foodiefanatics

Hot weather last weekend led us to select some meals that could be done on the grill. We had people in and out all weekend so the food had to be flexible, quick to cook and not likely to heat up the house.  I made salmon burgers from cooking light (May. 09) that were good but needed a bit more flavor. I served these on some great Brioche buns from whole foods which I highly recommend.  These were easy to prepare, just throw everything into the food processor, form and they are ready to go. I refriged them for a while, making them stay together better. We put these on the grill and they didn't fall apart. 
Also on the grill, we made the Sausage, sourdough and bell pepper spiedini (bon may 09).  The kabobs were drizzled with a mustard vinaigrette which was also tossed with a light salad that the kababs were served on.  This was light, easy and tasty.
Farm Stand brownies from bon may 09 looked really good (with 3 1/2 cups of chocolate chips) but they ended up a bit dry. I don't know if I overcooked them or what. They taste great but the texture isn't so good.
Curried carrot salad with nonfat yogurt from bon, may 09 was a great use of both the carrots from the CSA and some hot serranos (the recipe didn't call for). I put the carrots and the serranos through the shredder and the salad was very tasty and spicy (just as good the next day too).

 Sweet and spicy carrots were quite yummy, but my daughter said they tasted like carrots in lemonade and she really didn't like that combination. I substituted creme de cassis for the Elderberry liquor. 
Potatoes were tasty and had a nice, crispy crust on them. I did not peel the potatoes. See a picture of the potatoes below.
The ribs, well, they were an adventure starting with the new grill which I couldn't get on only to discover after much grumbling that the dumb thing was on already!  Okay, first hurdle overcome, now I had to figure out how to put on the hickory chips without a built in smoker on the grill. AFter doing some reading on it, I soaked the chips for 20 minutes then wrapped them in an "open roll" of tin foil which I took to mean, wrapping them with tin foil but leaving the top part open.  While they were soaking, I preheated the grill to "indirect medium" which meant (I hope) preheating the grill with all three knobs on, then turning of the middle and turning the top and bottom to medium. I put the meat in the middle (according to the Weber directions), put in a pan of water, shut the lid and ran back to re-read the directions.  It didn't give a temperature for the ribs so I wasn't sure I had indirect medium. And they seemed to be cooking too fast and the temperature was 400. So I reduced the heat somewhat. Still, I think they cooked too fast. One smaller rack was done in an hour (the recipe said 1.5-2 hours). The second rack I way overcooked.  So, this was not a big success. Hopefully, I'll have better luck (or have learned something) next time (see picture below).
The blackberry pie was great! I'll post the pie crust recipe in recipes. It turned out beautifully flaky. We topped it with whipped cream.