Despite the 90+ degree weather we’ve endured over the past few days, I’m a big fan of summer. I love going to the beach, drinking iced coffee, and enjoying a cocktail outside until the sun sets after 8 p.m. It goes without saying that I also love summer food, but there is one sacrifice I made when I became a city-dweller that’s hard to come to terms with. No outdoor space at our apartment = no grill.

My childhood memories of summer pretty much all consist of lazy, hot days ended with a meal off of the grill: burgers, steak tips, vegetable kabobs, and even pizza. We were back home for the July 4th weekend and sure enough, our menu was largely grilled. Now that we’re back in the city, we’re doing everything we can to avoid turning on the oven so that we can keep our little apartment cool. Luckily, one of our first purchases last year when we moved into our new place was a heavy-duty, cast iron grill pan that sits over two of our stove burners. It’s definitely not a grill equivalent, but it’s the closest thing we’ve got!

We went for this Lodge grill/griddle pan, and so far I’ve been pretty impressed! While it may not give food that exact same smoky flavor as a traditional grill, it does cook evenly and leaves nice grill marks. I love to cook everything from burgers to chicken to vegetables on it.

A few downsides to this method? Cleaning the pan is the biggest! You shouldn’t use soap on cast iron, so it needs to be scrubbed with hot water after each use. If anything is burnt on to the pan, scrubbing with coarse salt might be necessary (fun, right?). Another thing to be cautious about is the temperature of the pan — start cooking on it before it’s properly warmed up and your food will fall apart, but if the pan is too hot, be prepared to break out that salt to scrub off the burnt-on residue.

So is it the perfect alternative? Not by any stretch. But it definitely helps to quell my grill envy during the summer!