Late night barbecue

After a day with plenty of traipsing around – visiting the ‘Bavarian Village’ at Leavenworth, then a round of golf for the D.M., and pokey museum stroll for me – supper was stylishly late.

Steak and corn on the barbie, along with a crispy green salad. Just right!

Burgers a la Wild

June 21 #457

First official day of summer, and for once, the weather went along with the plan. Tonight was supper on the barbie, served up outside on the picnic table.

After hiking up to Avalanche Lake, we were both plenty hungry, so this was going to be a big meal.

When I’d cooked up all those noodles last night (they blew up and made waaay too many), I’d kept some aside and made a macaroni salad. With 24 hours for the flavours to blend, it was a nice accompaniment for the burgers. And cooking along with the burgers on the barbie were some freshly-picked oyster mushrooms we’d found.

For the sake of tradition, and to round out the meal, we heated up a tin of pork ‘n beans.

And even if I am the only ones who eats them, dessert was marshmallows roasted on a stick. My kind of camping!

A pair of broccolis, elks wild

Once again, we're nearing the border, so I'm doing my best to clear out those items they might not like us bringing across. Because we'll be entering Canada at Saskatchewan, I know they're sometimes fussy about meat. So I thawed two elk steaks from the little freezer, and then made up a salad with most of our produce, including last night's steamed broccoli.

Just about everything went on to the barbie -- Vidalia onions, little red potatoes, the last of the broccoli -- and, of course, the elk.

As for the Poker analogy, I'm still sifting through the lessons I got last weekend. A gambler, I don't think I'll ever be.

Burgers on the barbie

For all these months, even when we've cooked on the barbie, we've mostly ended up eating inside. It's great to finally be able to eat outdoors. Maybe it's just because it's June.

Along with cheeseburgers on the barbie, there's that pasta salad I dreamed up last night. For vegies, there's cooked-up onions and shrooms. For salad, there's a plate of sliced tomato and pepper and lettuce -- tonight's 'salad' goes on the burger.

While the meat patties were something I pulled out of the freezer, the buns were a matter of female co-operation. The little town we're in has just one tiny store, and the only burger buns there came in packs of eight -- way more than we could use, with too many left over to even fit in the freezer.

But the store also sells sausages on hoagie buns, so the women there figured they could find a way to sell me two of those -- just the buns, no sausage, thanks. We laughed together over how we'd found such a happy and easy solution.

The buns are a little big for the burgers, but we just chopped off a part of each. No doubt the remaining bit will find some purpose tomorrow.

Pretty traditional

After last night's order-in pizza in a hotel room (hey, the only reason we were there was for the Canucks), tonight's supper feels pretty traditional. At home, we have this so often, it's almost a standby.

I call it green pasta -- the mooshed-up avocado sauce has to be nice and garlicky to be good. The accompaniment, made on the barbie, isn't the usual Italian sausage, but a juicy 'beer bratwurst'.

Because the pasta cooked up to way more noodles than I'd expected, I put a bunch aside and made a pasta salad that should be nice for tomorrow.

A place for remembering

Tonight's camping site was an incredible spot -- smack in the midst of a Civil War battlefield. It almost felt sacrilegious to be parked where we were. Still, that was where the man on the golf cart led us.

I'd thawed some pounded steak meat (minute steaks, I think they call them here), and the Dear Man cooked them perfectly on the barbie, even melting cheese over top. He also steamed two ears of corn in their husks there as well. (How I hadn't seen them in the crisper is one of those mysteries of life, but somehow they took me by surprise.) And then there happened to be one lonely tomato lying in the little fruit hammock, so once again, we had ourselves a lovely, complete supper.

When we sat down to eat, we paused and thought for a moment about all those boys and men who'd died, probably on the very spot where we were relaxing with our meal. Food for eating and food for thought.

Double-protein exotica

There's something about the cool weather that makes for hearty appetites. Even though it was too cold to eat outside, it was dry enough for the D.M. to operate the barbie. Yet another item from our little freezer: elk burgers!

The side dish was a tin of peeled fava beans, an item we picked up in a Muslim store in (of all places) Dodge City, Kansas.

The burgers are topped with the last of our Romanian sheep cheese. The bowl of salad isn't visible, but as just-about-always, it's there. I felt I had to pop a bit on top of the burger along with that nicely grilled onion.

Probably not your average RV cooking. Still, we're staying happy and definitely not going hungry.

Rerun?

This looks like almost the same supper we had not very long ago. Still, it finally felt hot out, even if briefly. Though that might be only because we've come down out of the mountains.

Still, it felt warm enough to get out the barbie again (though we still had to eat indoors, too chilly for the picnic table). Spring seems pretty iffy everywhere.

Once again, it's bison burgers -- this time with barbecued onions and red peppers. Melted cheese and avocado and tomato and lettuce. . . plenty of toppings.

Oh, and those magical get-crisp-in-the-microwave easy chips. Way fun.

Friday night feast!

Half the time on the road, I lose track of what day it is. But when it comes to Friday, I always seem to know.

We covered a lot of ground today, both in the truck and on foot. Hiking, especially at altitude this high above sea level, works wonders for the appetite.

The Dear Man whipped up a feast on the barbie. Steak, with onions and mushrooms.

While he prepped food outside, I fiddled indoors -- with a pack of microwave chips. Four minutes, and presto! Though it probably took as long to work out how to fold their magic 'crisping' box as it did to cook 'em.

With a big bowl of fresh green salad, it made for quite the Friday night feast.

Spectacular meal for a very special day

Crazy though it seems, I'm an April Fool. And what a birthday celebration I've had!

The day was spent exploring one of America's oldest national parks, Yosemite.

And now tonight, the Dear Man has cooked up an appropriately extravagant meal on our (his?) brand new barbie: buffalo steaks. He also cooked up some wonderful red potatoes and onions -- and really, I didn't mind a bit assembling a salad, complete with celebratory chunks of bleu cheese.

As for birthday cake, we had tiny doughnuts with ice cream -- and of course, a candle. But after a day like this, complete with the bluest of skies, what more could I possibly have asked for?

I'm thinking 100 miles, but can't be sure

It was the day for the last lawn-cut and some clean-up outside. As that kind of work so often does, it led to a fire in the chiminea with the main course cooked out there.

Tonight we had freah halibut steaks, always a favourite around here. I made mamaliga (the polenta-type dish) and a mushroom sauce. Fresh tomatoes from the backyard were a nice addition to the salad.

We also had a nice piece of gorgonzola as a treat. Because I wasn't able to determine where that came from, I can't claim our meal as falling completely within the 100-mile limit. Still, I know that most of it was.

Half a birthday, half a game and...

...half a steak.

The T-bone was too big for humans (our size at least) to eat, so when it came off the barbie, we split it.

I stuck with a whole potato. They're smallish -- and yes, that's cottage cheese instead of sour cream on top. There was also some cauliflower with a cheese sauce I whipped up. Salad, of course, but that just goes with the program.

The program? First hockey of the season, even if I only saw about half the game.

Oh, and the half-birthday part? Today's my half-birthday. No foolin'.

A recipe for sunshine

Although I can't guarantee it for anyone else, today's planned corn on the cob seemed to bring the sun out from behind the clouds. Most of the day was downright blustery, but just before supper, the skies magically cleared.

There were a few buns left from last night's burgers, so the homemade sausages on the barbie made much-better-than-average hot dogs. And yes, we had the promised (and worth the wait) corn, as well as a salad flecked with blue cheese.

Best-laid plans

Drat. Sometimes they just don't work out the way we'd hoped.

This morning looked sunny and bright, so I thought, Yippee, burgers on the barbie! I even bought two ears of corn for the occasion.

But then. just a little while ago, it started raining -- and not just a fuzzy drizzle, this looks like the real thing.

That was enough to make me turn on the oven and slice up some potatoes for baked fries. Only right after I popped them in there, I remembered the corn!

The Dear Man is such a trouper, he made the burgers outside anyway, claiming they don't taste the same otherwise. He also cooked up one of the eggplants from the garden, so instead of sliced cheese topping our burgers, we've got sliced eggplant. Not as weird as some toppings -- in Australia, the traditional add-on's a fried egg.

Oh well, tomorrow night it'll be corn and somethin'...

First barbecue of the season

Autumn, that is.

The Dear Man cooked up some chicken thighs on the barbie. Have to admit, I love the smells of that.

Besides the usual green salad, I made a tabbouleh too -- using lots of parsley and mint from the garden. Some fresh homous and pita breads and we're even eating outside. Why? Because we can -- not a situation we can count on much longer.

Burgers on the barbie

Although we use the barbecue all year long, tonight feels like we're nearing the end of its busy season.

It's cool enough that I've sliced potatoes and am baking them as 'French fries' in the oven. The Dear Man is doing the buffalo burgers outside, while all I have to do is scoot around organizing a bit of lettuce and condiments.

It's certainaly an easy supper, even if there's the slight aroma of nostalgia accompanying the meal.

Middle East and then some

It all sounds so lazy, especially after a night out at friends' -- but hey, it's still summer, so we're enjoying it.

I'd found some pre-marinated pork kebabs (souvlaki style) that were on mega-sale, so they were the base for our supper.

I used the last of the lettuce and a bunch of other good vegies in the salad, but I can't exactly call it a Greek salad. Not only because of the lettuce, but because it's filled with blue cheese, not feta.

We also had the fabulous eggplant spread, salata de vinita -- Romanian eggplant salad. Not quite Mediterranean, moving on towards the Black Sea.

Whatever, wherever. It made for a delightfully easy and enjoyable summer meal.

Oh, well...

At least it's Friday, so if the food isn't perfect, it doesn't really matter. Just the two of us, assembling a meal after a busy day, from what's around. Steaks from the beef we didn't use the other night, as well as onions and shrooms got cooked on the barbie. I had less success with items prepared indoors.

The potatoes (those packaged ones I'm known to fall back on) came out runny; clearly I'd mismeasured the liquid I'd added. And then, I felt too tired to even assemble a salad. Thus, the tomato and pepper with bowl of cottage cheese. Oh well, a night to do my best to stay awake through some movie on tv. And then, onward to the weekend.

A culinary romance

He did the outside cooking. I did the in.

A summery night, so I made the salad mostly from tomato and two kinds of peppers, then filled it with big hunks of love -- er, blue cheese.

He did the barbie: thin slices of steak combined with the food of love, fresh oysters.

Homous and bread and another perfect summer evening, to sit outside and eat with the one I love.

Family supper Sunday

Family suppers on Sunday are quite the tradition here. We don't manage them every week, but nearly. Those last few minutes always take a bit of doing. While I've been in the kitchen, luckily someone's been starting to set the table.

And while I've been in the kitchen, mostly taking coverings off the devilled eggs, tomato salad and rice salad (made with a satisfying Thai red rice), even more's been going on. The Dear Man's been on barbie duty, cooking up some chicken thighs, a couple of little pork tenderloins and a chunk of wild salmon for our non-carnivore guest.

It's funny, as this blog goes on, everybody wants their plate to get into the act. This week's prize for aesthetic arrangement goes to this one -- note especially the casually arranged bits of alfalfa sprout...