Barbecuing with the Benjamins

Summertime is wonderful if you like using your grill. A perfectly sunny day, your favorite drink in your hand, and delicious edibles on the grill make for the best kind of perfect storm. During the 4th of July break, my family got together along with close family friends for a little BBQ. I contributed with my tasty stuffed mushrooms and three cheese spinach and artichoke dip. While I don’t use a recipe as a guide, I have shared ingredients and cooking steps below. The stuffed mushrooms you see have fresh mozzarella on top.

                                                                             Stuffed Mushrooms

Ingredients:

Stuffer mushrooms work best, they are bigger than your typical white button mushroom
Garlic
Basil (or your favorite herb)
Aged cheddar (can be replaced by your favorite cheese)
Bread crumbs

Steps:

Clean and de-stem your mushrooms. If you need help, feel free to watch this video

Saute your stems in olive oil, add garlic and bread crumbs. Take off heat, add basil.

Fill your mushroom caps with your cheese (no need to overdue the cheese, add sparingly)

Fill the rest of your caps with filling.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 25-30 minutes

Three Cheese Spinach and Artichoke Dip – Sorry the pictures are a bit fuzzy, I’m a few drinks in at this point.

Ingredients:

Cheese (I choose Asiago, Aged Cheddar, and Fresh Mozzarella)
Can of artichoke hearts (I also added a jar of artichoke tapenade  – totally optional)
Can of water chestnuts (sliced)
Frozen box of spinach
Garlic

Steps:

Microwave spinach, drain all liquid – set aside

In baking dish add: spinach, garlic (couple of table spoons chopped up), artichokes, water chestnuts, and cheese

Bake 350 for about 45 minutes or until top gets golden brown

The last item I’ll be sharing in this blog is dry rubbed ribs, the star of the show. My dad uses a dry rub recipe consisting of garlic salt, lawyr’s seasoned salt, black pepper, paprika, and cayenne pepper. You’ll have to experiment of how much of each spice you enjoy. Hint – Go light on cayenne and heavy on paprika.

Ribs are cooked on the grill for about 2 hours. Tip: Start off with one layer of charcoal (or low heat if gas) for about an hour. Add another batch of charcoal for the remaining hour. Also, we were flipping the ribs ever 3-4 minutes to avoid over charring. Labor of love but they taste so good!

Seasoned Ribs                                                                                 Ribs on the grill

So, now that you know what my family had, please share with us how you celebrating the holiday break. Any special meals? We’d love to hear about new discoveries, favorite recipes, and what we might want to add to next year’s menu!