Pizza Spectacular

For my birthday I was the happy recipient of a VillaWare Stainless-Steel Pizza Grill. For some time I have been making pizza on the grill as well as in the oven without the benefit of any pizza stone. Overall, I was quite happy with the results but the pizza monster inside of me always wanted to try a pizza stone.

The challenge was trying a pizza stone on a grill. Technically speaking, one can not use a baking stone directly on an open flame. Not sure if this is folk lore or the actual truth but I read it on the internet and as we all know if it is on the internet, it must be true.

A combo pizza stone and rack seemed to be the way to go and the reviews have always been positive for the VillaWare product. Amazon has it for a great price and with my Amazon Prime membership I got it in two days for free shipping. Hard to shake a pizza crust at that!

We decided to make two pizzas, a cheese pizza for the sou chef and a sort of margarita pizza for us.

The sou chef did her usual great job of assembling the pizza-

a little bit of sauce

a little bit of cheese

even more cheese

then onto the Pizza Grill

for some tasty results

Our pizza was equally as tasty

Fresh tomatoes from Volante Farms, mozzarella from Maplebrook Farm (you can buy it at Roche Brothers, Sudbury Farms and Whole Foods and basil from our 'garden'

So how were the results? The sou chef has proclaimed that it was the best pizza ever and she now only wants to eat daddy's bar-b-que pizza. I liked the crust that the pizza stone created. The built in thermometer was very handy as my Weber one has died a slow death some time ago.

What are my complaints? For starters the thing needs to heat up for about 20 minutes, this combined with any additional grilling sucks a lot of LP out of the gas tank. The other two 'issues' is that the Pizza grill takes up a lot of space on my Weber. Not the grills fault but of course now I need a bigger grill and finally, if you make pizza as an appetizer the questions of where one puts a wicked hot pizza grill and frame is a bit of an issue.

For less then seventy five dollars with free shipping this was a great deal in my mind.

Shrimp

Shrimp is one of the easiest things to cook. With the latest addition to our house turning one month old, fast and easy dishes are key these days.

Fast and easy when combined with cooking outside is a can't miss combo.

A good friend of ours make some great marinated shrimp. My understanding is that he got the recipe from an old Williams & Sonoma cookbook, but I just call it Lawrence's Shrimp.

2 lbs of shrimp 1/2 cup of tomato sauce 1/4 cup of olive oil 3 tbs of crushed garlic

Marinate for a few hours and grill and then we served this up on a bed of rice.

Surf and Turf

Not sure what happened on the way to to store but I must of lost my mind. Wikipedia has a definition of Surf and Turf a "menu is guided not by aesthetic concerns, but for the sake of vulgar display."

Sounds good to me

The menu was simple enough; Fillet, Alaskan King Crab Legs, shrimp, scallops and asparagus

Since I was making this up as I went along (note to self do not go to store hungry) I need to figure out how to pull it all together.

For the shrimp and scallops a salsa would go well. We had a half open jar of Green Mountain Gringo Salsa in the fridge. This would be a good base but I was not looking for an overwhelming spicy flavor so to the salsa I added some cucumber, orange juice, parsley, olive oil and some cherry tomatoes.



It is roughly about an inch and a half of an English cucumber that I skinned and chopped up for the salsa. The orange juice etc I added to taste and the olive oil help loosen the salsa up a bit.




You can actually see a little piece of the cucumber in right above the tip of the spoon.

The crab legs were already cooked, so I wrapped them in foil and put in a 300 degree oven.


The shrimp and scallops were gonna go on the grill at the last few moments of the fillet finishing. The asparagus was to also go on the grill. Washed, trimmed and wrapped in foil with a bit of sea salt, pepper and olive oil for about 5 minutes.

The beef while fillet was not center cut tenderloin, which is no bigger when it is just us. I actually do not mind this cut of the tenderloin as it has a bit more fat which means a bit more flavor. The problem with this cut is that it does need some trimming.


Once trimmed, they were tied, sprayed with Pam and salt and peppered. They had been sitting at room temperature for about 30 minutes. From here they went onto a pre-heated grill for about 4-5 minutes a side.


Once I flipped them over to finish the other side I waited until about the last minute and then I added the seafood.


The shrimp were cooked until that nice reddish shrimp color and the scallops cooked for maybe 45 seconds or so a side.

All of it came off the grill roughly the same time. The fillet was cooked until an instant read was 125 and after resting the temp went up about 10 degrees to a perfect medium rare.

We plated up everything and put the salsa on the scallops and shrimp. The crab legs I broke into a bowl and ate plain.


I would certainly do this again for company. We actually bought the meat and seafood at Costco and the total price for everything was under $50, which I think is a deal. For company, I would probably make a whole tenderloin and then slice it up and serve it that way.

London Broil Calling

London broil is calling to the faraway towns
Now dinner is declared, and come sit down

We were in a carnivorous mood the other night for dinner and were not sure what to make. The usual suspects such as new your strip or steak tips were not appealing. We have been down that tasty road often and wanted to take a new exit.

What about London Broil?

London Broil has a lot of things going for it; it is an inexpensive cut of beef, it works well on the grill or a broiler and it also takes a marinade well.

The down side is that it can be chewy and if cut poorly it is a mess to eat and while it takes a marinade well it does need to be marinaded. If you want to eat NOW, London Broil is not the cut to go with, but it is tasty!

I made a simple marinade of soy sauce, olive oil, red wine vinegar, garlic powder and some dried mined onion. This worked well since it was based upon what we happened to have in the pantry.

Then after marinading for a few hours, off onto a broiler rack (about 6 inches from the broiler) for about 25 minutes or until an instant read thermometer reads between 130ºF - 140ºF then out to rest on a cutting board.

The London Broil was sliced at a 45º angle and the end result looked like this

To be honest most of the end result was pure luck! I mean the middle was perfectly pink just a nice ring of yummy goodness on the outside. Given the time to marinade is a certain make again.

I will let Jeff from C for Cooking, post up the You Tube video of the Clash if work lets him surf blogs this week.