grills and chills
BBQ-friendly salads and how to revive freezer-burnt buns
Greetings, weary travellers. I actually meant to take this week off from writing since today is a stat holiday, but forgot to mention it in last week’s newsletter, so here is a mini version for your long weekend. If you’re enjoying a day off today, remember to wear orange, not red, and to look for Indigenous-led events in your area to attend rather than “Canada Day” celebrations. And a donation to the IRSSS is always a good place to start.
With last weekend’s heat wave finally allowing us to feel like it’s summer, I got to return to a couple of my favourite things to make when it’s too hot to stand in front of the stove. My kitchen has no windows and is in the centre of the house, so it’s kind of stuffy at the best of times, and I definitely don’t want to be spending a lot of time in there when it’s 28°C out if I can avoid it. Instead I spent most of Saturday and Sunday afternoon reading and knitting in the yard with multiple cool beverages. I also picked up a pint of the vegan orange creamsicle ice cream from Earnest, which I heartily recommend.
We buy a case of Beyond patties from Vegan Supply (Jeff gets a discount there) about once a year, even if they aren’t necessarily my favourite veggie patty of all time— call me old fashioned, but I like the bean pucks! But they’re so nice to have for easy meals during grilling season, and the size of the box means they usually last almost until the following grilling season. We cooked up a couple on Saturday night and I made a delightful watermelon salad to go with it.
Start with a quarter of a large melon (or half a mini one) and cut it into cubes or scoop it out using a melon baller. Then you can make it spicy or briny, herbal or sweet, light or savoury, depending on what else you add. I usually go for thick pieces of Persian or English cucumber for crunch, some mint and basil, crumbles of feta, a dash of olive oil and balsamic vinegar, and of course flaky salt and lots of black pepper. I’ve made this vegan as well using avocado or crumbles of marinated tofu, or a nut-based feta instead. You could do lime dressing instead of balsamic, or swap in another herb, or chili flakes instead of black pepper, or add a jalapeño, or skip the cucumber and add another fruit for a sweeter version… a lot of possibilities for subtle but important differences! Promise me you’ll try it next time you see a good deal on a whole watermelon.
After our Costco visit the previous week in which I did not eat a hot dog, I couldn’t stop thinking about hot dogs, so I had to get some. We forgot to get buns though, and rather than go out again I managed to unearth some from the darkest corner of the deep freeze. The date on them showed they’d been in there for… uh… much too long, so when they thawed out into pathetic, crusty shells of their former selves, I steamed them in a colander over a pot of water for a few minutes to soften them back up. Jeff was skeptical, but I personally think steamed buns are the way to go for hot dogs (toasted buns are for burgers), and this worked remarkably well— you’d never have known they were desiccated by freezer burn only minutes earlier.
In the summer I basically have to keep a reserve eggplant in my fridge at all times, because I need the ability to make this Smitten Kitchen pasta salad whenever it calls to me. The charred eggplant is the perfect texture and flavour, and I love the rich tanginess of the walnut & sun-dried tomato pesto. This dish is filling enough to be a meal on its own, but it’s also a nice addition to a barbecue spread if you want something a bit more unique than potato or green salad.
I was nearly out of walnuts, so I added a mix of pecans and pine nuts to finish it off and it was delicious. There’s something so enticing about the aroma of toasted nuts and garlic in the food processor at the first step of making pesto. Because I was short on parsley (we just replanted), I also mixed a little fresh oregano into the salad this time, which changes the flavour just slightly in a way that is welcome. I have a few other tips on making this salad here.
Periodic reminder: all my personal recipes from past newsletters are collected in the index here (the link can be found anytime in my about page), and all my musical title references are collected in a playlist here!
Thanks for reading— if you enjoyed this newsletter, please smash that like button below, or share it with someone new! I like providing this to you for free, but it does still involve time and effort, so donations I can use towards cookbooks or future treats are much appreciated. And I’m sure you’ve seen it by now, but just in case, here is the most important archeological find of our time.