Cooking Outdoors!

Grilled Open Faced Rib Eye Sandwich

Week #3 of the Island Grillstone contest has ended and we have another great recipe for the grill! This will be a first for me, grilled Pumpernickel bread, in fact I don’t ever remember eating Pumpernickel bread before. This recipe combines some great flavors and easy grilling step for any cook to master, all grilled on the Island Grillstone of course! I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to find any Pumpernickel bread at my local stores but it was right there with all of the other breads, so no problem. My meat manager was happy to slice the Rib eyes in half for me, nice 1/4 inch cuts, makes my job easier.

This recipe is another fast grill so have everything ready “Mise en place” (pronounced [miz on plas], literally “putting in place”) so you are not running from the kitchen to grill and back again because you forgot something. Make sure you take the time to pre-heat your Island Grillstone before you start grilling, 20 minutes will be perfect.

Open Faced Ribeye Sandwich

by Richard Rollins

4 Ribeye steaks (1/4″ thick)

1 16 ounce bottle cola

1 TBS Olive Oil

1 Sweet Vidalia onion (sliced)

4 slices Provolone cheese

4 thick slices Pumpernickel bread

Butter

Salt

Pepper

Marinate steaks in Ziploc bag with cola and Olive Oil. Refrigerated for 6+ hours.

Set the grill up for indirect grilling with the charcoal on the sides. Fire up the charcoal and place your Island Grillstone in the center of the grill.

Once preheated, add the onions and butter. Begin cooking until they are opaque. Set aside. Remove the steaks from the marinade and place on the Island Grillstone. Discard marinade. Grill the Ribeyes until medium rare; they are thin and will cook quickly.

Once done, add onions to the top of the ribeyes. Place one slice of Provolone on each steak.

While cheese is melting, toast one side of each slice of Pumpernickel over the charcoal. Place bread on plates; toasted side up.

When the cheese has melted, remove the steaks from the Island Grillstone and place on top of the toasted bread.

Salt and Pepper to taste.

Enjoy!

Sweet Vidalia onions sliced with a pat of butter to get things going. The Island Grillstone was pre-heated for 20 minutes and these onions sizzled away. Grilling the onions only took a couple of minutes.

The Pumpernickel bread came pre-sliced making this part even easier. I sprayed one side of the bread with cooking spray to keep it from sticking to the grill.

Once the onions are grilled it’s time to add the Ribeye steaks. Grilling time is about 3 minutes before flipping.

Here you can see how nicely the steaks grill on the Island Grillstone.

Onions are piled on the Ribeye steaks, nicely caramelized, sweet and tender.

Two slices of Provolone cheese are now melted on top of the onions and Ribeye steaks. Place your steaks on the grilled Pumpernickel bread and serve.

Quite a tasty recipe Richard! The boys and I polished these off in no time!

Only one week left in the Island Grillstone contest, ending this Sunday, September 30, 2012 at 11:59pm pacific time.

Camp Chef Smoke Vault Hawaiian Jerky recipe

Jerky, in my house is a comfort food. I try to keep some available for those quick snacks my boys are always requesting. Originally I made my jerky in a dehydrator in the house, as I have shared before, not a favorable experience to Mrs Outdoor Cook. My new smoker of choice has been the Camp Chef Smoke Vault, a perfect choice for large quantities of beef jerky, smoked to perfection.

The 18″ Camp Chef Smoke Vault gives me plenty of rack space to add my jerky, plus adds the extra dimension of smoke that a normal dehydrator will not have. Temperature control is a snap, just set it to low and forget about it, a constant 200 degrees for as many hours as needed. If you want the temp lower, just open the vents or crack the door open a bit to adjust.

I like to add smoking chips to my jerky recipe for the first hour, adds great flavor and coloring (dark mahogany). Fruit woods are a good choice but stronger woods such as hickory and mesquite can be used also, just limit the exposure time so you do not overwhelm the flavor of the jerky your making.

These recipes are from my “100 Classic Jerky Recipes” cookbook.

A couple of additional tips I can offer:

Place meat in the freezer for a hour to make slicing easier.
Generally speaking, the leaner the meat, the better is your jerky. Remove all visible fat.
For old fashioned jerky, cut strips along the grain.
Keep your jerky strips as uniform in size as possible for even drying.
Flank steak, skirt steak and London broil, are all good meat cuts for making jerky.

Hawaiian Jerky recipe

1 pound lean meat, thinly sliced
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tbs brown sugar
1/4 tsp pepper
1/8 tsp cayenne pepper
1 clove crushed garlic
1/4 c pineapple juice
1/4 c soy sauce
1 can crushed pineapple – optional
Cherry smoking chips

Combine all ingredients except meat in a 1 gal zip bag, mix well. Add meat, coating all pieces. Seal zip bag, removing as much air as possible. Refrigerate 6 – 12 hours.

Camp Chef Smoke vault set to low, add chips and smoke for 3 hours. You can use light or dark soy sauce for this jerky recipe. I used dark soy sauce.

Here is a quick and easy venison jerky recipe for all those deer hunters out there:

Venison Jerky

1 – 1/2 pds deer meat, 1/8 thick strips
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 tsp black pepper
1 tsp accent
1 tsp onion powder
1/4 Worcestershire sauce
1/4 c soy sauce

Combine all ingredients except meat in a 1 gal zip bag, mix well. Add meat, coating all pieces. Seal zip bag, removing as much air as possible. Refrigerate 6 – 12 hours.

Camp Chef Smoke vault set to low, add chips and smoke for 3 hours. You can use light or dark soy sauce for this jerky recipe.

Jerky is easy and tasty, you can make jerky from many types of meat including Turkey. It store well, tastes great and is extremely easy to make. Your local butcher or meat counter will be happy to slice your jerky meat for you if you ask, saving you even more time and many of the marinade ingredients are already in your pantry.

Give the Camp Chef Smoke Vault a try, it works great and produces amazing tasting smoked food in a small space with almost no effort.

Simple and Easy! Jim’s Beef Jerky Recipe

Technically, not cooking outdoors as I do with all of my other recipes but I have been banished from the house when I make beef jerky, the smell is undesirable to the Mrs. In order to keep peace in the household you just have to compromise, roll over and have your belly scratched and then go do what your told – I learn that from my ever present chocolate lab “Bailey”, except she still does what she wants anyway … hummm

I have a new slicer that needed to be put to the test, along with almost a two pound slab of London Broil and a great recipe from my “Quick and Easy” series of cookbooks “100 Classic Jerky Recipes”. I picked up a Pro 150 slicer from Cabela’s a month or so back. 8 1/2″ stainless steel blade, 150 watt of power, cuts up to 5/8″ slices, small and compact. The slicer worked out OK, but I need to remember to keep the meat partially frozen to get even cuts, it kept pulling the meat down as it cut and I ended up with a flap hanging down from the main slab as I sliced away. Plenty of power, solid construction and fairly quite all to my liking. Try Cabela’s.com for this and several other food slicers.

One of my favorite accessories is a Open Country dehydrator. I make applesauce fruit roll-ups for my boys and dried strawberry for friends as gifts. Blueberry’s, apricots, bananas, onion and jerky are regular items for my Open Country 1,000 Watt Digital Dehydrator. I really love this model and keep it going as much as possible. A 1000 watts dehydrator, up to 20 stack-able trays, Clean-A-Screen, Fruit Roll Sheet, Add-A-Trays are available as extras.

With the Open Country dehydrators digital controls I can easily set the temp and the time without the help of the tech department. Nicely designed with great colors to blend into most kitchens (I leave mine on the counter) and a quite fan purring its white noise in the background allowing you to co-habitat in the same room. I run mine mostly at night while we sleep and the whirling noise of the fan is very minimal. Try Open Country.com for this and several other dehydrators.

Jim’s Beef Jerky Recipe

I have absolutely no clue to who “Jim” is in this recipe but thank you all the same, its a great recipe!

It was a simple process to slice, marinade and deploy the jerky onto the dehydrator. I marinated the jerky for 24hrs, placed it on the trays, set the temp to 160° F for 8 hrs and walked away (after I placed the dehydrator outside).

After 8 hrs, the jerky is dry and ready to eat!

Notice the white bits? I used fresh minced garlic in the marinade and it clung to the jerky, made for a nice addition to the finished beef jerky.

If you are interested in more Jerky recipes then check out my 100 Classic Jerky Recipes cookbook available in my store.

Jim’s Beef Jerky Recipe

Recipe type: Beef Jerky

Prep time: 24 hours

Cook time: 8 hours

Total time: 32 hours

Recipe is from my Quick and Easy series of cookbooks. “100 Classic Jerky Recipes” available in the Cooking-Outdoors store.

Ingredients

1 pound steak or roast
5 tbs soy sauce
3 tbs Worcestershire sauce
2 tbs brown sugar
1 tsp paprika
½ tsp pepper
½ tsp garlic powder
½ tsp onion powder

Instructions

Trim all of the fat of the meat and slice into ¼” thick strips.
Mix other together together.
Marinate the meat overnight in the mixture.
Place beef strips on dehydrator trays, leaving space for airflow.
Dry for 8 hrs at 160 degrees F till moisture is gone.
Cool and store in a tightly covered jar of sealed plastic bag.

Notes

I used minced garlic in place of garlic powder. Recipe can be made in a oven: Line cookie sheets with foil and arrange meat on it in a single layer, Dry for 8 or more hours at 200 degrees F, turning every two hours.