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How to Make Grilling a Romantic Valentine’s Experience

January 31, 2023 by bbqpros

If you’re looking to celebrate your Valentine’s Day in a way that’s intimate and personal, skip the date night out and stay in. Many people believe they need to go out to a fancy restaurant for Valentine’s Day. Others think they need to spend hundreds on a fancy hotel room. However, nothing beats putting in the effort to make home a special venue. Cleaning up around the house, decorating appropriately, and cooking something homemade really can’t be beat. In fact, grilling can even be romantic. Want to know how to make grilling a romantic Valentine’s Day experience? BBQ Pros have you covered.

Cook Something Light

One of the reasons barbecuing doesn’t sound very romantic is that most barbecued foods are pretty heavy. They’re messy, greasy, and don’t exactly make us feel our best. However, cooking on a grill and even using barbecue sauce aren’t inherently at fault here.

If you want to make grilling romantic for Valentine’s Day, you can absolutely do so without ruining the mood. Simply cook something light and easy to eat. White meat chicken is a great way to keep the meal easier on the stomach. Therefore, it’s less likely to create any unsavory interruptions during any… later activities.

Avoid Messy Foods

If getting your hands sticky and covered in barbecue sauce isn’t your idea of romance, avoid messy foods. Ensure whatever you cook can be eaten with utensils. A good ol’ steak is one way to go. Or, if you want to do something a bit more original, try grilling some chicken and veggie skewers. Then, when they’re cooked, remove everything from the skewer and put it neatly onto a plate. From there, it can be eaten with a fork and you can avoid a messy face.

If you’re looking for some great sides to go with something grilled, a steak is paired nicely will grilled corn, which can also be sliced off the cob and eaten with a spoon. If you’ve already got veggies covered via skewers or something similar, making a pot of rice is an easy addition. Make a bed of rice on each plate to pile the grilled goods onto.

Don’t Break a Sweat (Unless You’re into That)

If you and your partner find romance in cleaning up and looking your best, avoid overworking while grilling. Getting sweaty over a dirty grill isn’t a black-tie move. There are two ways to avoid dirtying up while cooking:

  1. Ensure everything is pre-prepped. Trim and dice chicken ahead of time. Cut veggies ahead of time. Even put them all on the skewers ahead of time. In the time after you’ve showered and dressed for your night in, all you should have left is pulling something out of the fridge, putting it on the grill, and sitting down to wait for it.
  2. Alternatively, cook everything ahead of time and put it somewhere to keep it warm while you clean up for dinner. This works well for many dishes, just make sure not to plate it all and set it out to get cold. Keep the plates in a warm oven, cover them with plate covers, or refrain from plating until you’re ready to eat. Just don’t leave meat on a hot grill or it will dry out and overcook, even if you’ve turned it off. That extra cool down time is enough to overcook everything.

Don’t Forget Dessert

Lastly, don’t forget a romantic dessert for your Valentine’s date. Even if you aren’t a dessert chef, you can still buy something quality to surprise your partner with. Some of the best romantic desserts we can recommend:

  • Chocolate mousse
  • A warm, chocolate brownie with a scoop of vanilla ice cream
  • Apple pie or crumble with vanilla ice cream
  • Chocolate fondue or dipped strawberries (or other kinds of fruit)
  • Homemade chocolate chip cookies, still warm from the oven

Filed Under: BBQ, BBQ Cleaning

Why Is My Grill Peeling Inside?

December 8, 2022 by bbqpros

Why Is My Grill Peeling Inside?

Owning a grill means a lot of happy evenings gathered with friends and family. However, upkeeping a grill can come with some real head-scratchers. For example, you might find the inside of your grill is peeling. What does it mean? Is your grill getting damaged? Let’s find out why your grill is peeling inside and how to fix it.

Is a Grill Peeling Inside Cause for Concern?

If you see the inside of your grill peeling, you might be quite alarmed! Is your grill sustaining damage from the heat of the flames? Is this a vital lamination peeling off? Worry not. The peeling isn’t from the grill; it’s from the food! That is, your grill doesn’t have any paint or lamination on the inside. The stuff you see peeling – that looks remarkably similar to paint or sealant – is actually carbonized grease. It’s pretty harmless.

What Causes a Grill Peeling Inside?

So, carbonized grease: what causes it? Well, while you’re grilling, a lot of smoke and fumes collect in the lid of your grill. In the smoke from your cooking food, there’s aerosolized grease and carbon. Over time – and many great cookouts – your grill forms a layer of this grease and carbon, and the two harden together. As they harden and repeatedly cook, the grease carbonizes. The layer can begin to bubble or peel.

While this layer of bubbling, peeling, carbonized grease may look and feel like flaking paint, it’s not nearly as dangerous. It’s actually completely harmless, even if it gets in your food. Though, your food may not taste as nice with charred grease flakes added to it for seasoning!

Removing Carbonized Grease

If you’re not a fan of that crispy, flaky layer on your grill lid, you’re in luck. Carbonized grease can be removed fairly easily with a little elbow grease.

  1. Using a steel-bristled brush, scrub any loose bits of carbonized grease from the inside of your grill lid. You should be able to remove most of it with this brush alone.
  2. If the brush isn’t cutting it, get yourself a scraping tool and get a bit more aggressive. There may be some particularly tricky spots that you have to fight 1-on-1.
  3. Finally, to finish the task, use some grill grate cleaning fluid and give your grill lid a final scrub. This will loosen any remainders and collect any of the carbon dust left on the lid.

Full Service Grill Maintenance

If you’re not finding that bubbly, flaky mess to be particularly appetizing, but don’t find the work to be either, get some assistance from the pros. Ashton BBQ Pros do full service grill maintenance and can come right to your home to get it done. Your grill will be in perfect working order – sans grease flakes – in no time. Just give us a call and we’ll work out a good time to pay you a visit.

Filed Under: BBQ Cleaning

How to Successfully Grill Vegetables

November 24, 2022 by bbqpros

How to Successfully Grill Vegetables

Grilling is a really fun way to cook your dinner, and it tastes amazing! But, there’s more to grilling than burger patties and hotdogs. In fact, you can use your grill to improve almost any kind of dinner food imaginable. In fact, you can even grill vegetables to go with your main course. The problem is, grilling vegetables isn’t that easy for people inexperienced with them. How do you successfully grill vegetables? Let BBQ Pros impart some advice.

Know Your Vegetable

The first step is knowing your vegetable. Each vegetable cooks differently. You can’t forget that when moving them to the grill.

Firstly, you’ll need to consider that not every vegetable can be tossed onto a grill so easily. Some will require different preparation to grill.

Likewise, you’ll also need to ensure you keep cook times in mind if cooking different kinds of vegetables for the same meal. For example, carrots take a lot longer to grill than tomatoes (which we’ll call a vegetable for the purposes of this article.)

Don’t Grill Too Hot

One of the leading rules to successfully grill vegetables is not to grill too hot. The key to grilling most vegetables is to grill slow and steady. If you keep your temperature too high while grilling vegetables, you’re liable to char the outside and leave the inside crunchy and uncooked. This is especially true for things like carrots or potatoes. Keeping the temperature on medium or low will give the inside of the vegetables time to cook without burning the outside in the process.

Slice Your Veggies

If you want to grill something like carrots or potatoes, you’ll have better success by slicing them. Any kind of hard, root vegetable will take a long time to cook through if left whole. Cut the cook time in half by cutting the veggie in half.

Use Skewers Where Necessary

To successfully grill juicier vegetables, like bell peppers or tomato, you might want to use a skewer. This is great for combining different flavors. Plus, then you can throw some pieces of chicken on there to go with your veggies.

To create some successful skewers, slice up your bell peppers, then bend them into a loop and stick the skewer through the ends. If you want to infuse your chicken with flavor, you can even stick one end of a slice of bell pepper, then a piece of chicken, then wrap the other end of the bell pepper around the chicken to skewer it.

Skewers make small pieces of food easier to cook. Then, you don’t have to chomp down on a quarter of a bell pepper, but you also won’t lose small slices to the fire.

Get Your Barbecue Repaired

If you’re a huge fan of eating barbecue, but your grill isn’t up to it, have it repaired by your neighborhood grill professionals. Ashton BBQ and Grill Pros are here to help in your time of need. Just give us a call and we’ll make sure you’re eating barbecue in no time!

Filed Under: BBQ

The Best Foods to Grill for a Winter Barbecue

October 31, 2022 by bbqpros

The Best Foods to Grill for a Winter Barbecue

Looking for an excuse to have friends over this winter break? Holidays aren’t the only way to lure people over – everyone loves a good barbecue! In winter? Sure! Winter may not seem like the season for grilling but, with the right consideration for tastes, it can be just as good as summer. So, pull out your grill, give it a good scrub, and get to work on these fantastic foods for a winter barbecue!

Chestnuts

You’ve heard the one about roasting chestnuts on an open fire, right? Well, if you’ve got a charcoal grill but no fireplace, there’s no better place to roast them. Break out the chestnuts, pour them onto the grate above your open charcoal fire, and get yourself a-roasting. Roasted chestnuts are great for snacking on or for crushing and putting into baked goods or salads.

Winter Salad

Speaking of salads, if you want a filling winter salad, here are some grilled goods you can use to bulk it up. 

  • Crushed, roasted chestnuts. These protein-packed nuts will provide you with energy to last the evening.
  • Grilled veggies. Give your salad some extra smoky flavor by grilling some tomatoes, asparagus, artichoke, bell peppers, or acorn squash to go on it. Just be sure not to overdo it – you don’t want your veggies mushy!
  • Sliced pork chop or chicken. Grilled meat is a great way to bulk up your salad. Slice it ahead of time and cook it quickly. Or, wrap it, whole, in foil and then slice it after. You can even do classic barbecue chicken if you want a bit of that classic barbecue flavor on your salad.

Foil Packs

Looking for something special to make for one of those chilly winter dinners? Gather your family and friends into your kitchen to make custom foil packs. Start by making a buffet of uncooked foods to choose from. Stuffing, pieces of seasoned meat, and chopped vegetables are fantastic choices. Lay out a couple layers of foil for each participant and have them pick out exactly the foods they want. Once each pack is filled, it can be closed up tight and taken out to the grill.

Instead of grilling your foil packs on the rack, spread out your charcoal coals and nestle those packs right down in them. Be sure to turn them partway through cooking and use a meat thermometer to ensure all meat is cooked safely. Then, break open those packs and enjoy.

Pork, Apples, and Cranberries

Did you know pork goes fabulously with apples or cranberries? The tang of the fruit pairs with the meat perfectly. If you’re partial to pork, you can’t get better than grilling it with one of these delicious fruits. In fact, if you want to grill them to perfection, take a page out of the foil pack book.

By wrapping a piece of pork chop with some apple slices or cranberries in a piece of foil, you hold in the juices. The juices from the fruit will soak into the meat, filling it with a sweetness that it doesn’t have otherwise. Plus, if you throw in a couple slices of lemon, the acid from the citrus will make the meat more tender.

Want a side to go with this delicious entree? Plate it on a bed of stuffing and you’ll have one memorable meal.

Filed Under: BBQ

Repair an Old Grill Instead of Replacing It

September 30, 2022 by bbqpros

Repair an Old Grill Instead of Replacing It

When a grill gets old, it can begin to rust, break down, and stop working. The instinctual response to this kind of deterioration might be to just buy a new grill. However, a grill is a simple piece of equipment. Most of it is just a big hunk of metal. Therefore, save yourself a lot of money and invest in repair. Here’s why you should repair an old grill instead of replacing it.

Grill Costs Are Inflated

One of the main reasons why it’s more economical to repair a grill than to replace it is that grill prices are much higher than the cost of the materials they’re made from. So, once you have one, you’ve already paid your dues getting the bones of your grill. It’s much cheaper to do maintenance on it by replacing broken parts and sprucing up the appearance than shelling out for an all new one.

Grills Are Simple to Repair

When it comes down to it, a grill is mostly the metal frame that holds a few key pieces of equipment. If your grill is looking worse for wear, 90% of changing that is giving the metal frame a tune-up. Removing rust, recoating the metal, and ensuring the parts housed in that metal body are still working properly.

Make Your Grill Beautiful Again

If your grill is looking pretty unsightly, it’s time to call Ashton BBQ Pros. We can do a complete refurbishment of your grill and bring it back to looking like new. Our full-service refurbishment cleaning means bringing your grill back to life entirely. We remove 85%-95% of dirt, grease, and carbon buildup from your grill. This is a large part of what hurts the appearance of an old grill. 

Additionally, we paint your grill. All of those parts of your grill’s exterior that used to be shiny and beautiful can look that way again. Chipping paint, grime, and rust can really ruin the grill exterior’s appearance. Giving it a new coating of paint can do a lot to revitalize it.

Furthermore, we polish your grill. Polishing your grill will bring out the shine in all of the metal parts, making it look like new again, even on the inside.

Repair an Old Grill in Toronto

While the appearance of a grill is an important part of feeling like it’s doing alright, the actual guts of the grill are even more important. Our full-service refurbishment includes an inspection. If there are parts that aren’t working properly, we’ll repair or replace them. Because servicing grills is our whole job here at Ashton BBQ Pros, we have parts for most major grill types and brands. Therefore, our repair services are quick and efficient.

Give us a call today if you have questions about our grill repair and cleaning services. We look forward to working with you and getting your grill back in shape.

Filed Under: BBQ, BBQ Cleaning, BBQ Refurbish, BBQ Repair, BBQ Service

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Repair and Cleaning

Before you remove and dispose of your BBQ, call us. If it is a high-end BBQ (DCS, Firemagic, Lynx, Vermont Castings, Weber, Ducane, Viking, etc) we can clean and refurbish the unit with new parts, burners, ignition systems, etc., for just a fraction of the of the price of a new BBQ.

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