Using good, ripe bananas, simply place the whole banana, peel intact, on a medium-hot grill (around 350 degrees or so) until the skin turns black, about 5 minutes a side. Then slit the peel and kind of mush the banana to make the peel into a bit of a banana boat, add the ingredients you want, and share it with your dad!

I added bourbon, chocolate syrup and dulche de leche. In full disclosure, the bourbon was given to me to try out and review, by Four Roses. My opinions are my own, though, and are in no way biased by the fact that the samples were provided at no cost to me. My opinion is that it’s a really good bourbon, though! I used the small batch version, instead of a more general use, as the bourbon isn’t cooked and the flavor is more prominent than in a glaze.

The mix of the rich dulche de leche, chocolate syrup and very good bourbon made the bananas that much better! Just take a spoon and scoop out all the good stuff from the peel.

Joining me in grilled desserts this weekend are some of my fellow All-Stars from Char-Broil. I’ll be updating this with links to their grilled creations!

First up, Christo chimes in with Grilled Cateloupe!

Part of the reason I was playing with desserts on the grill is that I received a “sample” of different Four Roses bourbons and wanted to use one in a dessert. Little did I realize that I was getting 750ml samples of three of the distillery’s offerings! In full disclosure, I received these to try at no cost to me. Any opinion of the whiskeys is completely mine, unbiased by the fact that the product was supplied for my use.

With that said, back to the dessert!

Pound cake is easy to make, but there’s a local grocery that makes an excellent pound cake, so I opted for the easy route of buying that. I also picked up some ripe blackberries, and, since I wasn’t in the mood to make custard, got a pint of pastry cream/custard from the bakery, too. So far, things are simple… Luckily, they stay that way.

To make Livefire Drunken Pound Cake, the blackberries (other locally sourced, in-season berries can be substituted) are macerated in equal parts of Maguey Sweet Sap and bourbon. I used Four Roses Yellow, a blended bourbon that’s very drinkable as a mixer, but not really a great sipper. It’s proving to work really well in cooking, too!

Macerating berries sounds fancy, but it simply means softening or breaking up in a liquid. Using a wooden spoon or masher, the berries just get mashed/broken up while heating them in the liquid, then simmering the berries and liquid for 15-20 minutes.

While the berries, sap and booze are simmering, slices of pound cake get grilled. Do this on a really clean grate, and use just a touch of butter to ensure good contact with the grate. The slices should be put on the grate at a 45 degree angle to mark them, then turned 90 degrees to make crosshatch marks. Flip and repeat. Again… simple!

Plating is a slice of grilled pound cake with a dollop of pastry cream, topped with a liberal amount of the berries, sweet sap and bourbon. Don’t tell anyone that you purchased the pastry cream and pound cake… Just let them enjoy. They’ll think you’re a grilling superhero! The cape is optional.

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Livefire Drunken Pound Cake

Grilled pound cake with pastry cream and boozy, sweet berries!

Author: Curt McAdams

Cuisine: American

Recipe type: Dessert

Serves: 8

Prep time:  5 mins

Cook time:  25 mins

Total time:  30 mins

Ingredients

• 8 1″ slices of pound cake, buttered lightly on both sides
• 1 pint pastry cream
• 1½ pints fresh berries (cleaned)
• 3 ounces Four Roses Yellow bourbon
• 3 ounces Maguey Sweet Sap (or light molasses)

Instructions

1. Preheat the grill to high heat.
2. Put the Maguey Sweet Sap and Four Roses Yellow bourbon in a sauce pan and heat until the mixture bubbles, then turn down to a simmer. Add the berries, and lightly mash/break them up while continuing to simmer. Continue simmering for 15-20 minutes.
3. While the berries simmer, place the pound cake slices on the grill at a 45 degree angle for 2-3 minutes (check to ensure the pound cake doesn’t burn). Turn 90 degrees and grill for the same amount of time. Flip the slices, and do the same, creating crosshatch marks on each side of the slices.
4. Remove the pound cake slices from the grill and place the slices on plates, adding a dollop of pastry cream. Top with a large spoonful of the berries, Maguey Sweet Sap and Four Roses bourbon mixture.
5. Serve immediately.

Notes

Berries can be any locally available, in-season berries.

Nutrition Information

Serving size: 1 slice

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So how do you make grilled cheese on a grill? It’s easy… Just set up the grill for medium heat, and put the sandwich right on the grate. Turn it 90 degrees after a minute or so, then turn it over and repeat.

If you place the sandwich at a 45 degree angle, then turning it 90 degrees gives great crosshatch marks. Using a lower temp allows the cheese to melt without burning the bread.

And don’t limit yourself to just bread and cheese. I tried brie and blueberries, and it was great. Olives and gouda work great, too, and you can always add bacon!

How do you grill your grilled cheese sandwich?

If you’re in the Dayton, Ohio, area, though, it also brings Lobstermania to Dorothy Lane Market! That may seem odd to some, with Dayton being very land-locked, but this award-winning grocer contracts with 2 lobster captains in Maine, the Ready brothers, to bring in all of their catch at the end of the week, fly them with their lobsters to Dayton, then sell them at $12/pound-and-a-half lobster until they’re gone.

We got up and ready to go. I put on my lobster shorts, and my wife put on her lobster pants. Yes, we have them. My shorts are navy with red lobsters all over them, and her pants are khaki with lighter colored lobsters. And, yes, I wear my shorts other times, too, but I make sure to wear them to Lobstermania!

People show up early. Last year, we were first in line, but we got there a bit later this year, and we were about 20 people back, I’d guess. Dorothy Lane Market does a great job with this, passing around wine, beer and food samples to the people in line. This year, we got to sample crepes, a great ale and a really nice wine (that would, of course, go well with the lobster). One of the Ready brothers was on site and walking up and down the line talking to people. There was even a cooking class, with the brothers helping, the night before.

We didn’t go too far overboard, getting lobsters for my mom, some friends and ourselves. The market does a great job of making it fun to be there, and they are steaming lobsters outside, so, if you don’t want to cook your lobsters live, you just swap out what you have for lobsters ready to make rolls, or to be quickly reheated in boiling water.

We had friends, David and Eva, over for dinner Saturday night, and they brought some great stuff mushrooms and Fritos with chocolate and peanut butter caramel that are deadly good! We had lobsters ready to chop up for lobster rolls, blueberry salad (Maine themed) and whoopie pies (also Maine themed). The lobster rolls were simple, as they should be, with lightly toasted New England hot dog rolls for the bread. The lobsters were shelled, and the meat was chopped just a bit (I like the meat in big pieces!). For 4 lobsters, I added just 1 1/2 tablespoons of mayo, salt and pepper, and mixed it, then filled the hot dog rolls with the meat, and we enjoyed!

I’ll admit we got a few extra live ocean bugs and cooked them Sunday morning. There’s something very luxurious about having lobster for breakfast, but we only do it once a year!

This was our sixth annual Pretty Good BBQ, and it was humbling to be a part of it. It’s incredible seeing men like Bob (BBQ Bandit) and Roger, two of the men heavily involved in Operation BBQ Relief, show up to spend time together and feed people they may never meet and will never know their names. Pat, Jeff and Bubba pitched in doing anything needed to help out, and Mike fed us all breakfast. Clark and Bruce set up a quick way to get rub on all the pork butts, and Clark’s sons spent time with neighborhood kids, not even knowing they were reaching out to a neighborhood that isn’t used to that kind of reaching out.

Back in 2007, the church I attend, the Dayton Vineyard, found itself expanding by being given an older church building in north Dayton, a decidedly different neighborhood than the current campus in Beavercreek, Ohio. Each year, we do a little better. Each year we build on the last year in some way. Each year, we get to know each other a little better.

The motto has been, since the beginning, to serve with our best. The people that show up to cook, to help the cooks, to pull pork, to make sandwiches, to serve the community, do just that. The event needs everyone to get done what needs to be done.

The idea behind doing this is to show God’s love, a glimpse of the abundance He has for us. It’s to provide a way for those with a heart to do so to serve others. It’s an opportunity for people to serve those that come to cook by providing help, doing dishes, checking fires. It’s also a great weekend of spending time with good people doing good things.

I truly love the heart of those that come to Dayton to feed barbecue to the neighborhood.

To do this, I decided to use my stomach. Or maybe I should say my tastebuds. Yeah, that sounds much better! I had a great condiment in Savannah which I did my recreation of here. I thought a whole-meal approach was needed, so I built on the compote by adding the rest of the meal. It’s kind of backward, but, as you’ll see, it works just fine!

I have to admit that as nice as the south is in April, I would die in no time if I lived there. The food is ridiculously good, and, often, ridiculously bad for me. And it’s too hot in the summer!

If you didn’t click above to see the compote recipe on Livefire Whisky, it’s basically a bourbon syrup with Maguey’s Sweet Sap, apple, pecan and cinnamon. In fact, that’s all that’s in it, for version 1.0. To lay out the culinary palette for this compote (man, does that sound pretentious, or what???), I decided on heirloom pork chops with corn cakes and kale. The whole thing sounds to me like, to borrow from my friend Catherine, the South in my mouth!

The pork chops were simply seasoned with kosher salt and fresh black pepper, then grilled to about 145 degrees F. on my Char-Broil TruInfrared grill. The corn cakes were a simple combination of ingredients that started their frying on an oak plank on the grill, but a thunderstorm took this inside to finish on the stove, and the kale was done with a simple saute in a touch of butter with salt and pepper.

The corn cakes seemed a bit dry, actually, but the compote remedied that easily. The recipe I used was made up after reading several I didn’t want to try:

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Corn Cakes

A simple corn cake to accompany pork chops, chicken, etc.

Author: Curt McAdams

Cuisine: Southern

Recipe type: Side Dish

Serves: 2

Prep time:  10 mins

Cook time:  6 mins

Total time:  16 mins

Ingredients

• 1½ cups course-ground cornmeal
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1½ tablespoons butter, in pieces
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 cup grated cheddar cheese
• ½ finely grated sereno chile
• 1 tablespoon Maguey’s Sweet Sap
• 2 tablespoons vegetable oil

Instructions

1. Place an oak plank over a medium-hot fire until hot.
2. Heat the milk with the butter slowly just until the butter melts.
3. Combine the cornmeal, salt, cheese and chile, then add the milk, butter and Maguey’s Sweet Sap.
4. Mix with a fork until blended.
5. Cover the oak plank with vegetable oil and place cornmeal mixture in small (1/4 to ½ cup) circles, flattening with a turner.
6. Flip just once, after letting the corncakes brown.

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The kale was even easier; I washed it anc chopped it, then added it to a medium-hot skillet with 1 tablespoon butter, turning quickly to coat the kale. Salt is added, and the kale is turned frequently until just tender (about 4-5 minutes). The pork chops were the simplest… After adding salt and pepper, the chops were put on a hot grate on the Char-Broil TruInfrared, turning after 6 minutes (thick cut chops). Once the internal temp was at 145, the chops were removed and covered for 5 minutes with foil to rest.

To plate, a corncake was placed first, with the pork chop added on top of that, and the kale along the side. The compote was liberally added on top of the chop and corncake.

To do this again, I would add a bit of sour cream or Greek yogurt to the corncakes (maybe 1/4 cup), and a whole sereno chile.

The verdict was that I successfully extended my mental state of being in the South, right at my house in Ohio! If you do noting else, head over to my other site and try that compote!

Last year’s trip to Serenbe, GA, was the first time most of us had gotten together. That means that this year, we mostly already knew each other, so it was less getting to know each other, more having fun spending time together again. And Char-Broil treated us very well yet again!

We did some media training, with Carolyn O’Neil, who has done lots of food related stuff including writing several books, but I was most impressed that she was the Lady of the Refrigerator on Good Eats (and a really pleasant person)!

My cohort All-Stars for the meeting were:

Catherine Mayhew of The South In My Mouth (and the chef to my sous chefness in the “Chopped Grill” competition on Friday night)

David Olson of A Bachelor and His Grill

Danielle Dimovski of DivaQ

Christo Gonzales of Chez What?

Julie Reinhardt of She-Smoke

Scott Thomas of Grillin Fools

Jane Bonacci of The Heritage Cook

Along with all of us “All-Stars”, Mary, Michelle and Michael (3m???) represented Char-Broil. We spent some time in a really cold room talking about new products, where things are heading with Char-Broil (it’s good stuff), and some media/on screen training for us. Mixed throughout was a lot of relaxing, laughing and great food and drink. A big thank you goes out to Char-Broil for letting me bring my wife along… It’s about to be our 10th anniversary, and I wanted to stretch the week into a longer vacation (more to come on that in another post).

The last night together, we were paired up for the “Chopped Grill” competition, where each team had to use all the ingredients given to us. I won’t say who won what (winners were announced in food, photo, team name and dish name categories). Catherine and I named our team Bow Ties & Bacon, but that didn’t win best name.

The ingredients that had to be used were: red snapper, squid, whole shrimp, greens, blood orange and dark chocolate. We added a secret ingredient, which was NOT banned, but seemed to disqualify us… Butter! But it made everything great! I’d talk more about it, but Catherine did such a great job describing it, that I’ll just leave it to her.

I did take shots of each of the entries, though…

The whole time in the Jacksonville area was great. It’s surprising how fast a year passes, but it was great seeing not only my fellow cooks, but the people from Char-Broil, too (and we even talked Jessica into eating crawfish the “right” way!). Michael does an incredible amount of work, and Mary is so good at keeping us going and planning an amazing amount of fun into such a short time. My wife and I spent some time in the car with Michelle, and I have to agree with her that she and I seem to be long lost siblings. I’m already looking forward to next year with Char-Broil!

And not to forget, Char-Broil also makes a great grill or two!

I also highly recomment Ocean One Resort & Spa… Fantastic service, and a great location!

Again, I need to disclose that the bratwurst used was supplied to me by Johnsonville Sausage. This isn’t a review of their products, but they provided the product, and they make great bratwurst, which I used for these sandwiches.

I took the new Johnsonville lower fat bratwurst to make burgers by slicing the sausage open and removing the meat, combining 2 sausages for per burger. From there, things went a little nuts…

I sliced apples and onions, too, and grilled all of it. I have to say that the grill, with apple and onion slices grilling, smelled amazing! The burgers grilled over a medium hot heat while the apple and onion grilled over a bit lower heat area on the grill, and everything took about 10 minutes. I also had a few brat links grilling for another sandwich of sorts.

Then something snapped in my brain, and I also fixed some crispy bacon and some small hashbrown rounds (just thinly sliced potato strips browned in a skillet). I grilled a couple pretzel buns, and took the top and bottom of one of them and set it on a cool part of the grill (not heat under the bun) after it was grilled and covered both top and bottom cut sides with grated cheddar. Right behind that, I stacked the brat burgers with brie cheese between them; this stacking seems to really make the cheese gooey and melty!

Time to build the sandwiches!

The Basketball Brat Burger stack, bottom to top:

Pretzel bun bottom, then grilled onion, then Johsonville brat burger/brie/Johnsonville brat burger stack, followed by sliced apples, crispy bacon and apple chutney, then topped with the pretzel bun top. Huge, but absolutely one of the best brat burgers ever!

Double Dribble Brat Sandwich, also top to bottom:

Pretzel bun bottom with melted cheddar, 2 Johnsonville brats, side by side, hash brown patty, bacon strips, pretzel bun top with melted cheddar. The potatoes are great on this sandwich, and the whole combo was just fantastic!

I’m out of bratwurst, thankfully. Now we just have to wait to see who makes it to Monday’s game. I’m not biased, but… Go Bucks!!! (I lied; I’m biased!)

The idea for me during the tournament that makes basketball watching different than, say, football games, is that there are so many games and so much action to see that I don’t want to miss anything. That means I want something good but fast, too! Add to that the fact that winter still rules in the Midwest in late March this year, and I also want some comfort food. Getting Johnsonville precooked sausage helps with a quicker prep, and the other items can also be bought pre made (and still great quality).

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Slam Dunk Sauerkraut and Sausage

Quick and easy comfort food

Author: Curt McAdams

Cuisine: American

Recipe type: Entree

Serves: 4

Prep time:  10 mins

Cook time:  30 mins

Total time:  40 mins

Ingredients

• 1 package Johnsonville Andouille Sausage
• 1 pound mashed potatoes
• 4 ounces canned sauerkraut (Snow Floss is my favorite)
• Caraway seeds to taste
• Salt and pepper

Instructions

1. Preheat the grill to medium-hot. Grill the sausage for 4-5 minutes per side, and remove to rest for a few minutes.
2. Lower the heat to medium heat, with an area of no heat under part of the grate.
3. Slice the sausage into bite-sized slices, approximately ¼” thick. Spray a grill-safe baking dish with non-stick spray and line the bottom with the sliced sausage.
4. Alternate lines of mashed potatoes and sauerkraut across the top of the sausage. The mashed potatoes can be put into a zip-top bag with the corner cut out to squeeze the potatoes onto the top of the sausage.
5. Season with caraway seeds and salt and paper.
6. Place on the grill on the part of the grate with no heat on under it for about 20 minutes, or until the top of the dish is nicely browned.
7. Serve and enjoy!

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It so simple and easy, and you can get back to the game in no time. That’s the point of basketball tournament cooking to me… Let me get to the game!

The portraits here are the work of John Flynn, of Clover Storm Photography. He’s making some great headway in fashion photography, and really gets into technique. He converted a beauty dish light into more of a softbox in our kitchen to capture some of his shots, resulting in great lighting and effect.

The model is another Focus Photo Club member, Tim. Tim often makes himself available as a photo subject, and his grandaughter, Taylor, lent herself as a model for some of the event’s shots.

I don’t generally have people in my photos, but, if I could take shots like John’s, I’d have them included all the time! Click on the images to get an even better feel for how good John’s shots are.

All photos are copyrighted and owned by John Flynn, Clover Storm Photography and used by permission.

Thanks again to all the photographers that came out and joined me. I had a great time, and I hope we can get even more people involved next time, with live fire and outdoor shooting… And good food!