Monday, April 26, 2010

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:

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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?

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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.

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‘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

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The table set all gorgeously…

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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.

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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…)

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

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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.

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My first (of multiple) plates.

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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.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

This whole post made me laugh, starting with you sending the post to the future and ending with you talking about us super controlling hyper viligant bloggie types. Funny. And I wish you could give out that recipe because I would LOOOOVVVEEE to make that tofu...must find the mag it was in!

Tamara Marnell said...

The tofu looks so tasty! But I don't have a grill. Or half the spices. Or a tolerance for milk products. But I might cheat and use paprika and curry powder and bake it and slip it on a roll with greens for a sorta-kinda Indiana sandwich :D

AllThingsYummy said...

Congrats on being a grill master. I'm still afraid of mine. LOL

Lele said...

Tamara- I've adapted grilling recipes by broiling a gazillion times. You miss out on the smoke (well unless you have an accidental broiling fire, which I have been known to do), but the texture is still rockin'.
If I hadn't done the yogurt sauce, might I suggest chutney? Still Indian-ish, but it would be able to impart some moisture, which the yogurt did very nicely.

fittingbackin said...

Yummy, yummy, yummy! Can't wait to get our grill in so we can start cooking it up. I told my husband it's going to open it up to TONS of new eats!

Molly said...

garlic just makes any dish so much better... i swear

haha ear marks you are silly

tara said...

Your meal looks so tastey!!!! *confession* I have never ever used a grill before, everyone else in myfamiliy has grilled but im still in the dark :P
I loved your pretty pink plates as well!!! Have a great day! <3 <3

Beth @ Beth's Journey to Thin said...

One thing I miss about living in the country is having a grill!!! That looks soo good.

Heather (Where's the Beach) said...

I love grilling tofu. The marinade options are endless! It's so hard to not hover over the grill isn't it?