Judging from Mike's results, it looks like this recipe/technique is a true winner. He served his with a side of vanilla ice cream and says that it was very much like an inside out banana split. He's got plans for fancying it up the next time around, using better chocolate and topping it with a sprinkle of toasted nuts. The picture above is the before shot, click here to see the banana after it's been on the grill for a while.
Do you make amazing grilled lamb chops with gremolada? Out-of-this-world ribs with tamarind-Jack Daniels sauce? Burgers so good your friends say you should open a concession at the football stadium? Submit your grilling recipe with a short video demonstration (three minutes max) to Mario Batali's Ultimate Grilling Challenge for a chance to win a ton of great (and some just plain weird) prizes.
Submissions are due July 30 and the contest winner will be announced in October on The Rachel Ray Show. The grand prize winner will receive a VIP weekend at Texas Motor Speedway including a pre-race tailgate party with Mario Batali and Rachael Ray at the Dickies 500 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race. Semi-finalists will console themselves with $500 worth of Mario Batali The Italian Kitchen products and a year's supply of VIVA paper towels (though apparently two rolls a month is a lifetime supply). Quarter-finalists receive a bunch more Mario swag, including - get this - His n' Hers Mario Crocs (AKA, the only thing more embarrassing than riding a tandem bike). $1.00 will be donated to The Food Bank For New York City for every entry received.
The contest is intended to promote the portly redhead's new Italian Grill cookbook. The book goes universes beyond burgers and hot dogs, with recipes for grilled flatbreads, vegetables and pizzas as well as meat. Think grilled Guinea hen breasts with rosemary and pesto, grilled baby octopus with olive-orange vinaigrette. Italian grilling, as Mario explains, never involves thick, sweet barbecue sauces or salty, soy- or Tabasco-based marinades. It rarely involves more than olive oil, wine, citrus juice and herbs and spices. Though, as he admits, the recipes in the book are not pure Italian, they are somewhat influenced by America's grand grilling culture. We are, after all, the country that invented the backyard barbecue.
The Grand Rapids Press has a list of several dozen beef, chicken vegetable and fish tips for your Independence Day bash. Try wrapping fish in prosciutto or bacon to prevent drying. And cook snapper and other delicate fish in foil or on a plank so it doesn't fall apart.
Hawaii's KGMB has a video of Tyler Florence making a grilled pork tenderloin for a big 4th of July cookout. He suggests stocking up at a wholesale club like Sam's to save when feeding a crowd.
BBQ.about.com has chicken, pork and beef brisket recipes, with ideas for kebabs, potato salads, ice tea, sangria, and something called 'flag fudge.'
Nashville's WSMV teaches you how to build a top notch grilling station, from grills to spatulas to thermometers to lighter fluid.
Kalyn's Kitchen has some cool 'think outside the burger' ideas special for the 4th: grilled shish kabobs with whole wheat pita and tzatziki, grilled salmon with maple syrup glaze, grilled chicken with tarragon mustard marinade, grilled tri-tip with salsa.
Epicurious has a bunch of burger ideas: Feta burgers with grilled red onions, jalapeno burgers, open face lamb burgers with mint yogurt sauce, buffalo burgers with pickled onions and smoky pepper sauce, sun-dried tomato burgers with balsamic-glazed onions, porcini-Gorgonzola burgers with veal demi-glace, tamarind-glazed turkey burgers, sesame tuna burgers....
Also on Epicurious: A complete guide to grilling. Rubs and marinade recipes, technique tips, how to test for doneness, where to taste the best regional barbecue. With input from grill guru Steve Raichlen.
Martha Stewart has a very tasteful (naturally) Fourth of July menu. Check out the ribs.
Global Gourmet has another grilling guide. Check out its rundown of recipes from their favorite grilling cookbooks. Whoopi Goldberg's Big Bad Ass Beef Ribs, anyone?
Even vegetarians get in on the grilling action, at Vegetarians in Paradise, with recipes for Independence Day grilled tempeh steak, grilled veggie skewers, grilled red onions and grilled corn on the cob.
Philadelphia Magazine writer Jason Fagone spent one year profiling some of the most divinely outsized personalities in the world of competitive eating. While Akron house painter Coondog O'Karma makes a midlife grab at glory via rapid-fire pizza consumption, Bill "El Wingador" Simmons attempts to reclaim Wong Bowl supremacy from 90lb Sonya "Black Widow" Thomas, and day trader Tim Janus dons the mantle of the mysterious Eater X, it all comes down to one shared hunger. They all want to win the Mustard Yellow Belt of International Hot Dog Eating Supremacy back from the Japanese who'd dominated the Nathan's Famous Fourth of July International Hot Dog-Eating Contest nearly every year since 1997.
Back in July of 2001, that would mean beating the record of 25 1/8 set the previous year by Kazutoyo "The Rabbit" Arai.
Veggie burgers are a large part of my diet. Whether homemade or of the Morningstar/Amy's/Dr.Praeger's variety, I eat 'em plain, pile on sauteed veggies, or cut them up and throw them in a salad. They never get old.
As one would expect, I also tend to order them when I'm out to dinner (often, they're one of only a few vegetarian options available). Sometimes they're amazing - in fact, I find that, not surprisingly, tiny, out-of-the-way cafes and family-run kitchens have the best, crispiest, most satisfying veggie burgers. This includes a crispy outer shell, just the right amount of spices, a good protein-to-vegetable ratio, an egg or two to bind the mix together, and a non-mushy middle.
Lately, though, I've found an unsettling trend among larger restaurant veggie burgers: The outer layer is crisped to perfection, but the middles are completely underdone! (If you're furrowing your brow, think of it as ordering a steak weIl done and it showing up rare).
Grilled fruit is a healthy alternative dessert, and easy in the summer when the grill is already going. Almost any fruit can be grilled as long as it holds its shape through the process. smaller fruits can be skewered along with chunks of larger fruits. A side of sauce or cream for dipping is a good addition to your caramelized treats, as well as a scoop of vanilla ice cream.
Trying this out couldn't be easier. Get some ripe pears and peaches but not too ripe. Quarter, core, and peel each one into four wedges. Grill until caramelized and smoky, and serve with a small mound of whipped cream on the side. I grilled the ones pictured here earlier in the day and then hid them in the fridge for later. No one complained about not having cookies or cake that night!
Our intrepid pack of testers blind-chomped their way through fifty different franks, hot dogs and wieners in hot pursuit of the top tube steak in all the land. Not a single chicken, turkey or tofu dog made the final cut, while beef and pork reigned supreme. Did your favorite frank lead the pack?
And to blog about it. And to share it with your friends. Don't believe me? Check out these recent items from around the interweb. As I said: All the cool kids are doing it.
In the era of "green" mink coats and "green" toenail polish, it's no surprise that there's a ton of advice out there on how to grill green this summer. Here are some of the top hints from across the wide, wide Web.
AOL Food has a whole slew of green tips. Try using a chimney starter rather than lighter fluid to get your briquettes going - it puts off way less CO2.
The Green Daily suggests buying a hybrid grill, so you can use the more efficient electric or gas element for the main source of heat and burn just a bit of wood for that charred aroma.
Char your burgers with environmentally-friendly charcoal: Nature's Grilling all-natural charcoal has no added chemicals or fillers, just pure carbonized wood. Their briquettes, they say, burn hotter and longer with less ash and no acrid aftertaste. Plus, they're made from wood harvested from region's that meet strict "resource management practices" and the company claims to plant 1,000,000 trees a year to lower their carbon footprint. Cowboy Charcoal also promises all-natural charcoal with no petroleum taste.
The Sierra Club lists their favorite environmentally-friendly grills. Consider a solar grill, like the Sport Solar Oven. At just ten pounds, you can carry it on picnics, on your boat and to the beach. On a sunny day, it can reach temperatures up to 260 degrees in the United States, up to 300 degrees in equatorial regions.
Lastly, use a non-toxic cleaner, like SoyClean BBQ Grill Cleaner, a soy-based product which is biodegradable, easy on your hands, and doesn't emit caustic fumes. Orange Plus cleanser is phosphate free and biodegradable, but promises to get the touch greasy bits off the grill.
You can even buy completely biodegradable disposable plates made of sugar cane and cornstarch, from Simply Biodegradable. Throw it all away in their compostable eco garbage bags, and Al Gore will come paste a gold star on your forehead.
I'm not gonna pretend that this picture is pretty, or in the least bit appetizing, but I will note that the results are disturbingly delicious. The heart of the matter is that I went to a cookout a few weekends ago and was offered a grilled chicken heart by a friend who has yet to serve me anything that is less than madly tasty. Emboldened by this, I picked up a package of chicken hearts on a shopping jaunt this week, and started perusing my favorite recipe sites for marinades. It didn't take me long to find a 1956 James Beard recipe suggesting that these would make a dandy appetizer for a group of 25. Twenty-five of whom, I'm not entirely sure, 'cause even as staunchly carnivorous as my pals tend to be, few of 'em dig getting their offal on as much as I do, and I wouldn't subject them to it. There are exceptions, though.
Some friends came over this afternoon to serve as panel members for AOL Food's upcoming Hot Dog Taste Test. As I tended the grill between rounds, one of them began holding forth about how methods of barbecuing and grilling really were born of the necessity to bring greater flavor to cheap and previously discarded cuts of meat, and how folks were getting way too fancy-schmancy with the whole thing these days. I left my post at the flames, walked him to the fridge, pulled out the plastic container full of marinating hearts and started putting them on bamboo skewers.
He shut up and started eating.
James Beard's 1956 Grilled Chicken Hearts Recipe on Epicurious
(Note: In the above pic, I was out of sherry and subbed in brandy, which proved perfectly yummy.)
I've always wanted to throw my own pig pickin,' and my departure from North Carolina finally gave me an excuse. So I went for it - whole hog, if you will, earlier this spring.
A pig pickin,' known in other parts of the country as a hog roast, or simply, a barbecue, is a Carolina tradition involving a hog, a converted oil drum cooker and a lot of time.
Pickin' (ALWAYS drop the 'g') have been a stable of church fundraisers, family reunions and political rallies in the South since long before the Civil War, as pork was always much cheaper than beef. You can't feed 100 people much more cheaply than with a nice hog and all the fixin's - baked beans, hush puppies, slaw and sweet tea.
When I was younger and had trouble falling asleep, I used to fantasize about my perfect birthday party. I would plan everything in my head -- my dress, activities, the guests, even the flavors of cake I would serve.
Now when I can't sleep, I imagine my dream kitchen. It's enormous and beautiful and light, and it opens seamlessly into an outdoor deck area where I have another (you guessed it) huge kitchen. The outdoor kitchen is for serving guests and hanging by the pool (with hot tub and waterfall) in the summer. It has a gorgeous grill with a rotisserie, as well as a smoker and a shiny stainless steel refrigerator, sink and dishwasher. This is a bit embarrassing, but sometimes when my boyfriend and I are bored, we like to drool over these appliances in magazines and stores.
Who wants to use their imagination? After the jump, let's play make believe, and look at some amazing outdoor kitchen equipment and pretend that we own it.
Do you make amazing grilled lamb chops with gremolada? Out-of-this-world ribs with tamarind-Jack Daniels sauce? Burgers so good your friends say you should open a concession at the football stadium? Submit your grilling recipe with a short video demonstration (three minutes max) to 
And to blog about it. And to share it with your friends. Don't believe me? Check out these recent items from around the interweb. As I said: All the cool kids are doing it.
When I was younger and had trouble falling asleep, I used to fantasize about my perfect birthday party. I would plan everything in my head -- my dress, activities, the guests, even the flavors of cake I would serve.
Chocolate-stuffed bananas on the grill
Tyler Florence welcomes new daughter
Beware kids' menus!
