How is your summer going? Are you working on your tan, or bailing water? Honestly, it has been the summer of the rolling thunder review with all of this rain. Have you had any quality time with your grill? It is still plenty hot, so I hope the rain lets up soon, so we can be standing around the grill, wearing white, twirling kebabs, and swilling chilled rosé.
Beef prices are up, but so is everything else. We are planning on grilling chicken this weekend, eating economically and eating “more better”, to quote Dan Pashman from The Sporkful podcast.
We didn’t feel as if we were scrimping when we whipped up these kababs last weekend: skewered chicken, Vidalia onions and red, green and yellow peppers, served with grilled ears of corn, a nice green salad and a homemade refrigerator cake. (And as always, there are always Popsicles in our freezer – so feel free to stop on by.)
Mr. Friday’s favorite chicken strategy is to allow the chicken to marinate in one of his concoctions for about an hour. First he chunked the boneless chicken breasts (bought on sale) and let the large cubes steep in a bowl of white Worchestershire sauce, with a handful of capers, some good quality olive oil and a squeeze of lemon juice. And then he threaded the ingredients onto metal skewers. Then he wrapped shucked corn in aluminum foil, with a big pat of butter. He tossed skewers and the ears of corn onto the grill, drank a beer, threw the ball for the dog and then walked inside to sit down to eat. In the interim, I managed to boil up a pot of rice, wash a bag of salad, lighted some candles and poured my wine. Phew! It is had work being a weekend sous chef!
We also returned to childhood and had a Famous Wafer refrigerator cake. The recipe and the informative photo are right on the side of the box, in case you have forgotten how to whip cream and stack layers of cookies. Food52 gussied it up a little bit, as is their wont, although they did say, “The best summer dessert is also the easiest.” How right they are! https://food52.com/blog/7061-how-to-make-any-icebox-cake-in-5-steps
This “Chicken Under a Brick” recipe from Bon Appétit sounds first rate: https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/chicken-under-a-brick
But if you want to stick to skewers, this is far more exotic than ours: https://www.bonappetit.com/recipe/sambal-chicken-skewers
Martha weighs in with her fancier-than-thou chicken skewers: https://www.marthastewart.com/341224/cajun-kebabs-with-chicken-and-andouille#Grilled%20Chicken%20Recipes|/275423/grilled-chicken-recipes/@center/276943/grilling-recipes|341224
Enjoy August. It’s hard to believe it is really here, and that school will be starting soon. Have you noticed the light is changing? Some nights Luke the wonder dog and I walk out to the end of the street to get a good view of the sunset, and last night we dawdled a minute or two sniffing some most fascinating leaves of a bush, so we were too late for that golden moment. The pinks were fading to grays and the cardinals had started singing their nighttime songs. Revel in your weekend!
“What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.”
-John Steinbeck
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