Fire up the grill!

I’m going to feature our supper last night. Some of us around here have been sick, so suppers haven’t been happening much this week… until last night. We made up for it then!!!!

Grilled Shrimp & Mushrooms
Stuffed Baked Potatoes
Grilled New York Strip Steak
Sauteed Mushrooms
Texas Toast
Veggies & Dip

Our friends who came over last night supplied the steaks… these are, incidently, the same friends I mentioned a couple weeks ago who brought hot ready-to-eat carry-out pizzas over for supper. Anybody else have friends like that?

Grilled Shrimp & Mushrooms

55 large (not jumbo) shrimp
Butter
Lawry’s seasoning salt
Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Meat Magic seasoning
Sliced mushrooms

There is actually no recipe for this… it was created by Shannon. He doesn’t measure ingredients or anything, but I know that it uses pretty much butter and less mushrooms than shrimp. Thaw the shrimp under cold running water. Mix the shrimp, butter, and seasoning all together in a bowl and skewer it on skewers, putting a mushroom on now and then. 
grill shrimp
Grill it till browned. You can either serve them on the skewers or slide them off in to a bowl. Serve with cocktail sauce. So delicious! They cool quckly, so it’s a good idea to put them in a bowl that’s been heated up or eat them right away… or both.
grill shrimp done

Stuffed Baked Potatoes (also known as Twice Baked)     This recipe comes from a Weber Gas Barbeque Cookbook (came with our Weber grill).

3 lg baking potatoes
3 Tablespoons softened butter or margarine
3/4 teaspoon salt
2 egg yolks
1/2 cup sour cream
1 Tablespoon fresh snipped chives
2 Tablespoons grated cheddar cheese
1/4 cup broccoli florets

Wash and dry potatoes. Prick with fork. Bake until done, about 1 hour. (Mine took 1 1/2 hours @ 400, but they were BIG). Halve potatoes lengthwise. Carefully scoop out pulp, reserving 4 shells. (I just cut the top 1/4 off, then let the shell pretty thick. It doesn’t break as easy then when your scoop out the pulp.)
grill shells
Mash potatoes with butter while still hot. Blend egg yolks and sour cream; mix with potatoes, chives, and salt. Mound mixture into reserved shells
grill filled potato
and place in a foil pan.
Place pan in center of cooking grate of gas grill (over indirect/medium heat) and cook until potatoes are heated through, about 20 minutes. Top each potato with cheese and continue to cook until cheese has melted. Garnish top with cooked broccoli florets before serving.    I usually do them in the oven instead of the grill… bake on ungreased cookie sheet @ 375 for 20 min, then top with cheese, bake 5 min longer. Garnish top with broccoli.
grill done potato

Grilled New York Strip Steak

4 12-oz. New York Strip Steak
Lawry’s seasoning salt
Chef Paul Prudhomme’s Meat Magic seasoning

Again, no actual recipe here, but this is how Shannon does it… Trim fat off,
grill trim
then let set till room temperature. Put seasoning on just before putting on the grill. Don’t put seasonings on ahead of time because the salt in them pulls out the moisture. In a charcoal grill, over to the one side, have HOT coals piled up almost up to the grate. The heat should be so intense that you can’t hold your hand there, even for a second. Sear the steaks there for about 1 1/2 minutes, then flip over to regular coals to finish grilling.
grill steaks   How long it takes depends on how much heat there is. Grill until steaks reach an internal temperature of 145 - 150. We like A-1 sauce with our steaks… ok, Ruthie, just some of us do.
grill steaks done

And, you can’t have steak without…
Sauteed Mushrooms

1/4 cup butter
2 8-oz cartons whole mushrooms, washed

I don’t know an actual recipe for this, but this is how I do it… When butter is about all melted in frying pan, put mushrooms in. Fry over medium/high heat stirring and flipping pretty often until they look darker and smaller and done… not sure exactly how to descibe it, ya just kinda know.    Line a bowl with paper towel and scoop mushrooms into bowl. Then, pull the paper towel out from under them and serve them in the bowl. (The paper towel gets rid of some extra grease.)
grill saute mshrm

Texas Toast

Loaf of French bread
Lots of butter
Garlic powder

Again… this is just how we do it. Slice the loaf on an angle into 1″ thick pieces. Spread butter heavily on both sides. Sprinkle garlic powder on top… less for this kind of meal, more for an Italian meal.
grill toast   
Put under broiler for a few minutes, but don’t forget about it or you’ll be reminded by smoke curling out of the oven… been there, done that!    When the first side is done, get them out, flip them over, and broil the other side. You shouldn’t have alot of other stuff going on while doing this, like fussy babies or making veggie trays or very involved conversations. Texas toast is what we call this bread, so if that’s an incorrect term, then we’re talking about a different Texas.
grill toast done

Veggie Tray

Baby carrots
Broccoli
Cauliflower
Green Peppers
Ranch veggie dip

Yeah, ok, this was more for healthy looks than anything. The guys didn’t even touch it. It was the only thing on the table not loaded with calories.
grill veg

We didn’t have dessert, but later in the evening, we ate some of the irrestistable Raspberry Cream Cheese Rolls that were left over from when I made them (again already) yesterday morning.

Mozzarella and Beef Puff

My first entry WAS going to be some for exotic yummy-lookin’ entree or dessert… to impress you all , but 5:00 this evening found me staring in the cupboards, fridge, and freezer. Then, I spotted the ”Jiffy all purpose baking mix” box with recipes on it. So, I scanned them and thought the Mozzerella and Beef Puff sounded good.

There won’t be all that many casserole-type dishes on here. Neither Shannon nor I like them… but for different reasons. His reason: the same taste the whole main course, and the throw-everything-in-the-trough effect. My reason: I never know what else to put with it… all the food groups are in there, so do we go double on the veggies or the bread? In my mind, a meal should have at least 3 things on the table. So, if there’s a casserole, I need to come up with 2 more things!  

Mozzerella & Beef Puff

Crust:
1/4 cup butter or magarine
3/4 cup water
3/4 cup JIFFY baking mix
3 eggs

Filling:
1 lb. lean ground beef
1 can (7 oz.) mushrooms
3/4 cup onion (chopped)
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 can (10 3/4 oz) cream of mushroom soup

1 to 1 1/2 cups shedded mozzarella cheese (I did 1 1/2)

Preheat oven to 425. Grease 10″ round baking dish. Brown ground beef, onion, and mushrooms. Drain, add seasoning and mushroom soup, and set aside. For crust, bring water and butter to a boil. Add baking mix all at once, beat with wooden spoon until mixture is smooth and forms a ball. Remove form heat. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each. Spread dough onto bottom and up sides of pan.
s puff crust
Fill w\ beef mixture. Bake 25 minutes until golden brown and puffy. Sprinkle with cheese and bake 5 minutes more. Yeild: 4 - 5 servings.
s puff baked  Mine got baked a little longer because my Mom called and I was talking to her when I should’ve got it out. But it turned out good because the cheese got nice and brown around the edges. It’s VERY filling.

My take on it: I’m not going to cut it out of the box to add to my blank cookbook (which isn’t so blank anymore). It was VERY good, but nothing exceptional. The garlic added some pizzazz. A huge plus for it is that it takes very common ingredients and is very easy to make short notice… like, you can grab frozen hamburger out of the freezer and have it fried up in 15 minutes.

To round out this meal, I cooked frozen broccoli (there were no veggies in the main dish) and then we topped it off with banana splits for dessert.
s banana split  We don’t always have dessert, but the toppings and bananas and ice cream scoop were some more things to help fill up my ‘empty’ table problem, what with having casserole and all!

I should add somewhere on this site, that Shannon is a better cook than me! When Tiffany was born, he worked from home some for the first week and made alot of the meals, and we ate some good stuff!!! Much better than when I’m in charge! Where he shines most is the grill. He grills year-round, but of course more in the summer. He has a baked bean recipe that is just awesome, and he’s famous for those beans among our family and friends. My sister Jan requested them at her wedding and my mom just called me this evening (remember overbaked puff above) and asked if he could make them for our T-giving dinner this year. He also makes a killer pork chop open faced sandwich. I will ask him make a ‘guest appearance’ on here once in awhile!  

There are some things in the comments from my last post that I want to come back to sometime, but I’ll leave it at this for now. I’ll most likely be updating before Thanksgiving, so I won’t wish you a Happy Thanksgiving yet! If I don’t make anything before, I plan to make a cinnamon roll recipe that madisonsmom2 messaged to me. I’ll make it for brunch since our T-giving dinner is an early supper (I think to accomodate the hunters). This is not just any cinnamon roll recipe… it’s got a couple ’surprise’ ingredients in it.   …That was all just to whet your appetites.

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