Back To The Grill

After procrastinating for months and months, I finally got around to refilling the propane tank for our gas grill. I managed to miss all the great Winter and Spring grilling weather, although the first night we used it was unseasonably cold, around 50 degrees. Still, you can't beat the taste of hot dogs on the grill. Unless it's Jordan's natural casing hot dogs cooked on sharpened sticks over a bonfire on a frozen lake in the middle of Maine, but I digress...

We've slowly ramped up our outdoor cooking. I started simply with hot dogs and hamburgers to get my grill legs back. I grabbed Tara a couple 1/2 off New York steaks at F&E last week with mixed results. The first one was good, the other very gristly. This past weekend I was down at VonHanson's and grabbed some cooked brats for only $2/lb, since they were out of their awesome hot dogs. I also got Tara a ribeye steak. We hadn't tried their ribeyes yet, so this was a leap of faith. The previous ribeyes I'd gotten at MidWestern Meats and they were very good. I'd planned on stopping by there, but they were still closed for Memorial Day week. So it was VH for ribeye, brats, and a little over 2lbs of their meat candy (aka double-smoked bacon).

I cooked up some of the brats for me tonight and the ribeye for Tara. It was nice not having to boil the brats first and just slap them on the grill. I used some of our leftover VH store-baked hot dog buns and they were really good with just a little honey mustard. I cooked Tara's steak on each side for six minutes and it came out perfect. She seasons her steak with a good dose of salt for 1/2 hour before washing that off and applying fresh-ground pepper. The steak had great flavor. I'm not a huge beef fan, but this was some really good moo flesh. Tara was in heaven.

I need to find some more grill recipes to branch out a bit, but I still love the basics.