Grillin' and Chillin'

We are so enamored with the abundance of vegetables available now, we decided to go vegetarian for this meal. And what better way to eat your veggies than to grill them? We enjoyed this as our main meal, but it could also be a great appetizer for a party on the patio.

Here is a list of vegetables we selected:

Red onion
Scallions
Portobello mushrooms
Eggplant
Zucchini and yellow squash
Red, yellow and orange bell peppers
Bok choy
Baby potatoes

We opted for three sauces, as one is never enough!! And while they all have a garlic component, they are distinctive and equally delicious with every vegetable.  Don’t ask us to choose a favorite, but you could spread the left over aioli on a rock and make a meal of it. 

From bottom: Yogurt Sauce, Chimichurri, and Aioli

Chimichurri
Recipe developed by Sue & Meg For Saturday Night Specials 8/24/2013
3 cups Italian parsley leaves
2 large cloves, roughly chopped
1 small shallot, roughly chopped
3 anchovy fillets, roughly chopped
2 Tbsp. capers, rinsed
½ tsp. red pepper flakes
Zest of 1 lemon
3 tsp. red wine vinegar
¾ cup extra virgin olive oil

Add all ingredients except olive oil to a blender, blend on high. When fully blended, drizzle in olive oil until you get the consistency you desire.

Aioli
Recipe developed by Sue & Meg For Saturday Night Specials 8/24/2013

2 cloves garlic
1 Tbsp. white wine vinegar
1 egg
Salt & pepper to taste
1/3 cup olive oil
½ tsp. red pepper flakes

In a blender on high speed, mix garlic, vinegar, egg, salt & pepper until incorporated.  Drizzle in olive oil until aioli reaches thickness you desire. Remove from blender and stir in ½ tsp. red pepper flakes. Put in covered bowl in refrigerator until ready to use.

To serve, sprinkle a few red pepper flakes on top.

Yogurt Sauce
Source: “Cook’s Country”, June-July 2013

6 Tbsp. extra virgin olive oil
5 garlic cloves, minced
1/8 tsp. red pepper flakes
½  cup plain whole milk yogurt
3 Tbsp. chopped fresh mint (omitted in our version)
1 tsp. grated lemon zest
2 tsp. lemon juice
1 tsp. ground cumin
Salt & Pepper to taste

Combine oil, garlic, and pepper flakes in bowl. Microwave, uncovered, until garlic is golden brown and crispy, about 2 minutes. Strain garlic oil through fine mesh strainer into small bowl. Reserve garlic oil and crispy garlic separately.

Combine yogurt, mint, 1 Tbsp. garlic oil, lemon zest and juice, cumin, and ¼ tsp. salt in separate bowl; set aside while preparing eggplant.

Have we mentioned the crispy garlic? The technique uses the microwave to cook the garlic in olive oil until crispy. You not only get   fragrant garlic oil but the crispy garlic is fantastic sprinkled on the vegetables. This is a two minute dynamite process.

Being in the grilling mode, we even chose to grill some great sour dough bread that we doused with the garlic infused olive oil from the above process.

Sue got this wine with a fantastic “Groupon coupon”. Ever adventurous, she chose six bottles of red wine that she had never tried before for the amazing price of  $25.00.  It was a light and tart Pinot. We don’t think we would buy another bottle, but we drank it and  “nothing ventured, nothing gained”.

Now are you thinking, where is the “chillin”? We finally had the opportunity to make this wonderful strawberry balsamic ice cream that we have been thinking about all summer. It was well worth the wait! Meg is happy because we got to use Limoncello again. (She dreams about the Limoncello Granita from our second posting.) What elevates this ice cream from all other strawberry ice creams is the balsamic drizzle and the chiffonade of fresh basil. It is very rich and creamy and the fresh strawberry flavor really comes through. Do it now while the strawberries are fresh!

Strawberry Balsamic Ice Cream

 

Our unsolicited and biased opinions:

Eat more veggies!

Meg forgot the yogurt, so we substituted sour cream in the “yogurt” sauce. It worked really well. We omitted the mint on purpose.

There are so many variations of Chimichurri and the amount of parsley varies in each. We used a huge bunch of Italian parsley in ours.

Plant a radish, get a radish, never any doubt. That's why I love vegetables, you know what they're about! ~Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt