Upping my grill game

Friday night, I hung out with my friends Deanna and Suzanne and we cooked up quite the outdoor meal.  We all had a very long week, hadn't really had the opportunity to get together and just hang out all month because we had all been busy so I was looking forward to just being able to sit, relax for a few hours, and drink some much needed wine with my friends.  Suzanne hosted us this time on her deck (which by the way: I have to give you and Noah a lot of props for all of the fabulous yard work you have done this year...it looks amazing!!!) but was just getting back from a business trip the day before so instead of having to order take-out, I jumped at the opportunity to pull out a few recipes off of my summer wish list that I have been dying to make and said that I would take care of the cooking.  Deanna volunteered to make the dessert, Suzanne supplied us with the wine and we were ready to dine alfresco.  Let me just say, its also a very beautiful thing when your friends also double as your neighbors because Suzanne happens to live within spitting distance from my own house so the quick jaunt up and down the hill simplifies things even more.  

On the menu was Yogurt-Marinated Grilled Chicken and an Orzo with Everything Salad that my cousin Allison made for us last year when we were in California which is super easy to throw together and a great side dish to almost any grilled meat.  The chicken marinade was really easy to throw together since you literally just dump all of the ingredients into the food processor, blend them all together and then it gets poured over the chicken in a large ziploc bag so there is no mess later on.  Do not be intimidated by the large number of ingredients in the marinade.  A lot of the ingredients I had lying around my kitchen so there was minimal things I actually had to go out and buy.  You can also make a double batch and then have it in the fridge ready to go for another quick weeknight meal when you don't have an extra 30 minutes to play with your food processor on a Tuesday morning when you are trying to race out the door to work.  The orzo salad can also be assembled beforehand as well and actually tastes better when it gets to sit for a few hours where all of the flavors have an opportunity to mesh together and really play off of each other.  

Ok, so lets get to the grilling of the chicken.  It was is somewhat ironic that accompanying the chicken recipe in the July issue of Bon Appetit was a column by Jenny Rosenstrach who is also the author of one of my favorite food blogs "Dinner: A Love Story" talking about how she had this fear of grilling even though she is a fantastic cook.  Well let's just say that as I was reading this column I felt like I was having this deja vu moment where I was describing my own fears of cooking on the grill and in my feminist view of my life I was not going to go down for being a crappy griller so thank you Jenny for helping me out on this one.  Look there are many things that I feel like I can cook just fine on a gas grill (which is our usual grilling method) but when we get into the world of charcoal grilling this is where it can start to go down in flames for me.  We actually own a small charcoal grill that we bought a few years ago in Vermont and I fully admit that we do not use it nearly as much as we should and the reason for that is that before Friday, I couldn't tell you how you lit a charcoal grill properly but Suzanne helped me put it all together being the expert that she is at this skill.   

my friend the all-star griller

The main thing that you need to achieve charcoal grilling perfection is a chimney starter.  Yes, I'm saying "Go out and buy another piece of speciality cooking equipment" but they are only $15-$20 at Home Depot and you are going to amaze yourself when you see how easy this makes the whole process and plus you don't have to worry about your food tasting like lighter fluid if you screw up the process.  Suzanne loaded up the chimney starter with scrunched up newspaper on the bottom section and then poured her coals on top.  She took a match to the paper and then left the thing to heat up and get nice and hot as we opened up another bottle of wine to down.  After about 15-20 minutes, take off the grate to your charcoal grill, carefully pour the coals into the grill making sure they are all evenly distributed.  Let the coals sit for another 15-20 minutes as you get your cooking station prepped so you are ready to go once it is time (and if you were us, you can have another glass of wine at this point).  A very helpful tip when grilling to prevent food from sticking (which seems to be a lot of people's tragic grilling downfall) is to make sure you oil your grate.  I take a paper towel with a little bit of olive oil on it and just give the grates a quick rub before I put my meat or veggies on and you will be ready to start. 

Using tongs, arrange your chicken breasts on the grill giving them enough room to cook evenly so they are not on top of each other.  Now as much as you want to poke and prod at the chicken to make sure it doesn't burn just let it cook on one side for 4-5 minutes and be patient.  Your chicken will thank you for this later.  You also don't want to flip your chicken too quickly because if it is not cooked enough on one side, it is going to stick to the grates.  Once it has cooked sufficiently on the one side, flip it over and let it cook for another 3-4 minutes until done (I'm still the kind of person that always needs to take a knife to the thickest part of the chicken to check for doneness so we aren't messing around with food safety).  

Being in charge of dessert, Deanna made these Peach and Berry Croustades that were absolutely delish and the perfect end to our summer meal.  The recipe provides you with a crust recipe but Deanna is partial to the WS perfect pie crust recipe so she went with that.  In an earlier post, I talked about my new love of frozen store bought pie crusts so to save myself a few minutes here I would definitely use it in place of the homemade versions.  The real star of the dessert really is the fruit so you really want to pick what's in season and possibly local.  We topped our croustade with some fresh whipped topping but ice cream will also work great on a hot day. 


the crousade ready to be devoured

(and by the way: as of today we are now proud owners of our own chimney starter bought at Lowe's for $10!  Can't wait to break out the charcoal grill for the ribs and grilled pizzas with fried green tomatoes that I've been dying to make.  I know I've got this covered now)