Full meal on the grill

On of the great things about summer is that it's so easy to sit outside and just fire up the grill.  For this dinner that's just what I did with a whole collection of food: kale, garlic heads, bread, scallops, steak & even twice baked potatoes!

I turned on the left two burners of the grill and left the right two off to enable me to use indirect heat on some of the ingredients and direct heat on others.

The bread and garlic cloves went on the top rack for about 25 minutes before the steak went on.  The kale was on the lower rack, but as far away from the heat as it could be.  The 25 minutes was spent with the lid closed.

After the 25 minutes were up, on went the steak and potatoes.  For the potatoes I put them in a roasting tray away from the heat.

The steak, a dry aged NY Strip, went on direct heat.  After five minutes of cooking I rotated the strip 1/4 and then flipped it after another five.

Once the steak was flipped, I added the scollops to the grill.  After five more minutes of cooking I removed the steak to a cutting board and covered with a light towel.  At this point I also flipped the scallops and allowed them to finish cooking (they should not be translucent except in the very center).

After the scallops finished cooking, everything came off the grill and then it was time to plate.




I plated with the kale as a base to build on and then plated the potatoes, steak, scallops and garlic head in circular fashion around the plate.  It tasted as good as it looks in the following picture, try it yourself and enjoy!

A post about Onions? Yes, really!

The weather is getting warmer and the farmer's market is back open ... those two facts mean that me cooking meals outside is pretty much a foregone conclusion.

Shells came home with some great produce from the market, including some awesome spring onions and green onions.  So I decided to grab a couple of steaks and see what I could turn out with this fun stuff.

 For the spring onions I decided to pan cook them so I sliced them down the middle and then drizzled them with olive oil salt & pepper.

The first trick to getting them nice and crispy on the outside and soft on the inside is a very hot pan.  So for this, I used the burner attached to my grill ... cranking the temp to high and letting the pan get nice and hot.  A little bit more oil into the pan and then the onions went down.

The second trick is to leave them the heck alone.  Seriously; don't shake the pan, don't turn them 10 times ... just leave them there for about 5 minutes.

After five minutes I used a pair of tongs to flip them over.  Instead of trying to grab the sides, slide one side of the tongs underneath and then lightly hold the onion as you flip it.  If you go to flip the first one and it doesn't look like the ones pictured here, leave it for two more minutes before flipping.

Cook the onions for another 5-7 minutes on the other side and then you will be ready to serve them.

For this dinner, I decided to serve the onions paired with some sliced steak that I had prepared on the grill and then finished with the SearzAll.  The broiler effect from the SearzAll gives that steakhouse style crispy crust on top of the steaks, while not cooking the inside.

Finally, I served the steak and onions over mashed potatoes and topped them with a mixture of garlic, green onion bulb and sliced green onions that I had simmered in beef stock for about an hour.

I highly recommend giving all of these things and try ... enjoy!