The purpose of Command of the Grill week is to promote the book “Command of the Grill”, whose proceeds benefit charities that support Marines. I’m not making any money off of this, and anything made from traffic during the month of November will be donated to Toys for Tots. You can read more here, or follow this link to purchase your own copy. This is a really easy way to support our troops. Semper Fi!

Shish Kabobs have been a grilling / campfire favorite since infantry used swords to cook their food over the evening fire because someone forgot the paper plates.

You can tell from the photo, that I cheat a little when it comes to shish kabobs. I usually put each food item on its own skewer, since like items tend to require the same amount of cooking. When the meal is served, I just take everything off and put it on a plate, then let everyone grab what they want.

I’m the lucky one because I love peppers, onions and mushrooms, so there’s usually some really good food left for me.

 You can also tell from the picture that I like to get my peppers and onions really charred up. I love the caramelization that you get when they can char up like that. The most surprising transformation is the red onions, which are really strong raw, become so very sweet and mild after they are cooked.

Usually when I cook shish kabobs, I go for the cheap meat, marinade it forever, and just live with the fact that its chewy. Not anymore. This meat was so delicious, I will have to think twice before not using New York strip again.

Sergeant James R. Cicero Jr. presented this as his entry for the MCB Camp Pendleton competition, and he was the first runner up. Nothing to be ashamed of, and the dish certainly wasn’t either.

The marinade on this was really straight forward, and the skewers were lined with Green and Red Bell peppers, a Red onion, and that glorious beef. Very, very tasty.

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The purpose of Command of the Grill week is to promote the book “Command of the Grill”, whose proceeds benefit charities that support Marines. I am not making any money off of this, and anything made from traffic during the month of November will be donated to Toys for Tots. You can read more here, or follow this link to purchase your own copy. This is a really easy way to support our troops. Semper Fi!

This recipe was the winner at the 29 Palms competition, and Captain Phillip Woodard is the hard charger who came up with it.

I figured that I would have to botch at least one of the recipes, and on this one, I actually cooked it just a wee bit too much. I usually shoot for medium rare, and this time it was more like well done. What can I say, nobody’s perfect.

The taste of this steak was really terrific! Even though I cooked it just little too much.

Capt Woodard’s philosophy is to get the steak as tender as he can, using a marinade.  The marinade had lemon juice, soy sauce, Worcestershire, brown sugar, and some other ingredients.

I know I said it once, but this was a really tasty steak. This recipe is going to be on of our favorites from here on out.

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The purpose of Command of the Grill week is to promote the book “Command of the Grill”, whose proceeds benefit charities that support Marines. I’m not making any money off of this, and anything made from traffic during the month of November will be donated to Toys for Tots. You can read more here, or follow this link to purchase your own copy. This is a really easy way to support our troops. Semper Fi!

This beautiful piece of meat is a Tri-tip roast. My understanding is that tri-tip is really only popular in parts of California. Luckily, probably because of the number of Californians that have moved to Colorado, tri-tip is available in my local grocery stores.

This particular tri-tip was lucky enough to be used for Gunny Steven Burkett’s “Hawaiian Island Barbecue Beef” recipe, which was the first runner up at the Marine Corps Base Hawaii competition.

I was lucky enough to have been stationed at MCB Hawaii Kaneohe Bay from 1993 to 1998, and I don’t think the Gunny was there cooking this beef, or I would probably know him personally.

 One of the keys to this particular recipe is the sauce. First you take some pineapple and roast it on the grill, then combine it with various ingredients, including one of my favorite ingredients, Srirachi chili sauce, and then puree everything.

The sauce is used to coat the meet in the indirect phase of cooking (more on that later in this post) and then later served with the meat.

The end result is not only something that tastes as delicious as it looks in these pictures, but it has just enough zip from the sauce to really accent the meat.

Just like with Disco’s recipe, this sauce is going to find its way onto many other dishes. Its already been on chicken. Really, that sauce is good!

I had mentioned that out of all the recipes I have done so far, only one of them has  not been worth the price of the book. Let me tell you, it isn’t this one.

This is so good, if I had tasted it, I would easily have paid $10 to get the recipe.

As I mentioned above, I am pretty new to tri-tip roasts. As a matter of fact, this one is the third one that I’ve cooked. One of the things that amazed me about this cut of meat is how easy it is to cook. Basically, you get your grill set up for 2 zones, one medium high, and the other no heat.

Place the roast on over the coals, getting a nice sear on it, for about 10 minutes, flipping it over one time. Then, place the roast over the section of the grill with no heat. Then cook it for about 15 minutes there, with the grill covered, flipping it one time.

That’s it. Let it rest for awhile, covered if foil, and then cut it up. About a third of mine never touched a plate. It went straight from the cutting board into my mouth.

Of course, if you aren’t the type of person who likes their meat rare, then you’ll probably want to cook it longer. You can see from that second picture, that the meat is a nice uniform color red, all the way through. The meat was so juicy I couldn’t believe it. Cut across the grain, the meat is really tender and easy to chew.

We loved this recipe, and it will come in handy when the grocery store puts tri-tips on sale. The Sauce is also going to become one of my staples.

Clicking on any of the pictures will open a larger, juicier version, suitable for a wallpaper.

Posted in barbecue, Books, Charity, Command of the Grill, Grilling, Semper Fi 2 Comments »

The purpose of Command of the Grill week is to promote the book “Command of the Grill”, whose proceeds benefit charities that support Marines. I’m am not making any money off of this, and anything made from traffic during the month of November will be donated to Toys for Tots. You can read more here, or follow this link to purchase your own copy. This is a really easy way to support our troops. Semper Fi!

This was the first recipe I did for my Command of the Grill Week, and let me tell you, it absolutely blew me away. No kidding.

This recipe was the winner at the competition held at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune. Captain Eric “Disco” Dominijanni is the Devil Dog responsible for this recipe, and he should be proud.

One thing that you should love about this recipe, is that it is available for free on the winning recipes page (Scroll to the bottom of the page when you get there) at Command of the Grill.

The Recipe itself uses New York Strip Steaks, and has a sauce which starts out as a marinade, then a basting sauce, and finally a dipping sauce. You can see the dipping sauce in the photo, I poured it directly onto the steak for the photo. I didn’t regret that one bit.

The sauce has Cola, Soy Sauce, Teriyaki Sauce, some other spices, and most surprising, a Habanero pepper. If you aren’t familiar with Habaneros, they are extremely spicy, and you should use great care to touch it as little as possible.

The steaks marinade for 4 to 6 hours, and then are removed from the marinade to come to room temperature. The Marinade is then boiled for 10 seconds or so, then split in half. Half of the marinade is used to baste the steaks while they are on the grill.

The second half of the marinade gets boiled down until it is the consistency of a dipping sauce. This sauce, by itself, is worth the purchase price of the book. I’m not joking, the wife and I are planning on making large batches of it, just for the dipping sauce.

I mentioned earlier, this recipe blew me away. It wasn’t too spicy, and the first taste of it, I actually said “Oh my god that’s good!” out loud. Really, I’m not kidding.

Try this recipe.

Kellypea did a version of this recipe with top sirloin, and it sounds like it turned out terrific! Check it out.

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Last year I ran across “Command of the Grill: A Salute to Steak“, and couldn’t believe that I hadn’t heard of it before. Not only is it a great book about grilling steaks, but it is a great and easy way to help Marines and their families.

What is Command of the Grill

Weber hosted a series of grilling competitions at Marine Corps bases across the country. Then they  put the winning recipes into a book. All of the proceeds from the book go to various charities that help wounded Marines and their families. The book is only $10.00 (if purchased through Weber, not including shipping and handling).

There are 10 competitions featured in the book, each competition features the recipes for the winner, and the first and second runner up. Each competition also has a celebrity Marine’s recipe. That’s over 40 steak recipes. Not to spoil my posts this week, but I cooked 6 recipes so far, and I have one more to go. Only one of those recipes wasn’t worth the purchase price of the book.

Why are you doing this now?

November 10th is the birthday of the United States Marine Corps. The fine men and women of the United State Marine Corps have helped defend this country’s freedoms, rescue and save Americans, further the interests of the United States, and pretty much anything else you can think of, since 1775. They do it without complaint, with only a fraction of the resources and budget per capita as the other branches, and they do it well.

You see, Marines care about the day their beloved Corps was founded, November 10th, 1775, and celebrate it every year, and even though I haven’t been on active duty for quite awhile, I’m still a Marine, and I still celebrate the Marine Corps birthday.

So I thought it was fitting to do a week of recipes from the book, to help promote it a little. If you know someone who likes to grill, then this is the perfect gift, either now, or for Christmas which is coming up sooner then you think. Know a Marine, look no farther for a gift.

Mike, are you making money doing this?

Not a single penny. This isn’t a pay per post, and I’m not a Weber Affiliate. If on the off chance I get enough hits, then there is the possibility that I may make something. If someone clicks on a banner and buys something, then I may make something that way too.

Any money this site makes during the month of November, I will donate to Toys for Tots.

Besides buying a book, how can I help?

You could buy a copy for a friend. If you have a blog, link to me, or to one of the recipes that you think looks really good. If you think I messed one up, point it out on your blog. If you think my photography is horrible, point that out on your site too.

You can re-post this post, blatantly copy it, that’s fine by me. If you are on a social network, you can send a message out about this, or one of the recipes you see.

If you frequent a cooking or grilling site, point this out to them.

I’m a good sport, and I’m not perfect. I sure would like to see a whole lot of copies of this book get sold. I see a lot of stickers that say “Support our Troops”, here is an opportunity to actually do that.

What’s Next?

Well, for starters, here is what I have posted so far:

Day 1: Disco’s Hot and Tangy New York Strip Steaks - 6 out of 5 stars.

Day 2: Hawaiian Island Barbecue Beef – 5 out of 5 stars.

Day 3: Spud’s Grilled Steak – 5 out of 5 stars.

Day 4: New York Strip Shish Kabobs – 4 out of 5 stars.

Day 5: Combat Steaks – 5 out of 5 stars.

Day 6: Marinated Skirt Steak with Lemon Garlic Butter – 3 out of 5 stars.

Day 7: Steak Satay – 5 out of 5

For the rest of the week, I’m going to be posting a recipe a day. I won’t give out the exact recipe, but I’ll mention some of the things in it, what I thought of it, and a photo.

I’ll summarize it all at the end of the week.

What Charities will the Proceeds for this book go to?

 The Injured Marines Semper Fi Fund – Provides financial assistance to injured Marines, and other service members injured while assigned to Marine Units.

The Wounded Warrior Project – Provides programs and assistance to severely wounded service members.

The Fisher House – Provides a home away from home for the families of patients receiving medical treatment at Military and VA medical centers.

The Marine Corps – Law Enforcement Foundation – Assists the Children of Marines and Law Enforcement who were killed while serving their country.

Posted in barbecue, Books, Charity, Command of the Grill, Grilling, Semper Fi 13 Comments »