Episode AH0312: Hey, happy Fourth of July to you. We’re so glad you could join us with our Fourth of July cookout. Now this isn’t the ideal situation. You know, it’s raining, but it’s okay because the day we’re taping this it’s pouring but we’re going through anyway, right? We’re not fooling around. We’ve got some great cooks today. Woodys is here, and they do it the best. Their catering service is incredible. So glad I asked them to come, because they’ve got tents to pitch up. They can make the event happen, rain, snow, hail or sleet. So we’re gonna take a break for the hint and we’ll be right back to get started with stuff on the grill, ribs, chicken wings, vegetables. Oh, and so much more. We’ll be right back in just a minute. Here’s today’s At Home Hint. To check for the doneness when grilling fish, insert a sharp knife into the meatiest part of the fish. It should flake and be slightly translucent at the center. If you’ve got a helpful hint, we’d like you to share it with us. Send your hint to At Home Hints, Cornerstone Television, Wall, Pennsylvania, 15148-1499. Welcome back, and here we are, Fourth of July. What do you think, Greg?
I think it’s Fourth of July in Pittsburgh.
Pittsburgh, you never know. That’s true. We’re glad you’re back from Woodys Catering.
It’s good to be back.
Great place. These guys went the extra mile today, and so did our crew. I have to thank them all right at the top of the show, ’cause it’s been pouring here since early in the morning. They’ve pitched tents. We were determined we’re doing a cookout for you, and we’re doing it today. So you came, but you not only just came by yourself. You brought another cook.
My brother Jeff.
We got Chef Jeff and Chef Greg. Glad you’re here today.
Glad to be here.
He’s the grill master. This guy does stuff on the grill, it’s just great. So what are we gonna make for everybody today?
We’re gonna do some barbecue ribs, which are always good for Fourth of July.
Oh my, look at these ribs. Aren’t they gorgeous? Now, is there a special cut to these?
That’s a St. Louis style rib. That’s what we use. It’s a real meaty rib, and it’s trimmed on both sides so you get a nice even rib and it’s real good for barbecuing.
You know the problem I have? Sometimes I put them on and then they look like they’re done and you get inside and they aren’t. You have to be careful with pork.
What you could do is boil them first, but we steam them. We actually steam them with liquid smoke. It gives them a smoky flavor.
Walk us through it.
What what we’re gonna do
How do we do it? is I have a little marinade here with some oil.
Can I give them what’s in there? There’s a half cup of vegetable oil, there’s some liquid smoke, onion powder, kosher salt, ground pepper.
[Greg] You can use a variety. A lot of people use Italian dressing.
[Arlene] That’s like, if you don’t know how to make a marinade, Italian dressing’s pretty safe.
Sure, yeah.
I think so, too. We hope that this will give you some ideas of what you can cook, and your Fourth of July won’t be raining, but so what if it does, who cares? Just as long as you get together with friends.
As long as you have a good time.
That’s exactly right.
Have fun.
Now you have some water in there.
We have some water, because we’re gonna steam these.
[Arlene] We’re gonna put some foil?
We have a little bit of liquid smoke here. This is liquid smoke, just to give them a little smoky flavor.
How many, about a couple ounces, two ounces or so? Okay, and then foil on top.
Actually, when you bake this in the oven, it’ll steam and it’ll make those ribs very tender.
[Arlene] Oh boy, how long?
About an hour in the oven. What you can do is you can cook them for about an hour and then uncover them and cook them about another 15, 20 minutes.
And then?
Then just marinate them with a little bit of barbecue sauce.
Where do you want me to put these, right here?
These could be prepared a day ahead of time, even a couple days. A lot of times when we have ribs for the weekend, we’ll prepare this Thursday and Friday and then we take them out, marinate.
You like to get the stuff that you can ahead of time ’cause that makes it easier for you.
Yeah, that makes it very tender, and then we finish everything on the grill.
Yeah, ’cause you’re gonna hit those with the barbecue sauce when you put them on the grill. Okay. The other thing that is so great on a cookout is wings. I don’t know if anybody doesn’t like chicken wings on a grill, oh my gosh. This is so unique. This is incredible. Show us what you’re doing here.
We do this at the restaurant too. We have a barbecue night on Tuesday nights, and what we do is we do a skewered wing.
[Arlene] These are the jumbo wings.
Yeah, jumbo wings. We take a half dozen of them. We skewer them right through the second joint here. So what you want to do is get them through the bone.
Let me show this. Andy, can you see that? This joint right here, what do you call this part? The tail or the end of it. And then this meaty part right here, that’s where you want to skewer.
This is the wing and this is the ding.
Oh yeah, that’s right. So you get the wing. I’m not asking what the other part is, ’cause I don’t want to know. I’m afraid you’ll tell me.
So what you want to do is you just want to get that in and get that through the bone. What happens is when you cook this in the oven, this metal, you ever get a wing and it’s not cooked inside? This metal actually heats and helps cook the inside of the wing. Now what you can do is once it’s done, it’s seasoned, it’s cooked off in the oven.
Wait, what have you seasoned that with? Just some herbs and stuff?
We did a little black pepper.
Rotisserie chicken seasoning, kosher salt and pepper.
Which you can get in the store.
Now what have you done with them? You baked them a little bit in the oven.
We baked them in oil, uncovered. We bake them to an internal temperature about 170. We do everything by temperature. It takes about a half an hour, 45 minutes. It all depends.
[Arlene] Then you bring them out.
[Greg] Bring them out, let them cool down.
Can you do that the day before?
You can do these ahead of time, too.
That’s terrific. Then what do you do with them?
Now these you can do in a variety of different ways. You can drop these in a deep fryer. You can put them back in the oven with Buffalo sauce. Today we’re gonna do these on the grill with barbecue sauce.
Oh boy. All right, I’m handing them over to you, Jeff. There you go.
[Jeff] Thank you.
[Arlene] And how long on the grill now, just ’til they heat through?
Exactly, yeah. Now what we’re gonna do is Jeff’s gonna take these.
Oh, there some that you’ve been cooking. Look at those babies.
Now what he’s gonna do is we have prepared barbecue sauce. This is our homemade barbecue sauce.
We didn’t clean up the floor first. This is a mop that is used specifically for the barbecue. You said that’s a good idea ’cause it gets down in the wings.
There’s a couple of things we did. One is when we prepared the barbecue, we did it with mesquite. Sometimes we’ll use hickory, sometimes we’ll use applewood.
[Arlene] But this is mesquite, right?
[Greg] This is mesquite wood, right. What we do is we soak that. You soak that for about a half an hour and then what you do is you sprinkle that across your coals.
[Arlene] Can I do that now?
[Greg] Yeah, you can just drop that down.
[Arlene] You just drop it down.
What we did is we actually prepared some before the top went on.
To get it ready.
Now what that does is that gives it a nice, smoky, good flavor.
Yeah, and there’s hickory, there’s a lot of different varieties of that. And the important thing is to get those coals. Don’t don’t fire the coals up and then thinking immediately you’re ready to barbecue. Let them come to that ash, ’cause that’s where your heat is, right?
[Jeff] We usually soak them too with the lighter fluid beforehand.
[Arlene] For how long before?
About 15, 20 minutes.
So they’re totally saturated. Then you get a better even, ’cause I’ve used the charcoal grill where half of the charcoal was black and the other half, ’cause it never soaked through, never gave it the time.
We always use charcoal. We don’t use gas. Charcoal and wood gives food such a good flavor.
And this will burn for a good while, huh? And look, we even threw some corn on here, because what we did with this, we took the silk off. Look at that, that’s steaming. We soaked it for 30 minutes in cold water, put the husks back up, and now Jeff is just turning it, turning it. That’s when you get roasted corn at its finest. Incredible.
Now here are the ribs after they’re finished in the oven. Now what Jeff’s gonna do is he’s gonna take these out and he’s gonna finish them off on the grill.
[Arlene] Now those are some that have already had some of the sauce on, right? Now when will you put the sauce on the chicken?
We’re gonna do that now as we’re cooking, and in fact, he’s gonna do the ribs also.
Now Jeff, what do you do if you find that the grill’s too hot? You keep things to the back then, or to the edges?
Exactly. You got a hot spot on any grill. Gas or charcoal, you have a hot spot. What I also do is I keep this handy here and I keep my charcoal even. When I see one spot.
You turn it around.
Just don’t stir it too much. You get a lot of the ash up onto the food.
And this is just regular barbecue sauce, your favorite. It can be homemade, it can be in a jar, wherever you want to buy it.
[Jeff] That’s Greg’s secret recipe.
A lot of people, what they’ll do is they’ll buy some sauce in a store and you can add a little liquid smoke to it. You can add a little honey to it.
Just to beef it up, like anything. Like spaghetti sauce you do, too.
Not our spaghetti sauce.
Not yours, that’s for sure.
Ours cooks for about five hours.
I know. The vegetables now on the grill are something that you really have to know what you’re doing because they’ll cook up very quickly, right? I’m gonna set this down. Maybe you can talk us through the veggies. You take this? Okay, thanks. All right, talk us through this. Let me change sides with you and you can get right over there by the grill.
Today what we’re doing is we’re gonna do some yellow squash, some zucchini. These are all summer vegetables. Some different colored bell peppers. You can use yellow, red, orange, green, whatever you want, and some portobella mushrooms. What we did, we sliced these down about a quarter inch thick, all the vegetables.
It’s important to kind of keep them uniform. You start out thick, cut them all thick because you want them to cook all the same amount of time, right?
And now what we’re gonna do is we’re gonna do a little bit of olive oil, a little bit of salt and pepper.
Oh, that’s salt and pepper.
You can season with anything. Now we’re gonna do is we’re gonna do the vegetables across. You want to get a nice line mark on them.
So you want to put them across the grid, huh? Ah, yummo. I’ll tell you, while we’re grilling the vegetables, we’re gonna take a break, and when we come back, we even have what you can serve for dessert, okay? So come right back. We’ll be back in just a minute.
And the rain’s gonna stop, too.
Yeah, one day. I think my name’s Noah. I’m gonna get the ark built. Well, if you’re just joining us, you’ve missed the whole first part of our Fourth of July picnic in the rain. It doesn’t matter, does it? Nah, we’re having a good time, ’cause we’ve got ribs cooking, we’ve got chicken. Look at that barbecue chicken going. We’ve got corn on the grill. We’ve got veggies on the grill with Jeff Antonelli, Greg Antonelli and me, and we were determined to have this picnic because we had planned and we wanted to bring something special to you, and we’re hoping that you’d get some ideas for your celebration. So while that’s cranking, we’re gonna put together a salad. Now this is my salad, and you’re gonna make it, okay? All right, we’re gonna take some tomatoes, which we already had them all cut up. Those are just the freshest, ripest tomatoes you can get. Put them in a big bowl. Now we have an onion, and you’re gonna chunk that up. This is called chunky tomato cheese salad. This is mozzarella cheese by the chunk and we cut it in little pieces, like half inch chunks, something like that. That goes on next, okay? This is one of those salads that the longer it sits, the better it gets.
[Greg] It marinates it.
And when those tomatoes start breaking down, that juice comes out of them. Now when you get the recipe for this, it’s not gonna be on here, but we’re gonna put an avocado in. You can do avocados?
Oh yeah.
You want to do it? Go ahead, you do it, ’cause while you’re doing that, I’m gonna talk through the dressing. This is fresh basil. Oh, it’s so good. Fresh basil, some garlic, some salt and pepper, red wine vinegar, olive oil. This is just one of those, when it adds with the breakdown of the tomatoes and you put this with it, it is so good. This is Paul’s favorite salad, besides Woody’s dressing. He likes this really good. So I’ve already done it. You’ll get the recipes for all of this when you send for the newsletter. But I’m just gonna shake it up because we’re gonna put that over top. I think I even put a little bit of Parmesan cheese in this, too. Yeah, chop that up. There we go. You know, what you want to do, you want to plan ahead as much as you can, do as much prep as you can ahead of the time. This is a great country, Greg.
The best country in the world.
I wouldn’t want to live any place else, because we have the freedom to do all this kind of stuff. People that have gone before us paid a big price for our freedom.
Freedom wasn’t free.
No it wasn’t, that’s right. Absolutely, gave with their lives. Okay, let’s do a little salt and pepper on that. So I think that this is a wonderful time to remind your kids that this is the greatest country in the world, no matter what the naysayers say. It doesn’t matter. We know that this is a great country, okay? So let’s take time, fly that flag and fly it with pride, that’s what I say. All right, Greg. Here it is, and you’re just gonna pour that on and stir that up, okay?
[Greg] Smells wonderful.
Doesn’t it? Nothing like fresh basil. Just get one of those about a pack, a cup, which is about a package that you get in the store. If you’re fortunate enough to have fresh growing outside your house, just get like a cup of it. It would be equal to a cup, and put that in your food processor, whirl it around. Look at that, does that look good or what? Now what I would do is I would put this in the fridge until it’s time to serve, because the cold of that just makes it delicious. Simple, easy, can do a lot of that the day before. I think it’s better to prepare as much as you can the day before so that the day of the picnic and the party you’re not killing yourself running around.
You want to spend time with your guests.
Exactly.
That’s why you hire Woodys Catering.
Absolutely. Smart man, that’s why you’re where you are. And seriously, if you have any event coming along, and I don’t say this facetiously. Paul works for you. I know what you do, and I know that these guys make it happen. You told me about something you just did for a corporation.
We did a corporate picnic where we did pony rides and we did a train ride and a clown bounce.
That’s the balls? Besides the food.
All the events. We coordinate all the events.
You do steaks, you do lobster. Jeff’s been on the grill.
We do golf courses. Today we’re actually doing an outing at a golf course and we’re doing steaks.
In the rain.
Yeah, we’re doing steaks on the grill. They’re playing cards. They’re not golfing.
They’ll take a rain check on the golf. All right, so we’re gonna set this aside. Now let’s make a dessert, okay? Maybe you can get some of that off. Linda, that’s all right if they see your arm, it doesn’t even matter. Now we just like to bring out a really nice color touch to our dessert.
Patriotic dessert.
Absolutely. We have some Cool Whip. I’m gonna give you the spoon, okay? And we have red raspberries. We might need a few more red raspberries. Could you get us another pack of raspberries, please? ‘Cause I like raspberries, and I like a lot.
Raspberries are excellent, especially this time of year.
Greg, you’re going too fast. Look how fast you’re going.
Go ahead, go ahead.
First of all, we’re gonna put, like he already has done, we’re putting the Cool Whip or whipped cream, or you could put ice cream in there if you wanted to in the bottom. Now we’re gonna start with a layer. Do you want me to do it? Now see, here’s what I do. I straighten this around here so it’s flat and level, so it looks pretty when they hit down. I know you guys work fast.
[Greg] We have to do 400 of these.
Oh geez, I’d be doing this for three weeks. Okay, then you just do a layer of the raspberries, and she’s bringing us some more, so I’m gonna be very generous with the raspberries in this one, ’cause you know what? I hate to skimp. I don’t like to skimp. Now do another layer of your goodies here, and while you’re doing that, I’m gonna prepare the beautiful strawberries, and I’m just gonna cut them so that we can feather that for a garnish on the top, okay? Funny, we both had the same idea, and you were doing it and I had already done it, and you were like oh, that’s a good idea. Okay, very good.
I’m learning something new.
Forget it, you already know. Okay, now we’re doing the blueberries. And again, you just want to put them on. Kind of drop them in the middle and they’ll spread to the side, which is fun. It doesn’t matter if you get up close to the top, you think oh, that’s too many. Nah. You know why I like this? This is great because it’s kind of a heavy, ’cause we’re gonna add some potatoes to this besides the vegetables.
[Greg] It’s a very hardy dinner.
Exactly, so you don’t want a real heavy dessert. So this is perfect, absolutely. Now you’re gonna top this off with more Cool Whip. There you go. You do that one.
[Greg] Ice cream or sherbet.
[Arlene] Anything would be good with this.
[Greg] Sorbet.
Yeah, man. Okay, you top that one. You know, you can’t imagine the preparation it has taken to bring this to you today, and I know you appreciate it. I really do.
We had to go out and buy tents.
They’re buying tents and everything. It was amazing, just amazing. But you know what it proves? It proves if you really want to do something, you’ll do it. You’ll find a way.
That’s what this country was founded on.
That’s exactly right. They wanted the freedom to worship God in the way they wanted to worship God, and you know what? They did.
They got it.
That’s exactly right. So that’s a freedom too that we need to be thankful for. Okay, hit that one. I’m gonna show you, I would spread that around to cover.
I think Jeff’s being kind of quiet over there.
Jeff, you are too quiet, you’re scaring me. He’s too busy over there.
[Jeff] Jeff’s supposed to be quiet over there.
Jeff, what’s your favorite thing on that grill?
I’d have to say the ribs. I love the ribs, ’til we get to the steaks.
Usually after Fourth of July, you guys cook out in the front of the restaurant every Sunday. They have barbecued lamb, they have barbecue chicken. Here’s our parfait, our patriotic parfait. Isn’t it beautiful? Are you gonna do that this year?
Yeah, we actually are.
You’re gonna do that. Right now it’s so busy with so many other parties they can’t. But when we come back, we’re gonna show you everything we prepared for your Fourth of July picnic, thanks to these guys. And thank God for America. Amen.
God bless America.
Absolutely, he does. Fourth of July picnic. We have the ribs, we’ve got the chicken. We’ve got the grilled vegetables, potatoes, salad, fruit, and the best of all is you and your family, your friends, enjoying all of this. What do you think, Jeff?
I think it looks terrific.
Would you enjoy something like this?
I’m ready to eat.
Oh my gosh. How about it?
It’s wonderful.
You guys did it. Let’s start over here.
We did it together.
Yeah, we did. The barbecued ribs, the whole slab, the way it looks, the way it should look when you bring it off your grill.
[Greg] Then you can cut it individuals or you can cut it half rack.
And it’s just like one rib at a time, just enough to nibble on. Ah, it’s great. And the wings?
Barbecued skewered wings.
[Arlene] And you just kept putting the sauce on them.
[Greg] Just keep basting them.
So that they get that flavor baked in, right? Okay, now the vegetables.
We’re gonna just drizzle that with a little bit of olive oil, sprinkle a little fresh parsley on there.
Oh, look at that, and you even have two big heads of garlic.
We have roasted garlic on there.
Tell us how you did that.
We did that on the grill, covered it with a little bit of olive oil.
[Arlene] But you cut the top off, right?
Cut three-quarters down and then just grilled it.
Oh, and that is great if you have some toasted breads.
You can take those buds out and just put a little paste on there.
And then of course we just added some corn on the grill. You take the silk out and you soak it in cold water, 30 minutes, put the husk back on and just keep turning them. That’s all you did, right?
That’s it.
And we just put a little paprika on there. This I made, this is just potatoes, red potatoes with a leek. Chop your leek, slice it and then separate the slices. There’s rosemary, there’s salt and pepper, just whatever you like on potatoes, that’s what we did, and roasted them in the oven. That’s something you can do inside while this is going on in the grill. Next to that is that great, my favorite, Paul’s absolute favorite, chunky tomato cheese avocado salad. And then here’s our parfaits. Is this gorgeous or what?
That’s my favorite.
That’s your favorite? It’s so patriotic and it’s so pretty. I just love it. And so we made those. Those you can make well ahead, but wrap each one individually, okay? And what’s a picnic without watermelon? We have a controversy going, how far can you spit a seed, Mike?
[Mike] Pretty far.
Pretty far. Oh, he’s answering me today. How about that? Then we have, of course, you have to make tons of iced tea and keep it cold. Make it two days ahead of time if you need to. Just make it and put it in a glass, lots of ice, make sure you have lots of ice. Think of the things that you can do ahead of time to make it really successful. And you know, don’t keep inviting the same people. Mix the guests sometimes, ’cause some people that you think ah, they wouldn’t be enjoyable or they would be boring, sometimes when they get in a relaxed atmosphere, another side of them comes out and you can have really a lot of fun. We always have a lot of fun when you’re here with us. And I can’t tell you, not because Paul works for Woodys, but because I know these guys and I know the standard and the quality that they set. If you have an event going on, you want to call them, and the information will be on the website. The information is on their website, which is.
[Greg] WoodysCatering.com.
WoodysCatering.com, and you can get weddings.
There’s menus on there, a lot of information.
And they’re always very welcome. They will welcome your call and you can ask them anything and they’ll be glad to help you. I’m sure glad they were here today, because I don’t know that our crew could have pulled off all this. They brought tents and everything. This is so great. I really appreciate you guys.
We always have a blast. It’s always fun.
It’s fun. You guys make it fun.
It should be fun.
Absolutely. Remember, be thankful for this wonderful country, and this Fourth of July, get the flag up, fly it proudly. You live in the greatest country in all the world. So until the next time, be sure to join us, because it just wouldn’t be the same without you. Thanks, guys.
God bless America.
Yeah, bless you. Yeah, let’s eat.
[Announcer] Food provided by McGinnis Sisters special food stores in Brentwood and Monroeville. Taste the world.
[Narrator] Cornerstone Television wishes to thank all our faithful viewers, whose consistent prayers and financial support have made this program possible.
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