In Episode 039 Taryn speaks with Jennifer Johnson from Cook Eat Go and That Guy Who Grills about cooking on a Blackstone griddle! Jen has a ton of experience grilling on a Blackstone and gives some great tips for beginners and seasoned grillers alike. Plus she has a ton of recipe ideas for both breakfast and dinner, many of which are a great way to reinvent leftovers for your meals. They all sound delicious so you don’t want to miss out on this episode!
Listen on iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, or your favorite podcast player. Or scroll down to read a full transcript.
GUEST DETAILS
Connect with Jennifer.
That Guy Who Grills: Website | Instagram | Facebook | Pinterest
Cook Eat Go: Website | Instagram | Facebook | Pinterest
Bio: Jennifer Johnson is the own and creator of Cook Eat Go, where she shares recipes, cleaning & life hacks, money-saving tips, and stories from her life since 2011. She also is a team member of the site That Guy Who Grills, where she helps publish great grilling and smoking recipes. She has been featured in Boston Magazine, Buzzfeed, and Instacart, and she currently lives just south of Seattle, WA with her three teenaged kids.
RESOURCES MENTIONED
Some of the following are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
- That Guy Who Grills Grilling & Smoking Recipes Facebook group
- Pit Boss 1100 Pro Grill
- 17 inch Blackstone Griddle
- 36 inch Blackstone Griddle
- Gas hose attachment for Blackstone
- Blackstone kit with spatula and scraper
- Paper towels
- Blackstone cover for 36 inch griddle
- Cast iron bacon press
- Cooking dome
- Cast iron skillet
RECIPES MENTIONED
These are some of the recipes mentioned by Jennifer in the episode. They are on the website That Guy Who Grills.
TRANSCRIPT
Taryn Solie: Hello, grillers. I can’t believe we’ve come to the last guest interview of season one and I’ve saved a friend of mine for it. Today I’m talking with Jennifer Johnson from Cook, Eat, Go. Jennifer and I met earlier this year. We both live in the Seattle area and are both very into grilling and outdoor cooking. She is one of the first people who told me about the Blackstone griddle, which is what we’re going to be talking about. Jen is so knowledgeable and very generous with that knowledge. She’s also really good at just getting straight to the point. So I’m excited for you to hear our conversation.
Before we begin, if you’re enjoying this podcast, I’d love for you to subscribe, then leave a rating and review. As a newer podcast, it helps spread the word and I would really appreciate it. Now let’s get into the episode.
Today on the podcast. I have Jennifer Johnson. Jen is the owner and creator of Cook, Eat, Go where she shares recipes, cleaning, and life hacks, money saving tips and stories for her life since 2011. She is also a team member of the site, That Guy Who Grills, where she helps publish great grilling and smoking recipes. She has been featured in Boston magazine, Buzzfeed, and Instacart, and she currently lives just south of Seattle, Washington with her three teenage kids. Jen, welcome to the podcast.
Jennifer Johnson: Thank you.
Taryn Solie: I’m really excited to talk to you. We’re gonna be talking about Blackstone cooking, which my husband and I just bought earlier in the summer. So I’m excited about this topic, but first I want to hear from you about your food and grilling background.
Jennifer Johnson: I started out with just the mom recipes, where you do everything in the crockpot, easy dinners on the stove. Then as the kids got older, they got interested in cooking outside. So then we jumped more onto the barbecue when it became safer. My youngest is actually my prep chef. She cooks, cuts all the meat, all the vegetables and all that stuff. So it’s fun to do it with them.
Taryn Solie: Oh, I love that.
Jennifer Johnson: We smoke a lot of food on our Pit Boss, but then we also got our first Blackstone grill in 2017 and then we upgraded to the 36 inch in 2018 and they love to go outside. They do the hibachi cooking all by themselves. So it’s a fun family activity as well as yummy food.
Taryn Solie: Now, hibachi. So first I guess, tell people what a Blackstone is, because that’s what we’re gonna be talking about. We’ll just get right into it and you can maybe even tell what some people aren’t familiar with hibachi style cooking.
Jennifer Johnson: The Blackstone is a propane gas grill and it is a flat top. It’s a lot like what you’ve seen in the Japanese restaurant where they cook fried rice. It is the most common one in those restaurants and it’s fun to see. But you can cook almost anything on the Blackstone.
Taryn Solie: Yes. Typically what people get when they purchase a flat top or griddle, is really what it’s called, like those long spatulas where in the restaurants anyway, they’re like flipping food in the air and they’re squirting oil, making it fire. That’s not necessarily what a home somebody who’s cooking at home on a Blackstone would do, but that’s the hibachi style of grilling that you’re talking about.
Jennifer Johnson: Yes.
Taryn Solie: Yes. Okay, good. So what kind of prompted you to go get a Blackstone, to create recipes on a Blackstone, that sort of thing?
Jennifer Johnson: We do a lot of camping. With being in the Pacific Northwest it’s. We have the covered deck outside so we can have it outside all the time. But the 17 inch was small enough to pull into the garage when we weren’t cooking. So we started out there, but with our family size and athletes, we need more food at a time. So we have upgraded to the 36 inch.
Taryn Solie: 3 teenagers can eat a lot of food. Do you still have the 17 inch?
Jennifer Johnson: We keep it ticket camping. We go everywhere with it. It has its own little portable box and we got a gallon propane tank so we can do extended cooks on it too.
Taryn Solie: Oh, that’s good. Yeah. That is one thing we bought the 22 inch portable with the same idea of, we wanna take it camping because you’re right. It’s very versatile. We’ll get into that later. But we only had one of those really small propane tanks and we were like, oh, this does not last as long as we thought it would, so you can buy a hose or whatever to attach to one of the larger propane tanks. Yes. Okay, good.
Jennifer Johnson: You have the hose and it runs off on, I think they even make a two gallon tank, but the one gallon tank is pretty compatible with it.
Taryn Solie: Okay, good. Perfect. We’re gonna just jump straight into like tips for cooking on a Blackstone. You have a bunch of experience. You have some recipes on your website. I know there’s also some recipes on the site that you help with That Guy Who Grills. What are some tips and things to consider? Things to consider when purchasing a Blackstone for somebody who’s new to it. Also some tips for cooking on a Blackstone.
Jennifer Johnson: Making sure you have the long griddles and a scraper, that is a must have lots of oil and paper towels. I wasn’t prepared for that the first time we started cooking. But it works.
Taryn Solie: For sure. What are some things that, if I’m going to buy one, what do I need? I’m assuming size, right? Like you need to think about how big your family is or where can you store it or do you want it to be portable? I would think all those things would be things to think about anything else?
Jennifer Johnson: They also make one with an air fryer attachment. I believe the 28 and the 36 inch at Walmart for sure have ’em, maybe Lowes too. But you can have the air fryer outside too. So you can do French fries and anything you put in an air fryer, but I think that has an electric component to it.
Taryn Solie: Okay. Interesting. That would be very convenient to just everything. Oh, okay. Air fryer. Have you tried one out like that or not?
Jennifer Johnson: I’ve seen them, but I can’t justify having 36 inch girls on my deck.
Taryn Solie: Are you sure?
Jennifer Johnson: I know I’m trying really hard.
Taryn Solie: I love it. Okay. Any other Items that you think people like, so we have the long spatula, scrapers, paper towels, for sure. Anything else? Any other like fun maybe even not necessarily essential, but fun additional items that people could use on a Blackstone.
Jennifer Johnson: An essential one would be a cover. I know a lot of them come with the covers, but not all of them do so you wanna keep the cover so it’s protected from the elements. The fun aspects, the bacon press is awesome. You get a cast iron bacon press and it, I use it to smash everything. The dome to make smash burgers and grilled cheese. I’ve used it on quesadillas before on the Blackstone.
Taryn Solie: Oh, that’s a good idea.
Jennifer Johnson: Yeah. Then they make even bigger scrapers than what comes in their accessory kit. So it’s nice to clean a bigger surface area at a time.
Taryn Solie: Yeah. That’s one thing that we’ve noticed is that it can be, it’s not hard to clean, but it’s like a little bit at once. So it takes a little bit of time to go through it, especially depending on how big your surface is for sure. What about some tips for cooking on a Blackstone?
Jennifer Johnson: There’s no such thing as too much oil. The oil will really help your food not to stick to the Blackstone so make sure that it’s warm too. I’ve gone to throw rice on before and know the griddle wasn’t really hot. So squirting just a little bit of oil on it will help you hear the sizzle to know if it’s ready to go or not.
Taryn Solie: Oh yeah. Yeah. That’s a really good tip. Anything else?
Jennifer Johnson: Keeping it clean. The main thing is cleaning it as soon as you’re done cooking, it’ll help to prevent rust. And whatever else decides to grow on your Blackstone.
Taryn Solie: Yeah. Do you wait for it to cool a little bit or do you just go for it.
Jennifer Johnson: I normally turn it off and take the food off and then I come back out. If it’s really dirty, I use water and use the longer scraper to help get the food residue off. Then just re oil it when it’s clean and it’s good to go.
Taryn Solie: I should clarify, or we should clarify, the griddle it’s like a cast iron. I was looking this up because I wanted to make sure I had it correctly. It’s a steel, it’s essentially like a cast iron, very similar to cooking on a cast iron, in a cast iron skillet, that sort of thing. But it has a much larger surface area.
Jennifer Johnson: Yes, I treat it just like you would cast iron. You can season ’em with bacon too if you feel like you’ve lost your seasoning. You can throw a pound of bacon on it.
Taryn Solie: Yes. When we bought ours, I was like, how do I care for this? You need to season it when you buy it. So that is one thing to be prepared for. You can, it’s not something you can take it out of the box and just use right away. You do have to season it. Speaking from experience. I was like, oh, I need to season this. I know that Blackstone, the brand, sells a seasoning grease essentially that you could also use, or you could use what you’re talking about something like bacon, where you need, where the fat there will help season the surface.
Jennifer Johnson: We did most of ours with vegetable oil, cuz we were impatient. So it worked.
Taryn Solie: Yeah, for sure. Yeah. So what about recipes? I really wanna talk about recipes, some of the recipes that you have on your website. Maybe let’s start with a good beginner recipe for cooking on a Blackstone.
Jennifer Johnson: The fried rice was the first one that we did on it. So we did ours with diced chicken and white rice, and then threw in the vegetables and stuff. But it’s easy.
Taryn Solie: Are you cooking the chicken on the Blackstone? Is it pre-cooked chicken? How are you doing that?
Jennifer Johnson: Yeah, you can do it. Or we do it a lot with bacon too. But you can dissect the chicken and cook it off to the side and then add on your cooked white rice and vegetables, and then mix in the eggs so it all cooks together.
Taryn Solie: Okay, so here’s a question for you because I tried doing, actually, this is what you’re talking about. Chicken fried rice. I was not smart about it when I put the egg on. The egg just went all over. So do you have a recommendation? Do you make a dome with the rice or do you do it without having the egg go all over the place?
Jennifer Johnson: I tend to have my meat on one side and the rice and vegetables on the other side. Then I pour the eggs into the middle, like a dome, but I have a spatula on the back. So it sort of stops it from running to the back of the griddle. Then it’ll start to cook there. Then you can mix it all the way.
Taryn Solie: Okay. Yes, that’s smart. So for anyone who is not familiar with the Blackstone, it is like a grease door. I guess, I dunno what you would call it at the back. It has a little container where you slide the grease off the surface into that container to catch the grease. But it’s a little sloped at the back. So if you’re not careful, something like eggs, which is what I found, will run right off. I was like, oh no. So I could see where something like, putting your spatula, your hibachi spatula at the back, let eggs cook a little bit, so it gives it time to harden up a bit.
Jennifer Johnson: On the older ones, the drains are actually in the front.
Taryn Solie: Oh, is it?
Jennifer Johnson: Because you said yours is in the back? Yeah, mine’s in the front. So I have to slant mine up for easy cleaning. So my back side comes up higher than the front side just to make it drain a little bit better when we’re cleaning it and stuff.
Taryn Solie: Oh, interesting. I didn’t know that. So good to know. So front or back, depending on if you have an older one or a newer one. Okay, good. So fried chicken or fried chicken, fried rice. You could use fried chicken if you want. What other sort of recipes would be good for a beginner?
Jennifer Johnson: We like to do egg rolls in a bowl on the Blackstone with the sausage and the cabbage and all that good stuff. Breakfast is our favorite too. We like to do a breakfast skillet where it’s the eggs, the meat, the bacon, sausage potatoes, cheese, all the good stuff.
Taryn Solie: You could cook really all that, just goes on all at once. I love it. Do you find that it’s faster cooking it on the Blackstone than trying to cook it? I would imagine because of the surface area than trying to do it on the camp stove.
Jennifer Johnson: That cleanup is so much faster than doing a million dishes in the kitchen.
Taryn Solie: When you’re camping too, because it’s such a pain to clean big pans when you’re at a campsite, that’s one of the things I really hate doing.
Jennifer Johnson: Yes. You can take your frozen hash Browns. We use those a lot, the shredded or the potatoes O’Brien. So you don’t even have to prepare those.
Taryn Solie: That’s a really good idea.
Jennifer Johnson: Break all the eggs at home and put them in a container so they just pour right on out.
Taryn Solie: Yes. Yes. I am a huge fan of prepping ahead of a camping trip, and then you just have everything ready when you need it. You don’t have to prepare while you’re there. I love it. Okay. What are some more advanced or fun recipes and things that you try that have turned out really well?
Jennifer Johnson: We have done a prime rib breakfast skillet before there. Oh, that was amazing with leftover smoked prime rib.
Taryn Solie: That sounds really good.
Jennifer Johnson: We’ve done basic grilled cheeses. We just did Philly cheese steak there, and then we used the leftovers to make philly cheese steak and grilled cheese as well.
Taryn Solie: Oh yes. I love that. So it sounds a little bit like, like a lot of the recipes that you’re talking about, it’s really good for using leftovers, right? Leftovers are not a problem for me on two things. One, my kids eat a lot. But also like we love, I love leftovers, like my husband and I eat it for lunch, but I know that there are people who really struggle with using leftovers. These recipes that you’re talking about, sound like a really good opportunity to do that.
Jennifer Johnson: Yes. So for the fried rice, we take our leftover smoked ham during the holidays and we put it in the fried rice. All my smoked meat we put into we’ve done smoked pork shoulder roast into fried rice before. That was amazing.
Taryn Solie: Oh, that sounds so good. Because you mentioned you have, did you say a Pit Boss?
Jennifer Johnson: Yes. We have the Pit Boss 1100 pro.
Taryn Solie: Okay. That’s a smoker. Yes. I’m assuming you’re using both, maybe not equally, but you use one and then you incorporate the leftovers on the second.
Jennifer Johnson: Yeah, we buy the biggest chunk of meat, like biggest Turkey, biggest pork shoulders, prime ribs, and just, we love leftovers. So we just divvy it out into different meals.
Taryn Solie: Yeah. No, I love that. I think that’s so good. Any other fun recipes you think people should try on the Blackstone?
Jennifer Johnson: Mexican street corn? We did that last summer. Yeah, it was really good. We used canned corn and made Mexican street corn sauce. So after it had cooked and seasoned on the black stone, we put it into the sauce and mixed it up. It was really good with tacos and we served them with those smoked queso dip too.
Taryn Solie: Oh, smoke queso dip. That sounds really good. I love that. I think that’s such a great way to make it. I would not have thought of using frozen corn and just tossing it on. But you’re right. I have a corn salad that requires grilling corn, but you could very easily take frozen corn and put it on the Blackstone and char it up just a little bit. That way it’s a little bit easier.
Jennifer Johnson: Yep. And less cleanup.
Taryn Solie: And less clean up. I am with you, the cleanup is key. As long as we can keep it reduced, it is so much easier.
Jennifer Johnson: Fajitas are really amazing on the Blackstone too.
Taryn Solie: Yes. What kind of fajitas do you guys make?
Jennifer Johnson: All of them. Steak, chicken, shrimp.
Taryn Solie: Is there a particular seasoning that you really like, or you just keep it real simple?
Jennifer Johnson: I base it off the Trader Joe’s chili lime one, and then we kinda dress it up from there. Then I make my own homemade taco seasoning too. We throw hot sauce and some tequila for some extra flavor.
Taryn Solie: Yeah. You could do that. Sure. I love it. This is good. I think there’s a lot of really good recipes for Blackstone. I will say we love ours. It sounds like you guys really love yours. Do your kids cook it at all or no?
Jennifer Johnson: They fight all the time. My son is the smash burger king. He loves to go out there with the bacon press and just press down and make the flattest burgers.
Taryn Solie: Okay. Talk to me about smash burgers, because I feel like I have seen them all over the place. And is it just a burger that’s smashed down or is there more to it?
Jennifer Johnson: You just literally make the patty and you smash it down.
Taryn Solie: So is there anything inside of it?
Jennifer Johnson: You can change it up to how you want some people to put onions or mushrooms in there. We’re basic. We just like the meat with some seasoning and call it a day. But it makes it like a thin Patty and with the oil, it crisps up a little bit.
Taryn Solie: Oh, okay. I was struggling to understand what the point of a Smashburger was, but if the texture. Is a little different that you get that almost caramelization on it that I could see would be really tasty.
Jennifer Johnson: It also cooks in its own fat as it sits down the Blackstone too. So it really crisps up the meat quite a bit. It’s really good.
Taryn Solie: Oh, it sounds really good.
Jennifer Johnson: Then you put the dome over it. So the cheese melts all up in the little cracks in the smashburgers.
Taryn Solie: Yeah. I love it. Then you said you had the, what was it? The bacon press? Is that what you used to smash?
Jennifer Johnson: Yeah. Yep. I have a cast iron one.
Taryn Solie: So if someone, if I’m asking for myself, did not have the bacon press, could they just use it like a cast iron skillet or is there another way?
Jennifer Johnson: Or you could probably even use a mashed potato grinder type deal or mashed potato masher. I don’t know what the technical name is but you could press down as long as it’s not on the meat long enough to melt.
Taryn Solie: Got it. Those surfaces can get very hot. Oh, fun. Okay. This has been so fun. I think there’s some really good Blackstone recipe ideas. I hope anyone who is thinking about a Blackstone or who has a Blackstone is a little bit inspired. I know I am. I really wanna make a Smashburger now. Before we go, though, I wanna ask you what are some recipes and this could be on your Blackstone, this could be on your Pit Boss, it could be on any type of grill. What are some recipes that you and your family are really loving right now?
Jennifer Johnson: Smoked chicken breast. We’ve been on a little bit of a lower fat diet, or not diet, but more of a kick. We’ve just been smoking chicken breasts and grilling ’em up and we’ve diced them up into other stir fry and fried rice on the Blackstone.
Taryn Solie: Yeah. That’s something too, I think as we start getting into fall, I tend to use a lot of smoked chicken breasts or chicken thighs even, like soups and salads. As we start getting into cooler weather, that’s such a good use either on a Blackstone or a smoker or any kind of grill. It’s such a good use for proteins like that. I love that. Okay. Jen, this has been so fun. I do wanna give you a chance to tell people where they can find you.
Jennifer Johnson: I am on all the social media’s, Cook Eat Go or on The Guy Who Grills. Then we have a Facebook group called Grilling and Smoking Recipes that is run by The Guy Who Grills, where people can share what they’re cooking in their kitchen or in the kitchen or outside in their outdoor kitchen.
Taryn Solie: Awesome. Then, do you also have an email list?
Jennifer Johnson: Yes, both sites have an email list.
Taryn Solie: Perfect. Good. Okay. And people can just go onto your site and there should be just like a signup form on there.
Jennifer Johnson: There’s a popup with the free ebooks.
Taryn Solie: Oh, good. Okay. Awesome. So great. I’ll put all of those links in the show notes page, Jen. Thank you again for being here.
Did all of this make you consider getting a Blackstone? I will say we love ours and are very happy with our purchase. Plus how delicious did all of those recipes jen talked about sound? Fried rice is one of my family’s favorites. I love the idea of cooking all of your breakfast on just one surface.
I also really love the idea of using leftovers in so many different ways. I feel like it can one help you keep costs down and two help save a little time because you’ve already done half the cooking. When you’re using leftovers, I’m going to put links to the resources and recipes. Jen mentioned on the show notes page. To get there, you can either go to my main website at hotpankitchen.com and click on podcasts in the main menu. Or you can click on the link provided in whatever podcast app you’re listening to.
Outro: That’s it for today. Thank you so much for listening. And until next time, keep grilling like a mother.
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