TWIMC: A Quickie

To Whom It May Concern:

First, all due propers for capitalizing on the name  Quickie.  In the spirit of the name, let me pump this out quickly.

I bought a Quickie.  It faded…you guessed it…quickly.

Quackery?

No!

An error at the factory, fa’sho.

But I’m hopeful that you might redeem my experience by replacing it with a version that best lives up to your company’s standards.

Sincerely,
Big Brown Dad

 

Grill N Chill: Rib Eye, Aye, I

When Big Brown Dad launched the Grill N Chill series I had one thing in mind: food …and learning how to cook it!

And I’m a Progressive.  I commiserate with both pork-forkers and beef-teethers. Even the chickenese are welcomed in my home.  It’s America for heaven’s sake!

raise it up!

raise it up!

Our next fire starter in the series is Chino (aka Wing, oka Pookie,  fka Chente, ska LilBigVince).  He’d appreciate it if you played his favorite song during the reading of this post.

patriot

Uncle ChinoWingChenteLilBigVincePookie Wants You to Join his Army! And by ‘You’ he means all single ladies 18-25 1/2.

And ChinoWingChenteLilBigVincePookie is stepping to the plate with that bone-in Rib Eye from Stater Bros. His first order of business is allowing the meat to get to room temp.

meatraw

meet meat, mate.

Then he uses an LA County Fair Blue Ribbon winning family recipe gleaned from Uncle Dale: salt, pepper, garlic powder and onion powder–a combo ChinoWingChenteLilBigVincePookie says is impossible to overuse before cooking since it serves to encrust the steak. (Yes, excessive seasoning after cooking will kill your dish.)

The coals are lit w/o using lighter fluid as it can seep into the taste of the food.   The coals are then spread evenly through the pit for direct grilling.  Rather than using a timer, he’ll put each steak through a touch test to determine how cooked it is.

wholeplate

Big Brown Mom came thru with the mash potatoes, french bread and basil, tomato and mozzarella.

ChinoWingChenteLilBigVincePookie looks for color definition when he cuts open his steak…and as you can see… we got a winner!  And bone-in means your pooch grub, too!

This steak was hearty, flavorful and moist. And it probably tastes better than yours.  You disagree?  Then come over to Grill N Chill! We’ll have these waiting:

paloma and chela.

 

Big Brown Dad

Grill N’ Chill: Pork Tenderloin

I shan’t front.  My BBQ skills are mad basic.  (Insert obligatory meat handling joke here.)

well, done.

well, done.

 

Summer ’14 might be swimming to a finish but I’m not setting aside my BBQ grill just yet.  I need to learn how to grill sumptin’ grate great.

So I decided to enlist the help of the homies by initiating Grill N Chill, a series of posts where friends roll thru Big Brown Dad HQ to grill their signature slab of protein while cold, cole, col’, chilling.

The first fire starter is Justin Gutierrez, my homie since our college days of passing out the 4 Spiritual Laws in Old Town Pasadena!  I’ve been to his house enough times to know that this dude don’t play on the grill.  I was gonna learn something.

grilljustin

The first pointer, create a pile of charcoal on one side for cooking over direct heat and leave the other side empty for cooking over indirect heat.

grill indirect

JG came thru with two 3 lb slabs of Pork Tenderloin.  The first was marinaded overnight with Trader Joe’s 21 Season Salute and the second with apricot jam, garlic pepper and salt.

sear

looking rather…um, loin-ish.

Justin seared the tenderloin by cooking all 4 sides over direct heat for 2 minutes before moving it to indirect heat for 8 minutes on 2 sides.  He was serious about keeping to time, too.  He used a stopwatch… and pistol.  Bang!

Justin’s wife, Connie, came thru with the cauliflower mash and pastrami salad.  It was my first time trying both and they were out of this world.  If that wasn’t enough, she also brought some delectables from her business, Brown Box Bakery, a diabetic friendly, gluten-free sweet spot based in Highland Park.

Orange Bunditini named after their propensity to magically disappear.

Orange Bunditini named after their propensity to magically disappear.

We chased our eats with equal parts wine, beer, tequilla and Dr Pepper.  We laughed at our in-laws, recounted poor bedside manner and laughed at our in-laws again.

The inaugural Grill N Chill was a blast and set the bar high.  Now, you’re up!