Making Do

You may recall that the glass window on my grill shattered and ruined my dinner a few nights ago. I've been reduced to cooking indoors, which is never much fun in the summer. Tonight, though, Rich decided that it would be a great idea to build a campfire and cook out there. It's quite a hike to our backyard campsite from the kitchen. It's not miles, or anything, but compared to the short jaunt to the deck in which we can quickly fetch any forgotten items, it can be a pain. But I wasn't interested in eating any foods that would be prepared on the stovetop and in the oven, anyway, so I agreed to prep and pack a meal to cook over the open flame.

I had some hot dogs leftover from the London Broil au Glass Shards incident and some burgers that would be easy enough to cook on an open fire. Of course, there was the issue of vegetables. My fridge is packed with them, and we don't have time to take the night off from our green consumption. My solution was to slice up a zucchini, a purplette onion, some broccoli, and toss them with a little canola oil, some salt, pepper and herbs, and some leftover already-cooked potatoes. I have a vegetable basket meant to be used on the grill that would serve us well on the campfire grill.

I learned to cook on a campfire years ago when I worked at Camp Tepee. We were required to have a cookout with our "tribe". On my first go-around, I didn't know how to start a fire, didn't know how to cook on one, and couldn't imagine how I would go about keeping 12 little girls safe and occupied while trying to figure it out. Fortunately, I had a great outdoorsman of a boyfriend at the camp, coincidentally also named "Rich", who was able to help me out. As time went on, I became very adept and creative in my campfire cookery.

Being as confident as I am in my abilities, if I had my way, I would have been in charge of building the fire and arranging the cooking space. Rich set things up backwards with the campfire raging upwind of the grill setup. I didn't complain, but it did make cooking a challenge. I did need to interfere when it came to building an appropriately sized bed of coals under the grill. If you aren't familiar with cooking on a fire, you want to do it over a bed of hot coals. You can determine the temperature by putting your hand above the grill and counting how long you can hold it there. If you can only keep it there without feeling the burn for a second or two, it's really hot and good for searing meats. If you can keep it there for 4-5 seconds or so, it's a good medium. Much longer than 5 seconds, and you might be able to have a slow-cooked chili in a cast-iron pot. I directed my darling to build up the coal bed before we could get going.

When the meat was done, I got the vegetables going in the basket on a medium-ish location. They were delicious when done. I love grilled zucchini, and cooking over real wood makes a nice difference in flavor.

We topped off our meal with s'mores, the true campfire classic.

I Need a New Grill

So I was making beets for dinner, and if you read my last post, you know that there is a great deal of controversy surrounding the edibility of beets. I figured that if my guys were going to be happy at suppertime, I had better make something of the non-vegetable variety, so I chose a Teriyaki London broil on the grill.



Those who know me well know that I'm cheap. I prefer to say "thrifty", because it sounds like I'm not pinching pennies as much as being conservative with my resources. Rich and I have long been conservative with our resources. We have owned the same grill for 13 years. That may not seem like a very long time compared with other things people own, but we've talked to plenty of people who have replaced their grills after 5 years, or even 3 years. This includes folks who are very careful to cover their grills after each use and put them away in the garage for the winter. Some of these people are the type who buy top-of-the-line stainless steel grills and use them maybe once a month, and still find it necessary to replace them after only a few years.



I, however, am a year-round griller. I grill in almost all weather. I draw the line at blizzard conditions, but if the snow isn't falling, we shovel a path on the deck. The grill is on the deck, uncovered all four seasons. I'd never use it, otherwise. So this hunk of metal has taken quite a beating. Rich, my dear handy husband, has replaced the burners, the igniter, and other parts that I'm not smart enough to identify on several occasions. He has used stoveblack to spruce it up as well as disassembled the wooden handles and shelves to sand and stain them. We hate to go out and spend a fortune on something that we can revive, and we especially hate the idea of adding to the junkyard waste.



We had made up our minds this year to finally get a new grill. This one was becoming more and more problematic. It's been getting harder to find correctly sized replacement parts, and it is starting to rust through in some spots. One of the more fun problems was the hot spot that developed front and center on the grill. Flames were continually shooting up several inches right where my wrist needed to be to flip any burger or tong any hot dog. As much as I enjoy the experience of burning my arm hair when I cook, I figured it wasn't a viable long-term situation.



I was proven right about the lack of viability this week when I was making the Teriyaki steak. It was one of those days that was sunny, but rain showers kept coming every few moments anyway. I've grilled many times in the rain without any ill effects, so I wasn't concerned when I closed the lid on the London broil after searing it to be sure it cooked through. I stepped into the house to check the potatoes and grab a clean serving platter, and returned to the deck to find the glass front completely shattered, with glass shards all over the beef.

Keep in mind that I am cheap. I mean "thrifty". My first instinct was to wash the steak off like I do when the boys drop their lollipops in the dirt. Rich had the sense to make me throw the whole thing away. He supervised as I did, too. I know he is right. The 5 or 6 dollars I was tossing was nothing compared to the cost of a bit of glass lodged in the intestine leading to sepsis or some such icky thing. Incidentally, I know where my cheapness comes from. When I related the story to my mother, she said, (and I am not making this up), "Why didn't you just wash the meat off?"

Fortunately, we had some hot dogs in the fridge that I could make. Not quite the meal I had intended, but they made the beets go down easier for the kids.

Beets

Beets are a very controversial vegetable. There are those who hate them, and those who love them. My son Daniel, who falls into the latter category, upon seeing the massive bunch of beets in our box, requested that we have them that night. We didn't, primarily because beets were the one vegetable that weren't going to wilt and rot in a short period of time.

We also have some beet haters in this family. Zachary is one. Rich was one, but he's being a good sport when he's not singing "salad shooter" (see yesterday's post) and Conrad is not exactly a fan, either. I understand this attitude. I really do. I don't think I was willing to eat beets at all when I was a kid, but I'm not sure I even tasted them. My hatred of beets was related to their ridiculous color, their tendency to stain every other food on the plate that same magenta, and possibly my grandmother's favorite beet treatment: pickling in vinegar.

In addition to the beets themselves, I had the beet greens. After having said beets and greens taking up an inordinate amount of space in the fridge for a week, I decided I'd cook it all. I washed and trimmed the beets and popped them in a bot of water to boil gently until they were fork tender. When they are done, it is easy to just slip the skins right off of them. I sliced them and added a little butter and fresh parsley.

For the greens, I washed and chopped the leaves. In a skillet, I cooked a couple of slices of bacon, when it was crisp I removed it and added some diced onions. Once the onions were soft, I added a little water, a teaspoon of sugar and the beet greens. I allowed that to cook down until the greens were wilted and tender. I plated up the greens with the beets on top. The other side of the platter has some oven-roasted potatoes.

I made London Broil as a conciliatory gesture for my guys, for their beet-eating trouble, but that didn't turn out. More on that later.

Anniversary Dinner

On any other anniversary or special occasion, I'd insist upon going out to eat, but this year, on the occasion of our 14th wedding anniversary, I decided we needed to eat at home, even if it meant that I'd be cooking. After all, I have a ton of vegetables in the fridge.

To make things at least a little bit special, I figured I'd feed the kids early so that Rich and I could have some quiet time while enjoying our meal. It's a little crazy, of course, because that meant I was cooking and cleaning up two separate dinners.

For the kids I made an oven-baked tilapia. I melted a little butter with some parsley and basil from my share, along with a little bit of garlic powder and salt. I poured that over the fish in a glass baking pan and topped it with a handful of bread crumbs. I baked it at 425 alongside some OreIda french fries for about 15-20 minutes. My kids love plain steamed broccoli, so I served that as their veg. Easy, easy, easy.

Rich and I needed something fancier, of course. One of his favorites is scallops wrapped in bacon. In fact, if you wrap anything in bacon, he'll eat it. At one point he was making bacon martinis. This is what I'm up against in trying to cook vegetables for this guy! At any rate, I pre-cooked the bacon a bit, skewered it around the scallops, which I had brushed with butter and lemon juice and seasoned with fresh-cracked pepper, and popped them on the grill alongside some baby bok choy. The bok choy was a hit a few days before, so I figured I'd use up the rest. A little ponzu sauce and sesame oil before grilling with a sprinkling of sesame seeds when it's done makes it so tasty! I didn't want to over extend myself, so I made some toast with some sourdough bread we had in the house to round things out. We are not, after all, on an Atkins diet. I was pretty pleased with the results, considering the fact that we had managed to kick a whole bottle of wine before we even sat down to eat.

Drinking while cooking has never worked out too well for me, and when it came time for dessert, I remembered why. I was taking the shortcakes out the oven and managed to touch my pinky to the heating element just long enough to singe off a good piece of skin. My always helpful husband exclaimed, "I can smell it!" Great. I was tough, though, and the show went on: a little more liquid general anesthetic and some homemade strawberry shortcake with freshly whipped cream (none of that canned stuff for me!)

Getting Up-to-Date

Due to the end of work, as I mentioned before, I didn't spend a lot of time on my CSA share, neither planning and cooking, nor writing about it, so I do feel a need to share a few successes and failures before I plow ahead.

Week 2, I received a lovely head of "Chinese cabbage", according to Farmer Paul. Stop and Shop had the same sort of cabbage labeled "Napa cabbage". I know I've heard of Napa cabbage, but I'm not sure if I had ever tried it. One of the great things about the CSA is expanding my diet to include all sorts of things. I shredded the whole cabbage into a slaw, adding peanuts, Chinese noodles and sesame seeds and I tossed it with a dressing of soy sauce, sesame oil, and honey. It went over extremely well at Daniel's family birthday celebration. After my grandmother, parents, aunt and uncle went at it, I had an empty bowl to put away. Daniel and Zachary didn't want to try it; they were eating store-bought broccoli. Conrad enjoyed the slaw, though.

Another huge success was grilled baby bok choy. Farmer Paul stated that it was one of those serendipitous successes, as the shareholders love baby bok choy, and the farm was good at growing it. Count me among the bok choy lovers! I had some trepidation: there was a ton of it in the box. But I sliced each one in half (they ranged in size from 5 to 8 inches long, and 1-3 inches in diameter). After brushing each with ponzu sauce and sesame oil, I grilled them on medium just until they had some nice lines on them. They continued to cook and wilt a bit on the serving plate. I sprinkled a few sesame seeds on them just before serving. Daniel said they were too tangy, but the rest thought they were great! So for Daniel, I'll skip Ponzu, I guess.