Grilled Feta with Pickled Peppers, Tomatoes, and Garlic

A few weeks ago, when I posted about the bacon wrapped feta, a good friend of mine now working in Germany reminded me how Germans will grill certain types of cheese with a high melt point.  The first time I tried this as an appetizer at a German restaurant, I fell in love.  The only problem was that I couldn't find out the type of cheese it was due to being lost in translation.  My German friends were calling it schafkäse.  Loose translation is sheep cheese.  After some digging, I have learned that it can either be Halloumi or Feta.  Whatever it is, this dish is good eating.  When we have fresh peppers and tomatoes over the summer, I always try and make this for dinner a few times.  So, here is our method.

First, I pickled some hot and sweet peppers with garlic cloves and olives.  My pickling liquid was just a basic pickle brine:

1 1/2 cups of white wine vinegar.  I used the white wine variety as I did not want the vinegar to be overpowering in the dish.
1/2 cup water
1 Tbsp of sugar.  I used Turbinado
1 tsp of kosher salt

While the above was coming to a boil, I cut some sweet and hot peppers, then packed into 1/2 pint jars with:

2 garlic cloves
1/2 tsp oregano

Once the brine was boiling, I poured into the jars and sealed and let pickle for 24 hours.

The next day, after I lit my grill, I drained my peppers and placed in a bowl with some sliced onion, quartered tomatoes, and some pitted kalamata olives.  I also sliced some 1x3 inch slabs of feta cheese and placed those in a bowl.  Both bowls received light drizzle of olive oil.  I also made sure the feta blocks were lightly coated on all sides with the oil.

Once the grill was ready, I put the pepper mixture in my trusty cast iron skillet and placed the skillet on my grill to start a very quick sauté.  

Next, the crazy part.  I placed the feta blocks over semi-direct heat for grilling.

Eventually, I placed the cheese on direct heat because I was not seeing the crispiness that I wanted.

One I was starting to see a nice brown color on my cheese, I made some room in my skillet to place the cheese for serving.

I served the Feta and veggies with slices of crusty baguette.

This makes a great summertime dinner or appetizer while grilling.  It is also a nice use for all of those peppers and tomatoes you might have from your garden.  Enjoy!

Thanks for stopping by,

Bill

Fire Roasted and Smoker Roasted Peppers

I was at Ambrose Farm Market in Cabot, PA last weekend picking up my weekly fix of bread and butter corn.  Ambrose is by far my favorite farmers market.  Their prices are outstanding and they get even better if you choose to pick your own vegetables.  Everything is grown by them and is not sourced from other places.  They have a wide range of veggies, ranging from multiple types of zucchini, eggplant, cabbage, peppers, melons, and tomatoes.  Upon walking into the store last weekend, it became apparent that pepper season had hit its height.  So, with winter use in mind, I picked up a quarter flat of poblano, jalapeño, and Italian sweet peppers ($2.50 ea for a quarter flat) and headed home to the grill and smoker.

First, I fried up my trusty grill, then I went inside and prepared my peppers.  I cut off the tops, removed the guts, rinsed well, and dried.

I split the batch in half, some for roasting on the grill and some for roasting on the smoker.  First off, the grill.

I spread my coals and then started grilling the peppers on direct heat.  The idea is to blister the skin on the pepper so it is easy to remove before freezing.  They pop and sizzle, plus the water does start to come out of the pepper.

I turned and flipped the peppers for about 10 minutes on direct heat so that they did not burn from sitting too long in one place.

Some of the peppers were started on indirect heat, then rotated over direct heat as others were done.

Once all of my peppers were done, I piled them all over indirect heat and put the lid in place on the grill and allowed them to cook for five more minutes to promote some caramelization on the flesh inside.

After removing the peppers from the grill, I brought them inside, placed in plastic bags, and covered with a towel to help hold in the heat.  This promotes some extra steaming of the pepper, helping to remove the skin a little later on in the process.

Now, the dirty work.  Pulling off the skin.  By roasting and allowing the peppers to steam in the plastic bags, removing the skin is easy, but it is a dirty job.  I recommend wearing gloves to help with the heat and to protect yourself from the pepper seeds.  As you can see, the skin comes right off with minimal effort.

While I was cleaning up my grill roasted peppers, I placed the other half of my peppers in my smoker.  The smoker was at 400 F and I had some hickory wood in the ash pan. I placed the peppers on the hot side of the smoker.  During the process, I flipped them every 20 minutes.  After about 45 minutes, I pulled the peppers and repeated the bagging and sweating process.

The skin was not quite as easy to remove from the smoker roasted peppers as they were from the fire grilled peppers.  The next time, I will let them go for about an hour before removing to ensure the skin will come off of the pepper with minimal effort.

I then separated my peppers into recipe sized portions, vacuum sealed, and froze for the winter months.

You will be seeing these in the upcoming winter months making appearances in soups, stews, and chili.  I can't wait.

Thanks for stopping by,

Bill

Reuben Style Pizza

Before we were DQ'd at Hudson Valley, we made this beautiful Reuben Pizza for turn in that afternoon.

We have had some requests for the recipe.  None more vocal than fellow food enthusiast Gusface Grillah.  So, Gus, this is for you.  Quite simple.  By the way, the credit for this pie goes to Hope, she did all of the research and R&D.  Perhaps we will use this recipe next year.

First, make some bread machine rye pizza dough.  The recipe is at Burp Recipes.  The only modification to the dough is that Hope added about 1-2 teaspoons of caraway seeds to the dough mix before starting the bread machine.  After allowing the dough to go through one raise cycle, pull from the machine and allow to sit for 30 minutes covered by a towel.  The recipe will make two standard sized pizza skins.

After pulling the dough and stretching to fit your lightly oiled pizza pan, pre-bake your crust at 425 F for 10 minutes.  Remove from your oven and let cool for about five minutes.  Then, for your sauce, spread out your favorite style of Thousand Island salad dressing on the crust in the proportions you desire.  Then, take a 12 oz can of sauerkraut and drain thoroughly.  You may even consider squeezing the kraut to get all of the liquid out to prevent a mushy crust.

Next, add 1/2 pound of chipped deli corned beef as your next layer.  Hope tore the meat into bite sized pieces.  Don't know what chipped style deli meats are?  Well, it is a Pittsburgh Thing.  Is is usually done with cheap, boiled ham around here.  But, you can chip any deli meat.  Here is a link to anything you wanted to know about Chipped Chopped Ham.

Finally, for the cheese, we used shredded Jarlsberg cheese.  Add as much as you like.

The pizza then goes back in the oven for 15 minutes at 425 F, or until the cheese is thoroughly melted.

That's it.  Plain, simple, and tastes pretty good.  Next time, I may try with a corned beef that I have smoked until fall apart tender.  Enjoy!

Thanks for stopping by,

Bill

Hudson Valley Ribfest 2014: NEBS Competition

Most BBQ competitions in New York are a two day affair.  One day is the traditional KCBS competition.  KCBS is the traditional smoked chicken, ribs, pork butt, and brisket.  Rules do not allow for much variation.  But, day two is usually a New England BBQ Society competition.  These contests consist of four entries that change from year to year and contest to contest.  Garnish is open and creativity is encouraged.  Basically, it is a throw down between teams.  Whose backyard recipe is the best.

While the KCBS part of the weekend was successful for us, NEBS was not so successful.  

The categories this year were Pizza,Wrapped in Bacon, Salmon, and Apple Dessert.  The Pizza and Apple Dessert categories are traditions at New Paltz.  The other two categories rotate from year to year.  

We were hopeful entering this contest.  But, success was not to be.  Why?  Keep on reading.

Our first entry was a Reuben Pizza.  Fresh made rye crust, Thousand Island dressing, homemade sauerkraut, corned beef, and shredded Jarlsberg cheese.  A delicious entry if I say so myself.

It was just not meant to be.  We were DQ'd for turning in 19 seconds late.  Why were were late?  Well, the clock the contest reps use is radio powered.  It syncs with the same time signal your cell phone gets.  Service is spotty in New Paltz and at the 8 am time check, my phone was a minute and a half fast.  No problem.  Mental note.  Someones clock must have found the signal along the way and synced to the correct time, hence we were late.  Our first DQ in three years.  It happens to the best of us and it was our fault for cutting it close.  My only comment is that there were five DQ's for late turn ins on Saturday.  It is rare to have one.  Five is unheard of in competition.  Who knows what happened.  Lesson learned.  

Our Wrapped in Bacon turn in was our Mega Meat Dog.  This time we used ground round, seasoned with brisket rub.  It looks quite good.

This box was 20th out of 27 teams.  The ground beef ended up a bit dry.  I think we will be retiring this recipe for competitions in the future.  

Next up was apple dessert.  We entered an Apple Bourbon Bread Pudding with Butterscotch Bourbon Sauce.  

We loved it.  The teams around us loved it.  The judges, not so much.  This entry came in 22nd.  Time to retire this recipe and go back to our Apple Blondies next year.  

The last entry of the day was our Grilled BBQ Steelhead Salmon.

We had a little bit of redemption on this entry.  Our salmon was good for 11th out of 27.  The skin did not get a crispy as I would have liked and I think it hurt us.  With some tweaks, I think we can do well with this in the future.  

Overall, we finished 26th.  While we did not fair well in the standings,we did have a fun day.  Our friend Ben who has moved to the area came up for the day to hang out with us and help when needed.  He was quite impressed at how serious the teams are that compete.  He thought we drank beer and cooked stuff on a Weber kettle grill.  Ben now has an appreciation for what competition teams do to succeed.  

Even though we did not do well, Ben did help us to be more stylish as you can see.  

Congrats to our Reserve Grand Champions Blazin' Butts and to our Grand Champions Good Smoke BBQ.  Brian and Kelly have been tearing up NEBS competitions this year.  We are going to have to make it a point to stop by their restaurant and sample their menu.  Keep up the good work!

Thanks for stopping by,

Bill