Crock Pot Buddies – Easy Peasy Perfect Pot Roast Recipe

It was like two brains (or more accurately our stomachs!) that were thinking alike last week.  My cooking-partner in crime Cristina over at Central Jersey Working Moms posted on her Facebook fan page some crock post recipes she found on Real Simple magazine that she was itching to try.  On that very same day I was trying out this crock pot recipe for pot roast…..and the two of us decided to bring back our Thursday Crock Pot Buddies Recipe Hop for the winter season!

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The “Grill-More” Girls – Bone In Pork Chops

This week, this “Grill-More” Girl is serving up some grilled tasty grilled pork chops!

Pork is a popular menu item these days.  It’s a lean meat and has a mild flavor that blends perfectly with many flavors and seasonings.  Pork is a great alternative to serving steak or chicken.  In the past I’ve shied away from pork, afraid that its leaness would lead to a unedible leathery piece of meat.  Through some trial and error, I’ve found that grilling pork chops that are moist, tender and delicious isn’t as difficult as I thought. Continue reading

The “Grill-More” Girls – Simple Grilled Veggies

This week, this “Grill-More” Girl is serving up some simple grilled vegetables!

Backyard grilling doesn’t always have to mean meat. Vegetables are one of the easiest things to make on the grill. Grilling helps to intensify the natural sweetness and flavor of most veggies.  Also, during the summer there are so many veggies that are “in season” either at your supermarket or local farmer’s market that you can prepare an entire meal grilling several different veggies for a main course or stick to just one type for a great side dish. Continue reading

The “Grill-More” Girls – My Favorite Grill Accessories

After a brief hiatus (hey it is summertime!) the “Grill-More” Girls are back for some more BBQ fun!  My grilling partner-in-crime Cristina from centraljerseyworkingmoms.com and I have some tasty and fun recipes coming up for you over the next few weeks.  We’ll even have a special “beach/vacation edition” where we’ll be grilling together while we are both vacationing down at the New Jersey shore (by total coincidence we’ll be visiting the same shore resort at the same time!).  On tap for this week’s post, my favorite grill accessories.

It doesn’t take much to be a good griller aside from practice, practice and more practice.  You certainly don’t need to invest in a lot of fancy or expensive tools to become a BBQ star, but there are a few accessories that I find have made my grilling easier, more successful and more flexible in the kinds of tasty dishes you can fire up.

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The “Grill-More” Girls – Pizza De Resistance

This week, this “Grill-More” Girl is serving up Grilled Pizza.  Yes, you read that right – pizza on the grill.  I’ll be honest, the first time I heard about this from a mom friend all I could think of was “how on earth can you cook that on the grill!”  To me it would seem to come out as such a mess, the dough would fall into the grates of the grill and would never be cooked all the way through before turning into a half-charred, half-raw mess.  I was certainly skeptical, but I have to tell you that it is so super easy and the results will have you tossing your take-out pizza menus into the trash!  Grilled pizza is a great go-to dish for either casual dining or entertaining with friends.

Pizza cooking on the grill, who knew?!

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The “Grill-More” Girls – Ketchup and Mustard BBQ Ribs

This week for the “Grill-More” Girls, I’m turning over my grilling tongs for a special guest post by my hubs, Tyler.  He is the ultimate grill master in our home. I’ve certainly learned a thing or two about grilling from him!  He’s going to share his recipe & prep steps for Ketchup and Mustard BBQ Ribs.

Hello, I’m Tyler, aka Mr. The Harried Mom, welcoming you to my first and hopefully not last guest blog for my lovely wife!  As you may know from her past posting, I often “man” the grill and enjoy the fact that now it’s warm enough to do more and more cooking outside.  I hope you enjoy a little concoction I whipped up for the family over Memorial Day I call “Ketchup and Mustard BBQ Ribs.”

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The “Grill-More” Girls – Grilled Calamari Salad

This week, this “Grill-More” Girl continues with her seafood grilling adventure. This week it’s Grilled Calamari Salad.  Before you say “eww” – read on, you might just change your mind and discover a great new and unusual dish.

Grilled Calamari Salad

Calamari is the Italian word for squid. Though hugely popular in countries bordering the Mediterranean Sea, most Americans only recognize calamari as that fried appetizer mainstay found on the menu at many a national casual dining chains and Italian restaurants or as some horrific Hollywood created monster of the deep-sea.    If that’s how you think of squid, you’re missing out on quite a delectable treat!

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The “Grill-More” Girls – Simple Grilled Scallops

This week this “Grill-More” Girl tried her hand at another seafood dish, Simple Grilled Scallops.

Grilled scallops can turn a plain steak dinner into a fab surf and turf entrée or they can stand alone as a tasty main dish.   Scallops are a great source of protein, and if prepared properly they have a very unique, sweet flavor.   I’d only ever prepared them on the stove top in a frying pan or broiled in the oven.  My thought was that they might be too delicate for the grill and that I would char them into burnt little discs, but grilling scallops isn’t tough at all.  It’s easy just as long as you follow a few simple rules…

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The “Grill-More” Girls: Garlic And Lemon Rotisserie Chicken

Keeping with my goal to be a little more adventurous with my grill meals, this week I’m serving up Garlic-Lemon Rotisserie Chicken.

Rotisserie chicken is a popular meal option these days – from fast food restaurants to the deli counter at your supermarket to wholesale clubs (a CNBC documentary I saw about Costco last week said they sell 55 million of them a year!), and I’m telling you, it is an easy way to cook chicken! Food that is cooked slowly and in a constant rotation, helps to self-baste the food, providing a flavor and tenderness that are hard to achieve cooking any other way.

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The “Grill-More” Girls – Cedar Plank Salmon & Asparagus

This week, this “Grill-More Girl” decided to get a little adventurous and tried her hand at making Cedar Plank Salmon & Asparagus.  If you’ve never tried wood plank grilling, don’t be intimidated-it’s is a great and easy way to infuse food with a smoky aromatic flavor.

Salmon and asparagus grilling on a cedar plank

Grilling with a plank is a lot like using a pan.  In addition adding extra flavor and moisture to your food, it’s a good method to use when grilling veggies or something delicate like fish fillets because it provides a good, stable surface to put your food on (plus it keeps things like asparagus from rolling off the grill and into the fire!).  Basically, it works like this: as you grill your food, the wood plank starts to char from the heat and the smoke from the plank subtly flavors your food.  There are different wood planks you can use to give your foods different flavors, like cherry, maple, oak and apple. The most common type of plank, and the one I used for this recipe, is cedar. Grilling planks are no longer regulated to gourmet shops and high-end food stores. You can find them in your local grocery store, or even in big-box hardware stores, in the outdoor aisles. They come in packs ranging from 2 to 8 planks and cost anywhere from $10-20.

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