London Broil Marinade

There hasn’t been a lot of cooking posts recently because for a month or more, we’ve been doing this thing where we grill up a bunch of something and then eat it on salad all week.  It’s simple, quick and delicious.

Once upon a time, we regularly used bottled marinades from the grocery store but lately they’ve just tasted gross. Now, we usually make a marinade with some olive oil, citrus and fresh herbs and it keeps us happy for many meals.

Last week we decided to grill a London broil and I found this simple, but delicious marinade in my Martha Stewart magazine.

We don’t keep much soda in the house anymore and if we do, it’s diet, so we bought a little 16 ounce bottle of Coke to make this marinade and put the London broil in the mixture of soda, red wine vinegar, garlic and onion before work.

The meat was tender and sweet and turned out perfect for a few nights of salads.

Afterward we had a half a Coke to drink and we couldn’t believe how sweet it was.  How did we ever drink that on a regular basis?

Cilantro-Lime Chicken with Avocado Salsa

I went running with a friend after work and by the time I got home and showered, we weren’t starting dinner until almost 7:30 pm.  Cilantro-Lime Chicken with Avocado Salsa from Cooking Light is a quick, fresh dinner for a night like tonight.

The salsa is easy to make. We omitted the onion because I hate it.

For a side we just made rice with black beans. I made the rice in chicken broth and added sriracha for some heat. I ended up adding more on my plate because it needed more.  It is a quick dinner that really tastes great and I was pretty hungry when we sat down.

I can’t wait to eat leftovers for lunch tomorrow.

 

Peanut Butter Burgers

The birthday tradition here is that when it’s your birthday, you pick dinner and the other one makes it for you. Tonight’s birthday dinner was peanut butter burgers. Yeah, definitely not my birthday.

Mike first heard of the peanut butter burger from a friend and he did some research online. He decided from what he read that our burgers would include bacon, gruyere and peanut butter. I can get behind the idea of beef and peanut butter. I like peanut sauce.  Even bacon and peanut butter was okay. Gruyere and peanut butter? Eh.

But in the spirit of birthday, I made my burger the exact same way Mike made his.

Mike originally heard of them as Jiffy burgers. Luckily, we had Jif (reduced fat, but close enough).

I spread it on.

Then put on bacon.

I left that all on the top so the peanut butter would be close to the hot stuff so it could melt.  I put the tomato and lettuce on the bottom.

Yum?

With my first bite I was like, hmmm, not so bad. But really, it was just fine. Yes, the bacon was salty and the sweet creamy peanut butter balanced it out nicely.  The peanut butter did melt nicely as you can see in this picture a few bites in (sorry if that’s gross).

But after a few bites, I was over it.  I don’t want bacon on a burger.  And I don’t want peanut butter on it either. Give me some cheese and mustard and ketchup and I am good to go. Maybe it’s just that I don’t love burgers (I’ve never had a Big Mac in my life – fact). And putting peanut butter on a burger is so much more calories than my regular condiments.

Mike, however, really liked it and wants to experiment further. He’s thinking about pickles instead of bacon and trying natural peanut butter. Or maybe using a sharper cheese.

I’ll stick to my boring burger.

Grilling Pizza

A few summers ago, my friend Jenn introduced me to grilled pizza.  Last night we decided to do a comparison.  Which is better – a pizza made straight on the grill or a pizza made on the grill on a pizza stone?

On my way to Jenn’s, I  bought dough from a local pizza place to skip the step of having to make dough ourselves. Jenn provided the other ingredients. We used fresh tomatoes, pizza sauce, sliced mozzarella and basil. The olive oil is to keep it from sticking to the grill.

When Jenn and I make grilled pizza we’re purists.  Just cheese, tomatoes, sauce and seasoning. But there are so many great ways to top it. Here’s an example of a few varieties of grilled pizza from my friend Kate.

We placed one rolled out piece of dough (um, we had some problems with our technique on rolling this one – it seems the first grilled pizza of the season is always a new learning experience) on the rack.

And the other one on the stone.

The dough cooks quickly so it’s important to stand by and check it after a minute or so. You can already see the difference when we flipped them.

We lowered the heat, topped them and shut the lid.

When the cheese was perfectly melted, we took them off.  We tasted a piece of each pizza.

Look how thin and crispy!

And for comparison, the back of the stone pizza:

And the back of the rack pizza:

I think I decided I like grilled pizza right on the rack best.  But Jenn and I agreed it wasn’t a fair comparison as the doughs weren’t rolled out the same so it’s hard to say if it was the dough or the method on the grill. I still like the novelty of grilling it on the rack best.  I like seeing the grill lines like in that picture above.  And I like how extra crispy and charred it gets.

I guess either way, it makes really delicious homemade pizza.

Grilled Cheese on the Grill

Grilled cheese is my number one. I’ve been wanting to open a grilled cheese restaurant for possibly ten years. But I’m a reluctant entrepreneur. I get the ideas, but I’m scared of the risk. Anyway, I like anything that is grilled cheese-like.

Last night we made Pesto, Olives & Tomato Grilled Cheese.  We found some flat rocks in the yard, washed them and covered them in foil to press the sandwiches on the grill.

This was another easy dinner that tastes so great. We had them with a salad with a lot of home grown (not my home) and farmer’s market vegetables.  Great evening, great dinner, great company!