Last week, it was snowing. This week, it was in the 90’s, so we went all in with the summer food. No ragrets!
SATURDAY
Double cheeseburgers!
We had another long day of lugging rocks, and Damien grilled. I was so hungry, I almost ate my own hand along with the burger, so I didn’t get a picture.
SUNDAY
Cumin chicken thighs and chickpeas with lemony onions, pita, and yogurt sauce
We haven’t had this dish for a while! Very popular. Extremely juicy chicken with a fabulous skin, crunchy, flavorful chickpeas, and piquant onions.
It’s just an excellent meal.
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The yogurt marinade is just a few ingredients, but you want to set it up early so you can marinate the chicken for at least a few hours. That’s how the chicken gets so juicy and the skin gets so fabulous. Then you can walk away from it for the rest of the day, and throw the chicken and chickpeas on a pan to cook in the oven,
and make the yogurt sauce and lemony onions while it’s cooking.
So much flavor with very little effort. I actually only found the lemons in time to make the yogurt sauce, so I quietly used lime juice in the marinade and the onions, and no one noticed.
MONDAY
Grilled meats
We usually have a big family cookout on Memorial Day. Sigh, sigh, sigh. Damien did make his excellent sugar rubbed smoked chicken thighs
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and beer brats with onions three ways on his amazing interchangeable cinderblock meat altar situation.
Delicious as always. I had my beer brat with onions boiled in beer and a sweet, hot mustard of some kind, and it was very tasty.
Dora made potato salad
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and I cut up the first watermelon of the year.
TUESDAY
Grilled ham and cheese on sourdough, little pickles, cherries
A very fine summer meal. There was some consternation over the fact that I only bought one package of ham, so I offered to have salami in mine, which caused even more consternation. I’m not saying ham and salami are interchangeable, but they’re . . . you know what, I’m not on trial here. I took my plate outside, where only the birds were shouting
WEDNESDAY
Caprese chicken sandwiches, fries
Another summer favorite. The tomatoes are improving. I roasted the chicken breasts in olive oil and plenty of salt, pepper, and garlic powder, and I had some sliced provolone instead of mozzarella. We had the sandwiches with ciabatta rolls, tomatoes and basil, chicken, and plenty of olive oil, balsamic vinegar, and kosher salt. The pepper has mysteriously disappeared.
Someday, I will make a balsamic vinegar reduction, but on this day, easy was perfect.
THURSDAY
Carnitas, beans and rice
J.R.’s Art Place carnitas recipe to the rescue again. Pork butt, salt, pepper, oregano, Mexican coke, oil, oranges, cinnamon sticks, bay leaves.
It’s so tasty and so easy, but I’m gonna adapt it for the Instant Pot next time I make it. Summer is when I like this appliance the best, because you can make a hot meal without turning the whole kitchen into an oven.
I also made some quick beans and rice.
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It was too dry, so I glopped in some Goya Culantro Cooking Base. It wasn’t the best beans and rice I ever had, but it was fine. Love the carnitas. Some salsa verde would have made this meal perfect.
FRIDAY
Today I intend to make this mango crumb coffee cake, eggs, and something called “baby cakes,” which seem to be small, round hash browns. The only reason I bought them is because they are called “baby cakes.”
Since I haven’t made dinner yet, I don’t have a picture. But I do have a picture of my menu blackboard.
I can see I’m going to have to start hiding the chalk.
Smoked chicken thighs with sugar rub
Ingredients
- 1.5 cups brown sugar
- .5 cups white sugar
- 2 Tbsp chili powder
- 2 Tbsp garlic powder
- 2 tsp chili pepper flakes
- salt and pepper
- 20 chicken thighs
Instructions
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Mix dry ingredients together. Rub all over chicken and let marinate until the sugar melts a bit.
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Light the fire, and let it burn down to coals. Shove the coals over to one side and lay the chicken on the grill. Lower the lid and let the chicken smoke for an hour or two until they are fully cooked.
potato salad
Ingredients
- 3-4 lbs potatoes, scrubbed (peeled if you like)
- 3 ribs celery, stringed and chopped
- 1 med red onion, diced
- 1 bunch parsley, chopped
- 1/8 cup olive oil
for dressing:
- 1 cup mayo
- 1/4 cup lemon juice
- 1/8 cup vinegar
- salt and pepper
Instructions
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Put potatoes and the three eggs in pot and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil, turn the heat down, cover loosely, and simmer until potatoes are easily pierced with a fork (15 minutes or so)
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Drain the potatoes. Fish out the eggs, peel, and chop them.
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When they are cool enough to handle, cut them into bite-sized pieces and mix them up with the olive oil.
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Add the chopped eggs, celery, onion, and parsley.
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Mix together the dressing ingredients and add to potatoes. Salt and pepper to taste. Refrigerate and serve cold.
Cumin chicken thighs with chickpeas in yogurt sauce
A one-pan dish, but you won't want to skip the sides. Make with red onions and cilantro in lemon juice, pita bread and yogurt sauce, and pomegranates, grapes, or maybe fried eggplant.
Ingredients
- 18 chicken thighs
- 32 oz full fat yogurt, preferably Greek
- 4 Tbsp lemon juice
- 3 Tbsp cumin, divided
- 4-6 cans chickpeas
- olive oil
- salt and pepper
- 2 red onions, sliced thinly
For garnishes:
- 2 red onions sliced thinly
- lemon juice
- salt and pepper
- a bunch fresh cilantro, chopped
- 32 oz Greek yogurt for dipping sauce
- 3 cloves garlic, minced or crushed
Instructions
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Make the marinade early in the day or the night before. Mix full fat Greek yogurt and with lemon juice, four tablespoons of water, and two tablespoons of cumin, and mix this marinade up with chicken parts, thighs or wings. Marinate several hours.
About an hour before dinner, preheat the oven to 425.
Drain and rinse four or five 15-oz cans of chickpeas and mix them up with a few glugs of olive oil, the remaining tablespoon of cumin, salt and pepper, and two large red onions sliced thin.
Spread the seasoned chickpeas in a single layer on two large sheet pans, then make room among the chickpeas for the marinated chicken (shake or scrape the extra marinade off the chicken if it’s too gloppy). Then it goes in the oven for almost an hour. That’s it for the main part.
The chickpeas and the onions may start to blacken a bit, and this is a-ok. You want the chickpeas to be crunchy, and the skin of the chicken to be a deep golden brown, and crisp. The top pan was done first, and then I moved the other one up to finish browning as we started to eat. Sometimes when I make this, I put the chickpeas back in the oven after we start eating, so some of them get crunchy and nutty all the way through.
Garnishes:
-
While the chicken is cooking, you prepare your three garnishes:
-Chop up some cilantro for sprinkling if people like.
-Slice another two red onions nice and thin, and mix them in a dish with a few glugs of lemon juice and salt and pepper and more cilantro.
-Then take the rest of the tub of Greek yogurt and mix it up in another bowl with lemon juice, a generous amount of minced garlic, salt, and pepper.
Yogurt sauce
Ingredients
- 32 oz full fat Greek yogurt
- 5 cloves garlic, crushed
- 1/4 cup lemon juice
- 3 Tbsp olive oil
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp pepper
- fresh parsley or dill, chopped (optional)
Instructions
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Mix all ingredients together. Use for spreading on grilled meats, dipping pita or vegetables, etc.
Beans and rice
A good side dish, a main course for meatless meals, or to serve inside carnitas, etc.
Ingredients
- 3 cups uncooked white rice
- 1 15-oz cans red or black beans, drained
- 1 20-oz can diced tomatoes with some of the juice
- 1 diced jalapeno
- 1/2 cup cilantro, chopped roughly
- 1 small red onion, diced
- 2 Tbsp minced garlic
- chili powder
- cumin
- salt and pepper
Instructions
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Cook rice. Add rest of ingredients, adjusting spices to taste. If it's too dry, add more tomato juice.
Have a blessed Pentecost Sunday!
Saturday – Steak, baked potatoes, asparagus
Sunday – Burgers, fries
Monday – Ribs, rosemary potato wedges
Tuesday – Meatloaf, mashed potatoes, candied carrots
Wednesday – Smoked sausage, risotto with peas
Thursday – Chicken-vegetable-noodle mixture from Aldi
Friday – Take-out day! This week was pizza – two deep dishes and one thin crust.
I have not eaten salami in a long time.
My husband made a very similar cinder block grill for my middle son’s first birthday party, during which we grilled an entire lamb. Like, still in its whole form. We were raising sheep, and his birthday is in July, so the timing worked out for a lamb born in April. A normal grill would have been too small. Thus, the cinder blocks.
It was, perhaps, not what our guests were expecting at a child’s birthday party, though it was delicious.