Today will be traditional 4th food: burgers, tater salad and beans. But tomorrow. . .ah yes, tomorrow. . .I’ll be making Kenji-Alt’s superb carne adovada with fresh corn tortillas.
Creamy potato salad, johnsonville brats, hamburger, tossed salad, and other sundries…maybe grilled hallumi.
Beef stew.
Roger that. Then we’re whomping up a bunch of cold salads: pasta, potato, coleslaw, etc. for the weekend, which is predicted to be over 100°F for three days. Beer, hard lemonade, cold salads and air conditioning.
I made a huge brisket on Monday. I mean huge, a 14 pounder. Getting this thing rinsed and into the pan was like wrestling an alligator. ROFL!
So yeah, we had five people the first night, four the second, and I reckon we’d get one more meal out of it except that it will be devoured at the block party this evening. Obviously there was a good deal of fat that melted away in the process, but it was still quite large after cooking. There is some sort of cosmic ratio here that has yet to be defined. Pending future refinement I’ll offer this hypothesis: The shrinkage of a brisket is inversely proportional to the increase in appetite of those who partake.
We’re in coastal Maine on the first half of a two week vacation. The massive heat wave that’s been cooking the Midwest and northeast has reached all the way up here; I’ve never been so hot in Maine.
Last night I grilled a pound of local haddock marinated in lemon, olive oil, and parsley. Braised Japanese turnips in salted water along with rainbow chard stalks, then steamed them together with the chard, the turnip greens, and a bunch of kale, all from Beech Hill Farm, an organic farm run by local students. Very good.
Tonight I’m grilling summer squash from Beech Hill, plus a pound of pork tenderloin marinated in olive oil, lemon, and garlic. And maybe a little mustard. I also bought some prepared potato salad, in honor of the holiday.
Today is a picnic on the Northwestern University landfill, no grilling allowed. So I am bringing Moroccan carrot salad, Moroccan eggplant (of my own making - an attempt to reverse engineer the Moroccan eggplant from the dear departed local Israeli-Moroccan restaurant Ha-Shalom), pita, and feta.
Come to think of it, I should get back to frying eggplant in olive oil…
Last night I made a big tray of chicken enchiladas and a batch of succotash. This morning I portioned out and froze the leftovers. Yay homemade freezer lunches.
Tonight we’re grilling hot dogs. I’m also making cole slaw, and digging up the first potato plant of the year for fried potatoes. There will be lemonade for the kid and gin & tonics for the adults.
Cheeseburger, fries, celery and red pepper sticks with blue cheese dip, ice water and for dessert (once more) fresh raspberries from our backyard with ice cream. Happy USA 242!
It’s July 4th, so I threw a steak on the grill and served it with corn on the cob!
Grilled veggie burgers. I got some Match brand veggie burgers (https://www.matchmeats.com), which are a pretty good substitute for meat. Grilled them over mesquite chips, brushed on some BBQ sauce, added gouda and romaine, and they were quite good. Served with potato chips, baked beans, and a couple Buds.
Grilled rib-eye steaks and creamed (fresh) spinach with feta.
Put a Mary’s chicken on the weber, made a yukon gold potato salad and fresh greens salad, oh, and day drinking.
and day drinking.
Hamburgers, hot dogs, pasta salad and many beers.
Cuban sandwiches tonight! We have them a lot but nobody ever complains.
Zucchini soup! And then baked zucchini, and zucchini pie. And probably zucchini for dessert.
All week.
Actually, I made tabouleh tonight. It’s one of those meals that tastes even better the second day, straight from the fridge. Lovely in this hot weather.
Skewers with steak, onions and red pepper, and corn on the cob rolled in butter.
We had some fresh crabs from the gulf coast. So I have crab meat left over. Making crab cakes and salad. Tomatoes, tomatoes and more tomatoes. They are very good this year. Also my strawberry plants have a few berries. I covered them with bird repel cloth today. I hope I get enough to make jam this year.
Didn’t get my grocery shopping done today and didn’t feel like going back out so I had to improvise. Started by chopping red skinned potatoes and two serrano peppers into a skillet with a bit of oil, salt and pepper. Cooked these until not quite done then added one frenched yellow onion, half a chopped bell pepper and a little too much hot sauce. Continue frying until veggies are soft and the hot pepper fumes have turned the kitchen into a chemical war zone. Crack in three eggs, scrambling them with the veggies and topping with shredded cheddar. Roll that into nice flour tortillas with a bit of salsa - hey, that’s dinner for me.