Grill Experiments--Salmon and Bison

Menu
Grilled Salmon
Grilled Steak
Grilled Corn (Elote)
leftover acorn squash with quinoa stuffing
green salad.

Notes:
Grilled Salmon
Heat grill up to 325 F.
took much longer than 8 minutes.

Next time:
oil the grill.  Less olive oil on Salmon.  It dipped into drum and caught fire.
It was cooked just about right! despite temperature dropping too low in the middle of cooking!
Salmon was generally appreciated.


Bison Steak
heated grill up to 325 F
cooked to 135 F.

next time:
Serve red meat again, half the kids liked it.


Elote--
Took more than half an hour to cook.
Shucked corn
turn on various sides to get them slightly charred
smear on mayo/cheese mix
served paprika/cayenne/chili powder at table for sake of anti-spice child.

Next time:
char a little less, it will be fine, and faster.
make sure cheese is cotija.
divide smear; mix paprika/chili into most smear.

Cod with Potatoes and Saffron

Baked Cod and Potatoes with Spanish Seasoning
Cucumber Salad

Cod was a good deal at Hannahford's, so I bought 1.5 pounds.  I looked at my iPhone while she wrapped it, and found this recipe:
     Baked Cod and Chorizo
"Perfect," I thought, "I bought that amazing Spanish Chorizo weeks ago, and we need to eat it before it goes bad.  And I have a couple potatoes that need to be cooked soon."  I bought some saffron to fill it out.

The seafood lady gave me some salmon as well, to encourage me to come back and buy it another day.

When I got home: problems.

• The chorizo was growing mold.  It had been waiting months, not weeks.
• I couldn't fit all the fish in the iron skillet.

My husband came to the rescue, pulled out his big iron griddle, and basically took over the seasoning and cooking.  I felt bad about this because unlike me, he'd already worked a long day, and dinner was now late for everybody.  Seasoning was the basic garlic-cumin-salt-paprika-cayenne, with some saffron threads.

I had been nervous about the potatoes really cooking in the skillet, so I had baked them an hour before.  I sliced the two baked potatoes onto the griddle with the fish so they would be seasoned too.

For a side dish, I sliced cucumber and celery in the food processor, added some grape tomatoes and sliced green onions, and dressed it with salt and little olive oil.  I was going for something halfway between Israeli Salad and Spanish salad.

The potatoes were a hit.
The fish was mostly a hit.  The saffron didn't show up though; maybe it was lost when we switched pans.
The salad was small, and entirely eaten.

Acorn Squash with Quinoa Stuffing

Acorn Squash with Quinoa Stuffing
Green Salad
Multigrain Rolls

Cut the acorn squash in half and bake in oven at 350.
Make quinoa in rice cooker.  Be sure and rinse it much first.

mix into quinoa:
Kale
tiny cubes of tofu
minced celery (food processor)
minced mushroom (food processor)
chopped walnuts. (food processor)
chopped apple (food processor)

Tasty, children were only mildly appreciative but I don't care.  We ate 75%.
The rolls were not vegan, actually.

Sunday Tortellini

Mushroom Tortellini (Rana)
Red Sauce (Bove)
Herb Salad (hannaford brand)
Caeser Dressing (Marzetti Simply Dressed)

The mushroom tortellini helped with the homesick.  The kids and I used to get the Safeway grocery store's brand frozen mushroom ravioli regularly.  Until tonight, I hadn't found mushroom ravioli in Vermont.