Last month we were blessed with some frozen fish at a discount from Joshua's workplace. What is normally way out of our budget range was available in bulk purchases for about $1/lb.! We bought as much as our fridge-top freezer could hold! :)

Cod, mahi mahi, salmon, Lox, and pollock -- all very delicious when hot off the grill! I'll have some new fish recipes to post here, finally! :) I'm also excited to experiment with chowders, tacos, baked fish (for those who don't grill), etc. If you have favorite methods/recipes or ideas, I'd love to hear them! :)

My favorite fish dish so far is Joshua's Easy Grilled Salmon with Lemon. So moist, tender, and a perfect flavor of lemon, pepper, garlic, and butter.

We felt like we were dining at an expensive restaurant as we ate the grilled salmon fillets along with the oven-fries, green salad, and pumpkin pie for dessert! :)

Along with making grilled asparagus during last week's heat wave, we were motivated to try another grilling technique: Grilled Pizza!

We roughly followed the directions for grilled pizza in the recipe booklet for our Weber Q grill, prompted by encouragement from others who love grilled pizza!

I made and rolled the dough, Joshua did the grilling. Delicious! We liked it best served HOT.

We'll definitely be falling back on grilled pizza when the next summer heat wave hits us! :) This week however, it's a beautiful, cool, breezy Friday and I'll be making my usual pizza in the oven. :)

Have you ever tried grilled pizza? Was it a disaster or a success? :)

Asparagus is still in season, and this year we decided to try Grilled Asparagus! While we still love our old favorite Asparagus and Onions, when it was over 90* outside last week, I was desperate to do as much cooking out on the grill as possible. ;)

After looking through quite a few grilled asparagus recipes, I had a pretty good idea of how it worked. Asparagus goes on skewers, seasoned or marinated according to taste, and then grilled for a couple minutes on each side.

Joshua did the grilling and we all fought over the asparagus, since I had only prepared a pound of it. ;) The next day, I made 2 pounds for dinner. That seemed to be a better amount for our family. :)

You can head on over to the recipe for complete ingredients and instructions, along with a few more pictures! :)

This week, I have a couple of grill-related tips to share! :) As Joshua mentioned in his Weber Q grill review last week, we love our grill and make good use of it year-round!

A grill that gets constantly used does end up getting dirty. Our grill has a cast iron grill grate, and while the metal grill-cleaning brushes work okay, sometimes charred food is just stuck... and the worn, matted brush isn't enough.

Tip #1:

Joshua's solution for a charred grill grate was to get a wire wheel that fits into a cordless drill. You can see what a wire wheel brush looks like at this Amazon.com link, but we didn't buy ours online. A simple wire wheel brush should only cost about a dollar or so at your local hardware store.

Check your grill's manual to determine what kinds of wire bristles (stainless steel, brass, etc.) are safe for your grill, and apply light pressure. :) Joshua is thrilled with this easy and inexpensive way to brush the grill grate! :)

Tip #2:

The element in the bottom of our gas grill is a metal tube with small holes for the flame to come out of. If these holes get plugged, the flame won't come out, resulting in only a partially-lit element.

Joshua uses a small Dremel tip or a 1/32-inch size drill bit in the cordless drill to re-open the holes when necessary (maybe once a year or so). The element returns to like-new performance! :)

We did get our 1/32-inch drill bits on Amazon.com, since the hardware stores we had checked at the time didn't carry that size. The 1/32-inch drill bits are so tiny that Joshua very carefully wrapped some electrical tape around the bottom of the bit to make it fit our cordless drill.

Grilled Asparagus,
one of the recipes waiting to be typed
and posted this week... :)

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog. Link to this post, and then leave your link here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please!

In order to keep the kitchen tips more easily accessible, posts not adhering to these guidelines will be removed. We need to be able to easily find/see what your kitchen/cooking tip is. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Mr. Linky is on sick leave, so leave your tip links in a comment. I'll manually add them to this post at the end of the the day (if not sooner... depending on computer time availability). ;) Thanks so much for your patience! :)

1. Homemade vanilla extract (Mub)
2. Keeping mashed potatoes warm (Jane)
3. Getting dinner on the table on time (Stephanie)
4. Using whisks (Sharon)
5. Quick frugal defrosting tip (Jill)
6. Easier garlic peeling
7. Using flax seeds/oil (Katie)
8. Smells in plastic ware (Becky)
9. Making sunbutter (Laura)
10. Chopping veggies (Lenetta)
11. Decreasing sugar in fruit recipes (Lenetta)
12. Koolaid to clean dishwasher (Lisa)
13. Using tomatoes (Angie)
14. Draining spinach (Karen)
15. Grilling Frozen Pizza
16. Using food past its prime (Heather)
17. Puree and freeze veggies (Emily)
18. Easier pie crust (Lynn)
19. Making your own floats (Sandy)
20. Re-using butter wrappers (Alea)
21. Adding garlic butter to pizza (Tiffany)
22.
23.

Joshua's Grilled Chicken Pizza is a favorite for summer... have I mentioned lately how much I love Joshua's grill? :)

We love these mini peppers from Costco. A 2-pound bag is under $4, and I counted over 40 multi-colored peppers of various sizes. That's just 10 cents a pepper! They're great for salads, nachos, tacos, pizza, or just snacking!

If I run out of bread (I know, it shouldn't happen, right? But it does!) I plan an impromptu pizza dinner and send leftovers in Joshua's lunch the next day. Lucky for me, he loves cold pizza! :)

Are you having pizza tonight? :) We usually have it on Fridays but I made it last night (Thursday) instead... so tonight I think it'll be... well, something different, that's all I know. Still planning. Hmmm. What sounds good?!

My husband makes some top-notch grilled chicken, salmon fillets, and strip steak! One of the seasonings he uses is liquid smoke flavoring. (For those interested in how liquid smoke flavoring is obtained, comment #8 in this thread has more info!

Grilled NY Strip Steak and Asparagus & Onions

Liquid smoke flavoring usually comes in a bottle like soy sauce does, but it can be difficult to apply in a thin even coat.

Joshua's solution for many years now has been to use a spray bottle to apply the liquid smoke flavoring to foods. Really any clean, food-safe (unscented!) spray bottle will work. We've used various ones, and our current favorite is an old salad dressing spray bottle passed on to us when it was empty:

This makes it so much easier to use the liquid smoke flavoring! :) The bottle/nozzle doesn't get clogged, but you will want something that does seal up pretty tightly around the top, since liquid smoke is really strong if it leaks! ;)

You can also pretty much forget about ever using the bottle for anything else after having liquid smoke in it. ;)

To Participate in Kitchen Tip Tuesdays:

Post a kitchen tip in your blog (no recipes please; come back tomorrow for the In-Season Recipe Swap with recipes for asparagus!). Link to this post, and then add your page's link here, so we know where to find YOU! :) No giveaways or non-tip posts, please!

In order to keep the kitchen tips more easily accessible, posts not adhering to these guidelines will be removed at my discretion. :) Thanks for your participation! :)

Note: Mr. Linky hasn't been functioning well, so please leave a link to your tip in the comment section. I will add them to this post as they come in! :)

1. Jane -- Ice Cream Buckets
2. Tereza -- Helping babies take medicine
3. Kate -- Transporting cakes
4. Katie -- 10 tips for avoiding the microwave
5. Snow White -- Easy way to cut sweet potato fries
6. Sonshine -- Mini cheesecakes tip
7. Lenetta -- Dishwasher detergent
8. Sara -- How to cut a pineapple
9. Stephanie -- Ice cream in food processor
10. Amanda -- Use hands to mix biscuits
11. Rachel -- Rustic tarts tips/tutorial
12. Shopannies -- Produce storage tips
13. Jennifer -- Egg substitutes
14. Motherhen -- Keeping kitchen cool in summer
15. Jessica -- Different methods for chimichangas
16. Kim -- Pre-mixing omelets
17. DarcyLee -- Getting help in the kitchen
18. Becky -- DIY vacuum seal
19. Michelle -- Freezer containers
20. Rose -- Keeping celery fresh
21. Elizabeth Sue -- Stockpiling tips
22. Melinda -- Oven safety tip for kids
23. Donna -- notes/tips about wheat
24. BookLady -- Keeping lettuce fresh
25. Kolfinna -- 3 quick tips
26. Cindy -- use the right tools
27.

Love grilled cheese? Love Philly Cheese Steak sandwiches? Joshua combined the two flavors and served me these killer Grilled Philly Cheese Steak Sandwiches one afternoon last summer. We've been making them ever since!

These grilled Philly Cheese Steak sandwiches are simple to put together, but taste like a gourmet sandwich from a restaurant like... well, actually, I don't know since we hardly ever go out to eat! But it looks like something I've seen on a cafe menu. Joshua says it's like diner food to him -- kinda buttery and just plain GOOD! :)

You can see how long I've had these photos -- that's asparagus from my Grandma's garden last Spring! It's shown sauteed with onions -- Asparagus and Onions is one of our favorite ways to eat asparagus! :)

You can see more Grilled Philly Cheese Steak Sandwiches over at the recipe! :)

Do you ever make grilled cheese sandwiches with "extras"? What are your favorite add-ins??

I'm not much of a sandwich gal, but my husband loves sandwiches. (He even makes a sandwich with lasagna + garlic bread!)

However, a really good sandwich is, well, really good. And my husband makes some good ones. :)

And when he's doing the grilling, how can I refuse a delicious grilled chicken breast sandwich with fresh tomatoes and lettuce?! Oh, and he butters and grills the bun, too.

You can see the rest of our meal here -- peaches, green beans, and corn. Oh Garden Bounty, I hate to see Summer end!

Joshua loves burgers, and he loves to grill. I've been taking full advantage of these two facts, and he's been faithfully grilling burgers for us at least twice a week these days. :)

This was a turkey burger, with garden-fresh tomatoes and sweet Vidalia onions. With fresh veggies to add to the sandwich, even I like a plain old burger -- though a garlic turkey burger is my first choice any day. :)

How do you prefer to season burgers? And that's your favorite burger meat? :)

(Grilled chicken sandwich)

I don't think I can even count the times dinner has been rescued by my husband's grilling skillz in the past month! Somewhere amid fun walks to the park, trips out to the clothesline, garden maintenance, changing diapers and schoolwork, menu planning has been on the light side around here.

With summer vegetables, it's easy to throw together a meal with grilled chicken or beef or turkey and lots of veggie sides -- and fruit!

We love our Weber Q grill. (Here is a review that Joshua wrote about his grill 2 years ago.) After 4 years of heavy use, it's still going strong! And having a grill (and a husband who loves grilling!) has been a lifesaver for me at times. Literally. I mean, we have to eat to live, right? ;)

Are there any other Weber grill fans out there? I'd love to hear what model you have and any comments about its performance! :)