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It’s been unseasonably hot here. On the one hand, I love it. We’ve been wearing full-on summer clothes, sipping lemonade and lounging around drinking wine on the patio into the wee hours of the night. It’s fantastic!

That said, I find carbs are the downside of heat wave weather. While you can grill a few lamb chops or a steak in less than 10 minutes in the relative cool of the shady side of the house, boiling pasta, rice and potatoes is just no fun in this kind of weather. So, this week, I’ve started a new trend at our house: bread as a plate.

As you can see by the picture above, I’m using flat breads to cradle a tomato and cucumber salad tossed with pesto and balsamic vinegar. In some ways it’s like a deconstructed bread salad – perfectly delicious and perfectly easy and cool to make.

What hot weather cooking strategies help you make it through heat waves? Do you get up early to boil potatoes, pasta and grains to use later in the day for salad bases or do you just resort to the deli for their ready-made versions?

It might be autumn but I’m still grilling as often as I can. The only downside I’ve found to grilling, though, is that I find it difficult to be both in the house making a salad and side dishes and outside turning and moving little bits of food such as shrimp or scallops around.

My solution: throw ‘em on skewers! Not only will small foods not fall through the grating when they’re held together on a skewer, but turning four skewers takes much less time than turning 24 individual shrimp.

Got any multitasking tips you’d like to share? I’m always looking for ways to turn two hands into four.

When Monica Bhide’s book Modern Spice came out earlier this year bloggers and food editors went ga-ga. Despite how appealing every recipe looked, it was this one for eggplant that I just couldn’t quit thinking about.

So, when I found myself alone in the kitchen with an eggplant, I gave it a try. But, instead of using Bhide’s skillet method, I cooked my eggplant on the grill and glazed it with her pomegranate, honey and ginger sauce as it was becoming soft and pillowy.  The result:  one full lady alone in the kitchen without an eggplant. Seriously. It was my entire meal.

Since it’s eggplant season, tell me about your favourite way to enjoy this wonderful vegetable?

At long last, the heat and humidity has come to Toronto. We’ve had an amazingly summery week and I’ve loved every single minute of it. Seriously. You don’t hear me complaining about the heat – I even cycled to work and played tennis. I just love it!

The only downside to the hot weather is having to cook in a steamy kitchen. No fun. So, I took my dinner prep outdoors.

Pictured above is a yummy cauliflower curry that we sopped up with grilled naan bread. Once the curry was done I threw in some extra charcoal and grilled a few  lamb chops, too. It was a fantastic dinner if I do say so myself.

How do you beat the heat?  Do you order in, subsist on salads or what?

Curried Cauliflower over Charcoal:

Combine a 28 oz can of diced tomatoes with two tablespoons of mild, medium or hot curry paste and a tablespoon of minced ginger. Add a little extra cumin if you like. Cut up a small head of cauliflower and stir the florets and a handful of golden raisins into the mixture. (If you don’t live with Martin who is allergic to legumes, add some drained, rinsed chickpeas, too). Cook, stirring often, on the hot barbecue until the juices are thickened and the cauliflower is fork tender. Stir in chopped fresh mint or coriander and season, if necessary, with salt and pepper.

When I posted my glossary of barbecue links here last week, I realized how long it’s been since I spun a chicken on my barbecue rotisserie. How could I have fallen out of such a good habit? I mean, what’s yummier than a juicy, crispy-skinned, smoky flavoured rotisserie chicken?

I spared no time remedying the situation and made these yummy chickens last Sunday when my sister-in-law and her granddaughter came to visit. The next day I shredded the leftover meat and made soft tacos – two fantastic meals!

If you haven’t used a barbecue rotisserie before, here are a few tips you might want to consider before tossing birds onto the spit:

• Choose a rotisserie spit that not only fits your barbecue, but that is made of durable, good quality metal like stainless steel. I had one a few years ago that was chrome plated and as soon as it got very hot, the shiny plating started to flake off onto the food. Yuck!
• Line the area directly under the chickens with a piece of foil or an old baking sheet so that as the juices flow from the meat, flare-ups don’t occur. (I had forgotten this step during the first few minutes that these birds were on the spit; that’s why the wing and leg tips are scorched).
• Turn off all but the front or back burner on the grill. I like to leave the back one on so that when I reach over the front of the grill to baste the chickens my hand doesn’t get singed.
• Adjust the temperature on the burner so that you can maintain a constant temperature of 300°F (160°C) to 350°F (180°C) when the lid of the barbecue is closed.
• Add a couple of smoking pucks over the ignited burner to augment the smoky flavour if you like.
• The chickens will need about 90 minutes to cook. If you’re going to use a glaze like the chili-lemon one below, brush it over just during the last 15 minutes or so of cooking.
• Let the chickens rest for 15 minutes on the spit before removing it and carving the birds.

Chili-Lemon rotisserie grilled chicken glaze

1/4 cup (50 mL) each honey and lemon juice
1 tsp (5 mL) chipotle pepper sauce
1 tbsp (15 mL) each chili powder and chopped fresh oregano
1 tsp (5 mL) ground cumin
1/2 tsp (2 mL) each salt and pepper

Whisk the lemon juice with the barbecue sauce, chipotle pepper sauce, onion, chili powder, oregano, cumin, salt and pepper until well combined. Baste the chicken with this glaze during the last 15 minutes of cooking on the rotisserie.

PS: Just to prove that I can learn from my mistakes, here are two Cornish game hens I made to ensure my instructions would work perfectly at your house:

Label me lazy or christen me clever, but today’s post recycles some of my past links so that you (and truthfully me, too) have a glossary of all my grilling and barbecuing recipes and tips:

Buying and using grills and barbecues
• Budget grilling
• Grill master quiz
• How to buy a grill
• Lighting briquette
• Winter grilling guide

Smoking and smokers
• How to use cedar smoking sheets
• How to use smoking briquettes
• Matching meats with woods
• How to turn your grill into a smoker

Cooking on the grill
• Best rib recipe (2008)
• Perfectly sticky gooey ribs (2009)
• Burgers: basic and beyond
• How to grill a steak
• Chimichurri steak
• Gourmet brie burger & cheeseburger tips

Grill safety
• How to calibrate an instant read thermometer
• How to use an instant read thermometer

Do you have a great grilling tip or a fabulous, hot-off-the-coals recipe you’d like to share? If so, please post it below. Links are welcome!

Some days words just flow out of my fingertips and onto the computer screen in an effortless cascade. Today, not so much. In fact, as I sit here trying to form a few coherent sentences, it’s as excruciating as if every word is a hair being plucked from my skin with tweezers. Not fun.

But, since I am very dedicated to this blog, I am here trying to tell you about my new favourite grill.

My son and I spotted this disposable grill at Shopper’s Drug Mart the other day. We couldn’t believe that the regular price was just $3.49 so we bought one immediately. We were sure that once we tried it out that we’d be able to reveal to the world that this device was a piece of crap.

Well, guess what? We were 100% wrong. This grill that costs less than the grande latte I bought on the way home from the drug store worked like a charm. It had lots of heat: I started it at 11:50 am and at 2:45 pm it was still warm enough to melt chocolate or keep a cheese dip molten and ready for tortilla chips to be dunked.

Will you buy one of these grills? If so, what will you make on it?

Ah, my precious grill. How I miss thee. Sigh.

As the winter starts to wind down, I’m more than a little excited about getting out into the backyard so that I can have regular dinner dates with an open flame once again. Last week I ducked out for a clandestine quickie to try out a new grilling technique. While I’ll certainly be using my tried and true recipes when the weather warms up, I’m also excited to have discovered the Cedar Smoking Sheets pictured above.

I don’t know much about the origins of this concept (one package I read said they were Japanese-style but none of my Japanese friends seem to have used them before), but the idea is clever: you soak these supple sheets in water, wine, tea, etc. and then wrap them around raw pieces of fish, chicken, cheese and such before trussing them closed and placing the bundles on the hot grill.

The result: smoky flavour and no scorched or torn pieces of food.

Have you tried these sheets? If so, how would you rate your attraction to them? Do you love ‘em, like ‘em or think they’re just not all that?

FYI: I bought my first pack online but I know that Sobeys will be carrying these sheets in their stores this summer.

Links to other grilling related posts:
• Smoke Chips
• Smokin’
• International Grilling Atlas
• Best Rib Recipe
• Instant Read Thermometers
• Burger Tips
• Spring Grilling
• Cold Weather Grilling
• Cheeseburger Tips

Since smoke was in second place on the top ten list of flavourings mentioned on restaurant menus last year (yes, it really is someone’s job to keep track of these things!), it’s true that smoke is hot with consumers and chefs alike. While chefs can use tools such as The Smoking Gun to short cut to smoky flavour, home cooks need to put in a bit more effort. But the effort is well worth it!

Below are my tried and true tips for turning your grill into a smoke filled cradle that can infuse steaks, fish, chicken and even grilled veggies with intense, deep flavour.

Smoking box:
• You can buy a cast iron smoking box for your grill for $25 dollars or so at many department and hardware stores.
• Lift the grate off your gas grill and place the smoking box in a corner of the grill where it will be exposed to intense heat.
• Next, close the windows in your house and car.
• Fill the smoker box with wet wood chips and fill the reservoir with water; put on the lid (if it has one) and replace the grate. Turn the grill on high and heat until enormous clouds of smoke billow out of the vent holes in the lid. Reduce the heat to desired cooking temperature and proceed as usual.

Foil pan:
• No smoking box? Choose a small, disposable foil baking pan that will fit between the grate and the burners. Position as recommended above.
• Soak enough wood chips to cover the bottom of the pan completely in water for 15 minutes or so before draining and adding chips to the pan and proceeding as above.

Choosing wood chips:
• Wood chips designed for culinary smoking are usually available in the same section as smoker boxes.
• Prepackaged hickory, mesquite, fruitwood and other specialty wood varieties (such as bourbon soaked, wine wood, etc) are all great options.
• Never use pressure treated or scrap building materials for smoking food since lumber can contain toxic chemicals.
• If using wood from your own trees, make sure it is fully dried and brittle before use. Chop into cracker-sized pieces so that it burns quickly and easily.
• Moisten or soak wood chips before adding to the foil tray or smoking box to ensure that they smolder and don’t produce flames that can singe food.
• Before storing the grill, drizzle the wood chips remaining in the smoker box with additional water to ensure that the fire is completely extinguished.

Three times a year I find myself with the same dilemma: what to get my dad for his birthday, Christmas or Father’s Day. He’s a tough person to shop for since he doesn’t do the basic ‘Dad’ stuff. Not only is he not a golfer, but he doesn’t wear ties to work and he has no nifty collections that need augmentation.

Fortunately, my dad does like to grill. And, since the day he discovered instant read thermometers, he’s actually become pretty good at it.

Last week Dad called me up to ask questions about cheeseburgers. It was obvious that he doesn’t read the cookbooks I write since he wanted to know if I had any recipes for burgers that

1. have cheese fillings
2. are coated with sauces.

My last book, Dana’s Top Ten Table, contains 20 burger recipes, many of which are saucy, cheesy or both. So much for having a home grown fan base!

The good news is that I can take this info and make my Dad a little cheeseburger kit for Father’s Day and he won’t know I’m using old material.

Here are some of the tips I’m going to include in his burger kit as well as a recipe for Gourmet Brie Burgers (pictured above). They’re both saucy and cheesy, which makes them pretty much made to order for my Dad!

Tips for My Dad the Cheeseburger Lover:

• Top burgers with sliced cheese only after they are cooked to the desired internal temperature. Adding cheese too early can lead to tough, greasy cheese.
• If topping burgers with crumbled cheese (such as Stilton, Feta, etc), add the cheese to the warm burgers after they’ve been removed from the grill. These cheeses will soften and begin to melt just from the heat in the meat.
• If adding cheese to the inside of a burger to make a molten centre, use cold cheese and ensure it is fully encased by the meat. If there are any gaps, the cheese will drip out into the grill and cause flare-ups. Besides the recipe below which uses Brie, cheddar, Stilton and other semi-soft and firm cheeses can be used as fillings, too. In fact, this recipe I developed for Heinz several years ago is a great example of how to use sliced cheese as a burger filling.
• Adding shredded cheese to burgers is becoming a popular technique in recipes; however, I’m not sure it’s worth the effort. I find that the shredded cheese on the outside surface of the burger scorches easily and you never get a good cheesy bite. Instead the shredded cheese makes the burger seem greasy.

Dana’s Gourmet Brie Burger

Preparation time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 20 to 25 minutes

There will never be any shame in serving these super thick, molten cheese filled patties at a dinner party! In fact, you may even get applause. Superbly decadent and wonderfully impressive looking, these glossy burgers are in the same league as fillet mignon but much less expensive to make.

Brie is a soft, mild cheese with a downy, edible rind. As the burgers cook, it will become molten and saucy. Mmmm! As exciting to look at as they are to eat!

1 egg, beaten
2 tbsp (30 mL) ketchup
1 tbsp (15 mL) liquid honey
2 tsp (10 mL) dried thyme leaves
1 clove garlic, minced
3/4 tsp (4 mL) each salt and ground pepper
1/2 cup (125 mL) butter, melted
2 lb (1 kg) ground sirloin
1/4 lb (125 g) cold Brie cheese or Camembert, cut into 6 equal-sized cubes
1/2 cup (125 mL) barbecue sauce

Preheat the grill to medium-high heat. Whisk the egg with the ketchup, honey, thyme, garlic, salt and pepper. Whisk in the butter until completely combined. Crumble the meat into a large bowl using your fingers. Pour in the egg mixture and gently blend into meat until just combined.

Line a baking sheet with perforated grill foil or greased heavy duty foil that has been pierced all over to allow drainage. Divide the meat mixture into 12 portions. Gently pat one portion of meat into a 1 cup (250 mL) dry measuring cup. Add a piece of the cheese and another portion of meat. Pat firmly to compress the mixture so that the cup is filled to about 3/4 full, making a very thick patty with the cheese sealed inside. Run a butter knife or another knife around the edge of the measuring cup and turn each patty out onto the foil-lined tray. Repeat with remaining meat and cheese.

Transfer the burger-topped tray to the grill. Slide the foil onto the grate. Cook the burgers for 6 minutes. Turn and reduce the heat to medium. Cook, turning at least once and basting often with barbecue sauce, for about 15 minutes longer or until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the centre of each patty registers 170F (85C). Serve patties on buns with traditional burger condiments or with a side dish such as roasted potatoes or baked sweet potatoes. Makes 6 burgers.

Variation:
Bacon-wrapped Brie burgers: Wrap 2 slices of bacon around each raw patty. Tie a piece of butcher’s twine around each patty until snug but not tight. Proceed as directed above.

Recipe and photo from Dana’s Top Ten Table: 200 Fresh Takes on Family-Favourite Meals. Published by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. Copyright (c) 2007 by Dana McCauley. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.