Summer has not officially arrived, but the grilling season in our house has officially opened a day before Memorial. This is our third for the season.
The meat is from Alameda Market on Glenoaks Boulevard and East Alameda Avenue in Burbank... organic chicken and beef kabob... juicy and almost melt in your mouth.
On the side, we had grilled tomatoes, green bell pepper and basmati rice with saffron.
Grilled peaches for dessert and a bottle of red from Italy.
The flowers, lantana, I cut from our front yard.
Candle light flickers while we watch the planet Venus shining bright next to the half moon up in the beautiful evening sky.
In the mood for some Greek food today. On the table..
Souvlaki: chicken and beef marinated in olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, onion and some Greek herbs and seasoning
Tzatziki: yogurt with grated cucumber, lemon, olive oil, a dash of salt, some cracking of black pepper and dill from our herb garden.
Kicking off the BBQ season with chicken & shish kabob on lavash, shirazi salad, basmati rice, pickled eggplant and grilled vegetables.
A 4th of July early evening BBQ supper outside. Steak, asparagus, potatoes, peaches and glasses of refreshing sip... berry juice with floating blueberries for the Little Guy and French rosé wine for the grown-ups.
... marinated in ponzu sauce, sprinkled with salt and pepper, then topped withs sliced lemon and fresh oregano from the garden is what we had for dinner on a lovely summer evening.
This is what you do when temperature drops and it gets too cold to grill outside.
Taco night is always a fun night.
I cooked Mexican rice, made a jar of salsa and grilled a flank steak marinated overnight in ponzu sauce, soy sauce and Knorr liquid seasoning.
A pound of marinated beef chopped and grilled…
- place on a small flour tortilla
- spoon in some salsa and chopped radishes
- add cilantro on top
… fold and eat!
Quinoa, pronounced “keen-wah” is a gluten-free, high-protein superfood that is endemic to Bolivia and Peru.
For this recipe I used a cup of organic truRoots quinoa cooked in two cups of water, one red bell pepper parboiled and chopped, a can of Bush’s black beans, a small bunch of cilantro chopped and the juice of two fresh lime.
The salad is topped with grilled shrimp marinated in lime, paprika, salt and pepper.
Any leftover will be my lunch in the office tomorrow.
Digging our teeth into a slab of T-bone steak with happy grins.
The steak was seasoned with coarse sea salt and freshly-cracked peppercorns and then grilled on a grill pan until medium well.
Summer evenings mean supper outside. Tonight we grilled a whole red snapper seasoned with Knorr Seasoning.
Dipped in lemon and soysauce and eaten with steamed white rice.
Let's grill outdoor, enjoy some sunshine before the temperature rises to the upper 90s. Summer is just a few days away!
Tonight's dinner is grilled whole rock fish seasoned with rock salt.
Time to roll the BBQ out of hibernation and let the grilling season begin...
We had lunch outside, shish and chicken kabob, rice, shirazi salad, watermelon gelatin with peach and grapes.
For the drinks, we had freshly-squeezed lemonade on mason jars topped with a slice of lime.
A thick piece of ribeye steak slit halfway. Just a sprinkle of salt and
a good cracking of black pepper then cooked for about 7 minutes on each
side. Bam! Perfect for whipping up a late night dinner.
And yes, lately, we ask the butcher at Whole Foods to butterfly our
steak if it's too thick to cook on the grill pan without drying.
It's the first of September, yet the Summer heat is not over yet. In the 90s today, Labor Day. We BBQ'd outside before noon, before it's way too hot to fire up the grill, before the sun's scorching heat makes staying outside unbearable.
Lavash, shish and chicken kabobs on the grill. Biryani rice is steaming in the rice cooker while I slice the watermelon.
A couple of hours ago I made the Shirazi salad. I chopped the cucumbers,
red onion, tomatoes, cilantro and green onions. I squeezed the lemons
and drizzled the olive oil. Then mixed and seasoned with salt and
pepper.
The flatbread and ikra are store brought.
Cheers to Labor Day and the rest of Summer!
