The Review; Can't recommend the book!

During the summer and fall of 2011 I made all 50 recipes in the book "A Man, A Can, A Grill" and blogged about it -  It was kind of a man-version of the "Julie and Julia" blog (and movie) where Julie Powell, a fan of Julia Child, made every recipe in her "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" cookbook. I just ripped off the idea, but gave full credit where credit is due.
Of the 50 recipes there were five my wife and I actually LIKED. (1) Big Ball of Shrimp Scampi, (2) Pocketful of Spam (except it would be better with HAM!) (3) Spam Goes Hawaiian (basically Spam Kabobs - make it with HAM!), (4) Buffalo Chicken Pizza (except make it with Boboli bread or some other prepared pizza dough. The pizzas in this book end up looking like autopsies!) and (5) Jah Mon Jerk Pork Chops. The rest left us with questions:

1) What should we eat WITH IT (the book gives little advice about side dishes, and when it does they were not much to OUR liking).
2) Why so much BEER marinade?
3) Must EVERYTHING be marinaded? Why not some basic rubs or why does he not recommend smoking anything?
4) I get that the title says "A Man. a CAN etc." but why use SPAM in a can when ham tastes and grills so much better?
5) Why do so many of the recipes mix tomatoes and fruit?

Toward the end of the adventure, I found myself checking OTHER books. If for example, the recipe was to be Chicken Breasts and Cherries, (YUK!!!) I'd look in the Weber Big Book of Grilling to see what THAT said about chicken and fruit. Often when I did this cross-check the second recipe was vastly better, so I would go with that. Of course, that's not how it was done in Julia and Julia I'm afraid! She followed every recipe to the letter.
The book "A Man A Can A Grill" has some pretty good sandwiches but here again there were problems. In many cases the marinade, which is also used for basting the meat during grilling, is so sloppy it's hard to eat and also it tends to douse the coals so they don't burn right. Also true of meat entrees such as the Red Hot Ribs. I couldn't baste them because the sloppy marinade kept dousing the coals. Consequently, they weren't really red hot!
The recipe for a basic hamburger is another sloppy, hard to eat mess. Here, I recommend adding a binder of some kind: bread crumbs, grinded-up chips or grinded-up soda crackers, but of course anything you add affects not only the texture but also the flavor. My other grilling books all have better recipes for the basic hamburger.
Pork chops on the grill are great, and there are wonderful marinades that can really enhance the flavor and keep them tender. I can't say I'm that fond of ANY of the marinades in this book, including those recommended for tenderloin.
And finally, the recipe for beer can chicken isn't nearly as good as many others I have.
In short, though it has a small number of interesting recipes, I can't recommend this grilling cookbook. In every case if you want to make something on your grill - chicken, burgers, pork chops, fish - I would recommend a DIFFERENT grilling cookbook! Every book I own has a MUCH BETTER version of very recipe in "A Man, A Can, A Grill." For any beginning or advanced griller, I'd recommend spending the extra few bucks and buying the WEBER BIG BOOK OF GRILLING. No, I don't work for Weber. For more info, see my blog www.mancangrill.blogspot.com.

Recipe #50: THE LAST! Thanksgiving Sandwich!

Left to Right, Rob Larson,Jessica Evelo, Sarah Larson, Leah Matz, Sandy Gruenstein.

We saved "Thanksgiving Sandwich" for last.  The Book, "A Man, A Can, A Grill" specifically says that this recipe can be made with leftovers from Thanksgiving, so that's what we did.  
First, then, what did we make for Thanksgiving, 2011?

Grilled Turkey.  3 hours indirect grilling.

Homemade biscuits!

Grilled corn on the cob.

Homemade Pumpkin Pie. From Jim's Apple Barn, Belle Plaine, MN

1. Grilled Turkey: Pretty simple.  Spray with PAM, sprinkle with salt and pepper -- I like to add Mrs. Dash.  Set up the grill for medium heat indirect cooking.  A 15 pound turkey takes about 3 to 3-1/2 hours so you need to add coals every hour or so.  Grill it to an internal temp of 155-160.  Let it sit on the counter under tinfoil for 10 minutes to reabsorb the juices and continue cooking internally.
2. Homemade biscuits.
3. Grilled corn on the cob.  Coat it with seasoned butter and wrap it in tinfoil. Grill about 30 minutes turning once halfway through. I PREFER to grill corn in the husks but it is impossible to find it fresh enough in November.
4. Dressing, Mashed taters and turkey gravy.  We did these the easy way.
5. HOMEMADE Pumpkin pie. We bought it frozen and unbaked early in the Fall at Jim's Apple Barn on Hiway 169 near Belle Plaine, MN.

OKAY, So the Thanksgiving Sandwich is basically just a Hot Turkey Combination:  We had, Turkey on sourdough bread, mashed potatoes, and dressing, with gravy over it all.
I denuded the turkey carcass on Thanksgiving night, and the next day reheated the chucked up turkey meat on the grill while giving it a good smoking with applewood!.  It was YUMMY.

Tomorrow, I will post the REVIEW I WROTE FOR AMAZON.COM for "A Man A Can, A Grill." 

The next day-- Recipe #50: Thanksgiving Sandwich!

Recipe # 49: Three Lemon chicken

My dear wife and I waited until the very last to make "Chicken and Cherries".  The actual recipe calls for chicken breasts in a marinade made from a bottle of cherry sodapop and a can of bing cherries lemon juice, salt and pepper.  We thought that was too disgusting to imagine, let alone EAT.  So instead, I found a recipe in Weber's Big Book of Grilling which featured chicken breasts and fruit: Three-Lemon Chicken!

You make a paste with minced garlic and the garlic juice, the zest from 2 lemons and the juice from one.  Then  you add some rosemary, salt and pepper and coat the chicken breast with it.  During the last 5 minutes you place slices of lemon on the breasts and let the juice sink in.  It was GREAT!  We had it with potato salad and cole slaw, because as always we had to come up with our own sides.

NEXT IS LAST!  Actually it's not a recipe at all.  Recipe #50 is made with leftovers from Thanksgiving.  It's a hot turkey combination, or as the BOOK calls it, Thanksgiving Sandwich.

Recipe #48: Salmon with Asparagus Penne

Actually the recipe was called "Acapulco Salmon" I suppose because the author thought it was cute --  they don't have salmon in Acapulco; not traditionally anyway.  But there was nothing Acapulco about it.  It was just basic grilled salmon with a"side" of canned mangoes mixed with canned diced tomatoes.  We're a little sick of fruit mixed with diced tomatoes, so we grilled the salmon the way it was described and created a different side:  Penne Alfredo with grilled asparagus.

Salmon is amazing on the grill!  The skin is impossible to remove.  BUT - - - You just spray it on both sides with Pam Olive Oil, sprinkle it with salt and pepper, then put it on the grill meat side down, skin side up.  Seven minutes, then turn it.  Two or three more minutes on the skin side and the skin slides right off!  We grilled the asparagus at the same time.  Penne was boiling indoors.  We just cut the asparagus in 1 inch chunks and tossed it in the alfredo.  GREAT LUNCH, no thanks to David Joachim (The Author of "A Man, A Can A Grill.")

Two more recipes left.  Thanksgiving Sandwich, we make with Thanksgiving leftovers, so the last one to be made from scratch is "Chicken and Cherries."  We've been putting it off until the end because it sounds gross.  So we hunted up a more appetizing chicken + fruit recipe "THREE CITRUS CHICKEN!"  Next time!

Recipe #47: Pina Colada Pork Luau

As you know by now I am doing a man-version of  "Julie and Julia" with the cookbook "A Man, A Can and a Grill" by David Joachim.  One of my real frustrations with the book is that he gives a recipe ONLY for the entree and rarely gives any idea what to serve with it.  As we near the end of the book, I decided to take the reigns on that issue.  We prepared the recipe for Pina Colada Pork as published on page 30 of the book:
     A two-pound pork roast marinaded overnight in pineapple juice, pina colada mix, lime juice and dark rum.  Grilled 75 minutes on indirect.  It was GOOD!  A subtle "coconut-ty" flavor.  But that would be kind of unbalanced by itself.
     So we decided to make a kind of LUAU out of it.  As long as the PORK is so Hawaiian, why not have a Hawaiian salad, side and desert?

We made a salad from spinach, strawberries, almonds and poppy seed dressing.

We made rice by first grilling ham and pineapple slices, the dicing them and adding them to rice made in chicken broth instead of water.

To top it all off, a pie, made from a 12 oz can of strawberry daquiri mix, two cans of Eagle brand sweetened condensed milk, two small tubs of Cool Whip blended and piled into graham cracker shells and frozen

Maybe I should write a grilling book that includes the salads, sides and desserts.

Next time:  Acapulco Salmon or Chicken 'n' Cherries

Recipe 46: Griiled Fish and Fruit Salsa

You're supposed to get red snapper, grill it naked (unbreaded) and serve it with diced pineapple, jalapenos, lime juice and lemon pepper.

We didn't want to search for red snapper or have jalapenos in our fruit salsa, so we diced:

pineapple, red and green peppers, fresh tomatoes, and added garlic and lemon pepper.  We breaded tilapia and grilled it to a flakey perfection --  then ate it with jasmine rice and grilled asparagus.

NEXT TIME:  Pina Colada Pork Luau