood rub. The fries went into the Pampered Chef Roasting Pan and Can Holder. I grilled Isabella's burgers first and put the onion on the grill. The onion got drizzled with olive oil and salt and peppered. Once Isabella's burgers were done, I grilled our burgers. I took the onion off after it had nice grill marks and was softened. After the burgers were cooked, the buns all got grilled. As one last touch, I put the lettuce on the grill for about 30 seconds.

     
    I topped my burger with mayo, cheddar cheese, ketchup, the grilled onion and lettuce, and bacon. They were nice and juicy. Isabella ate most of her's which is good cause she doesn't eat her meat very well. She also kept wanting more fries. We really enjoyed our burgers. We also had Bush's Grillin' beans with dinner too.
   Thanks for reading and have a great week!
Matt

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Happy accident!

        I had an early start to my weekend last week. We had no planes to work on Friday and I had put in plenty of hours for the week, so I was home by lunch time. I got to spend the day playing with Isabella.  Saturday was also a fairly relaxing day too.
         For dinner, we had thawed a chicken. I attempted to make soda can chicken. I seasoned the chicken with salt, pepper and Pampered Chef  Smoky Barbecue rub. I also put some garlic cloves under the skin. The whole chicken went on a can of orange soda on the Pampered Chef Roasting Pan and Can Holder. I then put potatoes, onions and carrots around the chicken. We made Isabella a foil packet of veggies. I put the pan with the chicken on my charcoal grill opposite the coals and left it alone for almost 2 hours. At that point I checked it for doneness. My thermometer varied on the temp, but I had clear juices coming out when I poked it. So I took it off and let it rest for at least 5 minutes. I cut into it and found that it wasn't done. I couldn't put it back on the roasting pan since I didn't think it would cook ok. I got out my cast iron skillet and put the chicken in it. Then I covered it with foil and put it back on the grill. This time it went directly over the heat. I cooked it for another 45 minutes this way and flipped it over a few times. I took it off and let it rest in the skillet in the cold oven until Isabella was in bed. Stacy and I carved the still warm chicken and ate it downstairs. We had a nice dinner just the two of us. We really liked the chicken. It was a lot like fried chicken. I will be using the cast iron skillet to cook chicken on the grill again. I am going to have to experiment with soda can chicken again. 
          While the chicken was cooking in the skillet, I made a blueberry nectarine crumble in my cast iron dutch oven. I cooked it next to the chicken on the charcoal grill. I used Steven Raichlen's blueberry crumble recipe from BBQ U. I used crumbled butter cookies instead of gingersnaps and a nectarine instead of some of the blueberries. We all liked it.
          Sunday, I mowed the lawn and cut down part of a cottonwood tree. The tree has been dropping cotton on my deck and grill. I need help to take the rest of the tree down. I have been wanting to do kabobs for a while and finally got my chance Sunday night. I did both savory and sweet kabobs. I put polish sausage on one set of sticks. Then I put onions, peppers, and pork cubes on their own set of sticks. If you cook them separately things are less likely to burn or be underdone. I salt and peppered everything, except the sausage which I only peppered. I next made a flavored oil with olive oil, fresh minced garlic, and Pampered Chef Chili Lime rub.I cooked the oil over low heat for about 5 to 10 minutes. Everything got basted or sprinkled with the flavored oil.

        For the sweet kabobs, I combined honeydew melon. fresh mint leaves (which grow wild at our house), and mango all on one skewer. I also skewered some grapes. For the the fruit I made a glaze. The glaze consisted of fresh lemon juice, mint leaves, brown sugar, cinnamon, and a splash of vanilla extract. I also cooked the glaze over low heat. I grilled the fruit until it started showing grill marks and only for a few minutes per side. We loved it all and the grapes were surprisingly  really good.

    Have a happy 4th of July! This weekend, I plan on making bacon stuffed cheeseburgers. Have a great week!
Matt

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Grill- tasticness

I had another grill-tastic weekend. It was nice to have a good weekend after a super busy week at work. We are in our busy season at work from now until the middle of August. I grilled 3 times in 2 days. Stacy's parents came over Saturday morning and watched Isabella. Stacy and I went shopping. When we got home, I cooked bacon wrapped pork sirloin, potatoes and heated some Bush's Grillin' Beans. See my post Bacon Wrapped Pork for the pork recipe. I did the potatoes a new way. I cut them lengthwise in 6 or so slices, like big potato chips. After salting and peppering, I grilled them on each side until golden brown. I even heated the beans on the side burner of my grill, so the whole lunch was cooked on the grill.
      While Isabella was napping, I made a blueberry crumble on the grill. I found this recipe from Lodge Cast Iron on their Facebook page. Here is the text from the post.
 Just in time for berry picking' season, here's the Simple Berry Skillet Cobbler recipe from "The Lodge Cast Iron Cookbook."

Try this recipe, we know you're gonna love it!


Simple Berry Skillet Cobbler
Before the earnest heat of summer sets in, a cold snap happens in Tennessee called blackberry winter; the old timers say the colder the snap, the sweeter the berries. Says Jane Gaither, who blogs at Gourmet Gadget Gal, “My family homeplace at the edge of the Smoky Mountains is covered with raspberry and blackberry brambles and we pick, can, freeze, and eat them year round.“ Her berry cobbler recipe uses raspberries but you can use any type of berry or peaches. Be sure to serve it warm with vanilla ice cream.
Serves 6 to 8
One 10-ounce bag individually frozen raspberries or 1 pint fresh berries
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk
1. Place a 12-inch cast iron skillet in the oven and preheat to 350°F.
2. Mix together the raspberries, 1/2 cup of the granulated sugar, the brown sugar, 2 tablespoons of the flour, the lemon juice, and nutmeg in a medium bowl.
3. Melt the butter in the skillet in the oven until it starts to brown around the edge and foam. It’s important to have the butter sizzling hot!
4. While the butter is melting, in a large bowl, mix together the remaining 1/2 cup flour, remaining 1/2 cup granulated sugar, the baking powder, salt, and milk until just combined. The batter may still have a few lumps but it should be about the consistency of pancake batter.
5. Pour the batter over the butter in the hot skillet. Do not stir. Immediately spoon the berry mixture on top of the batter. Bake until the crust looks golden and crispy, 25 to 30 minutes.

I used frozen blueberries and did it all on the grill. It took a little over 30 minutes. Next time, I'll try smoking it on the grill with some wood chips.

 Stacy had a Pampered Chef party Saturday night. Isabella and I had daddy daughter time. We went outside, watered the garden, and played.

 Sunday night, I made pizza, grilled pineapple, grilled bread and Stacy made a salad. For the pizza, I cooked up some bacon in my cast iron skillet. I then drained most of the grease out of the pan and sprinkled corn meal in the pan. I stretched a refrigerated pizza crust in the skillet and precooked it for a little on the grill. My pizzas have been turning out a little soggy in the center, not this time though. I also put on a little less sauce than normal.  I topped the pizza with Pampered Chef Beer BBQ Sauce, ground pork, peppers, onions, crumbled bacon, and cheese. I cooked it on indirect heat.

While the pizza was cooking, I made a glaze for the pineapple. I put fresh squeezed lemon juice, brown sugar, cinnamon, butter and a little vanilla extract in a pan and melted it over low heat. Also when I was cooking the pizza, I put a couple pieces of pineapple rind on the grill to add some pineapple smoke. Once the pizza was done, I grilled the pineapple. The pineapple got basted several times with the glaze. Also, I grilled some day old bread that I cut up like bread sticks. We really enjoyed our meal.

Hope everybody has a good week!
Matt

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Dada Day!

I hope everybody had a good week! I had a good weekend. Saturday, we ran an errand then went to the post office to check the mail. I had a package! I got my prize that I won on Aviation Maintenance Technician day for answering a question on Facebook. My prize was a heavy duty step stool called the "Shure Step."  We are going to use it for now as a step for Isabella to use when she washes her hands at the sink.

       I mowed the lawn for the second time this year and weed whacked around the yard a little. During Isabella's nap time I prepped dinner. I salted, peppered and rubbed some Pampered Chef Smoky Barbecue Rub on lamb leg steaks. I also stuffed some peppers. I then got to watch some of my BBQ U and Primal Grill shows that I had DvR'd until Isabella woke up from her nap. 

     For dinner, I grilled the lamb, peppers and whole potatoes. The potatoes were rubbed with oil, then salt and peppered. Isabella and I really liked the lamb. Stacy found out she still doesn't like lamb no matter how it cooked. 

    Sunday was Father's day. While Isabella was eating her breakfast, I prepped dinner. Even though it was Father's day I wanted to grill dinner again. I cut onions, peppers and pork loin chops into strips. Next I salted and peppered everything. After that, I added Worcestershire sauce, honey mustard  salad dressing, minced garlic and a dash of Pampered Chef Smoky Applewood rub to the bowl and mixed it up. It all went into the fridge to marinate all day.  Here are some pictures of what Isabella wore on Father's day:

   We all went to Stacy's parents house and had a nice lunch. We had bbq chicken, ribs, salad, macaroni salad, corn bread, and cake. It was all very good. When we got home we Skyped with my Mother, sister Joy and my Dad. After that, I grilled the pork stuff that was marinating. I cooked it on the Pampered Chef Roasting pan and can holder. I also toasted some hot dog buns. One got a little too done and had to be thrown away. It only takes a minute or two to toast the buns. We put the pork, onion, pepper mixture on our hot dog buns and sprinkled a little cheese on top. We ate them with some chips. It was a nice easy grilled meal. Tasted good too.

         My Pampered Chef show is still going on till this Friday, the 22nd of June. I so far have no orders. It is super easy to order online and anybody can do it.  To order go to the website: www.pamperedchef.biz/stacyschneider and click "shop online", enter in Matthew Schneider as host and you're all set.  

I leave you with a few pics of Talkeetna at 11:30 at night. Have a great week!

Matt

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"Partay"

I hope everybody had a good week. I had a nice 3 day weekend. I worked Sunday last week so I could have Friday off. Friday was a busy day for us. We went grocery shopping and then went to the city of Palmer's Colony days. Isabella got to go in the petting zoo and pet goats, a pig and a sheep. The sheep tried to escape while we were in there. We walked around and looked and tasted what people had for sale. We also had lunch there. After that we did more grocery shopping and went home. Stacy and I continued to clean the house for the party on Saturday. Isabella took a nap. After her nap, I started my grill cleaning project. If you read my last blog post, you will remember that I had a fire in my grill. 

       I started out by stripping it down to the burners and hosing it all off with water. I scrubbed out the grease from the bottom of the grill. I had over an inch of greasy crud on the bottom. I had not done a full deep clean of the grill in the 2 years that I have owned it. I washed and soaped it down some more and let it drip dry for a bit. 

I then blew the burners out with compressed air. After that I reassembled the burners and hooked up the propane. I turn on the propane and soaped all the connections looking for leaks. Once I was satisfied that there were no leaks, I lit the burners. The middle one was the only one that wouldn't light with the ignitor. I did get it lit with a grill lighter and when I used it again Saturday, it lit with the ignitor. So I put it all back together and let it burn for about 10 minutes to dry everything out. My best guess on the cause of the fire is that I had too much greasy build up because I didn't find any evidence of a gas leak.

Saturday we ran some more errands and prepped for the party. The start time was 3 and Stacy and I had decided that we were going to start even if nobody was there yet. At 3:15, I went out and lit the charcoal. At 3:30 we started making the pizza. We made the beer bbq Hawaiian pizza that we have made a few times before. This time, I cooked it on the charcoal grill. While the pizza was cooking, I made brats and corn on the propane side. We think that this is the first time I've cooked on both sides at once.

 I basted the brats with bbq sauce when they were almost cooked. I rotated the pizza a few times until it was done. It cooked for about 20 minutes.

 Once the corn was done, we rubbed it with a compound butter that we made. We took softened and mixed in Pampered Chef Chili lime rub.

We also had Bush's Sweet Mesquite Grillin' beans, fresh veggies and dill dip to eat. Everybody missed out because nobody showed. Stacy, Isabella and I had a nice feast. The pizza tasted really good. You could really taste the hickory from the charcoal. I used Kingsford Hickory charcoal.  The corn was really good too. Isabella really likes corn on the cob. We love grilled corn and don't plan on boiling corn on the cob again.

         On Sunday, we drove into Anchorage and celebrated Stacy's grandma's 80th birthday. We also celebrated a couple of her aunts birthdays. After that we went back to Wasilla and went to a bbq at an airplane part store. We had a fun time and entered a door prize drawing. Monday, I got a call that both Stacy and I had won door prizes. We won parts for planes that we don't own. So if you own a Super Cub and need a battery box or a long step let me know and I'll make you a good deal. 

         My Pampered Chef show has been extended to the 22nd of June. I so far have no orders. It is super easy to order online and anybody can do it.  To order go to the website: www.pamperedchef.biz/stacyschneider and click "shop online", enter in Matthew Schneider as host and you're all set.  

Anything you order will count toward my show. Have a great week and Happy Father's day to all the Father's out there!

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