Monday, August 22, 2011

On Our Grills August

It is time for the monthly On OurGrills – 4 Ingredient Challenge


It's a monthly challenge (not contest) in which a group of grilling/BBQ friends are presented with a list of 4 ingredients that they must use to create a meal from the grill. The challenge ingredients for August are:

Protein: Beef Short Ribs
Vegetable: Celery
Starch: Gluten Free Pasta
Fruit: Peaches

I cheated on this one. I had an ace up my sleeve and I consulted the Gluten Free Grillmeister himself, Dave of Food and Fire for advice. I decided to TRY to make the entire meal gluten free. 


Beef Short Ribs
Full of connective tissues, these are a prime candidate for low and slow and/or braising. I went with both and used this Chris Lilly recipe that you can find at Grilling.com. I smoked the ribs as directed and used a mix of Kingsford and peach wood that I got from Larry last year (BigDude's Eclectic Ramblings). The second part of the cook braises them where I did slip up on gluten free since I could not get gluten free soy sauce.

Celery
Does celery even COUNT as a vegetable? I mean, it's fiber and water. Outside of “ants on a log” or as a side to hot wings, whoever wants celery? Actually I like the flavor of celery, it's the texture that I dislike. I hate biting into dishes and getting a huge, raw chunk of celery. I solved that problem tonight by using very thin slices on a bias. Just look at the difference.


Gluten Free Pasta
This was my biggest surprise. I expected some chewy, gross pasta substitute. We used Notta Pasta Rice Spaghetti and we LOVED it. I made a veggie pasta side dish on the grill while the beef rested.

On Our Grills Challenge Made Me Make This But I Really Liked It Pasta
Serves 2

2 Tbsp butter
1 stalk celery, sliced thin on a sharp bias
1 leaf sage, sliced
¼ cup roasted red pepper, diced
1 green onion, sliced
¼ tsp Lawry's Seasoned Salt (gluten free, don't ya know!)
4 oz Notta Pasta Rice Spaghetti, cooked according to directions

Preheat a skillet over high heat and then add the butter. Saute celery and sage for 2 minutes.

Add the pepper, onion, and season salt. Saute another 1-2 minutes.

Add cooked pasta and toss to coat.

Peaches
Once the meat had smoked, I grilled the peaches over the peach wood embers while Alexis made our basic home made ice cream. Grilling fruit concentrates the natural sugars. 


After peeling and dicing the peach halves, Alexis poured about 1 Tbsp of Agave nectar over them and tossed them. The warm peaches melted the ice cream before I could get a decent photograph but the taste was well worth it. 
 

Smoke Hollow
I used 3/4ths of my SmokeHollow grill/smoker combo cooker for this dish.
  • Offset Smoker – smoked the beef ribs until the point they were foiled
  • Charcoal Grill – grilled the peaches over the peach wood embers
  • Gas Grill – finished cooking the ribs once foiled, sauteed the veggies
I love our two Big Green Eggs but the Smoke Hollow combo cooker is great because I can be using 3 cooking surfaces at once doing different things. I want to get it out on our deck with the Eggs but need to get a 7 foot long grill cover first.

The On Our Grills Troupe
Check out the creative meals that the rest of the gang came up with:

The Daily Dish – August Challenge Post
Kristina has been writing "The Daily Dish" for www.BetterRecipes.com for the past two years. The blog covers a wide variety of recipes, but firing up the grill truly lights up her passion for food! She was named "America's Next Pork Personality" by Guy Fieri for one of her grilled pork dishes, won the outdoor grilling division of the National Beef Cook-Off, and her winning grilled lamb-burger took her all the way to the land Down Under with Meat and Livestock Australia. The "4-Ingredient Challenge" is a fun and exciting way to get creative on the grill!

The BBQ Grail – August Challenge Post
The BBQ Grail website was created in 2007, initially to document the author’s quest to find the perfect backyard BBQ experience. Since that time The BBQ Grail has become one of the more popular BBQ blogs on the internet and is listed on Alltop.com as one of the top BBQ blogs.

No Excuses BBQ – August Challenge Post
The No Excuses BBQ website was started in January of 2009 as a way to record the author's goal of cooking outdoors at least once a week throughout the year and showing the results to the world. Somewhere along the way things got out of control...

Oshawa Ogre's Views, News & BBQ's – August Challenge Post
Wilfred is somewhat of a newcomer to the BBQ scene having only done standard grilling for most of his 50 years, He found and became passionate about Low & Slow about 2 years ago. and that passion also morphed into a second hobby which is writing. Oshawa Ogre’s Views News & BBQ’s has been a project that has taken on a life of it’s own and blessed him with many many new friends in the BBQ community on Twitter, facebook and through the blog.

Grill Aventures – August Challenge Post
Grilladventures by broadcastmarc is started on march of 2010.I started the BBQ thing when I was 30,before that we eat a lot outside.have fun,but when the kids came in our life We start serious cooking.Most of it is realy healthy I think;-)The grill has a special place in my heart,We love to do things outside..Everything I make is an adventure,and sometimes we use the books.We try to grill as much as we can year round.

Jason's Barbecue Adventures – August Challenge Post
Jason’s BBQ Adventures was started in 2007 when Jason fell in love with real BBQ the first time and tried to smoked a pork shoulder and soon after started smoking ribs, brisket, and chicken. After a while he started to experiment with grilling and smoking just about anything and ultimately fell in love with the entire cooking process.

The Dutchess Cooks – August Challenge Post
After years of cooking, grilling, baking and reading other people’s blogs, I thought “why not start my own blog??” And I did, in 2010, but already after a short period of time, a blog wasn’t enough, and I started my own website. It’s not my goal to publish or come up with fancy and difficult recipes: just good and delicious food with an international twist! Straight from my plate to yours!