How to Grill & Bake fun on a Christmas?

Whats more fun than spending time together on a Christmas night. That is what we planned. Decided to do a grilling session for preparing the Christmas dinner.

Confirmed the menu the day before and Ani led the shopping for the items. 

Invitation & Menu

It was real fun to prepare the recipes for the grilling. Prawns, Chicken, Fish Fillets were all ready the day before. Perfect marination overnight.

The tough part as usual is to make the charcoal burn. We bought some Weber charcoal and lighter, which made the job easier compared to the last time.

The charcoal burned in few minutes, however cechi took all the efforts to make it burn :) Excellent job!

The prawns ready to grill on the skewers

Ani wanted to engage full heartedly to the grilling, however she did the complete job of marinating the items for us to grill.

Get smoked :)

Yummy prawns BBQ in the make

Fish Fillets

Encouraging the charcoal cubes in between

Veg Biriyani and Fish Fillets

Ready for dinner

Ani's creative shot :)

Ani tried the fruit cake for Christmas the first time. To be frank, it was awesome. The main ingredient is the wine soaked dry fruits. 

It was a real yummy deal.

Altogether a fun filled and joyous Christmas night...

When to grill next?

I Can't Ignore The BBQ Boards

If it is written BBQ somewhere along the way I drive, I could never resist stopping by. Frankly speaking, I never liked the BBQ food till I joined the team for lunch at a wonderful BBQ restaurant. 

Since then that became my favorite cuisine. Specially the smoked baby ribs :) If I miss a cuisine in US, it will be the slow smoked baby BBQ ribs. It's yummy.

On the way back from the Oasis restaurant, the above hoarding caught my attention. No second thought, parked in the premise and headed towards the counter. 

A small outlet, then menu was outstanding. Quickly ordered the brisket and waited impatiently for my call.

Waiting can be sweet when it is for something worth and there it was my favorites in front. Still my mouth waters at this yummy pack.

Wanderlust: Colorado & Snow Capped Mountains

At City of Colorado Springs - Red Rock Canyon

Always imagined about visiting this place once. But could never figure out the date and time for that occasion before. And so when I landed at Colorado, it took sometime for me to connect the dream with the reality. 

Walked around the airport visitor center for sometime collecting the brochures and flyers on the attractions. 

17 miles from the airport is Aurora, where my sister's friend stays. They've been so kind to accommodate me on the long weekend. And I had a wonderful time with them. Travel, fun, snow, food - that was a travel I longed for.

The best part of the vacation:.

I drove in and around like a crazy driver. Covered almost all the attractions in 5 days. The fresh air and less crowded mountain roads, green covered trails and unexpected moose encounters - that was fun.

It just rained when I was heading to Mount Evans. The sky was beautiful, nature looked fresh and the traffic was bad. Enjoyed the drive with the video shoot and gazing at the wonderful Colorado mountains all the way.

Birthday & The Barbecue Evening

Fresh charcoal is ready

Thanks to Jesner and Ancy for presenting me yet another beautiful evening. I am soo late to create this post. Got caught up in some critical works. But I decided to air this today itself.

And yes, it was a grilling evening, and Ancy's birthday celebration.

Jesner was ready with the grill when I reached at their place yesterday. The grilling a was kind of tutorial for me. Learned the aerodynamics of grilling (Didn't get the aerodynamics part? It is all about utilizing the air around to make the coal burn better & the chicken to taste awesome. Never mind, I know, the topic is complicated as it spells.)

He instructed while I performed the grill setup. Yipee, I learned to setup a barbecue kitchen now.

A wonderful evening. A cute patio with couple of chairs, chips, creamy cashews and soda.  Ancy was busy preparing dinner inside, and came occasionally to the patio, in-order to make sure we aren't burning the chicken and delivered professional suggestions :)

Jesner and I was discussing various topics, while the chicken was getting grilled. 

After an hour and a half of grilling, we ate that chicken mercilessly with pulav and ancy's signature green salad. Finger licking good.

Let's go through some of the main clicks of that day.

Filled the fresh black charcoal in the holder and burned it from the bottom to get started.

After few minutes, the smoke started emerging from the charcoal holder.

Then the smoke began to gush out like thick clouds escaping up into the sky. Means that the charcoal and the fire is having some serious conversation now.

After few minutes the smoke started settling down. Means, the coal is on fire and no more smoking :)

The charcoal on fire. To start the grilling, the color of the charcoal should turn to ash.

Charcoal is ready to cook.

Jesner placed the chicken on the grill. Well marinated from the morning, the chicken smelled good!

Half way through the grilling. Few more minutes for the chicken to get cooked properly.

Tada, let's eat it. Proud for the first personal grilling. Thanks Jesner for your tutorial and walk through :)

Isn't the chicken looking yummy!

The tools which helped us to prepare our dinner.

That was yummy and yummy to the heart.

Followed by Ancy's birthday celebration. The shot through the leaves on the flower vase. 

A different evening with a different experience with a wonderful family...