Summertime and the living's easy. Make your culinary adventures easy as well, with a free standing natural gas grill. Do your cooking, drinking, relaxing and horse-playing in the comfort of your own backyard and bring new meaning to the word "staycation."
Grilling Tips
* It's not rocket science. Like any talent, cooking is about instinct and intuition, so you'll know when well done is, well, done.
* Once you've gotten to know your grill, become intimate with it's temperaments. Some parts of your grill will be hotter than others.
** Use the hotter parts for quick cookin' and the cooler parts for slow cookin' or to keep food warm.
* Be inventive: just cause it's called a grill doesn't mean all you use it for is grilling. Use it for:
** Braising
** Roasting
** Baking
** Frying
** Stewing
* In the summertime, take the load off of your indoor stove (and save on air conditioning) by cooking entire meals on your outdoor grill. It's absolutely possible: go on, try it!
Done and Well Done
Instinct and intuition are great, but don't get a big head about it if your steak is looking good enough to eat. Because chances are that it looks good on the outside, but it's what's going on inside that counts. Use a meat thermometer so you can know your food's cooked before your goose is cooked.
* Cooking steaks or burgers?
** Well-done is well done at 170°F.
** Medium at 160°F.
** Rare no less than 140°F.
* Don't chicken out with poultry 'til it hits 185°F.
* Make sure the other white meat's still not white, unless it's 170°F inside.
* Hams sing a different tune: they're fully cooked at 140°F, but before eating should be at 160°F.
* Veal is done at 180°F and lamb is well-done at that temperature. If you'd rather it be a little less done, 175°F is the minimum you better go.
