The Final Grilling Season '12 Recap

This summer was a grilling extravaganza that saw us trying out many new ways to cook with charcoal, and we've posted quite a few entries covering most of the more exciting recipes. The overflow caused us to already post a previous recap of everything that didn't get a full blog entry on its own, and now it's time for a second (and final) recap of the '12 grilling season.

In our previous recap and other blogs we went step by step into how to make several grilled meals well beyond the normal burgers and ribs you might expect, with offerings like pizza and pork roll-ups. Here's another grilled entree we tried out you won't see in many backyard barbecues: stuffed tomatoes.

To start these, get large slicing tomatoes (don't use something smaller like romas) and cut off the tops, then scoop out the guts and sprinkle in some salt.

We're filling ours with our traditional stuffed mushroom filling: cream cheese, ground sausage, and a variety of seasonings.

Get the coals heated up nice and hot in the chimney starter and cook them over indirect heat so the tomato flesh doesn't burn.

And here you've got some amazingly flavorful stuffed mushrooms that are a meal on their own, with some rice on the side. The smoke flavor gives you an end result you can't get just in the oven alone.

Hot dogs are a fun addition to any grilling session, but why leave them plain and boring? Wrap those bad buys up in bacon (and even slice 'em open and stuff in cheese if you want!)

They crisp up nicely after cooking on the grill, and again get a great smoke flavor.

I'm having my bacon-wrapped dog with jalapenos, spicy mustard, ketchup, and some homemade baked fries.

Every summer sees a whole lot of kebabs cooked out on the grill, and here's a fun combination we like: sausage, potatoes, mushrooms, onions, and bell peppers.

You can get a lot more adventurous than just the basics though. Here we're also grilling sliced pieces of whole corn on the cob along with marinated extra firm tofu, cherry tomatoes, zucchini, and squash.

After trying out some other grilled tomato meals we decided to just plain grill whole romas - and they turned out great!

Here's another look at some great chicken we grilled one day, brushed with one of our homemade rubs. We've got leg quarters and drumsticks covered with a mixture of garlic powder, onion powder, ghost pepper salt, and southwest seasonings.

As with most of our meat, we started over direct heat to crisp up the skin, then move to indirect heat to keep the chicken moist and tender.

After brushing with some awesome homemade barbecue sauce during grilling we get these beautiful, perfectly done chicken pieces:

Serve 'em up with an oven baked potato and a side salad with as many veggies as you can handle!

Late in the summer we also tried a second crack at the double pork rollup (check out the full original blog right here). Here's our second attempt, which held together much better than the first due to using kitchen twine from the start and not stuffing it quite so full.

Instead of salad, we served this one with seasoned rice cooked in stock for extra flavor, since the pork is already stuffed with a variety of vegetables.

And finally, here's another crack at our awesome pork spareribs (injected and rubbed of course), but this time we changed up the sides a good deal. Here we're having watermelon and rice with garbonzo beans instead of the standard salad and potatoes.

That's it for this year's barbecuing, and the grill has sadly been put away until the weather gets warm again next year. Stay tuned for our upcoming Iceland stop of the Culinary World Tour, more interesting ways to jazz up your pasta night, fun soups, and many more delicious Fall flavors!