Grilled steak with smoked veggies and potatoes, bruschetta chicken, fish and chips, bacon, tomato and spinach spaghetti, hot dogs, smoked chicken breasts and burgers
It has been such a beautiful summer so far. And now it's already August! As ever, it just flies by, but we love every moment. We've especially enjoyed visiting Lake Huron and checking out their world-famous sunsets. The third photo was after a storm and the sound of those big waves hitting the shore was pretty impressive, not to mention gorgeous.
In the kitchen, we're still experimenting with the smoker grill this week, but mostly on weekends. The rest of our meals have been easy breezy with more "standard" summer fare like hot dogs and hamburgers. What are your family's favourite summer meals?
On the menu July 26 - Aug 1, 2020:
Sunday Smoked Vegetables with Smoked Baked Potatoes, Grilled Steak, Caesar Salad and Killer Baked Potato Topping
Last week we invested in a Broil King Pellet Grill and have had a lot of fun trying different things in it. Tonight we smoked some different vegetables (a huge hit, especially with the teens!) along with some potatoes, and then we grilled steaks at the end. The veggies and potatoes stayed nice and hot, but don't forget - your grill will take 15-20 minutes to get hot enough for steak. At first, I was a bit skeptical of the whole smoker part, but I think I may now be addicted. The flavour is totally amazing and I love prepping something, putting it in the smoker, and then forgetting about it for a couple of hours. We can't get enough of the smoked veggies. We tried carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, and mushrooms. The mushrooms are especially awesome - button work great! This is a wonderful alternative to the slow cooker when you want to keep your kitchen cool but don't have time to stand over the grill. The potatoes and veggies took about 2.5 hours at 225. As always, our fantastic steaks came from Trick's Creek Farm.
Monday Grilled Bruschetta Chicken with Greek salad and Wild Rice Salad
Tonight we celebrated a special person's birthday and I made Bruschetta Chicken with a Greek Salad and a Mediterranean Rice Salad. I was too busy to take any photos, but the meal was delicious. This salad is a great way to use up leftover rice, but it is totally worth making rice especially for as well! I skipped the orzo pasta and just used extra rice.
Tuesday Fixate Fish and Chips with Homemade Tartar Sauce and Coleslaw
I made homemade fish and chips for the first time tonight. Although I've made fish a lot over the years, I have never made fish and chips from scratch. I highly recommend it (even though I accidentally used regular bread crumbs instead of panko). It was way tastier (and way less greasy!) than anything you might get in a restaurant, plus it was good for you. The recipe comes from Autumn Calabrese's Fixate cooking show, part of my Beachbody on Demand workout program subscription. Autumn's brother, Bobby Calabrese, is a chef, and together they have created some pretty awesome, healthy recipes. We loved the tartar sauce as well - definitely a step up from my usual mayo/green relish/lemon juice concoction.
Wednesday Bacon, Tomato and Spinach Spaghetti with green salad
My son is a huge pasta lover, and it's one of his go-to meal choices when he's looking for leftovers. This dish is a different spin on some classic flavours. Think of it as a spaghetti carbonara with added veggies. It was delicious and quick to prepare - perfect for a busy weeknight, or when you don't really feel like cooking.
Thursday Hot dogs and veggies and dip
Friday Smoked Chicken Breasts with Smoked Potatoes and Smoked Vegetables
I've kind of dropped the ball on the whole photographing our meals thing the past few days. We've been eating outside, so I just haven't really been thinking about it until it's too late. Tonight we smoked some chicken breasts (done in just 1 hour) as well as some potatoes and veggies. I'm still attempting to perfect my technique. Tonight, sadly, I had less success than last weekend. I tried brining the chicken breasts to keep them moist, but I should have rinsed them off before putting them back in the fridge after I removed them from the brine. Since the breasts were boneless and skinless, I brined them for only 1/2 an hour. They were salty but still good. The dry rub in this recipe was quite good, but there was a bit too much pepper in it for us.
I also should have turned the heat up on the veggies and potatoes partway through, as 2 hours at 225 F was simply not enough time. There are few things more disappointing than anticipating an awesome meal and finding out that part of it isn't cooked well enough. They definitely need 3 hours, or else you need to turn the heat up.
I'm on the hunt for some different flavoured dry rub recipes, so if you have any favourites, please let me know! It seems as though a lot of the dry rub recipes I've come across have similar ingredients - brown sugar, paprika, garlic powder, onion powder, and some sort of chili powder, and we'd like to branch out a bit if we can.
Saturday Hamburgers and Easy Pasta Salad
Burgers courtesy of Trick's Creek Farm as always, and my favourite, simple pasta salad.
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