hi all, katie here. it’s summer woo! we did it! a few weeks ago i went to dublin and saw ed & fam and that was the best! i also saw taylor swift, but i am not here to talk about that. here is photo proof that ed and i were in the same location.
when i was over, we made a few really tasty meals. we did smash burger sliders with homemade hawaiian buns (yum) and a really lovely venison sausage & mash dinner with sauteed greens and warm lentil and carrot salad (yum).
now i am back in canada, school’s out and the kids are in camps for the next few weeks which means i’ll be on lunchbox duty! fuck! we are firmly in our uncrustable era over here, so hopefully nobody gets sick of those anytime soon. i plan on sticking to my standard lunchbox formula until they ask me to switch it up.
dinner wise, we have been grilling! tis the season! for a really long time we did not have one because (i’m sorry to report) charred meats are carcinogenic (boo), but then we realized that we are all going to die one day so we might as well enjoy grilling meats (as safely as possible) before we do, so this year we got a weber! yolo.
all that said, i have been doing a lot of what i’m calling “sheet pan bbq”, which basically means i load a sheet pan with all the things i’m going to grill, use that to transport the bits to and from the grill, then i put the cooked foods back on the pan in the middle of the table and we all serve ourselves from there. if we’re making chicken, i’ll use a secondary layer on top of the sheet pan for the raw bird and i’ll bust out a cutting board to accommodate slicing the cooked meats, but overall, i am (at all times) trying to avoid creating a single needless dish. so far so good!
the bbq sheet pan formula generally goes: a meat (chickens, steaks, etc), a green vegetable (usually asparagus, zucchini, broccoli or salad), a yellow or beige vegetable (corn, potatoes, sometimes mushrooms). basic seasonings - salt, butter or oil, lemon, garlic, sometimes miso, sometimes mustard. never pepper because it’s “too spicy” for the kids right now. to me, this is perfect summer food - simple, easy to swap out veggies as they come in and out of season, and the kids have also been loving our dinners which is the only thing i really care about. i’m obsessed with my grill, i’m obsessed with my sheet pan bbq dinners. summer rules.
on the top right there, you’ll see one of the meals i made recently that was SO good and easy! carolina gelen posted about arayes the other day (a lebanese meat-stuffed pita), which are our go-to order at one of our fave take out places, so i had to try it. i used ground chicken and seasoned them really simply, and made a garlicky yogurt sauce for dipping. so so sooooo yummy, and now in our permanent grill roster.
the only thing to note is that the arayes cook REALLY quickly, so i did burn a few of them (my baaaaad), but salvaged enough to eat, phew. the kids also loved these, and this week we’ll be making them again with lamb. the plan is to not burn any. i highly recommend giving them a whirl!
other things we (and sometimes just me) enjoy that are bbq, or bbq adjacent: spiral dogs, open faced tomato sammy, grated carrot salad, potato salad, chicken satay, tomatoes and fresh herbs with EVOO and balsamic, smashed cukes, grilled cabbage slathered in miso butter. dessert could (should) be grilled fruits - peaches, pineapple, nectarines, or even strawberries if you use a skillet on the grill. serve with honey, salt & a glug of heavy cream or melty vanilla ice cream. perfect.
what are you grilling? ARE you grilling!? give me grill ideas!
talk soon,
your pal KT.