Summers are made for getting outdoors, setting up the grill and inviting family and friends around for a meal. Can’t you just smell the beef coking and imagine the joy to be had. Its easy to see why most people in outdoor cooking surveys say that they love grilling the most.

Now hold on a minute. This is absolutely true, but if you want a really successful and enjoyable outdoor cooking experience then you need a well thought through outdoor kitchen.

The scale of your outdoor kitchen will be down to available funds but ideally you should aim to have the big seven in your outdoor kitchen: a grill and a stove; a cabinet for storage; a work top, a sink; a refrigerator and a well positioned seating with table area.

Your outdoor kitchen will bring in its wake many benefits. you’ll be free of walking in and out of the house so many times you’re going dizzy, you’ll have everything to hand when you need it; your family will be seriously impressed and enjoy your entertaining and you’ll be far more relaxed…. that is of course, assuming you’ve planned it all well in advance of starting the project.

As outdoor cooking equipment goes you simply can’t go wrong buying and using cast iron cookware for cooking outdoors. Indeed its fair to say that cast Iron Cookware is the ideal cookware for all outdoor cooks. Why?

1. Comparatively speaking cast iron is inexpensive; especially when its considered how long it lasts. Well cared for your grandchildren will be using your pans and your skillets and in turn will be passing it on to theirs;

2. All cast iron cookware is perfect as an outdoor cooking cooking medium. It enjoys near perfect heat conduction & heat retention, heating evenly & consistently without heat spots;

3. Nearly all types of food can be cooked in, or on, cast iron cookware; its perfect as a multi- purpose utensil;

4. It is really very healthy to cook with cast iron because you can cook fat free! This arises because properly seasoned cast iron cookware is ’stick-free’ and so requires no oil when cooking. [Note: Seasoning is done by filling the cracks small cavities in the pan with grease in a very hot oven. The grease gets baked in and gives an almost perfectly smooth surface on which to cook;

Summer is the time for outdoor living and barbecues. Here are 20 tips that will help you get the most out of your outdoor cooking :

1. You have a choice when cooking outdoors, will you use gas or charcoal? Chose charcoal if you love those wonderful flavors that come from the smoke; chose gas if prefer cleanliness, control and convenience. If you go for charcoal always start the fire naturally, never use lighter fuels or you’ll pick up those ugly chemical smells, no matter how long you wait!

2. Consider this carefully. Is your purchase of outdoor cooking equipment going to be an investment or a waste for money, because thats what it will be if you go cheap! Go for quality, it will pay dividends in both the short and the long term.

3. Go for the size of burner, measured in its BTU output, that meets your cooking needs; don’t go too small; large stockpots require powerful burners;

4. Think ‘practicality’ when choosing your outdoor cooking equipment. Portable grills are great but not for a large family gathering! Often when buying its far better value to select a kit, such as turkey fryer kit, rather than buying the individual components separately.

The American story is littered with references to cooking and the pioneers use of Dutch ovens. Spurned by those who want modern fads and TV dinners the Dutch oven is revered by those who appreciate great outdoor cooking and wonderful flavors in their food.

If you’re going to buy a Dutch oven it simply makes sense to buy a good one and to do this you are probably going to be best served by going online.

Before you buy your Dutch oven you need to make a basic decision. Do you want to cook on a grill or on a campfire because the oven thats best suits each is different. If its for the campfire, go for the 3 legged version with a lid suitable for holding coals; if the oven is for use on the grill go for a flat bottom oven.

So what makes for a good Dutch oven?

For those that love to cook outdoors its easy but for those that don’t its a hassle! Its strange, this principal applies to so many areas of our lives, but especially to cooking. So is this reality what is driving the move towards ever bigger, ever more technical, ever more sophisticated outdoor cooking equipment?

Outdoor cooking does take slightly more effort & time than cooking indoors, but don’t you think theres something magical about it that its well worth the extra effort? For me nothing tastes better than food cooked outdoors!

As a retailer running the Outdoor Cooking Equipment Store we provide cooking equipment to people who enjoy outdoor cooking I am getting more and more concerned about the technology and gadgetry that comes with the latest top-end outdoor cooking equipment . It’s bringing into question whether its even worth cooking outdoors! I have to ask, is it that we’re trying to create in our gardens?

The days of simple outdoor cooking are threatened by those who would have us believe that the next technology horizon is the patio! Even as a retailer of outdoor cooking equipment I have to ask, what is the point of cooking outdoors if technology has taken over? Where has the flair gone; where is the initiative; where has the creativity gone?