grillin’ season

At last at last! My love and I were reunited on Friday night.  I actually wrote this post (am writing this post? And sending it to the future! Oooh) on Friday.

The eats since then have been leftover Taiwanese. It’s been glorious :D

Anyway, the love to which I refer:

 

I continue to be absurdly proud of myself for mastering a charcoal grill. Pfft gas grills. WHATEVER. My barbecued food (and, er, my self) smell like SMOKE, baby!

So what was this manly stuff I was grillin’ up?

 

Hahaha vegetables and tofu. Specifically, Tandoori tofu, from the latest issue of Eating Well magazine. We had airline miles expiring and used them to subscribe to a gazillion magazines and I am way in love with Eating Well!

The key to grilling is just to have everything you need at your fingertips.

‘Fu, green peppers on skewers, tongs for flippin’, sauce to brush on tofu, Pam I used to spritz the rack, matches to light the charcoal… and just for good measures, a margarita :D Friday was Saint George’s Day! It’s a big Greek holiday, because Greek people have sons and name them either George, Andrew, or Nicholas (respectively my grandfather, uncle, and cousin). It is the law.

Tofu and vegetables are so much easier than grilling meat! You don’t have fears and stress about contamination! Oh meat. What a complicated relationship we have at the mo.

Anyway, I both cooked and ate al fresco, which was lovely.

Admiring the pansies, which are blooming their little brains out

The table set all gorgeously…

The placemat is from my dad’s mom, who got it in Micronesia, and the plate is from my mom’s mom. I love that!

And the eats, obviously.

In my opinion, the tofu got HIGHLY respectable grill marks (oh my God, I typed “earmarks” the first time. You can take the girl out of the poli sci department…)

 

The tofu was highly, HIGHLY enhanced by the sauce you make by mixing the remainder of the spicy tofu marinade with plain yogurt.

Garlicky, smoky, and delicious. Seriously, I could bathe in it. My mom helped me make everything and due to some poor communication it ended up with double the paprika, due to us both adding it at different times, yet it was perfect? So if you make this recipe, double the paprika!

And what of a (vaguely?) Indian meal without basmati rice.

My first (of multiple) plates.

One word of caution: to all you hyper-vigilant, obsessive-compulsive, perfectionist food blogger cooks out there (also known as people like me): don’t monitor the grill too closely. It’ll do its thing. Patience is a virtue. And I did it and it made my lungs hurt.