Sunday grilling (17/7): turkey burgers edition.

1. Southwestern Turkey Burgers

2. with Cajun Grilled Onions and Cilantro-Avocado Spread
I used Emeril’s Original Essence to coat the onions before grilling, except I put in half the salt the recipe called for, to avoid having them be inedible. The spread is just mashed avocado with minced cilantro and a bit of salt.

3. Plum Upside-Down Cake
My sister brought home plums from one of her friends’ trees, and they were in need of saving, so I used a Real Simple recipe I’ve had work for me before. This time around, however, I skipped cooking the plums. Last time, this step made the plums completely mushy, so I find it totally unnecessary. The cake turned out sweet in the batter and tart in the plums, just the way it should be!

4. Margaritas
Holy guacamole were these strong! I used the International Bartenders Association standard ratios, which tasted good, but definitely needed to be sipped slowly. Also, if you’re committed to using fresh lime juice, you will need a ton of limes. A ton of limes. You will also spend forever squeezing said limes and your arms will hate you. You’ve been warned.

Standard Margarita

2½ cups tequila
1½ cups triple sec
1 cup freshly squeezed lime juice (about 10-12 limes)
agave syrup to taste (my preference: ¼ cup) (optional)

Stir all ingredients in a pitcher and chill. Serve over ice.

Makes about 5¼ cups (pitcher).

Sunday grilling: Fourth of July edition.

1. Greek feta Burgers
I remembered how good this recipe that I used last year was, so decided to go with it instead of overthinking what to make. As always, I replaced ground lamb with beef and blanched my own spinach instead of using frozen. The cucumbers and lettuce for the toppings came from our garden.

2. with Feta Salsa [Spread]
A friend of mine linked me to this recipe, which was quite à propos since I had Kalamata olives and sun dried tomatoes to use up. I eyeballed the quantities and processed it for longer to turn it into a spread for the burgers. It could’ve used less olives, as their taste was quite overpowering.

3. Grilled Tomatoes with Oregano and Lemon (Everyday Food, July/August 2011)
Super simple grilled veggie side! I made the oregano-garlic-lemon oil for the top a few hours ahead to allow it to infuse.

4. Cranberry Upside-Down Cake
Once again, continuing to slowly make my way through my stash of frozen cranberries.

5. Lemon-Mint Ice Tea
Brew the tea with a fistful of mint, and add half a cup of lemon juice. Easypeasy.

Sunday grilling (26/6): July 2011 issue of Bon Appétit edition. Best Sunday dinner eveeer.

1. Tri-tip with Chipotle Rub
I kind of fudged the rub as I didn’t know where to find dried chipotle chilies or pink peppercorns (err?), so I substituted chili powder and regular black pepper. Didn’t seem to hurt the taste any; the meat turned out soft, smoky, and sensational.

2. Little Gem, Feta, and Cumin Salad
Mmm fetaaaa. Instead of Little Gem lettuce, I used lettuce from our backyard, which at that point was starting to turn into a jungle. Since feta is already a salty cheese—and there’s a lot of it here—I wouldn’t include any more salt in this.

3. Cilantro-Scallion Bread
Great little nibbles! Could’ve probably used a little tighter rolling on my part, they don’t look anywhere as neat as the picture in the magazine. >_>

4. Grilled Vegetables
Sections of red bell pepper and cremini mushrooms, brushed with olive oil and slightly salted, then grilled until charred and crisp-tender. I put the mushrooms on some bamboo skewers to make them easier to grill.

5. Strawberry Daiquiri Italian Ices (Martha Stewart Living, June 2011)
These ended up a bit strange, mostly because at the last minute I realized that I didn’t have any lime and substituted lemon juice. They’re also misleading on the alcohol front; since you don’t really taste it much, it’s easy to overdo.

6. Peach-Strawberry Ice Tea
We had a box each of peaches and strawberries, and I was in an experimental mood, so once I made the tea, I decided to put one diced peach and about half a dozen sliced strawberries into it. I left it in the fridge overnight and most of the following day. It turned out absolutely amazing. Next time I decide to do this, I’m going to try first pouring the two cups of hot tea over the fruits and steeping them until cool, before watering it down. Should hopefully bring out the flavor even more!

Sunday grilling (19/6): kebabs two ways edition.

1. Flank Steak Kebabs with Peanut Sauce (Everyday Food, June 2011)
The peanut sauce on these wasn’t my favorite, since it was coconut milk based, and I don’t actually like the taste of coconut. >_> I figured that the peanut butter would take over, and I was mostly right, but there was just enough coconut taste to make the sauce kinda meh for me. The kebabs were pretty standard.

2. Mozzarella-Stuffed Turkey and Tomato Kebabs (Everyday Food, June 2011)
I made a fail substitution on these by using chicken breast instead of turkey. The chicken just wasn’t big enough to wrap the mozzarella completely, which resulted in it melting and leaking out on the grill. :( But it was heavenly in the few pieces it managed to hang onto.

3. Salad
Along with lettuce from our garden, this also included our first cucumbers!

4. Lemon Meringue Frankenpietart
I call this the Frankenpietart because I took three different Joy of Cooking recipes—one for the filling, one for the crust, and another for the topping—that weren’t meant to go together and used them anyway. The filling is for a lemon tart, but the crust is made of graham crackers, instead of the pâte brisée you would normally use in a tart. Basically, this is what happens when you have a giant bag of lemons and leftover boxes of graham crackers from Costco, as well as eggs that need to be used up ASAP. Overall it was fine, but I overbeat the meringue, so it didn’t brown as nicely as it could have.

5. Arnold Palmer
Self explanatory. Half homemade lemonade, half freshly brewed black tea!

Sunday grilling (12/6): Balinese chicken edition.

1. Balinese Grilled Chicken (Food & Wine, June 2011)
Although I didn’t include the fresh bay leaves—couldn’t find any at the store—and don’t know how that affected the dish, it still tasted great. The chicken was moist, smoky from the grill, and had an Asian flavor courtesy of the ginger and turmeric.

2. Potato Hobo Pack (Martha Stewart Living, June 2011)
This was a bit of a failure. I didn’t include the beer (too weird) and just put some oiled, salted, and peppered baby potatoes in some foil with a couple of garlic cloves. Sadly, we didn’t grill the pack long enough and the potatoes ended up a bit… crunchy.

3. Salad
A simple salad made with the first harvest of lettuce from our backyard!

4. Strawberry-Lemonade Icebox Pie
This was so gooooood. I love lemon and I love strawberry and I love graham cracker crusts—though not necessarily trying to cut them—and this pie had everything! It also had meringue, which meant I had the excuse to bust out my propane torch from Home Depot and go to town toasting it. :D

5. Iced Tea
Self explanatory.

Sunday grilling (29/5): “we will grill this weekend even if I have to stand in the pouring rain” edition.

By the end of May, I was exasperated with the uncharacteristic cold and rain we’d been having, and determined to grill for Memorial Day no matter what. Thankfully, the weather decided to cooperate and bring forth sun and warm temperatures, so I busted out my collection of grilling themed magazines and settled on the Club Med menu from the June 2011 issue of Bon Appétit. Since the original cake in the menu and its ingredients looked too complicated to be worth bothering with, I replaced the dessert with a cranberry cake.

1. Grilled Yogurt-Marinated Leg of Lamb
There are no words to describe how amazing this was, but I’ll try anyway. This had a smoky flavor from the grill and the tabil spice blend in the marinade, and it was so soft, it practically melted in my mouth. Makes me drool just thinking about it now. Bit pricy, but so worth it. Great for sandwiches the next day too!

2. Cucumber, Tomato, and Feta Salad
A fresh salad with that yummy feta cheese bite.

3. Tunisian Vegetable Salsa
The sweetness of the roasted peppers and onions really came through in this. If I could stand to eat spicy food, I would’ve kept the chile seeds, and it probably would’ve been a nice counterpoint to the sweet vegetable taste, but… I don’t like having my mouth feel like it’s on fire.

4. Grilled Flatbreads with Tabil Spice Blend
Mmmmmm breaaaad. I love bread as it is—which probably isn’t very healthy—but homemade bread is the best. It just took a while because the grill could only fit two flatbreads at a time.

5. Cranberry Upside-Down Cake
I didn’t have the patience to go search for the weird ingredients that the orange cake originally part of this menu needed, but I did have bags and bags of frozen cranberries. Since you can only find them around Thanksgiving, I went a bit overboard last year and stoked up. Majorly. To the tune of about a dozen bags. But this cake is quick to make and tastes great, so using up all that cranberry shouldn’t pose too big of a problem. I do double the ingredients for the batter, though it still doesn’t turn out as high as the recipe photo.

6. Mint Tea
Simple and refreshing. I dumped two tablespoons of loose-leaf tea, a handful of mint, and ¼ cup honey into two cups of boiling water and brewed until very dark, then diluted it with three more cups of water, and added about ⅓ cup of lemon juice.

Sunday dinner: May Day edition, aka I declare grilling season officially open! Temperatures were in the 80s that weekend with not a cloud in the sky; perfect day to bust out the charcoal.

1. Turkey Burgers with Spiced Tomato Chutney and Cajun Grilled Onions (Real Simple, June 2009)
Homemade burgers are the best ever. I’ve also realized that mixing cheese into the patty, at least in this combination, is a lot more tasty than putting the cheese on top. The chili in the patty combined amazingly well with the spices on the onions and the cinnamon in the chutney to create a delicious, smoky-sweet flavor. Note to self: label random bags of leftover spices. At some point last year I was cooking a recipe that involved making my own spice mix, and I had a couple tablespoons left over, so I figured I would use it up on these onions. It turned out so damn good, but I have no idea what it was! Definitely some kind of mixture of chili powder, paprika, oregano, and salt. Maybe onion and garlic powder as well?…

2. Potato Salad with Bacon and Parsley (Real Simple, June 2009)
Fairly simple potato salad, though the Dijon and vinegar are a deviation from your standard creamy dressing. I think I still prefer creaminess and lots and lots of chives. The bacon for this recipe was cooked on the grill, since it was fired up anyway.

3. Strawberry Icebox Pie
The strawberry train continues! I ended up putting a whole stick of butter in the graham crust because it refused to stick together otherwise. I also replaced the cranberry juice with a handful of frozen cranberries from my Thanksgiving stash.

4. Raspberry Lemonade
My classic lemonade recipe with an added pint of mashed raspberries passed through a sieve. After the experience of a past lemonade batch ending up incredibly sour, I’ve learned to adjust the sugar by taste rather than rely on my previous ratios. I had wanted to try this with Meyer lemons, but as Murphy would have it, this was the week they were no longer in the store.

Sunday grilling: Sunday Night Football edition, where I settle down in front of the teevee with some traditional American fare and watch the San Francisco 49ers lose yet another game.

1. Chicken Cobb Burger
I was in a bit of a hurry and totally forgot the avocado—just as well, my sister hates them in any form that is not guacamole—and the dressing. The grocery store also didn’t have ground chicken, so I substituted turkey. It still tasted quite a bit like a Cobb salad though.

2. Double-Fried French Fries with Creamy Parmesan Mustard Dip
Omitted the salt on the potatoes on the account of the dip and used olive oil instead of canola for the frying. The dip was amazing. Something akin to a mustard-y Caesar dressing. Absolutely delish.

3. Apple Pie
I changed the crust up a little by adding a couple tablespoons of sugar, chilling the lard, and using nearly frozen butter—which was actually just a mistake because I forgot to defrost some the night before. It turned out amazingly soft and easy to roll and was perfect when baked.

4. Fox Barrel Apple Cider
After looking all over for some apple cider, I finally discovered a couple six-packs of it in Whole Foods. This cider is more bitter than the Woodchuck I’m used to—although the first bottles were more bitter than subsequent ones; maybe I’m getting used to the taste?—but still quite nice. I just wish more places would sell it.

Sunday grilling: pseudo-tailgating, pork burgers edition.

1. Manchego-Stuffed Pork Burgers
Since my grocery store doesn’t carry anything as fancy as Manchego, I simply didn’t include it and spread some goat cheese on the toasted burger bun instead. It turned out great, though dad complained that the burgers were a bit on the “falling apart” side of things when he tried to flip them and that the cheese would have held them together better. The combination of spices and olives is quite amazing.

2. Deviled Dip with Baked Potato Wedges
Unfortunately, the dip didn’t really go with the potatoes, though each component was delicious by itself. It would be great with some salty potato chips and maybe a few more dashes of Tabasco. I omitted the herbs and garlic on the wedges on the account of the dip and baked them plain.

3. Game Night Margaritas
Good lord these were strong! I had to add a whole lot more grenadine and use a lot of ice to get them to a drinkable level. I don’t now if there was too much tequila or triple sec for the amount of lime juice + grenadine. Need to work on my margarita ratios.

4. Apple Pie
This time I put in lard in the crust and got the correct amount of salt into it. It turned out heavenly! Rolled out very nicely and flaked well once baked. In an attempt to get the pie to look less boring, I did a top crust similar to what I’ve seen in an issue of Martha Stewart Living a few years ago. The effort to use up our ridiculous harvest of apples continues!

Sunday grilling: kebabs & apple pie edition.

1. BLT Pasta Salad
Used whole wheat pasta, one head of regular lettuce, and didn’t include chives because they somehow didn’t make it onto my Grocery iQ list. Wish I hadn’t forgotten them; I think the salad would’ve been way better with chives.

2. Wine Marinaded Beef Kebabs
Because I couldn’t find a package of meat small enough and wanted leftovers, I increased the meat to about 2½ pounds. This meant I had to increase the red bell peppers and onions to two—though we did end up with a Frankenkebab that was two pieces of meat and eight pieces of pepper, whoops! Swapped red onions for the yellow. Nixed the cherry tomatoes to prevent veggie overload.

The recipe for the Essence isn’t actually included in the kebab recipe page, but you can find it here. I wouldn’t make it again without some major modifications like cutting the cayenne way down and nixing all the salt, since the marinade calls for soy sauce. I had already cut the salt to one tablespoon and used low sodium soy sauce, but the meat turned out ridiculously salty. I also took out the rosemary, since I already had oregano, thyme, and a ton of spices.

3. Apple Pie
We are currently being overrun by apples, since the tree in our backyard finally caught up to the season. This means I’ll be baking nothing but apples for the next month at least. I used the Joy of Cooking recipe for apple pie and decided to brave making my own crust for the first time in years. I usually hate making pie crust since I can’t do it quickly enough and it ends up sticking everywhere when I roll it. However, since I discovered I could use my KitchenAid and learned a few tricks from years of watching Martha Stewart + the Food Network, I figured it wouldn’t be as difficult as it used to.

I was mostly right, though I discovered too late that the recipe called for vegetable shortening, which I didn’t have, so I had to make do with just butter. I also managed to misread the amount of salt and put in one tablespoon instead of one teaspoon. Next time should be easier—and there will definitely be a next time since I have at least half a tree’s worth of apples to use up—and I will make sure to include the secret ingredient that makes good pie crust so great: lard! ;)

4. Modified “Creepy Crawlers” Cocktail
The October 2010 issue of Everyday Food predictably includes some Halloween themed recipes, one of which is the Creepy Crawlers Cocktail: a concoction of pomegranate juice, both light and dark rum, simple syrup, and lime juice. Since the recipe makes only one serving, I modified it to fill a pitcher, which conveniently used up the last of our light rum. I didn’t want to get a bottle of dark rum, so I replaced it with black tea, and cut the sugar in the simple syrup down since I figured the pomegranate juice would be sweet enough, especially without the dark rum. The drink still turned out way too sweet though, so I’ve cut the sugar out completely for this recipe. You can feel free to dissolve some in the water if the drink isn’t sweet enough for your tastes.

South of the Border Pomegranate Tea

1 cup light rum
1 cup strongly brewed black tea, cooled
2 cups pomegranate juice
½ cup fresh lime juice, strained (from about 2-3 limes)
1½ cups water
(½ cup sugar, optional)

Combine all ingredients in a pitcher and stir. Serve over ice. Makes 6 cups.