Grilling Vegetables

How do you cook your vegetables? Most people steam, microwave or sauté their veggies. If these are the only ways that you prepare your vegetables, you are missing a taste treat. Barbequing is not just for meat. Why not start grilling your vegetables?

Prepare the Grill
Before you barbeque anything, you should have a clean grill. After your charcoal is done, place the grill on the barbeque. Allow the grill to heat. Then brush the grill down with a clean, stiff brush to remove any remaining pieces of grit or food. Baste the grill with vegetable oil and then you are really to roll.

Coal Temperatures
It is notoriously easy to burn vegetables when grilling them. Therefore cooking them at the right temperature is extremely important. If the coals are too hot, the veggies will almost immediately singe or burn. If the coals are too cool, the veggies won't cook properly.

It is best to grill vegetables over a medium to medium-hot heat. Since it is rather difficult to measure the heat over a grill, most resort to the old-fashioned "how hot is my hand getting" testing method. A fire is medium hot if you can only hold your hand five inches above the grill surface for about three to four seconds.

Do not push your pain threshold testing the heat of your fire.

Prepping the Vegetables
Vegetables that are grilled, like any vegetables that you eat, should be washed as part of your prep. After washing, you should dry the vegetables as much as possible. Oil will not stick to the surface of a vegetable that is wet. You will need to brush your veggies with oil, preferably olive oil, so that they won't stick to your grill.

When considering how to cut your vegetables, think broad. The larger the surface area of your vegetables when they hit the grill, the more evenly and easily they will cook.

Grilling Vegetables
You may be surprised at the number of vegetables that do well when grilled. Part of the trick is deciding how you would like to barbeque them: directly on the grill, skewered or wrapped in foil.

Veggies that work well placed directly on the grill include:

• Zucchini sliced in planks
• Radicchio cut in quarters
• Summer squash cut in planks
• Endive cut in half
• Asparagus
• Eggplant sliced in planks
• Portabella mushrooms sliced or whole caps
• Carrots cut in pieces

Grill these vegetables skewered:

• Onions
• Button mushrooms
• Cherry tomatoes

You can cook almost any vegetable that you like wrapped in foil. Just add a little olive oil or butter to the mix. Make sure that you cut the veggies to the appropriate sizes so that they will all be done more or less at the same time if you are cooking several types of vegetables. If you completely close the foil, the vegetables will absorb hardly any of the smoky flavor from the grill. You can leave the foil open a little so that more smoke can hit your veggies, if you like. You may have to monitor the liquids in the package to make sure that your vegetables don't burn when using this method.

Corn and Potatoes
Corn can be grilled in several different ways. One common method of cooking corn is to completely husk your corn and cook it directly on the grill. Don't forget to brush the corn in oil before you place it on the grill.

You might prefer husking your corn, adding a little butter and wrapping the corn up in aluminum foil. As with other veggies, you can leave the foil open a little to allow some smoke into the package.

Another way to grill corn is to roll back the corn's husk and remove all of the silk. Roll the husk back up over the corn, brush the husk with some oil and toss on the grill. Corn grilled this way will not have a smoky taste, but it is still a fun way to grill corn.

Like corn, you can cook potatoes in different ways on a grill. First, you can cut your potatoes up in smaller pieces and, with a little olive oil, cook them in foil. You might like throwing other veggies in the package, such as mushrooms and onions.

Another way to grill potatoes is to cut them in wedges and then grill them. Since potatoes are denser than many other types of vegetables, grilling them is a little trickier. Push your coals one side of the grill so that you have a hot and a cooler cooking area. You will have to turn and rotate your potatoes so that they cook thoroughly but do not char.

Serving your Vegetables
If you are going to serve a number of different types of grilled vegetables at once, don't worry about how hot the veggies are when you serve them. It is more important that they are cooked to your liking. Grilled vegetables taste terrific warm to piping hot. Some people prefer to serve some types of grilled vegetables cold.

Vegetable Grilling Tips

• Never, ever, ever walk away from your grilling vegetables. Even leaving them unattended for a minute or two can lead to charred, burned food.
• Try sprinkling your favorite spices on your veggies before you put them on the grill.
• You can also marinate vegetables before you grill them. However, if you are grilling several different kinds of vegetables, don't marinate all of them. You don't want to have a common taste that runs through all of your food.