Do you use your grill for cooking indoor food?

This is the time of year that I roast tomatoes about once a week to make tomato sauce and paste. It makes a mess out of the oven. Two weeks ago, I decided to use one of those throw away aluminum foil roasters for the dirty work on the grill. I covered it with heavy duty foil (so I could use it again and again) prepped the tomatoes and put it on the grill. The grill did a faster job and for some reason, much cleaner than in my oven.

Today, I made a chicken dish much like a cacciatore, and since my stove was just cleaned and we are leaving on an RV trip on Friday, I did not want to mess up my stove. Gene has a side gas burner on his grill, so I sautéed the onions, garlic and browned the chicken on that burner, then will finish on the stove tonight. It is served over polenta. The fan above the grill is so strong that I did not notice any splatters on the burner unit. This is great.....why did I not think of all this before.

So, do you do any food prep on your outdoor grill to save the mess?

i'm sorry; i don't understand. if you prepared the tomatoes the way you say, why would it make a difference where you cooked them?

I do it to save from heating up the house during the summer. Tomatoes, onions, peppers, bruschetta, corn, tomatillos, whatever.

There was a lady grilling with Bobby F. recently on Food Channel who cooked mac & cheese on one side of the grill while cooking a beer can chicken on the other side.

We do it all the time. We consider our outdoor grilling area an extension of our kitchen, and often make use of the extra firepower.

We also have other tricks for keeping the stove protected from messy cooking methods. For foods with a high splatter factor, we line the stove top with newspaper - it always adds some drama when a page catches fire.

[Jenise]

Karen, I oven roast tomatoes all the time and haven't found that a messy job. I'm unable to picture where all your splatter comes from. When I oven roast, I halve the tomatoes, toss them in EVOO and whole garlic cloves, then oven roast them cut side down--skins on. In about an hour when they come out, all I have to do is pinch the skins and they pull right off. There's no splatter to speak of.

My charcoal grill doesn't have a side burner. However, I now use my turkey fryer for steaming corn, ever since the guy who lives across the street burned his house down frying a turkey a few years ago.

We also use the outdoor grill all the time, ditto on not heating up the kitchen in the summer as another reason.
The grill is a terrif tool and extention of what's inside and am a great believer of 'whatever works' wherever it is.

[Jenise]

However, I now use my turkey fryer for steaming corn, ever since the guy who lives across the street burned his house down frying a turkey a few years ago.

You're probably well aware then of the stats on the increase in house fires every Thanksgiving!

You're probably well aware then of the stats on the increase in house fires every Thanksgiving!

Yes, however, he was doing it for Easter.

Jenise...I chunk up my tomatoes so there is a lot of surface to splatter around. I want to keep my skins anyway and when I put the whole thing through the food processor, they turn to liquid...I have no evidence of skin in my sauce.

David, I was simply saying that when I use my indoor oven, it makes such a mess of the oven....so when I thought of doing it on the grill, I was thrilled that there is no mess or heat in my kitchen.

John, when we did our kitchen remodel and everything was new, I lined my cook top with newspaper so the splatters would not go everywhere....never again. It caught fire and that made a royal mess. Much easier to clean up the splatters. Plus the smoke alarms do not go off and the neighbors are happy that I am no longer starting fires in my kitchen.

Use the grill, and the side burner for things that will either heat up the house in the summer, or will "smell". We steam/boil crabs and lobsters outside, do corn on the cob, grill pizza and use the grill as a second oven when there is not room inside for a couple of items being done...works great!

If I'm understanding your question I think is, do we use the outdoor grill to cook food that could be cooked indoors. If that's it, then the answer is sure, either because weather permits or because we opt for the difference in taste between indoor and outdoor cooking.
Grilled corn on the cob tastes very different from what you get indoors.

I use a frying pan on the BBQ to do foie gras. Much faster than goingaround the house taking batteries out of the smoke alarms!