3 Girls and a Grill

Today was one of those days that just signifies that Summer is indeed, actually coming. My last 2 classes went on a field trip for the whole day, leaving me with a whopping almost 3 hours to catch up on work, grading papers, editing essays… all while sitting outside in the sun! We had an end of the year meeting, where our administrators went over the special schedules for the last 12(!) days of school.

After the meeting, I sped out of chool because I had something fantastic to look forward to! But first, I had to stop at the grocery store (yes, again) for a few things that I forgot yesterday. Most importantly: charcoal. You may remember that I mentioned a special bbq yesterday, or you may not… in any case, today was a very special afternoon! Why? I had REAL guests for dinner! The lovely Jenn and another foodie friend (yes, I have a lot of these) came over for a real summer barbecue today!

First, they had the pleasure of meeting our animals, Ozzy, Raven, and Big (they don’t like to be photographed):

Then, I started the grill while we got to cutting up veggies for grilling. I really wish I had taken a photo of the portabella we grilled, because I swear, it was as big as my face. Earlier in the day, I had made a marinade for boneless trimmed pork loin chops consisting of:

• 1/4 c. dark soy sauce
• 2 Tbsp. dark sesame oil
• 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
• 1/2 tsp. sriracha
• 2 heaping Tbsp. sesame seeds

I set the 8 thin chops to marinate at 6 this morning, so they marinated 10 hours!

While the veggies were getting cut, I made a spinach salad:

That would be baby spinach, cherry tomatoes, dried cranberries, almonds, red bell pepper, and I made a soy/sesame/ginger vinaigrette to go on top. It was a little too salty for my tastes, but everyone said it was good! Once the salad was set, we headed outside and started grilling! The pork chops went on first, and quickly cooked since they were so thin. They got a nice char on them and then got transferred to a plate so we had more veggie room! We ended up grilling a great conglomeration of veggies:

• giant portabella, cut into slices
• red bell peppers
• zucchini
• fresh sliced pineapple

Ok, so it was fruits and veggies. After much eagerness, hair singeing (off my arms only), waiting, flipping and turning, we ended up with quite the spread of food! You’ll have to check Jenn’s post for more “action” shots… she has some great ones!

We came back inside and assembled our plates… I was SO excited for COLOR on my plate, as was Jenn. We both noticed how bright everything was, and what a relief it was from the browns and oranges of the winter. Don’t you wish you had Smell-O-Blog?

I of course, managed to pick the ONE chop without great grill marks, but I swear the rest were perfect-looking! I also topped my salad with some avocado chunks, because, well, I love avocado! This meal was so beyond satisfying. There was a great balance of strong flavors, sweetness, salty, and of course, perfect grill char. There really is something satisfying about cooking my food over an open fire!

We ate, talked with Adam a bit before he went to work, and chatted forever, when we decided to break out the beautiful box of treats that Jenn brought from Whole Foods. I haven’t had Whole Foods sweets since, well, she got me a cupcake for Valentine’s Day!

In that box were 2 chocolate cheesecakes, 2 buttercream tarts, 2 chocolate mousse tarts, 2 eclairs, 2 marshmallow s’mores type tarts, and 2 fruit tarts. We also had some truly fabulous banana/PB/Chocolate Chip/Pumpkin cookies that were seriously some of the best I’ve had. They were super rich and had melty chocolate chips in them! I took one of the cheesecake things, and the sparkly pink buttercream tart…well, because it was pink and sparkly. I like sparkly things. Sorry, Rain Man moment.

Jenn was kind enough to leave the leftover pastries for Adam, isn’t that sweet? (no pun intended, I swear.) I just hope there are some left by the time he gets home…

I’m probably one of the few people in the world NOT watching American Idol right now, but I never got into this season! Something about being in the sun so much today has just DRAINED me! I’m just about spent for the night… I can’t wait for my next foodie date! They are SO much fun!

T minus 2 days until REALLY COOL THING!!! I know you can’t wait

Have a wonderful night!

Tagged as: friends, grilling, simple recipe