Cool kitchen supper #3

Tonight's Menu

• grilled garlicky flank steak
  
• grilled flatbread
  
• grilled romaine salad
  

Hey! I haven't posted in over a month! How'd that happen? I have no idea, y'all. With the kids home for the summer and not only making their own damn dinners, but breakfasts/lunches/snacks as well, the kitchen is always an absolute mess and I've sort of lost my cooking mojo. If you click on the "grilling" link over there in the right-hand sidebar, you can see some of what we've been eating -- the usual summer fare around here.

However, this is the first time this summer that I've made my grilled garlicky flank steak, which has been a staple in summers past. I'm not sure why it's taken me so long to make it this season, because it's so easy and delicious! Just bash up a few cloves of garlic in the mortar and pestle with some kosher salt, freshly ground pepper, the juice of one lemon and some extra virgin olive oil. Make some diamond cuts in a nice piece of flank steak, then rub the garlic slurry over both sides of the meat, smooshing it into all the cuts and crevices. You can let it sit like this for a bit but there's really no need -- just whomp it right onto the grill and cook it over high heat for 4-5 minutes per side. Let it rest for 5 minutes or so, then slice thinly across the grain. So yummy!

I'm not sure what took me so long to throw some raw bread dough on the grill, either. I'd heard of people grilling flatbreads and pizzas and whatnot like this -- just slapping the uncooked dough right onto the grill grates -- but I guess I had to see it with my own eyes to believe it really worked. And it does! Honest! I used a hunk of the master recipe dough from ABin5, lightly flouring it and rolling it out into an oval about 1/4-inch thick. Then I really did just toss it right onto the grill grates! The grill was nice and hot and the dough started bubbling pretty quickly. When it looked sort of dry around the edges (like a pancake), I flipped it over with a pair of tongs and cooked the other side. I would say it took maybe 5 minutes total to grill up a nice big hunk of flatbread, which I then cut into squares for serving. The kids love this -- they say it tastes just like pizza crust!

I've made grilled lettuce before but it's been quite a while. I love lettuce this way -- it has such a sweet, earthy flavor when it's cooked. All I do is take a head of romaine lettuce, remove the tough outer leaves (sometimes I just buy packaged "hearts of romaine" in the produce department and have done with it) and give it a good rinse. After drying it thoroughly, I cut it in half lengthwise, drizzle it with a bit of EVOO, then slap it on the grill. You have to watch it closely and turn it with tongs every minute or so -- what you want is just a WEE bit of char and wilting, but with the inner leaves of the lettuce still retaining a lot of body. Take it off the grill and slice it crosswise, then toss in a bowl with some fresh lemon (or lime) juice and a bit of salt and freshly ground pepper. That's the simplest treatment, but you could also whip up a vinaigrette (something mustardy would be nice) for it. Serve warm and enjoy!

Here's the timeline for this quick and easy cool-kitchen supper:

• Light the grill about 30 minutes before serving time (for a gas grill -- adjust accordingly for charcoal or wood) and set to high heat.
• While grill heats, prepare the garlic slurry and rub it over the meat.
• Wash, dry and halve romaine; set aside.
• Put meat on grill.
• Flip meat after 4-5 minutes.
• Roll out dough for flatbread (I use a silpat, but you could put it on a pizza peel or a foil-covered cookie sheet or whatever). I've found that it's better to do this at the last minute if you're using a wet dough, because it gets sort of gooey if it sits for too long before cooking.
  
• Take meat off grill and cover to rest.
• Put flatbread dough on grill.
• Watch bread closely and flip when needed, then remove from grill when done (about 5 minutes total).
• Drizzle romaine with EVOO and put on grill.
• Watch closely, turn when needed and remove from grill when just barely charred/wilted.
• Cut bread into squares or wedges.
• Slice lettuce and toss w/lemon juice and seasonings.
• Slice meat thinly across grain.
• Serve it on up!
  

Memorial Day "picnic"

Tonight's Menu

• bbq pork spareribs
  
• grilled garlic toast
  
• potato-artichoke salad
• coleslaw
  

Okay, so it was too hot to eat outside. But I grilled a lot of stuff! Does that count?

The spareribs were my usual, finished on the grill (meat side down over medium heat for 4 minutes, meat side up and slathered in Carolina-style barbecue sauce for 4 minutes, rest before cutting into riblets).

I grill everything from meat to veggies to fruit, but I think this might have been my first time grilling bread! We had some leftover boule (yes, from the book -- I SWEAR I don't have any relationship with the authors/publisher) so I cut that into half-inch slices, brushed it on both sides with olive oil (LIGHTLY -- you don't want to soak it), and grilled it over high heat until it picked up some grill marks, which didn't take long at all. Then I rubbed a cut garlic clove over both sides of each slice of bread. So easy, yummy and fresh tasting! The girl particulary loved this bread. Of course, she lives on bread, so take that with a grain of salt, maybe.

The salad was my favorite summer salad. It's finally summery enough to serve this again, yay!

And the coleslaw was my usual, except I used savoy cabbage because that's what I had.

Here's the timeline:

• Three and a half hours before serving, rub the ribs with spices and put them in the oven at 325 degrees F, TIGHTLY covered with foil.
• Make potato salad and coleslaw after putting ribs in oven; put both salads in fridge.
• Thirty minutes before serving, light grill and pull ribs out of oven.
• Grill ribs as described above.
• Remove ribs from grill; cover with foil and let rest.
• Grill bread and remove.
• Cut ribs into riblets.
• Pull salads out of fridge.
• Serve it up!

I had a craving

Tonight's Menu

• lamb kofta kebabs w/minted yogurt
  
• za'atar bread
  
• marinated red onions and cherry tomatoes
  

We've been eating a lot of lamb lately, owing in part to the fact that the new farmers market that just opened in my neighborhood (yay!) has a vendor that sells local, pastured lamb in a variety of cuts. I like to load the ground lamb with spices and make little meatballs out of it, but tonight I had a craving for lamb on the grill. Kofta kebabs were just the ticket!

Bear with me, because as usual I don't have an actual recipe, but I can tell you what I did. First, I stuck a heel of stale bread into the food processor and whizzed it up until I had fresh bread crumbs. I was afraid dry crumbs would make the meat too crumbly. To the bread crumbs, I added some chopped fresh parsley, kosher salt, garam masala, chili powder, paprika and grated onion (fresh onion, not dried -- just peel it and run it over the large holes of a box grater). I also ran a good-sized garlic clove over my microplane zester (love this tip -- no need to peel the garlic!) and added that as well. I pulsed it for a bit to blend the ingredients, then added a pound of ground lamb and one large egg. Whiz it around until it's all combined, then form the meat into sort of oblong sausagey shapes and thread a metal skewer through each one (or a soaked bamboo skewer). Then grill them over high heat on well-oiled grates for about 4-5 minutes per side or until done through.

The yogurt sauce was easy -- just mix some greek-style yogurt with chopped fresh mint, a tiny bit of lemon juice, and a tiny bit of minced garlic. It makes a nice accompaniment to the meat.

I have made za'atar bread before. We all love this as an alternative to focaccia, and again, it went so nicely with the flavors of the meat.

For the little marinated salad I served alongside, all I did was cut a red onion in half lengthwise and then slice it VERY thinly crosswise, dumping the little onion slivers into a non-reactive bowl. I added halved cherry tomatoes (actually, I think these were grape tomatoes, but it doesn't matter) along with some chopped fresh parsley and oregano. Then I mixed some red wine vinegar with a TINY bit of sugar and a small amount of EVOO (use more vinegar than oil), poured that over the onions and tomatoes, seasoned with a bit of kosher salt, and tossed it all together. I just let this sit on the countertop at room temperature while I made the rest of the meal. It was very refreshing!

This whole meal was freaking fantastic, if I do say so myself! I had such a craving for something Middle Eastern or Mediterranean and this was perfect. The lamb kofta reminded me very much of a Romanian dish called mici, and I am half convinced that my occasional craving for spiced meat on the grill is an ancestral memory of some kind (I am one-eighth Romanian on my Dad's side). Every now and then, I need a little garlic and paprika in my life, you know?

Here's my suggested timeline for this meal. This is not exactly the one I followed, but it's the one I WOULD follow when I made this again.

• Earlier in the day, make the minted yogurt and stick it in the fridge.
• Also earlier in the day, make the meat mixture and put it in the fridge. It's easier to work with when it's cold.
• About an hour before serving time, make the marinated onions and tomatoes and let them sit on the countertop while you do the rest.
• About 40 minutes before serving time, prepare the za'atar bread (it has to rest for 20 minutes while the oven gets hot, then it cooks for 15 minutes or so).
• About 20 minutes before serving time, light the grill and put the meat on skewers while it heats.
• Put the za'atar bread in the oven.
• Put the meat on the grill. Turn after 4-5 minutes.
• Take the meat off the grill and the bread out of the oven.
• Slide the meat off the skewers so no one ends up in the emergency room (I speak from experience with metal skewers, here -- those suckers get HOT).
• Slice the bread into wedges, pull the yogurt out of the fridge, give the salad another toss and serve it all up!

Grilled pork

Tonight's Menu

• grilled spicy pork tenderloin w/mango salsa
• roasted chili-garlic potatoes
• quinoa salad
• green salad "bar"
  

Okay, this was pretty darn easy.

Tenderloin recipe is here. Mango salsa is here (except I used THREE mangoes, and a jalapeno from the CSA). Quinoa salad is right over here. The salsa and quinoa salad were made ahead of time; they'll keep for a few days in the fridge.

For the chili-garlic potatoes, all I did was cut up four LARGE red-skinned potatoes into bite-sized chunks and toss them into a baking pan. Then I drizzled on some EVOO, tossed to coat, and sprinkled them with some kosher salt, freshly ground pepper, garlic powder and chili powder. I roasted them at 475 degrees F for about 40 minutes, stirring them around every 15 minutes or so. Delicious!

Tonight's salad bar was purchased mixed lettuce, sliced carrots, sliced cucumber from the CSA, and cherry tomatoes also from the CSA (oh, the potatoes were CSA goodies, too).

Very yummy and summery!

Notes for next year's potluck

So hey, everyone! I hope all of my fellow Americans had a good Fourth of July yesterday. We went to our neighborhood potluck, as usual. I've been told not to show up without my extremely fattening potato salad, so I made that, but I had cut down the recipe because fewer people than usual were expected and that tiny little bowl of potato salad looked ... lonely, somehow. Sooo, I also made some zucchini bread and quinoa salad!

I followed the zucchini bread recipe I found here, except that I left out the nuts (DH and the girl are allergic to tree nuts) and added just a bit of grated orange zest to the batter. Oh my GOD, y'all! This is some damn good zucchini bread! It's almost more of a spice cake than a bread because it has a really fine, cake-like texture. The boy child is flat-out addicted so it's a good thing this recipe made two loaves (we only took one to the potluck). I will have a freezer full of this stuff before zucchini season is over, mark my words!

I totally winged it with the quinoa salad and it turned out to be the sleeper hit of the potluck. Go figure! I was afraid nobody would want to touch it, but I haven't gotten that many raves over a dish since ... er, the first time I showed up with that fattening potato salad, probably. I wasn't measuring but here's approximately how I made it.

I had some plain, unseasoned, cooked quinoa leftover from dinner the night before -- I'd guess it was maybe a cup and a half, cooked. So I dumped that in a bowl. Then I took a large-ish cucumber, peeled it, cut it in half lengthwise and scraped out the seeds with a spoon before chopping it into a relatively small-ish dice (not a PERFECT dice -- you know me -- but I was going for more or less uniform pieces). I dumped that into the quinoa along with about 1/4 cup chopped (small, again) red onion and 2-3 sliced scallions, green tips included. I had some colorful bell peppers (yellow and orange) in the crisper so I diced up just a bit of those for color (like maybe 1/4 of each pepper -- not much) and tossed them in. Then I went out to the herb patch and snipped a handful of basil, flat-leaf parsley and mint, brought it inside, washed and chopped it and tossed it into the bowl with everything else. Finally I seasoned it with salt and pepper, then shook some fresh lemon juice (NOT bottled) and EVOO in a jar and poured it over, tossing the quinoa mixture to coat. There was only a small amount of dressing -- not enough for it to pool up in the bottom of the bowl or anything. I just wanted to moisten and loosen everything up a bit while giving it a hint of that bright lemon juice flavor.

This was SO GOOD! Seriously, everyone raved about it (and asked what the heck quinoa was, and where they could buy it, and how to cook it...). There were no leftovers so I am going to have to make another batch just for me. This would make a fantastic lunch -- quinoa is really high in protein, and when you add in all the veggies, that's a complete meal as far as I'm concerned!

Of course, now I'm stuck bringing both the potato salad AND the quinoa salad to every neighborhood potluck henceforth (and probably the zucchini bread, too) but I don't mind.

Barbecue!

Tonight's Menu

• barbecued pork on buns
• marinated cucumber salad
• sliced tomatoes
  

Finally, the boy was feeling good enough to eat "normal" food tonight! So I went whole hog (hee! see what I did there?) and made some barbecued pork sandwiches for dinner.

I have to admit, this pork was sort of an experiment. What I did was take a shoulder roast, rub it with salt, pepper, garlic powder and paprika, and stick it on a rack in a roasting pan. Then I added some water to the bottom of the pan and dropped in two large-ish whole sprigs of rosemary. The idea was to get the rosemary to barely scent/flavor the meat. I covered the pan tightly with heavy-duty foil and stuck it in the oven at 200 degrees F for about 5 hours.

When I pulled it out of the oven I stuck an instant-read thermometer in the roast just to be sure it was fully cooked, which it was, so then I removed it from the pan and set up the grill for indirect heat (two burners on medium, one burner unlit). I put the roast on the unlit burner and started basting it with a Carolina-style barbecue sauce (I buy this already made; it's a mustard-based sauce that goes great with pork).

After maybe 15 minutes total, flipping it from one side to another halfway through, the sauce had kind of baked on to the meat. There still wasn't any browning, though, so I flipped the roast over to one of the lit burners for just a couple of minutes per side to get some nice grill mark action going. Much better, aesthetically speaking! After resting it for a few minutes, I shredded it and served it on buns with thinly sliced sweet onions and more barbecue sauce on the side. Delicious! And not as much trouble as it sounds, honest.

This cucumber salad is one of my favorite things. DH and I first discovered it at a Hungarian restaurant near here and we absolutely fell in love with the way this refreshing, cool salad contrasted with the rather rich main dishes (I admit it, I'm a chicken paprikas addict). A couple of years ago I was poking around in an antique store when I found a little pamphlet of Hungarian recipes. Lo and behold, there was our favorite cucumber salad!

Here's how you make it: take two good-sized cucumbers, wash and peel them, then cut cross-wise into thin slices. Put them in a bowl and sprinkle with 2 teaspoons of salt, then set aside for one hour. After an hour, start squeezing the cucumber slices in your hand, discarding the liquid. Put the squeezed cucumbers into a non-reactive bowl, then mix together the following:

3 Tbs white vinegar
3 Tbs water
1/2 tsp sugar
1/4 tsp paprika
1/4 tsp freshly ground pepper
1/4 tsp minced garlic (I grated it with my microplane)

Pour the vinegar mixture over the cucumbers, toss to coat, then sprinkle another 1/4 tsp or so of paprika over top. Cover and chill in the refrigerator for at least one hour. We like to serve it the way they do in the restaurant, with a tiny dollop of sour cream on top.

So yummy, and the crunchy, vinegary cucumbers were a nice foil to the rich barbecued pork!

Oh and P.S.: the cucumbers and tomatoes were from the CSA, natch.

My favorite summer salad

Tonight's Menu

• grilled sweet Italian sausages
  
• corn on the cob
• potato-tomato-artichoke salad
  

The sausages were grilled the same way as always, working around my sausage-grilling handicap: simmered in water for about 15 minutes, then crisped up on the grill over medium-high heat for 3-4 minutes per side or until nicely browned. Delicious!

I love grilled corn on the cob but NO ONE ELSE in this family will eat it. I know! So I cook it in the microwave. I remove the leaves and silk, give it a rinse, wrap each ear toffee-style in some wax paper with the edges twisted shut, then nuke them on high power for 10 minutes (for four ears). They come out just fine and all, but BORING.

It's finally time for my favorite summer salad! I've told you about this one before, but here it is again: just take some red-skinned potatoes, cut them into bite-sized chunks, simmer them in water until tender, then let them cool. Once they've cooled, whomp them into a bowl with some fresh mozzarella (you can buy the teeny balls, or get the larger ones and cut them up), some halved cherry tomatoes or larger tomatoes cut in wedges/chunks, and a chiffonade of fresh basil (that just means rolling up the leaves and slicing them into thin ribbons). Then take a small jar of marinated artichokes, drain and reserve the marinade, and mix the artichokes in with the potatoes and whatnot. Drizzle on enough of the reserved marinade to moisten everything up nicely, season with salt and freshly ground pepper, toss to coat, and chill it for about an hour.

This is SO GOOD! This time around, the potatoes and some of the tomatoes were from the CSA box, the other tomatoes were from my dad's garden, and the basil was from my own herb garden. And if I haven't yet tempted you to make this salad, here's a photo of tonight's version to tempt you further!

Yeah, you know you want it.

More grilling! I know!

Tonight's Menu

• grilled garlicky pork tenderloin
  
• grilled zucchini
  
• leftover coleslaw
• leftover fruit salad
  

I know. I KNOW. We had pork two nights in a row, and it wasn't even leftovers. I don't usually do that, but ... well, there is a long, involved story behind why this happened. It basically boiled down to the fact that it rained/stormed off and on all day, so I had to plan something that could be cooked in the oven if need be, and ALL of the beef in our freezer was the "grill or slow-cook ONLY" variety. And it was a busy day, so slow-cooking in the oven was out. I don't know what to tell you, dudes. WE HAD PORK TWICE, OKAY?

Anyhoo.

What I did was take my huge mortar and pestle, smash up some garlic cloves (about four) with some kosher salt, add some olive oil, freshly ground pepper, and the juice of one lemon, then smear that all over the tenderloin and stick it in a plastic zipper bag in the fridge for about 4 hours. I grilled it over medium-high heat for a total of about 25 minutes, turning it maybe four times (to get all the sides). Then I let it rest for about five minutes before slicing diagonally into medallions. It was delicious and perfectly cooked.

The zucchini was from this week's CSA share. I'm the only one who likes it, so I only did ONE zucchini, but you could do as much as you want. All I did with that was cut the stem end off the zucchini, slice it lengthwise (the long way) into maybe quarter-inch slices, brush both sides with EVOO, then sprinkle with salt and pepper. Then I grilled them for a total of about 5-6 minutes, turning halfway through. They were tender and delicious, and I am perfectly happy with being the only one who will eat them because MORE FOR ME.

Breaking in the new grill!

Tonight's Menu

• grilled boneless pork chops w/mango salsa
  
• whole-grain tortilla chips
  
• coleslaw
• fruit salad
  

Oh, dudes. I keep meaning to post, I SWEAR I do, but lately by the time I've dealt with all the end-of-school frenzy, the homework, the making/eating/cleaning up of dinner, and the NIGHTLY COCKTAIL, HELLO, I am just too darn pooped.

HOWEVER. We have been eating some swell stuff lately, including lots of CSA goodies, and for Mother's Day DH and the kids gifted me with a new gas grill! So I will try REALLY HARD to start posting more from now on. Swearsies!

Anyhoo, tonight I broke in the new grill with some boneless pork chops. I just sprinkled them on both sides with Jane's Krazy Salt and garlic pepper, then whomped them on the grill for about 4-5 minutes per side. The new grill leaves MUCH sexier grill marks on meat than the old one, and it has about twice the surface area. LOVE! The chops were excellent.

I have previously discussed mango salsa, coleslaw and fruit salad.

Oh, and the girl child TOTALLY eats coleslaw now! I KNOW! It only took TWO YEARS of having to Make (Her) Own Damn Dinner for her to start eating the food I cook. I thought it would never happen. Look for an update on the original purpose of this blog soon, along with tips for using up all that CSA produce!

Sausages on the grill

Tonight's Menu

• grilled sausages & onions
  
• "pizza" pasta salad
• green salad "bar"
  

Gorgeous weather today. I grilled. Big surprise, eh?

I had some nice, fresh (non-cured/dried) sweet Italian sausages which I simmered in a big pot of water for about 15-20 minutes, then slapped on the grill to crisp and brown the skins. SO easy. Then I just cut a sweet onion (Texas 1015, in this case) into wedges, tossed them with a bit of EVOO, and grilled them on a grill screen for a few minutes until they'd softened and picked up a bit of color. I don't know why, but I HAVE to have onions with my sausage. I just do. It's some kind of law.

The pasta salad was something different for us, because I just never make it. In our family, pasta and salad are pretty much two completely different dishes, you know? But I got a wild hair and decided to make something with Italian-ish flavors that the kids might like. It was really easy to do, too!

All I did was cook and drain some pasta (wagon wheels -- it's what I had), then rinse it in cold water to chill it down. That went into a bowl along with cubes of mozzarella (not FRESH mozzarella -- the kind you can shred for pizza), slices of pepperoni, some sun-dried tomatoes (not the kind in oil, though you could use those if you wanted), and a bunch of shredded parmesan cheese (NOT the powdery stuff in the green can). I poured a little bottled Italian dressing on top, tossed it all together, and stuck it in the fridge until dinner was ready. It was really tasty! From a visual standpoint, it really needed something green, though. If I made this again I might add a little flat-leaf parsley, fresh basil, or a chopped green pepper.

Green salad bar was the same as on Tuesday.

Spring grilling

Tonight's Menu

• grilled ham steak
  
• ciabatta
  
• grilled asparagus
• fruit salad
  

After a week of really crappy weather, it was GORGEOUS today. Perfect for grilling!

Grilled ham steak is the easiest thing ever. You don't even have to DO anything to it. Just take it out of the package, give it a rinse if you're not into all that brining liquid (I LOVE brine, so I don't rinse mine), and slap it on the grill for 3-5 minutes per side, depending on the thickness of the steak. SO yummy. You will never fry your ham steaks again, y'all.

The ciabatta was store-bought, warmed up in the oven while everything grilled. Easy.

The asparagus was likewise easy. I had a bunch of really skinny spears so they didn't take long to cook at all. Just give them a rinse, snap off the woody ends (this is the most difficult/time-consuming part of the process, which tells you how easy this is), then layer them on a grilling screen (mine is a flat metal sheet with holes in it -- you could also use heavy-duty foil with some holes punched through). Drizzle with EVOO, sprinkle with a little bit of sea salt and freshly ground pepper, toss them on the grill and just stir them around every few minutes with some tongs until they're crisp-tender. This is officially my favorite way to eat asparagus. It's kind of the summer version of oven-roasting, which I also love.

The fruit salad was STUPID easy. All I did was drain some canned mandarin orange segments, toss them in a bowl, then add green grapes and quartered strawberries. No sugar, no dressing, just fruit. We really like this combination -- the flavors and textures compliment each other well.

I don't know if it's because I'm such a die-hard minimalist or what, but I swear my easiest dinners are the most tasty. Simple ingredients plus simple preparation equals YUM.

Easy leftovers

Tonight's Menu

• garlicky grilled flank steak
  
• leftover grilled onions and potatoes
  
• leftover salad of baby spinach and strawberries
  

Um, yeah. Not much to say about this one.

I've already told you how to make the steak. And the onions/potatoes and salad.

Way easy.

Perfect summer supper

Tonight's Menu

• grilled chicken leg quarters
• grilled onion and potato packet
• salad of baby spinach and strawberries
  

Oh y'all. This was SO GOOD.

The chicken was easy. I just sprinkled each leg quarter with some Jane's Krazy Salt and freshly ground pepper, then grilled them skin-side down over medium-high heat for five minutes or so to get the skin nicely browned and crisp. After that I flipped them to skin-side-up, turned the grill down to low, and let them cook for another 20 minutes or so. They were tender, juicy and delicious.

The onion and potato packet was likewise easy. I just thinly sliced some onion and some little red-skinned potatoes (because that's what I had; do use a waxy vs. mealy potato, though) and layered them in a piece of heavy-duty foil with some butter, salt and freshly ground pepper. I sealed it all up nice and tight and stuck it on the grill when I turned the chicken. It was done when the chicken was done, and it was SO YUMMY. The onion got all sweet and slightly caramelized, and the potato was nicely tender. Mmmm!

The spinach salad could not have been easier; just dump a bag of pre-washed baby spinach into a bowl and add halved (or quartered or sliced) fresh strawberries. I served it with a bottled raspberry vinaigrette.

I washed everything down with a nice glass of white sangria. Earlier today I combined a bottle of pinot grigio (it's what I had; just use whatever white wine is laying around) with some cognac and a can of peach nectar. Then I sliced in a couple of fresh nectarines and let it all kind of get happy for a couple of hours. To serve, fill a collins glass (that's the tall one) with ice and then pour it about half full of the wine mixture. Scoop out some nectarines and drop those in the glass, add a couple of fresh raspberries, then top it off with club soda (or if you like it sweeter, use a lemon-lime soda). It's kind of like a homemade wine cooler, but NOTHING like that pre-bottled crap you buy in the store. So good, and excellent with grilled chicken!

Indoor barbecue

Tonight's Menu

• slow-cooker barbecued pork
  
• potato salad
  
• steamed corn on the cob
  
• mixed tomato salad
  

Hey! Hello there! I have not been posting! Sorry about that. We've been eating really boring crap, like hamburgers and tacos and ... leftover hamburgers and tacos. And stuff. This weather has me ALL MESSED UP. I like to grill all summer long, you know that, but it's been really rainy. So I went and planned some meals that did not require grilling, and since then it's been sunny. WHATEVER, Ma Nature. I think you're just trying to piss me off now.

Ahem. ANYWAY.

It did rain a bit today, so the slow-cooker pork was a good call. All I did was slice a big sweet onion, separate it into rings, layer them in the bottom of the slow cooker, whomp a pork roast on top (I used sirloin but you could use loin or shoulder or whatever), then dump on a bottle of barbecue sauce (in this case Sweet Baby Ray's Honey Chipotle, which was FABULOUS) and cook on low for a good 8-10 hours. If you're using a long-grained cut of meat, like loin, you can shred this and serve it on buns, but I just chunked it up a bit and we ate it like that. Really yummy and summery, but I didn't have to light the grill!

I'm convinced my potato salad is the only reason we get invited to the neighborhood 4th of July potluck every year. I have been told not to bother showing up if I don't bring it. Okay, nobody actually SAID that, but I KNOW WHAT THEY'RE THINKING. Seriously, this stuff NEVER fails to draw compliments. I take no credit for it because I cribbed it from an old issue of Taste of Home magazine.

All you do is take a bag of those small red-skinned potatoes (about 2-3 pounds), cut them in quarters or eighths depending on how big they are, layer them on a foil-lined baking sheet, sprinkle with salt and pepper, bake for about 45 minutes at 425 degrees F and let them cool. Then dump them in a bowl with some chopped hard-boiled eggs, a bunch of crumbled cooked bacon, chopped sweet onion, and shredded cheddar cheese. Mix three parts sour cream to two parts mayonnaise, squirt in just a bit of yellow mustard, and toss that with the potato mixture. You can serve this right away or make it a day ahead of time. It's SO GOOD, I am not kidding. Bring it to a party and you might get invited back, is all I'm saying.

Oh, I almost forgot the mixed tomato salad! That was just chopped (well, cubed really) red tomatoes from my garden along with yellow tomatoes from my dad's garden tossed in just a wee bit of EVOO and apple cider vinegar (whisk those together first to emulsify), salt and pepper. I've done this with balsamic before too and it's really good, but I thought the cider vinegar would better compliment the barbecue.

Grilling again, hooray!

Tonight's Menu

• barbecued shrimp
  
• grilled apricots with mint
• a salad of new potatoes, cherry tomatoes (from the garden!), mozzarella, marinated artichoke hearts and basil
• sliced tomatoes (from the garden!)
  

It FINALLY quit raining down here so I was able to grill again. Yay!

Okay, for the shrimp I just cleaned and shelled (down to the tails) a bunch of biggish shrimp and stuck them on bamboo skewers (which I soaked in water, but they burned anyway). Then I combined some bottled barbecue sauce with some apricot fruit spread and a wee tot of bourbon and brushed that mixture on the shrimp while they were grilling (about 6 minutes total over high heat). Yum!

The apricots were dead easy -- I just halved some fresh apricots, removed the pits, and grilled them cut-side down for about five minutes. Then I gave them a rough chop and tossed them with a bit of superfine sugar and some chopped fresh mint. Yum, again!

The salad was my usual favorite summer salad. Way yummy.

We are DROWNING in tomatoes but I am not complaining! Is there anything better than a tomato right off the vine, sliced and salted and wolfed down with abandon? I think not.

In other news, the sidecar is the official cocktail of Make Your Own Damn Dinner, Summer 2007! Sunshine in a glass, people!

Rain rain go away

Tonight's Menu

• sauteed tilapia fillets
  
• grilled romaine salad
  

The neverending rain here in Central Texas (not West Texas! I don't live there, despite what the New York Times might think!) is putting a serious crimp in my summer grilling plans, y'all. So tonight's dinner was an indoor affair.

The tilapia was the usual deal, pan-sauteed in EVOO and then seasoned with salt and pepper. Dead easy.

For the salad, I took some romaine hearts (you can buy these already packaged up at the grocery store), cut them in half lengthwise, brushed them with EVOO and slapped them on the grill pan. When they were still crisp-tender with sexy little grill marks I removed them from the pan, gave them a rough chop, and tossed them in a bowl. Then I cut a bunch of cherry tomatoes (from the garden!) in half and put them cut-side down on the grill pan for about 30 seconds before chucking them in with the lettuce. Toss with a bit of EVOO and really good balsamic vinegar, season with salt and pepper, and hey presto, you've got a nice warm salad to go with the fish! I thought it was pretty damn tasty. I don't think DH was crazy about it, though. (More for me!)

Ribs!

Tonight's Menu

• barbecued baby back ribs
  
• Ranch Beans from a can
  
• homemade coleslaw
• tomato salad
  

So hey, everyone! I'm back! Did you miss me? I sure as hell missed ... MY KITCHEN.

Okay, first the ribs. I did a dry rub with brown sugar, dry mustard, garlic powder, onion powder, chili powder, dry oregano, cayenne, salt and pepper. I put the ribs on a rack over some water, covered the pan tightly with foil, and put them in the oven at 250 degrees F. After two hours, I realized that the kids had taekwondo tonight so we wouldn't be eating until about 45 minutes later than usual, so I nudged the heat down to 200. They cooked for about 3.5 hours total.

I had planned to finish the ribs in the oven because it was supposed to rain, but then it didn't so I finished them on the grill instead. Which was kind of a pain because they were already falling off the bone. But I managed to get them on there, slap on some sauce (from a bottle), and grill them for about 10 minutes on medium (meat side up ONLY because they were too flimsy to turn). They were very very yummy.

Coleslaw was my usual, shredded cabbage tossed with a mixture of mayonnaise, vinegar, sugar and celery seed.

The tomato salad consisted of chopped plum and yellow tomatoes from my dad's garden along with halved cherry tomatoes from mine. I shook some really nice balsamic vinegar and GOOD extra-virgin olive oil in a lidded container, poured it over the tomatoes, sprinkled them with sea salt, freshly ground pepper and torn basil, then tossed them and let them sit at room temperature. They were a nice accompaniment to the rich meat.

I am SO GLAD to be home.

Surf & Turf! Kind of!

Tonight's Menu

• leftover citrus grilled shrimp from last night
• leftover garlicky grilled flank steak from the night before
• a warm salad of green beans and cherry tomatoes FROM THE GARDEN!
  
• leftover spinach salad with oranges and toasted almonds

Okay, so "embellished leftovers" would be a more appropriate title. Sue me.

I had a teeny number of green beans from the garden (I've been saving them up in a ziploc bag in the fridge for the past week) and wanted to do something with them. I also had about six cherry tomatoes, also from the garden, that were languishing on my kitchen windowsill. So hey! Warm salad!

I simmered the beans in water until they were just tender, then drained them and dumped them in a bowl with halved cherry tomatoes. Then I took a TEENY bit of garlic, like half a clove, and minced it. I tossed the garlic into a skillet and added a tablespoon or so of balsamic vinegar along with an equal amount of sugar (which was a bit too much sugar, unfortunately) and let it reduce down a bit. (NOTE: I actually had to do all the above steps twice, because the first time, the pan was too hot and the sugar burned. Yuck.) Then I removed it from the heat and whisked in a little bit of EVOO (really fast, so it would emulsify) and drizzled this concoction over the beans and tomatoes. Add a chiffonade of fresh basil (from the HERB garden!), season with salt and pepper, and toss to coat.

It was really good, but like I said, just a TAD too sweet. Next time, less sugar! I put some of the dressing/sauce on my spinach salad as well and that was AWESOME. Made me wonder what it would be like if I added just a bit of orange juice next time? And cut way back on the sugar? Hmm. I smell a kitchen experiment!

Cold supper

Tonight's Menu

• cold boiled shrimp
  
• marinated salad of red potatoes, mozzarella, tomatoes and artichoke hearts with basil
  
• fresh green salad
  

It's HOT, y'all.

The shrimp were boiled in the shell w/spices, put on ice to chill, then we peeled 'em and ate 'em at the table.

The potato salad is my usual favorite.

I had ONE homegrown cherry tomato in my green salad -- the first one to come ripe from the tomato plants in my garden. There are a TON of green tomatoes out there right now and I am giddy with anticipation!

Skewered

Tonight's Menu

• souvlaki-inspired pork kebabs
  
• potato-artichoke salad
  
• fruit salad
  

We had our annual Double Birthday Blowout today for DH and the boy child, whose birthdays are five days apart. It was windy and chilly but sunny enough to grill out, thank goodness!

For the kebabs, I combined a bunch of minced garlic, fresh lemon juice, fresh (not dried, but feel free to use that instead if you want) oregano, EVOO and freshly ground pepper and poured it over two pork tenderloins that had been cut into sizable chunks (I'd say about 1.5-inch or so cubes). I let it marinate for several hours in the fridge before assembling on skewers with yellow, orange and red bell peppers, onions and giant mushrooms. Just before grilling I brushed them with a bit more EVOO and sprinkled on a tiny bit of Jane's Krazy Salt. It took a while to get them done because of the freakin' 40 mph winds cooling down the grill, but they came out SUPER yummy.

The potato salad is my favorite summer salad from last year. It goes really well with any sort of grilled meat. Just cut some tiny red-skinned potatoes in half and simmer them in water until they're tender but not mushy. Let them cool, then toss in a bowl with halved cherry tomatoes, little balls of fresh mozzarella (use the cherry-tomato-sized balls, or larger balls cut in half or in wedges), and a jar of marinated artichoke hearts. The marinade from the artichoke hearts is your dressing, so you don't have to drain them, but if you like you can pour out the liquid into a little bowl or cup and then add it back in (so you don't accidentally use too much). Sprinkle on some freshly ground pepper and a chiffonade of fresh basil and refrigerate for at least a couple of hours before serving to let the flavors meld a bit.

The fruit salad is the same super-simple one I always make. Just combine halved strawberries, green grapes and a can of mandarin orange segments (you DO want to drain these) in a bowl. That's it -- no dressing, no sugar, just fruit. It makes for a really tasty combination of flavors and textures, and it's really pretty! Very refreshing with anything grilled or spicy.

This being a birthday celebration, we also had two kinds of cake for dessert. German chocolate (from a mix) for DH, and triple-layer brownie cake for the boy, who actually made his own cake from scratch with very little help from me! It's absolutely delicious, too. I'm too exhausted to dig up the recipe tonight, but I'll post it tomorrow, I promise!