Make Sure Your Grill is Ready

Well, do you ever have one of those days, where you get the grill ready and it is not ready to work for you???? Maybe 1 or 2 of the burners are not working and/or partially working??? It happens and it always seems to happen when you have friends over for a barbecue and you really need it working because everything else is close to being ready and you just need the meat cooked.

So, remember, do a spring cleaning of your grill so you don't have these crisis. If you are like us and your grill is out on a deck, put lots of papers around it and remove the grills and place these on the paper. Brush out the inside, brush along the burners. If you know you have a plugged burner, you can always use a high pressure blower to clean out the plugged hole(s).

If you have one of those trays, remember to take that out and clean out the oil drippings from that as well.

I avoid using any type of chemicals on the grills. Yes, there are lots of products on the market that say they are safe and clean your grills. They may be safe, but I don't always find they clean the grills all that well. What I do, is get a bucket of warm soapy water and with a brush clean the grills as best as I can, rinse off with clean water. Then when I have the inside of the grill all cleaned out, put the grills back in, fire up the barbecue and then let the flame cook off the built up stuff burn off the grills you might not be able to get off with the soapy water and brush. Usually, I leave the grill on for about 20 minutes and before I turn it off, I take a brush and brush off the grills.

And it is always a good idea that after each time you use the grill, let the hot temperature burn off the food fats and sauces before you turn it off (if it is gas). I find that if you have a charcoal barbecue the food build up burns off the grills as it is cooling down.

How the Garden Grows

Well, the garden is doing really good. We had to replant the basil as we had a little cold spell a couple of weeks ago. The tomato's are really growing as well as the zucchini.

We have some blossoms on the vegetables, which always means I'll be seeing the cute little (yeah right) tomato worm soon.

Memorial Day--Get Going

Well, it is Memorial Day today, hopefully, you have gotten started cueing. For those who know me, know I am out there cueing in the snow, rain, thunderstorms, etc, etc. The weather out here in Northern CA is so wierd, we are having a cool wet Memorial Day weekend.

We were up in Reno on Friday and it was snowing pretty good as we were coming over the pass on Saturday. Thank goodness it hadn't started to stick and we have good tires on the BMW as we made it through with no issues.

Back to being at the Grill. Have some new pictures of how the garden is doing and well post those on the next chat.

Now as to the grilling, I am asked so many times, do you favor, charcoal, gas or electric. This is defintely a personal choice. Still believe charcoal (for a more smokey effect) gives the best taste but it takes so long and you have to keep adding the coals. At to Electric, oh my our electric bill would really be high, so I do not recommend this one. So I have been grilling on Gas (for us Propane) since we came back to CA. Now, also being up at about 2k feet addes a little cooking time as well I have found sometimes.