A Meal All Grilled

Grilling is something we absolutely love to do. We have a huge charcoal grill with Cast Iron grill surfaces that we got a few years back on an extra special 'Get this out of our store now!' sale at the end of the summer. Dennis and I always have a head to head about the terms 'Grilling' and 'Barbecuing' to him barbecue is a slow cooking process utilizing sauce. To me, who grew up on the west coast, a Grill is a Barbecue and the two terms are interchangeable.

One problem with grilling is that it always seems like such a waste of energy when you heat up all of your charcoal, merely to grill some steaks, or burgers or kebabs. Usually there is plenty of heat left over to grill your sides and even your desert as well. In the summer this will keeps the kitchen cool since you're not cooking anything inside.

For this meal we had:
1 12 oz. Rib Eye, split in two --Bargain shopper that I am I found a very nice natural beef Rib Eye on special

We coated the steak with olive oil and sprinkled it with salt and pepper. Keeping it simple is in my opinion the key to a good grilled steak.

We sliced a fennel bulb, zucchini, and yellow squash and tossed with about one tablespoon of olive oil and one tablespoon of balsamic vinegar, and sprinkled with salt. We have one of those vegetable grill pans that has holes in the middle, and it works fantastically for grilled veggies.

Once the charcoal was ready and the grill was hot (ours has a thermometer on it and we usually let it get to about 400 degrees before grilling) we put the vegetables out. In this case, they are going to take longer than the steaks. Leave the veggies to sit for about 20 minutes and then put the steak on directly over the coals. Use direct, not indirect heat. You will want to get a nice sear. In order to do so, do not move the steak other than flipping it over; which should only be done once. Close the grill and after 4 to 5 minutes (depending on the thickness of your steak, the heat of the grill, and how rare you want your meat) flip the steak and cook for another 3 to 4 minutes on the other side.

To check for doneness you can use a meat thermometer (Med. Rare is 130 degrees in the middle) or you can poke the steak with your finger or tongs. The more done it is the less give it will have. To get a feel for it just remember what the steak felt like when raw. Well done will be quite stiff, Med. Rare will still be soft, but not squishy. If you under cook your steak you can always put it back on, but you cannot undo an over done steak.

Once the steak is done, place it on a plate, loosely cover with aluminum foil, and let it sit for at least five minutes before eating. The reason for letting the meat sit rather than eating immediately is to let the edges of the meat to solidify and hold the juices in. Depending upon the thickness of your steaks, this could take longer or shorter. However, the same logic can be applied towards any non-ground grilled meat. A trick to improve this resting period is to place a smaller plate upside down on a larger plate and put the steaks on top of that. This allows the juices that drip out run away from the steaks. This helps the crust form quicker as well as preventing the steaks from sitting in their own juices, which saps more juice out of the steaks. As with the resting process, this can be applied towards other grilled meats as well.

The veggies should be getting close to done by the time the steak is ready. So you are almost ready to eat. I miss-lead a bit in the title, because I did sauté some mushrooms and add a bit of wine and cream to them and we poured them over the steak. Just chop up your mushrooms (usually 8 oz.), heat some butter or olive oil in a pan until hot, sauté the mushrooms and sprinkle with garlic powder, salt, and pepper. When they are soft and have lost some of their mushroom juices add 1/2 cup wine and bring to a boil. Then slowly add in 1/4 cup cream and simmer until the sauce thickens. This is delicious over steaks.

The simple meal of grilled steaks and veggies with the mushroom sauce was delicious. Afterward, we followed it up with a grilled desert. This is something that Dennis has done several times and is a great way to use peaches if you have bought a few too many of them and are getting a bit sick of just eating them. The original recipe for these is from epicurious.com and can be found here: Grilled Brown-Sugar Peaches with White Chocolate. I have made it with white chocolate, and while it is good I have a grudge against white chocolate because it pretends that it is chocolate when it is not. Our modification uses real dark chocolate.

Our recipe modification:

2 peaches cut in half

Mix 2 tablespoons melted butter with 1 tablespoon brown sugar and a dash of cinnamon. Add the peach halves and toss to coat them in mixture.

Place the peaches on the grill flat side down for about one minute, until they heat up and start to brown.

Flip the peaches and fill with:

2 Tablespoons (or more) finely chopped dark chocolate
Any extra sugar mixture

Grill until the chocolate starts to melt. (About 1 minute)

Eat as is, or serve with ice cream, whipping cream, chocolate sauce or other toppings. The last time we made this I got a little crazy with the desert and served with ice cream, chocolate sauce, and fresh blackberries. It was a bit over the top, but delicious.