Subscribe to our newsletter!
Subscribe to our newsletter!
Subscribe to our newsletter!
Well, spring is in full bloom here in beautiful SoCal and one of the best ways for me to get the spring cleaning bug going is to start outside while the weather is just about as perfect as could be. Unfortunately the days will get much much hotter and hotter (last years high was 118f!! crazy) as the season grows slowly into summer I eventually find myself cleaning, organizing, and fixing my way back into the cool air conditioned spaces, but for now It’s time to take full advantage of some much needed work to get done. Of course the driving force behind this idea of “Garden To Grill” with my project is hospitality, food, hosting, and a good dose of glass half full perspective when observing my current living environment. I wanted to walk you through how I pieced things together as the project progressed and my mindset going into it. Hopefully it will serve as a reminder for anyone reading this post to take another hard look at the spaces around you with a more inviting and comforting vision. I have been wanting to make this awkward sort of space (see below) that’s tucked away towards the garden area of my house into a garden/grill hangout spot instead of the 90’s red brick jacuzzi area (jacuzzi was removed years before we bought the house) and I new it was going to need to some serious love and attention from me and a my good friends over at The Home Depot…they’re basically my second home and are helping me out BIG TIME for this one. Time to strap in for a stick-to-your-bones hardy blog post cause I got a lot to go through, so as usual, lets dive into it!
I started this project a few months back with a half painted white brick wall that I just never ended up finishing for various reasons, but it gave me the base idea for what I wanted the bricks to look like overall. This was too white for me so I decided to add in a 1/3 cup of dark brown masonry paint to the white masonry paint to tone down the bleached white look. Plus I’ve been needing to put some fresh concrete and new bricks on the corner…minor details, but they have such a big impact on the finish.
This old garden table needed a fresh look and some straightening along with the string lights that have fallen several times because I didn’t tie up proper cables to hold them… I swear I live and work by the saying “never enough time to do it right, but always enough time to do it again”. One day I’ll learn to do it right the first time as much as possible instead of repeat work, but bad habits do indeed die hard.
like most folks, I’m not the cleanest of painters in the world, so making sure to majorly overlap surfaces with masking tape/paper (the wider the tape the better) makes life a whole lot easier for me when it comes to spray painting. Especially when there’s a slight breeze working against you which there always seems to be. I gave myself at least 12+ inches of coverage for areas I didn’t want spatter, but just make sure to focus on straight clean tape lines that come directly in contact to the desired painting area and undesired painting area for a clean finish. *Preferred paint sprayer for future painting projects.
I even had a piece of cardboard on hand that I could use in awkwardly tight spaces to try and avoid misting paint spatter which really worked out better than I expected. Another good tip when painting large surfaces it to always have a pale of fresh water with a rag on standby in case the project gets a little (or a lot) out of hand and mine did from time to time. A little fresh wipe up after a misting mistake makes all the difference in the end. Fresh paint cleans up fairly easy as long as you get to it before the initial drying stage so having everything ready beforehand is key to successful painting.
Next Phase of the project was putting everything together (30+ items in total) with all the joy of instructions and extra hardware that always makes me second guess my build…lol
Can I just say I LOVE when my wife gets involved with these projects! I ordered some unfinished wood side tables from Home Depot that needed a little bit of love and she got right to it. The wood stain was literally the perfect match to compliment the other wood tones in the chairs, bench, and planters. Teamwork makes the dreamwork baby!
I also got a few funky old world style lanterns that I might end up hanging, but for now they’ll be used with an artificial candle as a flickering background piece that ads a pop of character to the space along with some soft light. Also, I’ll be using that mini half wood barrel for some incredible succulents that need a permanent place to live from my front yard. On a side-note Our family chicken nicknamed ‘Fluff Butt” by our kids was seriously considering using them as a nest box. She’s an absolute character of a bird that quite possibly was a person in her past life…lol!
As most of you know that follow me on social media I can’t live without my fresh grown veggies, herbs, and fruit whenever possible, so for me this patio needed a few additions from Bonnie via Home Depot to make it a little more green and cozy for my taste. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all about decorative plants here and there, but peppering in a few fruitful plants that are useful in the kitchen can add a serious sense of life and vigor to your seasons. These rectangle wood planters were the perfect sizes for varying plant growth too!
My main focus for this back patio area was Jalapeños, Beefsteak tomatoes, and a medley of herbs. I use Jalapeños in a wide array of things including the red sweet ones for dried red pepper and chicken feed later in the season. I usually NEVER have enough chilies on hand, so the more the merrier. Plus the white garden cart is a MUST HAVE. It’s super lightweight and can be used as a bar/grill cart after a good wipe down
Last but definitely not least in the assembly process was buidling this incredibly gorgeous and beast of a cooking machine the Timeberline 1300 Traeger grill from Home Depot. Super easy to put together, but just make sure you have a helping hand for a few of the heavy lifting parts. My little boy was seriously into building this thing so we could get lunch started and boy did we have a good lunch….AND dinner. Keep reading and you’ll see what we came up with and you’ll start to get a real feel for why I really wanted this “Garden To Grill’ area done right.
The two favorite methods I really like to take advantage of with Traeger grills are smoking and long cooking times since its so consistent with temperature and smoke. Here I wanted to lightly cold smoke this cured salmon that has equal parts sugar and salt along with fresh lemon zest and chopped dill. I cured it in the morning for about 4 hours before smoking.
*Mix everything in a bowl until aromatic then cover the salmon filet and let it sit in the fridge covered for around 4hours. The longer it cures, the saltier it gets.
After its cured, I smoked it at 175f on Traegars‘ “super smoke” mode for 30-40 minutes to give it a kiss of smoke flavor without affecting the texture of the salmon. I wanted to avoid cooking the fish AT ALL in order to get clean thin slices for this particular recipe. If you do attempt this, just make sure that the salmon has a solid chill on it from the fridge before you put it on the grill otherwise you’ll risk cooking the exterior of the salmon filet.
Cream Cheese Spread:
Candied Lemon:
Pickled Red Onions:
Now that lunch is out of the way it’s time to keep pushing on to the finish line. I planted a bunch of jasmine around the border of the patio and needed a trellis/fence line to help support them as they’ll hopefully grow out of control over the next few years. These round wood fence posts and wood garden stakes worked out so well I’m considering doing this elsewhere on my property for some of my roses.
For the most part everything is built, painted, stained, washed, and organized the way I envisioned and it is time to put this “Grill to Garden” patio to good use! I have two extra of these lounge chairs that I’m storing behind the wagon wheel swing for when there’s more guests. They fold up PERFECTLY for storage. I love it!
Traeger time baby. I know tomahawk ribeyes are very very trendy, but I just had to shell out the cash for this one to christen my new Traeger Timberline 1300 the way I imagined. I seasoned it with salt, fresh cracked black pepper, rosemary, and thyme then its going into the Traeger at 375f for 20 minutes to break the initial chill and give it a good rare-medium rare internal temp.
Once its to the proper temp, I remove it from the grill and let it rest for about 20 minutes with butter, spring garlic (from the garden), thyme, and rosemary. After that I turn the grill to 500f and cook it for another 2-3 minutes on each side for a really nice caramelization then back to the resting tray again and its ready to slice.
Chimichurri:
This might be one of my favorite salads in the entire world and is such a great fit to this meal. Crispy wedges of iceberg lettuce, juice slices of beefsteak tomatoes, crumbly smoked bacon, pickled red onions, and a homemade “ranch” dressing that beats any store bought brand by 10 miles. This is my kind of meal to finish off a long outdoor project.
Ranch Dressing:
Well, that’s it folks! I really hope you enjoyed the process of this backyard “Garden To Grill” update with some MAJOR HELP from my good friends over at Home Depot. They literally had everything I could have wished for and more when I went to HomeDepot.com and started to brainstorm this project. I can’t wait to embark on my next indoor/outdoor project and if you guys enjoyed this post, leave a comment and let me know what you’d like to see me do next! If you want a more visual feel for how this project went, go check out my IG story Home Depot highlights to see how this all went down!
When you have a smoking Traeger Pro 575 loaded up with hickory and some beautiful whole roasting ingredients ready to go, it is truly the most wonderful time of year. I have been using my Traeger for about a year now and I fall in love with it more and more every time I get something new to cook with it…this time its whole roasted prime rib, salmon, and the unbelievably delicious celery root. I’m going to walk you through how I go about whole roasting these three items with my set-up, but if you don’t have a Traeger Pro 575, I’d highly recommend getting one as a early x-mas present because it is truly the gift that keeps giving… PERFECT GIFT FOR THE HUBBY! Also, to make things WAY easier, The Home Depot includes FREE delivery when you purchase from them online, and free-assembly when you purchase in-store…I’m all about that free-assembly life.
One last thing before the recipes! I’m GIVING AWAY a brand new Traeger Pro 575 to one of you lucky folks and all you have to do is comment on this post (or on my Traeger Instagram post) letting me know what would be the first thing you’d cook in your grill if you win! OK, enough said, recipe time.
First thing on the list is the Prime Rib and this one is about 6-7 lbs. If you notice there’s almost ZERO moisture on the meat because I let it sit in the fridge uncovered for 24 hours before cooking and I also diligently pat it dry with a few paper towels before seasoning. You can basically tell that the meat is “dry” enough when salt can barely stick to the surface.
Once you start to season the meat and work with it a little, the seasoning will stick to it just fine, but the goal is to try to avoid a soggy cut of meat that will end up wanting to boil rather than caramelize. With a cut this big, you want to heavily season it since there’s actually very little surface area compared to its volume.
So here I’ve seasoned it with kosher salt, fresh cracked black pepper, rosemary leaves, and crushed garlic. I tend to stay away from stuffing the garlic and rosemary into the meat since I really am a stickler for clean slices of prime rib. The more you stuff, the more a cut like this starts to morph into something too complex than it needs to be.
I set my Traeger Pro 575 to 275f˚ with their hickory wood pellets (the aroma is incredible) and will be cooking this for about 1 hour to break the chill and start the “slow and low” cooking process for an even colored slice of prime rib later on. Now its on to my celery root!
I’m sure there’s quite a few of you who know what this awkward looking root is, but I have a feeling that there’s more folks out there that have no clue what this is and even more so, how to cook with it. It’s incredible as a puree, soup, and mashed, but today its all about whole roasting.
This is about as simple as it gets. Pour a generous amount of kosher salt into a small sheet tray, put the cleaned celery root on top of the salt bed and its time to cook these beauties.
Before you add the celery root to your grill, turn the heat up to 400f˚ and you’re going to cook them for about 2 hours or until they’re fork tender. Just make sure to remove the Prime rib about 1 hour into cooking the celery when the internal temperature is around 120-130f˚ (medium rare – medium). Now it’s salmon time!
For this whole side of salmon, I’m going to do almost like a light curing before I cook it by seasoning it in advance and letting it sit for about an hour or so before cooking. This helps firm up the meat ever so slightly and the sugar gets a chance to even out and melt into the flesh.
It’s been about an hour or so since I added my celery root to the grill and it’s time to remove it from the heat and let it rest for at least 20-30 minutes before slicing which will be the perfect amount of time to cook up the salmon.
I really wish I had a proper wood plank to cook this salmon on, but I improvised with an old pizza stone and it turned out great. Ideally you don’t want to cook a whole filet of salmon like this straight onto the grill because it has a tendency to stick and is a pain to move around after that happens…it can get really ugly, really quick. Also, I had to put the top rack back into my Trager grill to continue cooking the celery root alongside the salmon FYI.
I’ll be cooking this for about 20-30 minutes (depends on thickness) and I’ll be keeping the temperature at 400f˚ throughout.
Ok, so everything is off of the grill, rested, and ready to be put onto a plate. Just be carful with the celery root because it retains an insane amount of heat (just like a baked potato), so watch out for a burst of steam if you decide to cut straight into even a few minutes after its been off the grill.
I finished these thick beautiful slices of roasted celery root with some melted butter, parsley, Maldon salt, and cracked black pepper. This will give any whole roasted meats a good run for there money…replace the butter with olive oil and this is a perfect vegan “substitute”.
The salmon can and should be served whole for family and friends to portion as they please, but I wanted to show just how beautiful it is once its on a plate…plus I roasted a few lemons as the prefect company to this whole roasted salmon.
Last but definitely not the least, its time to carve up the prime rib. I will admit that my prime rib was a tad more rare than what I was shooting for, but when that happens, I tend to indulge in its rarity.
I finished the slices with some cracked black pepper, crunchy Maldon salt, and a few rosemary leaves to garnish. Normally I would make some creamy horseradish sauce to dip it in or maybe even some savory beef jus, but I’m also a fan of simplicity. I hope you enjoyed these recipes and like I said at the beginning of this post, if you’re looking to get someone a gift that they’ll use for a lifetime AND that feeds you, go grab a Traeger Pro 575 from your local The Home Depot or online… I promise, you will NOT REGRET IT.
Ingredients:
6-7lb bone in prime rib
3 tbsp cracked black pepper
3 tbsp kosher salt
3 tbsp rosemary leaves
3 cloves garlic
5lb salmon filet (skin on)
3 tbsp brown sugar
2 tbsp salt
2 tbsp chopped rosemary
1 tsp lemon zest
2-3 large celery roots
2 cups salt
1 tbsp butter
1 tbsp chopped parsley
salt and pepper to tast
IT’S GAME TIME!! I have to say, aside from holiday feasts game days are the absolute BEST excuse to roll out the red carpet for all your favorite snacks, sides, dips, sauces, meats, drinks and everything in between. If there’s any game day traditions that I have, making sure to have PLENTY of sauced-up barbecued things within an arms reach and lots of paper towels ready to go is 100% one of them. In this post I’ll walk you through two recipes that have been on my mind and have my stomach raring for me to finish this post to get back to the game… Before we get into the post, I’d love to know if you guys have any fun game day traditions or tailgating essentials that you would like to share with me and maybe I’ll put it/them in a future game day themed post! leave a comment down below or on my instagram page to let me know! Ok, lets do this!
I present to you the some seriously beautiful chicken.
Ok, now that you’re hooked and have seen just how incredible the chicken is, it’s time to show you how this all came to be with a little help from The Home Depot and my Traeger Pro 575.
We’re first going to tackle the “Herbaceous Chicken”, so start out by slicing up the red onions, cilantro, Italian parsley, and a lime.
Season with a generous amount of salt, cracked black pepper, and a splash of olive oil, then add in the chicken drumsticks and give it a vigorous mixing of flavors with your hands…
After they’re massaged to perfection, lay the seasoned chicken down on a tray and let them sit for 1 hour in the fridge, covered. Repeat this process with the chicken wings and its respective flavors. > check ingredient list
Now that the chicken is ready to go, I’ve fired up my Traeger Pro 575 with their applewood pellets (perfect for bbq ribs btw) to 450f and will be grilling these beauties for about 30-45 minutes. 30 minutes for the wings and about 35-45 minute for the drumsticks depending on their size.
side note: The Traeger Pro 575 has a “WiFIRE” feature that allows you to control the grill through your smartphone! This is very very helpful when game day gets way too exciting to be stuck outside grilling and especially for long cooking times that need adjustment half way through. I knew the future would be delicious…lol
SAUCE TIME! Ok, chicken is on the grill getting all smokey and golden, this is the perfect time to get the tossing sauces RTG (ready to go). First up is the herb sauce for the drumsticks. Both of these sauces are insanely easy btw… For the green sauce, add in the cilantro, parsley, olive oil, avocado, a lime slice, and salt to taste.
Blend on the highest setting on your blender to achieve and smooth green puree.
Next up is the “Hot Wing” sauce. I’m not even going to make this one difficult because it really shouldn’t have to be for a sauce like this, but I understand that there are people out there that really take hot wing sauce to another level…this sauce is just what the doctor ordered, but won’t win an award with it…OK! Now that that’s over with, get a saucepan on medium heat and add in your apple cider vinegar and reduce by half.
add in the butter, smoked paprika, chili powder, honey, and tobacco sauce. Continue to cook on medium heat for 3-4 for minutes until ingredients blend together.
Now that the sauces are done, its time to coat up the chicken! The amount of sauce that you put on the chicken is totally up to you and your love for sauce…I tend to go a bit overboard, but that’s just me. Just make sure that every piece of chicken at least gets a solid kiss from the sauce. Hot wings are up first!
Time for the green sauce! Go green baby!
DONEZO! I love me some hot wings, but these herbed-up drumsticks really are a winner. Imagine this all shredded up and thrown into a taco? Maybe even a tostada OR warm chicken salad? I'm a big fan of versatility in recipes, so this recipe in particular is major keeper for that reason alone. The wings on the other hand are just a downright essential.
Another great day thanks to a little bit of creativity, some elbow grease, hungry friends and family, game day essentials, and my Traeger Pro 575. I also got a chance to play around with the Google Home Hub (on the right) that I got from Home Depot and its perfect to keep track of stats from other games without draining my phone battery! Plus like a million other things, lol. I hope you have a GREAT game day and next time you’re at your local Home Depot for an extra pair of wrenches or roses for the patio, check out what they have to amp up your game day essentials too!
Hot Wings:
Hot Sauce:
Herbaceous Drumsticks:
Herb Sauce: