Episode 032 continues the What We’re Grilling series, where Taryn discusses recipes she and her family have grilled over the last couple of weeks to give you some meal inspiration. In this episode, Taryn goes over two camping meals she and her extended family cooked on a Blackstone griddle for their last camping trip of the summer. The first was a grilled flank steak with a lime and garlic marinade and the second was burgers and quartered baby potatoes. Listen in to hear what went right and what Taryn would do differently when making these great grilling recipes!
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RESOURCES MENTIONED
Some of the following are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.
- Episode 025: Grilling While Camping with Kara Myers
- Portable Blackstone 22″ griddle
- Ziploc plastic bags
- Dome for griddle
RECIPES MENTIONED
These are some of the recipes mentioned in the episode, all of which are on Hot Pan Kitchen.
TRANSCRIPT
Taryn Solie: Hello grillers! Welcome to another What We’re Grilling episode. I am your host, Taryn Solie, and I am here to give you some grilling inspiration. These What We’re Grilling episodes are meant to be short and sweet, coming out about every 2 weeks. I go over some of the foods that my family and I have grilled that we’ve liked – some of what I mention will just be general meal ideas, and for others I’ll go into more detail to give you a sense of how to grill it. The goal is to give you some ideas for what to cook for your family and friends.
Today I’m going to go over some of the foods that we grilled on our last weekend camping trip of the season. My husband’s family has some property on a river out in kind of North Central Washington that we camp at once or twice in the summer and that’s where we spent our last trip!. My father-in-law keeps a gas grill and a Blackstone griddle out there and for this trip we used the Blackstone griddle for both of our dinners – we almost used the grill as well, but it was really warm out so we decided to just use one heat source for everything.
I had spoken with my mother-in-law to meal plan a bit before we left and we agreed to do fajitas the first night and a ground beef meal the second night. My husband and I picked up a flank steak (which was pricey – I’m honestly not sure we’ll be having that again any time soon) but I decided to make my carne asada-inspired marinade. It has lime juice, oil, coconut aminos, cumin, coriander, lots of garlic, and some salt in it, and it is so freaking good. The morning we left, I made the marinade then put it and the steak in a ziploc bag. The bag went into the cooler we took on the trip, then in marinated all day as we made the 4.5 hour drive to the property. It was pretty cold when we got there so we set it out for 30 minutes to warm up a bit – you don’t want to put a cold steak on the grill because the outside will cook faster than the inside and you’ll have a overdone steak on the outside and a raw and cool steak on the inside – I don’t know anyone who likes it that way. Anyway, we cooked the flank steak over medium heat on the Blackstone that night – it didn’t take long, maybe 12 to 15 minutes total. We cooked it to an internal temperature of around 135, which is medium to medium-rare.
I also sliced up a bunch of bell peppers and a big onion and cooked that up over medium heat on the Blackstone too, with just some oil and salt. Those you want to cook until they get a little char on them and are sufficiently softened, so maybe 6 to 8 minutes. We added some cut up fruit and fixings to the table – including a pared-down version of my homemade guacamole to put on the fajitas – and dug in. It was so good. I should mention my kids had a quesadilla and then steak on the side as they’re not huge fans of grilled onions and peppers. They’ve tried them once or twice, and one of them did eat a little bell pepper, but I think the texture bothers them. So we tried to kind of meet them halfway with the meal when we do something like fajitas.
The second night we decided to have hamburgers and grilled baby potatoes. The hamburgers my mother-in-law put together just with some simple seasoning (salt, pepper, and garlic powder) and she cut up the potatoes into quarters. My father in law manned the grill – and actually, we used the Blackstone griddle again, not the grill – and put the potatoes on first, with just some oil and salt. After 5 or so minutes he realized that we needed something to put over them to kind of help them steam. He didn’t have one of those domes that Kara Myers talked about in episode 25 where she discusses cooking on a Blackstone while camping, so we improvised with a large pot lid. And looking back, I probably would have parboiled the potatoes before putting them on the grill to help them cook faster but it was hot out and we didn’t want to heat up the trailer so we just did it all on the grill. It took a good 20 to 30 minutes for them to cook up, but they tasted really good when they were done – all nice and crisp on the outside and soft on the inside.
The burgers cooked up nicely too – those were cooked over medium heat until they reached an internal temp of around 160 degrees F. I ate mine on a bed of lettuce with some cut up tomatoes and everyone else ate them on a bun. We had more fruit, and I think my mother-in-law also made a pasta salad (which I didn’t eat as it wasn’t gluten free) and that was dinner! Really simple but really good.
I think these were two good examples of easy camping dinners because they are things you really can prep a lot before you get to your campsite. As I mentioned, the steak you can put in the marinade ahead of leaving and eat it that first night, or you can just make the marinade and pack it separately from the steak to save it for another night – I wouldn’t marinate the steak longer than 24 hours. The hamburgers you could make the patties ahead of time and even freeze them, then pack them in a cooler to cook at camp. And you can easily cook these meals over a fire or on a camp stove (though you’d need a larger pan or flat top for the flank steak).
And that’s it for today! I’m going to put links to the recipes and products I’ve mentioned on the show notes page – to get to it you can either go to my main website at Hot Pan Kitchen dot com and click on podcast in the main menu, or you can click on the link provided in whatever podcast app you’re listening on.
If you enjoyed this episode, I would love it if you would share it with a friend who you think would be interested! As a newer podcast, it helps spread the word and I would really appreciate it. Thank you so much for listening, and until next time, keep grilling like a mother.
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