Blackstone Firsts: Hits and Misses

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I took advantage of our time camping in Marquette, MI to hone my Blackstone griddle skills. As you can see from the title, I had some hits and misses. The one good thing was the fact that my nephew was there to take photos, so we were able to get some action shots of me flexing my griddle skills (or trying at least).

Bacon was an absolute must while we were camping. We picked up four one pound packages from our local Costco before we left on the trip. I'm pretty sure each morning our nephew ate a full half pound of bacon himself. Leaving the other 1/2 pound for @mrsbozz and I to split.

It took me a day to realize that our nephew likes his bacon a lot more crispy than we do. The second two days I needed to pull half off before I let the rest of it get burned to a crisp.

Personally, I can't stand crispy bacon. You may as well be eating jerky (which I love). There is just something about crispy bacon that is a huge turn off for me flavor-wise.

Here is a sample of what the bacon would look like each morning. The left hand side is my nephews share. The right hand side is the less crispy bacon that @mrsbozz and I would eat.

Pancakes were an absolute must for this trip. It was the first time we tried them on the Blackstone and I have seen mixed reviews online from people who have had not the greatest luck making them.

From what I read, the key is to make sure you put enough butter down on the griddle before you drop your batter. If you have a good fat base on the griddle, then they won't stick.

I must done something right because the pancakes turned out absolutely fabulous. Having a big 22" griddle to work on made it quite easy to churn out a dozen pancakes or so in short order. It was absolutely fantastic. I would definitely do them again in a heartbeat.

I tried my hand again at "smash" burgers. At the recommendation of @intothewild, we chopped the onions this time and our nephew kept a little bit of the bacon aside each morning to put on his.

I have to be honest, I once again was not impressed with how they turned out. I would rather have burgers on a charcoal grill. They just didn't get crispy enough for me. I don't know if I did something wrong or if my griddle just doesn't get hot enough, but I was quite disappointed with them.

On the other hand, our nephew said it was in the top five best burgers he has ever had, so I guess you need to know your audience. He loved everything I cooked through the week.

Sometimes we are our own harshest critics.

There is zero question about it, the Blackstone kind of excels at breakfast. You can crank out a four course breakfast in no time flat with this thing. It's pretty impressive.

I know your probably getting sick of pictures of bacon right now, but it is one of the quickest and easiest things to cook one the griddle. If you bought one for nothing else besides making bacon, you probably wouldn't be disappointed.

We also tried our hand at some hibachi style chicken and steak. My brother in law has been cooking this meal for us for several years now and it always turns out excellent. I'm not so sure mine lived up to his standard, but I tried.

I got some chicken down for @mrsbozz and started going to work seasoning and cooking it. It was fairly easy to get it separated and you always feel like a professional when you are clanking your spatulas around chopping stuff up on the griddle surface.

I also threw down a ribeye steak that was about an inch and a half thick on the griddle. That was going to be for me and my nephew.

While that was searing off, the chicken was coming along quite nicely. This thing usually gets so hot that it doesn't take very long to get anything cooked on it. The chicken was done in a matter of minutes and I almost burned it while I was dealing with the steak.

I've gotta give props to my nephew for taking these great action shots of me working the griddle. Before long, it was time to flip the ribeye steak on the cook top.

You can see here, the steak didn't really get the crust I was hoping for. I think this might go back to my griddle not getting hot enough. Perhaps it was just to windy and that was impacting the flame and therefore the heat level of the griddle.

Once the chicken was cooked all the way through, I was able to focus my full attention on the steak.

Here you can see my nephew adding some seasoning to it!

I decided to cut it up on the cook top so I could be sure that it was done enough for myself and my nephew. You never know how kids are going to handle medium rare or rare steak.

Next, I threw some mixed veggies on. Zucchini, mushrooms, and onions. They cooked up in no time.

Finally, we threw down some fried rice that @mrsbozz had made ahead of time. They usually say that you should make the rice a day ahead of time and then you will be good to go. That was the case here with us. For some reason it ends up tasting better I guess.

In the end, this was a quite delicious meal. My nephew absolutely loved it and I think given a bit more tries I will get it down really well. I have zero doubt about that.

The Blackstone has been a really great tool to add to our camping trips. It takes up a lot of space, but it is definitely something I am going to keep around for the future. At the sale price I got it for, it has been a really wise investment.