With a kitchen reno going on, we currently have no stove, and our kitchenware is all packed away except for a few dishes and two wine glasses which are promotional items with a company logo on them. So most days we are eating our lunch out and dining on sandwiches in the evening. Or we are grilling our meal outdoors. Thank goodness we’re having this done during the summer. It wasn’t really planned that way, but we’re glad about it, as the weather has been so nice and we’ve used our back patio as our living room (while all the furniture that was previously in the kitchen resides in our real living room.
But wait … did I speak too soon about the weather? The plan for today’s lunch was to cook outside, when a sudden thunder storm threatened to change our minds. It began to rain just as we were starting up the coals, but it didn’t stop us. We hunkered under the awning as the rain pelted. Just as quickly as it began, it cleared up, leaving the air nice and cool and smelling fresh.
On the menu was salmon, marinated for an hour ahead of time, in garlic, lime juice, olive oil, salt and ground mixed peppercorns (or black pepper) and fresh tarragon from our potted herb garden. We put the piece of fish skin side down on a piece of foil and just plopped it on the hot grill, then shut the lid and let it bake for about 3 minutes, until cooked through. It turned out nice and moist.
[That’s a picture of my Tarragon plant]
We also cooked some shrimp, which had previously marinated overnight in a mixture of lime juice, olive oil, a chopped scotch bonnet pepper (spicy!), curry powder and galangal powder (optional but really good if you can find it) and a bit of salt. The cooking method was just as though they were being sauted, in a steel perforated wok shaped pan, especially made for the barbeque.
The aroma was divine. In fact, on the other side of the fence, a man we couldn’t see walked by and declared out loud, “Mmmmm, Something smells good!”.
Veggies were baked potatoes (with sour cream and green onion) and broccoli (which was steamed inside, in the microwave oven which is set up in the living room!)
To drink we had a glass of dry sparkling wine, Freixenet from Spain.
Cheers!
We were celebrating not having to water the garden!
