Sauced – Gates Bar-B-Q Shish Kebabs

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We’ve heard from a few friends who may know that Gates Bar-B-Q Sauce from Kansas City is The Best Barbecue Sauce.

Bjorn’s co-worker Jason was kind enough to bring us a bottle of Gates Bar-B-Q Sauce back from a recent trip home to Kansas City.  What better way to welcome the arrival of grilling season than slather some Extra Hot Gates Bar-B-Q sauce all over vegetarian and meat Shish Kebabs on their way to the grill?

Veggies on hand included bright yellow bell peppers, zucchini, green onions, button mushrooms and heirloom cherry tomatoes.  In a matter of minutes, those can be washed and chopped into large chunks of similar size and threaded on to bamboo skewers, pre-soaked in water.  It was late and we were tired so this meal needed to be fixed quickly.  The protein selected for the vegetarian version was pre-made vegetarian “meatballs” and for the omnivore iteration, real beef meatballs from the freezer, defrosted quickly in the microwave.

After grilling, as usual, the difference between the vegetarian and the real beef version is difficult to distinguish visually.   I made a simplified parsley pesto of fresh Italian Parsley, fresh garlic and olive oil, zipped in the food processor which pulled together green peas, chickpeas and Basmati rice into a cohesive side.

The finished plate:  this happens to be the veggie version. Notice the delicious char on the heirloom yellow cherry tomato toward the top of the left skewer.  That Gates Bar-B-Q Sauce has kick!   The meal prep was quick and left flavorful leftovers that re-heated well for a tasty and easy lunch at work the next day.

First Home Grown Tomatoes

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Last year was my first year with a back yard vegetable garden.  Tomatoes were one of the most successful vegetables.  With the hot summer and the mild, long fall we ended up having good gardening weather until October.  I still had tomatoes ripening in the front window in December when I decided it was time to call it a year and preserve them.

I have canned only jam.  Only once.  It was still the ’90’s and I was a college student with lots of vacation time at home to pick fresh strawberries, collect and sterilize jars, create customized labels and deliver gifts of the finished product to friends and neighbours.   I hope to get into other more ambitious canning in the future when time permits.  In the meantime, for my first year as a gardener I decided blanching and freezing was going to be good enough, especially with only the random leftovers from 3 tomato plants to deal with.   To prepare for blanching, the above tomatoes were washed in cold water, and the bad spots and top stems removed.

After about one minute in the pot of gently boiling water the skins split.  Then it is time to plunge the tomatoes into a bath of ice water.  After about a minute in the ice water bath, the tomatoes are cool, and their skins slip off easily.   Drain the water in a colander and throw them in a freezer bag.  Pretty simple.

I gave the bag a detailed, dated label, along with suggestions for use of this late growing batch since things can get lost and forgotten so easily in the freezer.  Then I threw it in the freezer and called it a day.

Sunday Noon

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I am sure that of the best home-cooked meals I’ve eaten in my life, the vast majority of them were consumed at or around noon on Sunday.  The day of rest welcomes a meal made a slower pace and consumed with some measure of reverence.  Slowing down enough to enjoy and to be aware of the activity of cooking and eating has so much to do with what makes food enjoyable, after all. 

The slow part is not out of the ordinary for me.  I’m a slow cook.  I don’t like to rush.  I like to meditate on the process a bit and I like to have most of my dirty dishes washed before the meal is served.  Most importantly though, I like things all to be hot and ready serve and to eat at the same time.  Yesterday’s noon meal was no fancy Sunday roast, but I hold that pizza is worthy of being the culinary high point of the week when it is made with love from scratch with the yummiest toppings you have available.  It takes some time to make your own dough and to cut and saute your favorite toppings.  Above, pizza dough flecked with basil and Pecorino Romano Cheese.

On the left, mushroom, green pepper, pineapple, fresh mozzarella and marble cheese (mozzarella was in short supply!).  On the right, maple syrup breakfast sausage, mushroom, green pepper, mozzarella and marble jack.  Tomato sauce seasoned with salt, pepper and oregano on both.

Char marks are one of the best results of grilling a pizza.

The vegetarian version was delicious.  Perfect char marks, delicious toppings… Only addition needed was a coke.

Punch Neapolitan Pizza, one of our top three favorite pizza shops in our hood serves some of its pies uncut with a knife and fork.  It works well for a personal size pizza with a crispy crust that is loaded with toppings.  Here is Bjorn’s maple syrup breakfast sausage Sunday delight.

Our Way to Eat – The First Supper

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This is by no mean our first supper, but it IS the first supper going live on our new blog.  It isn’t anything spectacular, but its a good starting point.  Its a supper that shows our way of eating. It started with a lot of thought.  It is inspired mostly by ingredients on hand that needed to be used before they spoiled, and it has the meat and mirror image vegetarian riff.   Bjorn worked late.  I went for a run and thought about supper.   I ran by Subway and saw a sign advertising Orchard Chicken Salad with grapes and presumably apples in it.  We had these lovely soft hamburger buns that needed to be used up, and we had a pear.  This was enough to inspire my first attempt at Chicken / Quorn Chick’n salad sandwiches.

It is almost impossible to distinguish between the regular chicken salad with light mayo, celery, and pears and the Quorn version visually.

I have a problem having a totally cold supper, and I’ve had potatoes on the brain.  (Thank goodness I left that depressing  “carbs are bad” phase in my 20’s.)  I ended up with potato skins stuffed with roasted broccoli, chives and melted cheddar, topped with greek yogurt because I wanted potatoes, but didn’t want to eat the whole thing, plus toppings so I hollowed them out and then added toppings.  Yum.