Good morning everyone.

Welcome back!

The brutality of Summer just keeps on trucking doesn’t it?

Welcome back to part 2 of cooking and preparing a full dinner without activating the oven in your kitchen.

Shit.

/working title

As you recall, last week we conquered this food preparation trick by grilling just about every damn thing. And it was awesome!

As the banner image can attest, part of today’s preparation was obviously a result of grilling but what the fuck with the baked potato? How can you bake a potato without, you know, fucking baking it?

Is it alchemy? Wizardry? Sorcery? Witch craft?

Shit no!

It’s science!

And no, I didn’t use a microwave either. Actually now that I think about it a microwave cooks a pretty damn solid baked potato. Where’s the thrill in that? Next thing you know I’ll have a Sunday Gravy post where I teach you how to microwave popcorn!

Riveting!

If you’ve been following along this year you can probably venture a guess how that potato came into being.

That’s right!

Instant Pot!

We’ve fucked around with using the Instant Pot as a slow cook or slow braise device but I thought we would try it in a new way and I will say, it worked great! Another reason to consider adding this thing to your kitchen toy collection.

Something else we will be doing today is the always intriguing “cooking with beer!”

That got your attention didn’t it?

The best part is you can use whatever beer you have on hand. Fan of the macrobrew and a standard lager style? Use it! Prefer a lovely Guinness? Give it a try, Love! Are you into the big hoppy-ass double IPA action? Get after that!

Who among us doesn’t like beer in ANY application?

I’m preaching to the goddamn choir over here!

Last week we featured chicken and pork as our grilled proteins of choice so this week I decided to make a beer marinade and marinated some steaks for the grill. The thing with a beer marinade is it applies itself well to the cheaper cuts of meat. You don’t have to drop a 20 on a ribeye or T-bone which makes this more friendly on your wallet at the same time.

So today we used?

A nice basic top sirloin. You can use whatever cut of steak you want. Flank steak would be delicious here.

You regular folks know that we’ve already addressed a different steak prep technique earlier this season.

This application was pan-searing in a hot as fuck cast iron skillet which is actually one of my preferred steak cooking techniques. It does, however, require a “hot as fuck cast iron skillet.”

Uh uh. Not today.

This motherfucker is going on the grill. Besides! check it out!

That’s a new grill grate!

If you compare that to last week…

A marked improvement.

Alright, enough fucking around! Let’s make a marinade.

Beer Marinade!

12 ounces of your favorite beer.

1/3 cup of soy sauce.

2 tablespoons of brown sugar.

1/2 onion sliced.

2 jalapenos sliced.

3-4 cloves of garlic smashed.

That’s it.

You can toss in some fresh herbs like rosemary or thyme here if you wish. Up to you.

Mix together everything and combine well. Watch the sugar, as it tends to sink to the bottom of the bowl. Give a big stir.

Using a fork get all medieval on the steaks and poke a whole shitload of holes in the steaks. Get both sides.

Next get one of the old faithful 1 gallon zip top bags and place your steaks in there. Pour the marinade over the steaks, press out any residual air, close the zip top and give a good shake or two.

This can hang out in the fridge for as little as 3-4 hours or it can even chill overnight. I chose overnight and handily elected to drink that sacrificial beers’ 11 other friends.

It was the right choice!

Next day go ahead and fire up your grill.

While the grill is getting all hot and bothered we are going to get our two side dishes going. Let’s start with the potatoes first.

Rinse your potatoes thoroughly, take yet another fork and stab the bejesus out of the potatoes.

I hope you like stabbing things!

Just channel your inner Ray Lewis and get stabby as fuck.

Pour one cup of water into your Instant Pot, place the “trivet” or basket inside and add the potatoes.

Place the lid on top of the pot, lock into position and we will be setting the pot to high pressure and set the timer for 14 minutes. Once the 14 minutes are up allow the steam to vent naturally for 10 minutes then remove the potatoes and serve as desired. Salt, pepper and butter for me thanks.

Now while the grill is heating and the Instant Pot is pressurizing get after that corn on the cob.

Take a square of aluminum foil and lay the shucked corn right on top.

I put some cubes of butter alongside and season with your choice of seasonings. “Essence” today of course. As a final touch, give a few grates of some good parmigiano reggiano over the top. Wrap the corn in the foil, seal and get ready to grill.

Take the steaks out of the marinade, give a pat down with some paper towels and season liberally with salt and pepper.

Liberally.

Yeah, I like that word.

Leave the fat on, dammit. You know me. Fat is your friend. Fat is an amazing flavor.

Now that the grill is prepped and ready, let’s just chuck everything on at the same time.

Fuck it!

Ain’t that pretty?

I gave this about 6 minutes for the first side. Remember the grill mark trick from last week? That’s where you rotate the steaks 90 degrees before flipping to get them nice grill marks?

Do that.

The corn should cook for 17-20 minutes total, be sure to rotate a few times while it’s cooking.

After five more minutes on the second side your steaks should be done. Let’s just get them off the grill and see how they look shall we?

Holy. Shit!

It’s almost teriyaki like in it’s composition without the overly salty taste of the soy. The brown sugar gives it a sweetness to balance out the soy and the background note of the beer just plays perfectly with the beef. While you get the garlic, onion and jalapeno, nothing is too overwhelming or spicy. It’s just a damn solid combination of flavors.

Enough fucking around, let’s get this shit on a plate!

Honestly? That baked potato was fucking perfect. Nice and fluffy. Pair that up with the steak and the corn on the cob? Shit!

That’s a nice Aussie shiraz in the back that was tailor made for this meal.

Some poor bastards would pay 75 bucks for this meal at a steakhouse and not only did we do it on the cheap we didn’t even turn the damn oven on in the middle of summer!

Class dismissed.

Item of note;

I’ve got a little mini-vacation set up next week – San Diego with all of the “right” offspring so I will be on a one week hiatus.

You will be left in capable hands.

I appreciate you people being there. It’s your regular readership and commentary that keep me motivated. I thank you for that.

I Grill for You!

Have a great day everyone.

PEACE!