Grilled Sausage & Pepper Sandwiches w/ Fiery Tomato Sauce

So for this weekend I decided to do a contest for Johnsonville Brats. I had to make a kabob recipe out of one of many selections of sausages from Johnsonville.

I decided to go with the Johnsonville Sweet Italian Sausages. I've always liked sweet pork sausage so it only made since to me to do a Sausage & Pepper dish like you get at the carnival.

Ingredients

-1 pack of Johnsonville sweet Italian sausages

- 2 bell peppers any color

- 2 tomatoes or cherry tomatoes

- 1 can tomato sauce

- Italian Seasoning (I made my own: 1/2 tbsp tarragon, 1/2 tbsp basil, 1/2 tbsp sugar, 1/2 tbsp olive oil, 1/2                  tbsp Parmesan cheese, 1/2 tbsp garlic, salt, pepper)

- 1 Jalapeno

- skewers  

- 6 Hoagie Rolls

Directions

First off these would pair good with a nice pitcher of Sangria or some Hard Cider beer. Cube up your sausage, peppers, and tomatoes.

Skewer those bad boys up. Any order, it doesn't matter. Salt and pepper. Oh! light your grill too! Slice your hoagie rolls down the center, and butter them up as well.

In the middle of this whole process I had to put everything away and go to my son's baseball game. It's his first year playing and he's picking it up great. He went 5 for 5 with a double and made a great play at 2nd base. The whole team did great!! 

Once I got home, I then poured the sauce into a small grill pan. (I used my baby cast iron skillet) added my Italian seasoning and chopped up a jalapeno and added that as well. Then mixed it up.

Grill up your skewers until you have a nice char on the peppers and the sausage is done. I like to brown everything on each side then stack them up on top of  each other and let them finish cooking on the cold side by closing the grill. It ensures you don't burn them and gives you some time to enjoy a cocktail!

While your kabob's are still cooking, toast up your hoagies, and heat up your fiery tomato sauce.

Once they're finished. Just put a kabob on a hoagie. Grasp the bun and pull out the skewer. Top it with your fiery tomato sauce. Have a few cocktails afterwards of course!

Jalapeno-Bud-Light Lime Beer Can Chicken

Ingredients

- Whole Chicken (This was about 5 lbs)

- 1 24oz. Bud Light Lime Can

- Salt & Pepper

- Jalapenos & Limes

Directions 

Remove innards of bird. Rub butter or oil on bird. Salt and pepper generously and/or add any rubs or seasoning that you would like. I used course salt, pepper, paprika, and chicken/rib rub. Use a fine grater to grate lime zest on to your bird. Like below.

                         

Chop up a couple jalapenos, and quarter up a lime or two. Stuff half of the chopped jalapenos into the cavity of the bird.

Use a can opener to open up the whole top of the beer can. This may take a little work depending on what kind of can opener you have. It should be all the way open like below.

  

Now, drink half of the beer inside. Never waste beer by pouring it out!!!! Put the rest of your jalapenos and limes into the open beer can.

 Very carefully insert the can into the birds cavity until it sits up nicely on a flat surface. You may have to work with it for a while. I loaded his arms up with 2 whole jalapenos for comical purposes.

Light your grill. Make sure you have a cold side and a hot side. If your using gas grill (which I never suggest) light half the grill and keep your temp from around 250-350. I always use lump charcoal mixed with Hickory chunks. 

Place the bird on the cold side of the grill once your coals are hot. 

Close the grill and don't open for an hour. Make sure all of your dampers are closed to keep all the heat inside. Down below you can see the mix of lump hardwood charcoal and Hickory chunks just to get an idea of how much to use. The first hour should be cooking at around 300 degrees. 

I would suggest using an internal thermometer and not relying too much on the thermometer that is provided with your grill as they are generally not very reliable.  

After one hour, add more coals to maintain temperature or add a smoking wood as I did and let it smoke for another at anywhere from 230 degrees to 300 degrees.

After the 2nd hour I just added more mix of Hickory and charcoal to maintain temperature. From this point on your skin should be getting nice and dark. I would highly suggest you start monitoring your thermometer. Keep checking the chicken every 15 minutes or so, until a meat thermometer inserted into the thickest part of the thigh reads 160°F - 165°F. The total cooking time will vary depending on the size of your chicken, and the internal temperature of the grill. A 4 lb chicken will usually take around 1 1/2 hours. If you don't have a meat thermometer, a way to tell if the chicken is done is to poke it deeply with a knife (the thigh is a good place to do this), if the juices run clear, not pink, the chicken is done.

Once your bird is done to your liking, carefully transfer your bird from the grill to a cutting board and let it rest for a few minutes. If your not sure on how to carve a whole chicken here's a video tutorial:

Cut and enjoy!!!! Drink with a Bud Light Lime and it's even better!!

Candied Hot Dogs on a stick for kids!

If you have kids you'll know that they get tired of things real quick. Our 6 year old Ty was getting sick of plain hot dogs, so I had to sweeten things up a bit. I ended up loving them myself! For this I ended up using hot dogs that had already been grilled. We have kids over a lot so we always have lot's of hot dogs left over.

Ingredients

- Hot Dogs

- Skewers

- 1 plate filled with Maple Syrup

- 1 plate filled with Brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg 

Directions

Sorry I don't have a lot of pictures but I just threw these together. They we're so good I had to post them up. Anyways, Skewer up your Hot Dogs. Take a sharp knife and score the outside of the dog many times but not too deep. Just enough to create a rough surface so everything sticks to it.

Roll the dogs in the Maple syrup, then in the Brown sugar mixture. Coat them with as much as you can!

Once you have them rolled up, I would stick them on a paper plate in the fridge for about 10 or 15 minutes to harden up the glaze. Some will fall off, it's not a huge deal! If you know another trick, feel free and bust it out.

Once they have sat in the fridge for a little bit, toss them on the grill. Grill them until the glaze has formed a nice caramelized outer surface. 

  

The kids will love them. 

Here's some of the kids I love to feed! Our good friends the Neely's, and my wife Angela, and son Tyler are in the top right wearing red!

Ham Wrapped Hawaiian Chicken Skewers with Pineapple-Soy Glaze

Ingredients

- 2 boneless chicken breasts cubed

- 1 can pineapple chunks

- 1lb deli ham with a decent thickness

- skewers 

Glaze

- 1 cup soy

- 1 cup Pineapple Juice

- 2 tbsp crushed red pepper

- 1 tbsp garlic fresh or powder

- 1/2 tbsp ground ginger

- 2 tbsp brown sugar

- 1/4 cup of EVOO

Directions

Mix up ingredients for Glaze, set aside. Cut your ham so it's large enough to fit around your chicken chunks. Wrap a piece of ham around a piece of chicken and put it on the skewer to hold the ham and chicken together. Add a piece of Pineapple in between each piece of ham wrapped chicken. Make it tight to keep it all together.

Add your skewers to a hot grill. Sear each side of the kabobs without burning the ham. You will notice, the ham actually start to wrap itself around the chicken as it cooks.

Since I'm using ham I like to cook with Hickory or Mesquite. So I have added Hickory chunks to my lump charcoal (which I always use) to give it a nice smoky flavor.

Anyway! back to the grilling! Like I said make sure you have a nice char on your kabobs!

Once you get a crust you like you can move them off of the hot side and start glazing them. When I remove meat or chicken from the hot side of the grill I like to keep my meat cooking at 225. 

Just keep glazing them and checking the internal temperature until they reach your desires temp. Make sure you keep the grill top closed so you have consistent temperature. If it gets too low add a little more coal or wood. If it gets too hot, open up your dampers or crack the lid a little.

Once they are done, top them with some chopped green onion, and serve with some kind of tropical Rum drink. As always!

Grilled Poblano Creamed Corn

Ingredients

- Corn on the cobb

- Sour Cream

- Pabalano Peppers

- Salt

- Pepper

Directions

Boil corn until Al Dente'. Light Grill. 

Grill the corn until they have a nice caramelization and char.

Grill the Pablano peppers until they are soft and have a nice char on the outside.

Remove both corn and peppers from grill. Make sure they have cooled down enough to handle and gently start to peel the thin layer of skin off of the Pablanos.

Cut off the stems. Cut in half and scrape out all of the seeds.

Throw away the stem, skins, and seeds. Roughly dice the remaining peppers.

Cut all of the grilled corn away from the cobb.

Add both corn and Pabalno to a medium size Crock Pot or a regular pot, whatever. Add 1 extra can of canned corn.

Add 3 or so heaping Tablespoons of sour cream. Then salt and Pepper to taste.

Mix well and keep on Med-Low until cream has melted and it's nice and hot. Enjoy! with a cocktail of course!