Get Grillin' - Grilled Bratwurst, Onions and Potatoes!

Howdy folks! How’s your summer going? It is officially summer, right? The sun actually came out for a long while yesterday. Today’s sky is rather gray, but at least it’s not raining! Yippee!

Today’s post is about cooking entire meals on the grill. Now when I say grill, you should know that to me grilling means stepping onto my patio, flipping on the gas, and pressing the igniter button.(I give credit to Pam at Sidewalk Shoes for a similar grill description!) Grilling to my neighbor involves heavy bags of charcoal and lighter fluid. Nothing wrong with charcoal, I’m not knocking it. Just sayin’ that I’m sticking with my igniter button method.

Anywhooo (I’m saying that a lot lately), I can prepare an entire meal on my grill, and I don’t have the mammoth sized grills that grace the pages of home décor magazines. Cooking on the grill enables you to keep your kitchen cool, and for those of us without central air-conditioning, keeping cool in the summer is a big plus. To accomplish this task, all I need is some heavy duty aluminum foil and some high-sided aluminum foil pans. I should note that I have used my regular bake ware (heavy duty glass, ceramic, and metal) and heavy duty pots/pans on the grill with great success. I have found, however, that the aluminum pans are the perfect size for my grill dimensions, and I don’t have to deal with pot handles. I snag the aluminum foil baking pans at the dollar store, and can typically get 3 uses out of each one before recycling them.

To turn your grill into a stove/oven, all you have to do is a) determine how to layout your pans, b) line the top of your grill grate with aluminum foil, c) fire up the grill, and d) get cooking!

For the meal represented in this photo, I needed to divide my grill into 4 cooking areas. I needed one open space for grilling the bratwurst, one covered space for the onions, one covered space for the potatoes, and one covered space for grilling delicate veggies or even rolls (for you gluten eaters). I lined ¾ of the grill with foil, leaving an open space for grilling the wursts. Then I fired up the grill on the high setting.

The grill only takes about 6 minutes to be fully heated, so I immediately started prepping the rest of the meal. For the potatoes, I washed up a colander full of pretty little golds,sliced them less than ½ inch thick, tossed with some olive oil, lemon juice, and seasoned salt, and threw in a couple sprigs of oregano.I then dumped them into one of the high sided aluminum pans and covered them with foil. Next came the onions. Two large onions were sliced, tossed with olive oil, seasoned with salt, and dumped into a second pan.I didn’t cover these as I didn’t want them to steam. The brats were slashed at 1 inch intervals.All these items were then placed on the grill as shown. My grill heats up to a full 500 degrees, so I turned the heat down to medium, which is about 375-400 on my grill. Proceed cooking just as you would if you were preparing them inside.The brats finished grilling before the veggies, so I put them right on the onions to keep them warm as well as help flavor the onions. The potatoes took about 30 minutes, and I uncovered them the last 5 minutes or so. You can warm buns up on the space left open, or as in our gluten free house, spear your lovely brats with a stick, you know, like used for lollypops, and eat them ala stick.That’s all it takes! So if you find that you can’t take the heat of the kitchen, go on outdoors and fire up your grill. You can prepare meals “family style” such as this one, or you could make individual packets for each eater. That’s loads of fun, too, since each person can individualize their packet. Just be sure to remember whose is whose! I make different shaped packets to keep it all straight!

Anywhooo (there’s that word again!) be creative, experiment! You’ll be thrilled with the results. What’s your favorite meal to grill?