Grilling Essentials & #CookoutWeek Welcome!

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Around this time of the year, when you’re out for your evening walks or jogs, you can’t help but smell some tasty grilled or barbecued foods being made by your neighbors. As soon as the smell hits you, you immediately wonder what it is, and perhaps wonder how to make friends with them to then be invited over for dinner. If you’re like The Godmother and I, you may also wonder how their food is made, and how you would replicate or differ in making the meal on the grill.

This year, we joined forces with around 50 other bloggers as part of #CookoutWeek – an entire week filled with summer recipes perfect for your next cookout, along with a fun giveaway, courtesy of some awesome sponsors. Be sure to scroll down to the end of the post to enter!

In honor of #CookoutWeek, I offer some essentials that will prove handy in outdoor grilling or barbecuing. As you may have noticed in related posts, charcoal grilling reigns supreme in my home, but most of these essentials prove worthy if you have a gas or electric grill.  I refer to these essentials because you will see at least some of these referenced in my grilling or barbecuing recipes – they save time, enhance the quality of your meal, and/or save you loads of money on trendy or really expensive grilling/barbecuing equipment.

Here are my essentials for grilling and or barbecuing:

1. Wood briquette charcoal: Compared to brand-name charcoal at grocery stores made with fillers, these last longer and burn much cleaner.
2. Chimney starter: Keep the lighter fluid fumes away from your grill. For less than $15, you will never have to resort to using lighter fluid to light up your charcoal grill again!
3. Aluminum foil and pans: For tons of uses, from smoking your meats to resting. Plus, you can save your money from buying expensive cleaners and brushes by using aluminum foil to clean your grill grates.
4. Wood chips: Mesquite, oak, pecan, or apple wood chips…each is good for smoking a variety of meats. Don’t spend money on a wood chip box! Instead, soak your wood chips in water and place them in an aluminum pan or foil shaped like a paper boat near the heat source…you will get the same if not better effect.
5. Quality meat thermometer: For those really thick cuts of meat, get yourself a good meat thermometer. Don’t second guess the done-ness of your meat, for both flavor and your health.
6. Grill basket: You know what goes great on a grill? Everything! A grill basket will let you safely prepare vegetables, fruit, and seafood…so that everyone can enjoy a meal made outdoors.

Happy grilling! Check out the fantastic #CookoutWeek prize pack and enter below!

It’s super easy to enter, and one lucky winner will get:

• Char-Broil American Gourmet 600 Series Charcoal Grill (see specs here!)
• Edmond Fallot Dijon Mustard, French Farm Butcher Salt Box, & Confit of Figs & Balsamic Vinegar from The French Farm
• Sauce 3-Pack (Ketchup, BBQ, Veracha) from True Made Foods
• Wimpy’s BBQ Rub, Dilly Dust Seasoning, and Cheryl’s Jamaican Me Hungry Seasoning from Swine Dining
• A Perfect Pickler Kit from Perfect Pickler
• A gift basket of products from Fungus Among Us
• A gift bag of products from Dr. Praeger’s Sensible Foods
• All Natural Boneless Duck Breasts, Fully Cooked Roast Half Ducks w/Orange Sauce, Duck Bacon, Duck Wing Drummettes from Maple Leaf Farms

It’s pretty much everything you need to host an awesome cookout this summer. It’s a prize pack worth over $300! Thank you so much to all of the wonderful sponsors listed above and the organizers at The PinterTest Kitchen who have made #CookoutWeek possible.

Enter now:
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Don’t forget to check back throughout the week with all of the bloggers participating to get your #CookoutWeek recipes. Here’s the full list of participating bloggers:

The PinterTest Kitchen • 2 Cookin’ Mamas • A Day in the Life on the Farm • addicted 2 recipes • Aimee Broussard & Co. • Amy’s Cooking Adventures • Angels Home Sweet Homestead • Bakin’ and Eggcerpts • Balancing Motherhood • Body Rebooted • Cheese Curd In Paradise • Cindy’s Recipes and Writings • Cook With 5 Kids • Cook. Craft. Love. • Cookaholic Wife • Cricket’s Confections • Crumb: A Food Blog • Eat, Drink, Be Healthy! • Everyday Eileen • Fairyburger • Food Parsed • Get the Good Stuff! • Goodie Godmother • Hezzi-D’s Books and Cooks • Home in the Finger Lakes • Jennifer Cooks • Jessie Weaver • Kate’s Recipe Box • Life on Food • Little House Big Alaska • Little Scratch Kitchen • Making Miracles • Moore or Less Cooking • Rhubarb and Honey • Savvy In The Kitchen • Seduction in the Kitchen • Simple Food 365 • Style Island • Thanks for Cookin’! • The Food Hunter’s Guide To Cuisine • The Hungary Buddha Eats the World • The Spiffy Cookie • The Weekday Gourmet • This is How I Cook • Tramplingrose • Vintage Kitty • West Via Midwest