Run for your thighs!! Its.... GRILLZILLA!

Bradley's newest bob the builder escapade lead him to assist a friend in building what I like to refer to as "the biggest flippin' grill I ever did see", more affectionately known as..... GRILLZILLA.

Yes it is obnoxiously huge and yes he did have to build a new deck specifically for housing the flavor injecting beast. But that's ok because now my covered deck is going to be turned into a "tropical getaway".

I'm always trying to turn places into tropical getaways, seriously, can one of y'all just move me to the beach and call it good?? Please? My birthday is soon!!

This tropical get away isn't going to happen overnight, as patio furniture is DANG EXPENSIVE even in the off season when it is on clearance. Not to mention no where has it in the store anymore so I'm having to order it offline and pay for shipping and cross my fingers that nothing is damaged in the process. So I'm saving my pennies and if you would like to donate yours... please see me after the show. (ahem birthday soon ahem)

Where was I? Oh yeah, the big black thing in my backyard....

Anyway it came to us late Thursday night and we left a football party early on Saturday because Bradley was itching to go to the grocery store and buy large pieces of various animals to throw into its big steel belly. FEED THE BEAST! FEED THE BEAST!

Let the marination process commence!

And it was good. Sunday was spent "smoking" and not the wacky tabacky kind. (can you tell its past my bedtime?) He cooked a slab of ribs that looked like they were from a rhino.... or maybe an elephant, pork chops (that I rubbed with a new spice mix a friend told me about, don't worry I'll show you later) and an entire chicken. En......tire.....chicken. Remember Magda from There's Something About Mary? hehe That's what Mr Chicken looked like when he checked out of Hotel Grill-ifornia.

Of course we couldn't eat all that Sunday night, so we've spent this week finding new ways to enjoy smoky food. All jokes aside that thing makes some great food! The chicken was turned into chicken tacos last night and chicken nachos tonight. Both equally amazing.

Nothing special, just chips, chicken, rotel, corn, cheese and a spicy sour cream sauce I made up.


Take sour cream, mix in taco seasoning (to taste), mix in juice from rotel until it is a little runny and you are able to "drizzle" it on things like tacos and nachos.

YUM!

trying to be healthy....

Doesn't always work out like you want it to.

I bake a lot of things that Bradley would fry, around here. Frozen french fries, frozen chicken fingers, frozen hush puppies. So when I decided to make chicken fingers myself and bake them I figured they would turn out like the frozen ones do.

Not exactly. They were good, but they didn't brown and had a very dry crust. I love to eat chicken fingers without needing to dip them in something, and these required a dip. All we had was ranch, but I would of preferred a parmesan based dressing for these "Italian Chicken Fingers".

Basically I used the pork chop recipe but replaced the chops with chicken tenders. I want to do it again because it was something new and tasty to perk up boring old chicken, but I guess I will have to shallow fry them.

And yes I admitted to Bradley that I was wrong and he was right in asking me to fry them.



See this picture? It's of three chicken fingers and they just look like one big blob. There is no definition of color. No browning around the edges.

I served it alongside my presto pasta entry and it made for a good dinner. Good not great.

Can't leave well enough alone....

Every couple of months I go on grocery shopping frenzies. It usually starts out with good intentions, just going to the store for a few things totalling under $20 dollars. Then I see something I like.... and something else.... and then it is all over.

See I can't knowingly spend lots of money on groceries. It hurts me. I know we have to eat, but I would much rather spend my money on fun stuff, like clothes or shoes. So I have to trick my self into accidentally grocery shopping. In between those times I drop under $20 dollars a week on stuff we run out of and desperately need (read: cheese and bacon and coke zero) at the grocery. This goes on for months.

Well this weekend I had one of "those" shopping trips. I found a new product I wanted to try and it was all down hill from there. I was meal planning like crazy. The product was a macaroni grill chicken helper type thing. I thought, "Yum macaroni grill how bad can it be?!"



I was right! But was it their fault.... or mine??

I tried the above version first. It was a basil alfredo sauce with chicken, noodles and sun dried tomatoes. Ok Bradley is not going to eat sun dried tomatoes. So I omitted those. Plus I only like them on salads, so tata matoes. Then I read the directions. "Brown chicken in butter". That's it? No seasoning?

No no no. Step back macaroni grill... let me handle this.

I chunked up chicken tenderloins and tossed them with a generous amount of italian seasoning. Heated up a few tablespoons of butter with some evoo and cooked my chicken.... all the way through because it wanted you to finish cooking them in the sauce and that's just gross. I also sauteed some onions and baby bella mushrooms in evoo and italian seasonings, and fried some bacon. I mixed the mushrooms and onions with the chicken, sauce and noodles, and topped the dish with crumbled bacon and parmesan cheese.

It was SO good! I guess I can't take any credit for the sauce, I mean right out of the box it was good. It was almost like a pesto alfredo sauce. I asked bradley if he thought it would of been just as good if I had of just made it like the box wanted me to and he said, "I don't want to think about it!"

Vinegar: It's what's for dinner!

Sort of! As I mentioned in the last post, warm weather means you can find the two of us by the grill - chatting while dinner slowly cooks. It is a great way to catch up and wind down after a long day at work.

One of my favorite things for Bradley to grill are porkchops. Bradley has become very open minded in his eating, but he still won't let me mess with what he grills. It is "his territory". That's fine! But this marinade is so simple and so delicious that I don't see why anyone wouldn't want to try it!

Balsamic Blast Marinade for Chicken and Pork
recipe by me

Balsamic Vinegar
Course ground dijon mustard

mix equal parts and whisk together until mixture is soupy. pour over your meat and let it marinate for at least 30 minutes. cook however you like, but i grilled mine :)

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Creative Casserole

Last summer I developed an unhealthy obsession for hash brown casserole, and once I figured out I could make it.... oh, it was on! We were eating it once a week. Great for the waistline... I know! I could make a meal out of it myself, but Bradley needed something to satisfy his carnivorous tooth.

During the summer months I can't keep Bradley away from the grill. One of his favorite things to grill is chicken. One afternoon when I wanted hash brown casserole and he groaned at the thought of eating it again, I had the idea of adding meat to the casserole. We had all this left over grilled chicken, so I thought.... why not? And from that simple thought came this great recipe!

Chicken Hash Brown Casserole
recipe by me!

1-2 cups of chicken, shredded
equal amount of shredded potatoes
1 can "cream of anything" soup (i used potato and mushroom this time)
1/2 cup sour cream
1 cup shredded cheese
1/2 teaspoon celery salt
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon ranch powder
1/8 teaspoon ground red pepper
ritz crackers, crushed
poppy seeds

preheat oven to 350*. in a large mixing bowl combine everything and then dump it into a casserole dish and spread it out evenly. top with crushed ritz and top that with poppy seeds. bake for an hour or until the ritz turn golden brown.

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Confronting my fears

If you know me you know.... I have a fear of eating foods "off the bone". I started taking baby steps back in the summer as to killing my fear. I would sneak a bite from one of Bradley's extra meaty chicken drummies. If my teeth didn't hit bone, I was ok. As much as I want to be that girl in the bar eating wings and yelling at the ref's on tv with the guys.... I just can't. There are things attached to that bone that I do not want to bite down on. Not to mention it gets stuck in my teeth and don't get me started on the close relation I feel that it has to cannibalism. I know... I'm weird. But you knew that, too!

I also have a fear of eating most meats not prepared by me. I will not go into a restaurant and order chili. I don't know if they prepared the meat right or not. So I applied this to my bone fear and thought, "I bet I could cook chicken drumsticks that even I would be tempted to eat." And I did, and you will be tempted to eat them also.

This recipe is number one, VERY easy and number two, VERY versatile. You can change it up however you like to fit your taste. I was feeling a little spicy last night, so I went with that.

Start out with however many chicken drumsticks you think you can eat. I chose ten, thinking that it would be a good lunch for both of us the next day. Rinse them and make sure there are no... gulp.... feathers still stuck to them, and place them in a bowl to sit quietly until you are ready for them.


Now you need to melt one stick of butter...


Add in about a 1/3 cup lemon juice...


And one tablespoon of seasoning... your choice! I chose a creole seasoning.


Let that get hot and blended. Then one by one, swirl the chicken legs around in the mixture with your favorite pair of tongs.


Repeat the process until all legs have taken a butter bath and are resting peacefully on a rack inside your favorite roasting pan. You should have some butter mixture left over when you finish, so grab a basting brush and go to town!


You can start cooking these now or you can be like me and want to continue spicing them up. I could of just sprinkled more creole seasoning on top of them, but I opted for my favorite seasoning salt, "Season All"


Just give each one a little sprinklin'...


and put the pan into a 400* over for about an hour. You'll know they're finished if you can press on them and no, gag, pink juices flow out. You'll want them to get golden brown, also! Once they are finished all that is left to be done is plate them up!


This is such a great dish because it keeps the juices inside the chicken. They are tender and flavorful. And while I still couldn't bring myself to just pickin' up a leg and chowin' down like I was having dinner around the campfire, I did thoroughly enjoy them.

***STAY TUNED*** next week I will be giving away my secret scampi recipe and posting up pictures of the new house!