Tips and Recipes for Your Summer Grilling

Tips on grilling your best burger!

• Cook to a safe temperature: 160 degrees

• Always season the ground meat with salt prior to cooking when pounding out the patties.

• Once you have formed your patty use your finger and push a small dent in the center of the patty.

• Start grilling with the indentation side up.

• Flip your burgers often but do not press them.

• The best fat ratio for burgers is 80/20

• Keep the ground beef cold (In the refrigerator) until you are ready to grill. Make your patties and set back into the refrigerator if the grill is not heated yet)

• The ideal burger is about one inch thick on the edges.

• If using a gas grill the best temperature for grilling burgers is 450-500.

Get creative this summer. Besides beef burgers you can make pork burgers using ground pork. A Portobello Mushroom Burger, black bean veggie burgers, turkey burgers and even salmon burgers!

Get creative with your toppings like grilled pineapple on your ground beef or turkey burgers, bacon on, well, any of them! Make it healthy by topping with a slaw!

If you haven’t tried a lettuce bun for your hamburger yet I encourage you to let this be the year you do.

Burgers isn’t the only thing we grill. There’s nothing quite like grilled chicken. Here are a few tips for grilling your chicken this summer.

• Chicken pieces are often thicker on one side and thinner on the other. This can result in uneven cooking. Fix that by placing the chicken in a large plastic baggy and using the smooth side of a meat tenderizer pound the chicken to the same thickness. It will also be over all thinner and will not only cook more evenly but it will cook quickly!

• Always salt and pepper your chicken before cooking.

• Chicken should be cooked to the safe temperature of 165 degrees.

Have you tried grilling peaches? Pineapples? Yum. And easy to do.

Vegetables on the grill are becoming more popular. Cauliflower steaks, yellow squash, and asparagus are some of the popular grilled veggies this summer.

Try this onion and bacon skewer next time you grill:

• 2 yellow onions, quartered into wedges

• 8 slices bacon

• 2 tablespoons brown sugar

• 1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

• 1 tablespoon molasses or honey

Wrap each onion quarter with onion and secure on a skewer. Repeat until the skewer is full.

Place in glass casserole dish. Combine the brown sugar, vinegar and the molasses. Drizzle over the bacon wrapped skewered onions. Cover and refrigerate one hour.

After marinating, grill over medium/high heat about 20 minutes, turning often until the bacon is cooked through.

If you are eating nightshade free and missing barbecue sauce give this sauce a try on your chicken or ribs: My version is also beet free.

Smokey Tangy Barbecue Sauce

• 1 cup Paula’s Beet Free Nightshade Free Ketchup

• 2 Tablespoons brown sugar or molasses

• 1 Tablespoon apple cider vinegar

• 1 Tablespoon GF Worcestershire Sauce

• A dash of liquid smoke

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan. Simmer about 10 minutes.

Paula’s No Beet Nightshade Free Ketchup

• 1 cup carrot puree*

• 3 teaspoons sugar

• ¾ teaspoon salt

• ½ teaspoon onion powder

• 2 teaspoons beef bouillon granules

• 5 teaspoons apple cider vinegar

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan. Simmer about 10 minutes. Allow to cool. Store in a glass jar in the refrigerator.

This will not taste like a deep red traditional ketchup. For one, this is an orange ketchup but it is a very agreeable substitute. It makes a great starter for barbecue sauce or Italian spaghetti sauce.

*Carrot Puree:

Canned carrots: drain and rinse one can of carrots. Combine the carrots and a half cup water in the blender. Puree until smooth.

Fresh carrots: peel and trim about one pound of fresh carrots. Boil until quite tender. Drain and allow to cool a few minutes before placing in the blender with about half cup water to blend until pureed and smooth.

More summer grilling recipes:

New Anti-Inflammatory Summer Grilling Recipes: Gluten Free, Dairy Free, Nightshade Free and Soy Free https://amzn.to/2XSDLBs Grilling on an anti-inflammatory diet has never been easier with these 50 delicious recipes. Every recipe is gluten free, dairy free, nightshade free and soy free. My recipes are also free of beets; even the barbecue sauces! Chapters include Burgers, Chicken, Fruit, Pork, Sausages, Seafood, Steak, Vegetables, Sauces and Marinades.

By Paula C. Henderson