Now I am cooking with GAS!!!

Today I woke up and it was beautiful.  I decided that I should grill something.  So I went downstairs to check the grill and see how much charcoal I had.  Come to find out, I was out of charcoal.  So I took a trip to Lowes.  Little did I know that I was going to need to call Jeff for reinforcements.  As I walked in to the grill section I noticed that there really wasn’t that many grills left.  I grabbed a bag of charcoal and as I was walking past the grills, the manager was putting prices on the floor models.  I have had my eye on a nice Weber grill for a while, but they are just too darn expensive.

The three burner base model starts out at $500.  I sat the charcoal down and watched as the manager priced each grill.  I was standing next to the Weber Spirit E-310 – as the manager slashed 60% off the price.  This put the Weber in line with the cheapest grills that are sold at Lowes.  I immediately took it.  Within the next 5 minutes 3 other people tried to buy it, too bad, its mine.   It was all about being at the right place at the right time.

So I sat in the store and now I have a nice gas grill. Hooray!!!  But how do I get it home.  It was fully assembled and way too big for my car.  I tried to rent a truck, but no go.  Then I gave my buddy Jeff a call (You know him from the 4th of July barbecue extravaganza, steak tacos and shrimp taco fame).  Luckily he was home when I called.  Being a great friend, he came right over and picked the grill up.  Honestly, it is nice to have some great friends.  I promised him a nicely grilled meal in return for his services.  Not a bad trade.

Here is a side note about charcoal and gas grills.  I know charcoal gives flavor, but as a single man, waiting 45 minutes for the charcoal and grill to warm and then having to burn a 1/4 to 1/3rd of a bag of charcoal for a single hamburger is crazy.   In the same 45 minutes, I can heat the new grill, cook the burger, burn only $0.20 cents worth of gas and be done eating.  But then again there are some things that you just can’t do on a gas grill.  Take for instance slow smoked barbecue.  Thus, I still have betsy.  She is still my go to girl for barbecue.

As a new grill owner I wanted to break it in.  So I made some kabobs.  Being so excited about the grill, I failed (and/or forgot) to take pictures of the assembly of the kabobs.    But here is the gist of it.

Spicy Kabobs

• 2 chicken breasts
• 1/4 cup hot sauce
• 1/4 cup soy sauce
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 3 tbs Sriracha
• 3 Serrano chilies
• 1 tsp red pepper flakes
• 1 4oz can chopped pineapple
• 1 tbs honey
• 2 tsp garlic powder
• 2 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp sesame seeds
  
• 1/2 lemon juice
• salt
• pepper

Cut the chicken into cubes.  Then using a meat injector, inject each cube with the hot sauce.

Place all of injected cubes into a zip top bag and then add the remaining ingredients.  Let marinade for at least 20 minutes.

Remove the meat from the bag and place on skewers.

Preheat your grill to medium high.  Then place your skewers over the grates at a 45 degree angle to the grates.  This will help keep the chicken on the skewers.

Cook for 4 minutes and rotate 90 degrees.  Keep flipping every 4 minutes until all of th sides are cooked.

The meat will be tender and juicy with a little crunch on the outside.  Basically spicy grilled chicken nuggets.

The new grill works awesome.  Heats fast, completely solid, and the best deal out there. Plus now I can save on my $20 a week charcoal habit.  This is going to add up fast.