Cooking Outside

In our area, the weather has been brutally hot.  Temperatures have uncharacteristically exceeded 100F and there has been little rain.   Thank goodness for air conditioning.

However, we still need to cook and that typically will add heat to the house.   So we have two options:  eat out or cook outside.   We've chosen to cook outside more often, which reduces the heat load for our air conditioning.

Our outdoor set up is a gas grill that uses the house natural gas, which means it is always ready to use like any other appliance in the house.   When I first starting using the grill, I would use it on high to cook everything fast.  Recently, I changed to indirect low temperature smoking at about 250F.   Using this approach take about 90 -120 minutes to cook meat and vegetable on the grill, which allows me ample time to prepare salads and do other activities while the main dishes are cooking.  (In fact, I a writing this article as the main courses are cooking.)

Best of all, there is no heat added to our house and that saves energy :-)

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This is not financial  or meal preparation advice. Please consult a professional advisor.

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