Sunday, January 31, 2010

Getting started


My wife, Emily, picks movies from time to time for us to watch that are ... well, let's just leave it that I would not pick them. The other night she announced that she and her sister Kathie who lives with us were going up to watch Julie & Julia which is about a young woman named Julie who decides to cook her way through the recipes in Julia Childs' Art of French Cooking by preparing a different recipe every day. Since I have long been in a secret and one sided love affair with Meryl Streep I decided to give it a go. I made it most of the way through before I lost it and went downstairs to play banjo with my son Charlie. The movie has some very funny parts - particularly the bit where the comedian is imitating Julia Childs cutting her finger while cooking on TV. I was glad to see that Hollywood could actually make a movie about a married couple who were in love with each other. I am not sure about Julie and her husband, but Julia and her man were clearly in love.

Anyway, this blog is not a movie review site. I am starting it because J&J has inspired me to take a shot at a similar concept except from a slightly different angle. I love to cook stuff on the grill and my family and friends love to eat what I cook so... Starting today, I am going to grill my way through Weber's Art of the Grill cookbook. Our son, Steve, is getting married July 29 on an island in NJ which means we will be spending a week at the beach in July which means we will be doing a lot of grilling! The goal is to cook all of the recipes in the Weber book between now and July 29. I am starting Feb 1 so I will be grilling in some pretty interesting weather conditions but that never stops us here in Wisconsin!

Before I start, I want to get one thing straight. No gas. Grilling means cooking with charcoal not cooking on a gas stove that happens to be outside. I have a charcoal grill that has a little gas starter which is great because it eliminates lighter fluid. Highly recommended. It also comes with a little attached cart very well designed by Weber. One of my favorite features is the attached charcoal bin that keeps the coals dry but also keeps them close at hand.

Today's recipe is the first in the book - Prosciutto-Wrapped Shrimp. We will see if the prosciutto helps or hurts the grilled shrimp. Off to the store to buy some prosciutto!

Mark

10 comments:

  1. Can't wait for April! I think I'll be eating dinner at the Koczela homestead pretty regularly... Let us know how the prosciutto-wrapped shrimp works out!

    ~Rob

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  2. Hurray! I am so excited to have this blog to follow and to reap the benefits in July!

    Love,
    Steph

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  3. Shrimp was fantastic! Big success!

    -Charlie

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  4. we want to taste all winning meals!

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  5. Shrimp was very good. Charlie doesn't even like shrimp and he ate a lot of it. Who'd a thunk that chopping up dill and garlic together would be a good combo! We also had NY Strip steak crusted with pepper and coffee. You grind a tablespoon of coffee beans and a tablespoon of pepper together and then rub on the meat. 4 minutes on each side, let sit for a few minutes and MMMMMMM good!

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  6. Wow! This is awesome, Dad! I'm definitely going to follow this one!

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  7. Day two amazing pastry-cream-grilled fruit thing. Huge success! I shoulda waited a little more after tennis to start...

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  8. Now, after one grilling, you are learning that it might be more acceptable (yes you sacrifice authenticity and a certain charcoal flavor) and efficient with a gas grill for this kid of endeavor. Press a button, go back inside for your item, come back out, put it on.

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  9. I am learning a lot of stuff but not that!!

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  10. A very important point about this entry - we ended up making both the prosciutto-wrapped shrimp and the steak grilled with ground pepper and coffee. They were both fabulous. We tried both pre-cooked and raw shrimp, and would give our definite preference vote to grilling from raw, although both are really good. The salty prosciutto was a good combination with the bland shrimp.

    Also, as weird as it sounds to grill a steak coated with ground coffee beans, it was really good. The coating doesn't exactly taste like coffee, but it has a slight bitterness that is good with the richness of the steak. signed: Mrs. Grill'n

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