These Asian-inspired chicken thighs grill up tender and flavorful, and take only minutes to prepare. Chinese five-spice powder is a blend of spices that has the five different flavors: sweet, sour, bitter, pungent, and salty. For this recipe, the five-spice (and a few other basic ingredients) are turned into a rub for the chicken. After grilling, the chicken thighs are tossed with a soy sauce and rice vinegar mixture and sprinkled with freshly chopped cilantro. To round out the meal, serve with steamed jasmine rice and some stir-fried veggies or an Asian slaw. Delicious!

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Tags: chicken thighs, Chinese five-spice, crushed red pepper flakes, Grilling, rice vinegar, sesame oil, soy sauce

If you're a cilantro fan (like me), you're going to LOVE this chicken! It's delicious, extremely easy, and can be served as either an appetizer or a main dish. And, you can use the leftovers (if there are any) to make a Mexi-inspired salad (greens, corn, tomatoes, red onion, avocado, etc) the next day…think jazzed up chicken taco salad.

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Tags: Chicken, cilantro, cilantro pesto, grill, skewers

If you like the flavors of Thai food then you'll love this simple grilled chicken recipe. After cooking, the chicken is brushed with a flavorful sauce that is a little sweet, a little tart, and little spicy all at the same time. The sauce only takes a few minutes to make and really brings the grilled chicken to life (so to speak). I served it with steamed jasmine rice and a boat load of stir-fried veggies.

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Tags: Chicken, Grilling, Quick Cooking, Thai

Oh my, these are good sandwiches! Basically, Spiedies (pronounced speedies) are marinated and grilled chicken served in a sandwich roll with a drizzle of lemony-garlicky sauce. Now I know they don't look like much but they are really delicious and a cinch to make! The chicken is flavorful but it's the sauce that makes the sandwich. Toasting the inside of each sandwich roll on the grill adds flavor to the roll and a crunchy texture to the sandwich. Yumm!

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Tags: Chicken, Grilling, sandwich, spiedies

Here's a delicious, Mexi-inspired steak just in time for grilling season!  I can usually find flatiron steaks at Fred Meyer. New York strip steaks or rib-eyes would be a good substitute if you can't find flatiron steaks (adjust the cooking time to the size of steak you use). Flatiron steaks are best cooked to medium-rare and sliced across the grain.

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Tags: chipotle, flatiron steak, Grilling, Quick Cooking, red pepper, steak

This recipe rocks! The whole meal can even be cooked on the grill (meaning no kitchen mess…always a bonus). The tacos call for skirt steak which is a long, thin cut of beef. Flank steak or rib-eyes would work great, too, if you can't find the skirt steak (you will need to alter the cooking time if you use a thicker cut). The skirt steak I bought was folded in half for packaging. After unfolding the meat, I cut the skirt steak into shorter pieces for grilling (adjusting the cooking time for smaller pieces of meat). After cooking, I let the steak rest then I sliced it thinly against the grain (the meat will be very chewy if you slice it with the grain). You can substitute corn tortillas for the flour tortillas if you prefer.

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Tags: Beef, grilled tomato salsa, Grilling, Mexican, Quick Cooking, skirt steak, tacos

A few days ago I decided to make baby back ribs for Husband on New Year's Day (NYD). Mere words cannot describe the look of glee and sheer joy that lit up his face when I told him my cunning plan. I purchased the meat on my Costco run two days before NYD, a 5.5-lb. package of 2 racks of pork loin back ribs. Late on New Year's Eve afternoon, I prepped the ribs with Emeril's Creole Seasoning (recipe below) and marinated them in some of Husband's homebrew (an amber ale recipe based on a popular local microbrew called Hammerhead). On NYD morning, I brought the ribs out of the refrigerator to bring them to room temperature, a process that seems to take practically forever. After about 1.5 hours, I got impatient and decided to put them in the oven even though they weren't quite at room temperature yet. I cooked the ribs until tender and made the sauce.

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Tags: Grilling, pork, ribs