This sausage is strangely suspicious.  And behold, the blood sausage.  Also known as Black Pudding or Blood Pudding by the Brits.   It’s referred to as Blutwurst by the Germans.  And in France, a lovely Boudin Noir which sounds less like a sausage and more like a hot night in the red-light district of Paris.  Just about every country has their take on blood sausage.  Except, of course, America where we Americans find sausage made with blood a thing of the past.  Something Grandma used to eat.  But let me tell you right here right now, this sausage is GOOD!  When done on the grill, I’d say it’s even better.  Seriously, it’s only a matter of time before these babies pop up in the wanky yup-restaurants around town (with hip names of children they never had) and make their way down to a quick morning Blood McMuffin grab.  For now, finding one of these sausages will be tricky if you’re in America.  I know Seattle has a wonderful German shop in Pike Street Market and that’s all I got.

This particular sausage was homemade with pig blood and bits (by a man Scott with pretty hands).  It’s often served with apples of some description, but we had it with warmed avocado and a salad which worked well.

You Need:

• A blood sausage, good luck finding one for the Americans in the house!

To Grill:

• Stick it on the grill and take it off when you’re ready.  I’d say after a couple of glasses of champagne ought to do it.  Often times blood sausage is served cold with other cold meat friends so really you need to warm it to your liking as it’s already cooked.

The Strawberries are showing their ripe little faces early around here.  Both France and Spain’s strawberries are available and they are both succulent. … except France’s strawberries are better.  The small, funny looking ones taste the best.  Something that’s nice to do after everyone is leaning back, pants loosened, going on and on about what a great griller you are is to get out the strawberries and chocolate.  I pop about a half a cup or so of heavy cream in a pot and stick in on the grill.  After all the food has been cooked, the charcoal is usually just right for a slow warming of cream.  I then break up a bar of semi-sweet melting chocolate and add it to the cream stirring slowly.  Once it’s all incorporated, stick it in the middle of the table along with the strawberries and dig in.  No double dipping!

You Need:

• Strawberries – Local strawberries are best.  The strawberries grown for shipping (like those sold at Costco) Look great, but don’t taste like strawberries.  I’m not sure what they taste like.
• Semi-sweet chocolate for melting (Ghirardelli is nice if you can’t get Nestle)
• Heavy cream

Do To It:

• Warm cream
• Break up chocolate bar and stick in cream to melty the chocolate

Voila!

… and nothing goes with strawberries better than a brut Champagne!

Or as I like to call them, “Cabbage Sacks.”  These babies were a total success.  Straightforward to make with a little magic in the kitchen.  You could even make these and bring them with you to relieve your grilling host of preparing a vegetarian option.  Inside these elven wonders is a bit of spice, softened onions and garlic with red pepper (very pretty) and other goodies all brought together by melty goat cheese.  The whole thing works wonders in the mouth.  But let’s look inside …

Innards:

• Onion, one will do
• Red Pepper (or green or orange or yellow), one again
• Clove of Garlic
• Sesame seeds
• Dried chili seeds n skin, just a pinch
• Salt and Pepper
• Fresh Parsley … yes FRESH don’t skimp here! The dried stuff no taste no good

… and for the wrapping part:

• Goat Cheese
• Bread Crumbs, a few handfuls

Outtards:

• Cabbage Leaves
• Aluminum (or Aluminium for the non-Americans in the bunch) Foil
• Kebab Sticks

Kitchen Magic:

In a hot sexy fry pan, toss in a big knob of butter.  Fry up the innards (don’t fry the Goat Cheese and Bread Crumbs. They are for later).  Everyone has their own order of frying things, do like you do.  You can let the chili fry first for a spell, then onions, then garlic and finally pepper.  It’s all good.  Just get it glistening, soft and sloppy.  Of course, you can do all this on the grill if you have that sort of grill.  Set this aside while you tend to the cabbage leaf softening.

To get the cabbage leaves soft for wrapping, drop the leaves in a pan of boiling water for a few minutes.  After that’s done, you’re ready to wrap.  It’s like a jungle sometimes it makes me wonder how I keep from goin’ undah.

Doin’ The Parcel:

Katty did the parcels two ways.  One had an outer cabbage leaf with a stick in it.  The other was wrapped in foil.  I didn’t notice a difference in flavor.  I think the stick version is prettier!  Your pick.  In one cabbage leaf, drop in the onion-pepper mix, about a golf ball size.  On top of that, sprinkle some bread crumbs.  On top of that, lay a thick slice of goat cheese.  Wrap ‘er up.  Bring two opposites sides together to overlap in the middle.  Bring the other two sides together.  Stick that in another cabbage leaf, give it your new fancy wrap technique and stick a stick in it.  OR pop it in aluminum foil.  Rinse and repeat!

Grill and Serve (whew at last!):

Stick these puppies on the grill flipping both sides “until the cheese goes all melty” as Katty explained.  Hard to say how many minutes, make it hot, you can work it!  You can grill!  Eat the yummy spicy goat cheese parcel cabbage and all.  If you do the double cabbage option, you may want to remove the out layer before eating, but hey … it might taste good.  I’d wash this down with a nice Champagne … but that’s how I roll.

Oh grilled avocado how I love thee.  Who knew that such a simple concoction could fuel so much drool and want.  While Katty was whipping up her stunning Cabbage Sacks, she pulled out a ripe avocado from her veggie basket and said, “I’ll cook this!”  She’d not stuck an avocado on the grill before.  The avocado was perfectly ripe so not much was needed other than the two secret herbs and spices (salt and pepper, ssssh), some olive oil and a touch of balsamic vinegar.

Ingredients:

• ripe, avocado or two or three … like the dark, dark ones
• olive oil
• balsamic vinegar or a nice fancy pants vinegar could be nice

Do to it:

• cut in half and pit (hell stick the pit in water and grow a tree!)
• pour a touch of olive oil in the center
• pour a touch less vinegar in the center
• pepper and salt that baby
• stick on grill skin side to the heat  (don’t flip it!)

Serve:

We share here at Girl On Grill Action, so everyone gets a half.  No whining! Katty had this lovely meal with some red wine of the region, but a girly white like a Riesling or a Sauvignon Blanc could do the trick just fine.  Champagne goes without saying as it goes with everything.  Or whatever you crazy Californians use for white wine.  Put that wine cooler down!  A wine cooler is neither “wine” nor “cool.”

Katty kept the avocado on the grill while the other stuff was cooking.  I can’t imagine that you can over cook an avocado.  This dish was too easy and too good to not provide for your vegetarian or carnivorous guests.  You could even get all fancy and stick some chopped tomatoes, cilantro and onions in the center and call it  wanky guacamole.  Oooooo. I might try that!

Allo, allo, allo! At last, a fine day for the first grill of the season.  Katty (also pronounced kah-ee with a Scottish flair), our resident vegetarian, has whipped up some grub so fine you wouldn’t believe it don’t have any meat!  Being vegetarian provides a unique opportunity when partaking in some grilling.  As a vegetarian guest at bbqs, Katty would often get halloumi which is a greek cheese that is good for grilling.  I’ve not had it personally, but if at every bbq I was served grilled cheese, it would get a bit old.  In America as one of those crazy veg-heads that would arrive hungry at a bbq, I would get portabello mushroom burger.   These giant mushrooms on a grill have always been dry and flavorless soaking up every bit of moisture in my mouth no matter how marinated they were. I’d usually end up with a bit too much beer and not enough food, but made for a fun evening…weeeee!  Katty’s husbo claims he can do a portabello mushroom right.  I suppose we’ll have to see about that and get Katty to work his fancy pants Scottish secrets.

For this grill, Katty made Spicy Goat Cheese Parcels. Or my nickname, Cabbage Sacks because “wrap” is so last decade.  With that, she pulled together the most delicious salad from her garden.  It’s March, people!  She’s picking lettuce!  As a spur of the moment she added to that grilled avocado halves …. Um yum.  I so love the spur of the moment creations at grilling time.  And for the meatwads in the audience, a homemade Boudin Noir which is Black Pudding or Blood Sausage (muah ha ha!).  Despite the bipolar intentions, the whole meal for this omnivore was scrumptious.  Each devine piece will get it’s own write up following shortly.


Don’t forget the strawberries! A little melted chocolate with a touch of cream takes a innocent fruit and transcends it to a swirly chocolaty fun-fest.

Doing a little research on the things that one can grill over in these Euro-peean parts I came across a British advertisement for a GREAT deal (30p off!) on six pork brain faggots! There are many reasons why Americans find this product funny. Two of which are
1) no one eats brains in America
2) no one calls little falafel looking fritters “faggots”
but I won’t kick a brain outta bed for being called a faggot, there might be some delicious unknown ready to be discovered with the right dippin’ sauce and if homegirl is grilling it, I’ll be first in line to give it a try.

But more importantly …
There’s a new grill in town and she’s feel-ing good! After many a good memory on the ol’ Weber, this grill girl has hit the road leaving Mr. Faithful behind. She likes the guys in the “R-rated” movies … especially those with subtitles. And so we will be taking our grill and making it all grillades French style – yo. Yes, the French grill too! The charcoal is a bit different and the grills are more oveny open fiery like. Should be good. The cuts of meat are different, but with enough marinade and Belgian beer I’m sure it’ll all even out to recipes anyone can use in any country.

No no, we didn’t go.  A bit of a change in venue.  Turns out, girls grill all over the world.  They do.  We’ve got access to new ingredients and a whole new way to think about sausage.

Nothing compliments a hot day like some freshly brewed iced tea.  Hillary grabbed one of the few hot days here in Seattle to show some southern splash and serve up some of her special, sweet iced tea.  She brought water and tea bags to a boil, then poured into a jug that could take the heat.  She added some organic sugar to taste then poured over ice with some lemon and a sprig of mint.  PERFECT bevrageage for any barbeque.  And dang if it ain’t easy.

Hillary used:

Lipton tea bags

Organic Sugar

Ice Cubes

Lemon

Fresh Mint

Fish is such a tricky little bugger to grill. Sure you can pouch it or wrap it in banana leaves or parchment or bacon, but how is that different from cooking on the stove? So we here at Girl On Grill Action decided to stick the whole damn trout on the grill and see what happened. Grillmaster Adie, a recovering vegetarian, stepped right up to handle the slithery, slimy beast. Sure she was apprehensive. Sure she was wondering if this was such a good idea. After she shoved lemon, fresh herbs and a wee bit of salt and pepper (pah push it) in its belly, her concerns were off having a drink at the pub. As she walked the little monster to the hot grill, she was reminded of the crush she had on the drummer of Lake Trout. So many drummers, so little time. The trout (fish) was popped on the grill and grilled for awhile and then simply flipped for symmetry. The fish came out perfect with all the juicy oils still intact. This trout business will not dry out on the grill. She flaked some big chunks on the plate over a little puddle of pesto. A few cucumber spears and some overcooked broccoli and you’ve got yourself some gourmay-I-have-some-more-please shit. Also noted was the wow factor bringing trout on the road. Bring an entire fish, eyeballs and all to a labor day barbeque and looky whose going to be Ms. Popular. We loved the trout, much better than Cats, we’d do it again and again.

Adie Used:

Trout, whole with eyes

Lemon

Rosemary

Basil

Salt and Pepper

Grilling broccoli is not easy. Broccoli doesn’t jump to your mind when you’re thinking veggies on a stick. Sticks are usually adorned with peppers, onions, zucchini and things that get all juicy when the heat is on. Broccoli carries fears of catching fire. So, Adie decided to pouch it. She did two pouches. One was dressed with extra virgin olive oil, crushed garlic, salt and pepper over the broccoli. The other had the same but with a little water added. Both were pouched into a beautiful swan to impress the guests. The swan had a little head big body thing going on, but no shame for trying. When making broccoli pouch swans remember to be liberal with the tin foil. As a result, the pouches did their thing and the one with water added came out superior. Also, it doesn’t take long to grill, so don’t put it on first or it’ll get a muted green trending brown color ( thus no photo of finished result ). You want to go for a perky green when cooking broccoli, which doesn’t take long to achieve.

For the broccoli:

Broccoli florets

Garlic

Salt n Pepper (pah push it real good)

Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Foil for pouching into decorative Swan or Pterodactyl

Wee bit of water