Spicy Thai soup

We tried a Spicey Thai Soup out of "Fine Cooking March 2003". It was good, but complicated and made a huge mess in the kitchen; I even cut a few corners and it was still complex. What I did enjoy was the addition of lemongrass. I've learned I like lemon in my soup, which I first tasted at a Greek restaurant. Lemongrass is a more "mature" taste than lemon juice that I intend to use again. The store didn't have any fresh lemongrass, but it had a substitute of lemongrass in a tube. Not romantic, but close to fresh without mess or hassle.

Best BBQ Ever

Jason and his mom went out on a limb and declared our Memorial day BBQ the best BBQ meal they'd ever had. I've had a lot of good BBQ at my parent's so I'm not ready to make the same claim, but it's got to be close.

Menu was steaks (hmm, don't know the cut) tenderized with meat tenderizer first, then marinated with Italian salad dressing, the vinegar acting as a tenderizer also. Then Jason cooked it to perfection. Tasty and, well, tender. The surprise steak topping was some great store bought hummus from Costco.

I made a favorite broccoli salad from "Heart and Soul", but I doubled the amount of broccoli, giving it a much better ratio of salad to dressing. I also use golden raisens over regular ones - they're sweeter.

Grilled corn on the side. We use the technique in the "The Best Recipe: Grilling and Barbeque", which leaves a thin layer of husk on the outside. The corn gets a perfect golden color without burning.

Then, sangria. Both recipes were based on the sangrias found in "Bobby Flay Boy Gets Grill". For the white peach sangria I used canned peaches instead of fresh, and instead of simple syrup, I added the peach syrup from the peaches. Yum yum. And instead of a rose for the red sangria, we substituted a shiraz; blackberries made an great fruit choice. Both were excellent.

Grilled tuna

Leftovers can be great. We grilled the last leftover tuna steak. Oh, oh, oh. We used the recipe from Bobby Flay's Boy Meets Grill - 125 reasons to light your fire", "Grilled Tuna with Red Chile, Allspice, and Orange Glaze. We used chipotle chile pepper instead of ancho chili pepper, but it was awesome! And we used the leftover tomato-basil-dressing mix for a sliced tomato salad with mozarella. Fresh wholemilk mozarella would have been better, but we were working with what we have. Baked potato on the side and we were set.

Rating for the tuna: great, and Jason can't wait to have it again.

grilled pork

Time for lots of grillin'. Woo hoo! Life gets easier: less dirty pots, easy good tasting food, summer veggies, quick cooking, and my husband runs the grill! Who could ask for more?

From Bobby Flay's, Boy Meets Grill, last week we tried the "Pork Chops with Soy-Honey Glaze and Grilled Sweet Onions". Nothing exciting, but easy to do. I'm on the lookout for ways to make pork exciting, because when done right it can be very, very good. Grilled onions always make a good side.... a grilling no-brainer.
Rating: good

We also tried a salad today from Fine Cooking's July 2005 issue (uh, what month is this?). "Arugula & Fried Mozzarella Salad w/ Tomato Basil Vinaigrette" is in the Quick & Delicious section. Good stuff, but NOT quick. We made it with regular, not smoked mozzarella. I don't like smoked cheese. The strong flavors of the salad stood up to our grilled tuna steaks.
Rating: great