What's cooking?

Played a decent round of golf this morning then came home and fired up the smoker. Four racks of baby backs are in there. Will grill some corn as one side. Cole slaw already made as the other. Strawberry pie for dessert. Just need to find a nice Zinfandel now.

Golf and BBQ. No better way to spend a holiday IMO!

Agreed! Although could have used a little less heat on the course....90+ is a bit much.

Ribs120704.jpg

Wow, those look amazing Mike. We had ribs at our club, but they were "oven BBQed." Still good (fallling off the bone and a good sweet sauce), but no comparison to yours I'm certain.
Incidentally, we did have you beat on high temps Wednesday. It was over 100 here in Pinehurst...with high humidity (STEAMY!). Lots of people dropped out of the annual couples tournament. We are used to the heat so hung in there.

Bone-in center cut pork chops, rubbed with Lindberg-Snider Red Baron Barbecue Spice, a long time family favorite. Small gold potatoes, boiled, smashed, then drizzled with evoo, fresh rosemary and broiled until crispy. Served with sour cream, if desired. Home made applesauce and a tomato, cucumber green salad with champagne vinegar vinaigrette.

Golf and BBQ. No better way to spend a holiday IMO!

Agreed! Although could have used a little less heat on the course....90+ is a bit much.

Ribs120704.jpg

Wow, those look amazing Mike. We had ribs at our club, but they were "oven BBQed." Still good (fallling off the bone and a good sweet sauce), but no comparison to yours I'm certain.
Incidentally, we did have you beat on high temps Wednesday. It was over 100 here in Pinehurst...with high humidity (STEAMY!). Lots of people dropped out of the annual couples tournament. We are used to the heat so hung in there.

Thanks, Carrie....they were tasty...smoked for 5 hours, no sauce added.

Not sure what our high was...I know the temp was 97 when I left the club at 1230. Humidity was pretty high as well. One guy in our group walked 18 in the morning then was walking another 18 in the afternoon couples' event!

You must have an interesting transition between the dry desert of CA and the tropical jungle of NC!!!

[Jenise]

We smoked ribs for the Fourth. FORTY POUNDS OF THEM!

Your smoker must be bigger than mine.......

@ Mike and Karen: we have a small smoker with but two shelves, but we have metal 'racks' which hold multiple sets of ribs upright. We did all forty pounds in two batches, so let me do the math. Okay, each 'rack' holds six half-racks of ribs upright, and each set of six came from three whole as packaged by Costco which weigh about ten pounds each. So we can do 20 pounds in a session on two 20" round shelves.

Karen, we were expecting 30-35 guests.

Tonight we had grilled fillet of sockeye salmon. We removed all bones and rubbed with lemon juice and seasoned with granulated onion, salt, and white pepper. Grilled it in a basket over charcoal and wild cherry chips for five minutes on each side. Skin came right off after turning. Served with pilaf cooked in veggie stock, and sliced ripe tomatoes. Washed it down with Sebago Boathouse Brown Ale. Yum!

[Jenise]

Carl, sounds like a PERFECT summer dinner, includng the ale.

Here, it's 4:12 p.m. and I have no clue what we're having for dinner. I've had five wonderful days of cooking for houseguests who I love to cook for, so it's odd that I feel a bit wiped out now that we're alone again, but I do. Going to be a struggle to come up with something I feel like doing in the kitchen, and time's running out fast.

[Robin Garr]

Here, it's 4:12 p.m. and I have no clue what we're having for dinner. ... Going to be a struggle to come up with something I feel like doing in the kitchen, and time's running out fast.

Funny, that's just where I was about two hours ago. I grabbed some farmer's market booty out of the basket, and wallah!

Thai-style bok choy stir-fry with onions, ginger, garlic and lemongrass. 

[Jenise]

Here, it's 4:12 p.m. and I have no clue what we're having for dinner. ... Going to be a struggle to come up with something I feel like doing in the kitchen, and time's running out fast.

Funny, that's just where I was about two hours ago. I grabbed some farmer's market booty out of the basket, and wallah!

Thai-style bok choy stir-fry with onions, ginger, garlic and lemongrass. 

GMTA? I'm low on produce, but a head of bok choy has me tempted to go with a Chinese vegetarian main course.

Simple fare tonight: sweet Italian sausage, sliced and sizzled, thrown in a fresca sauce and spooned over (organic whole wheat) rotini. On the side, a chopped salad of mini cucumbers, carrots, celery, red pepper, olives, and craisins dressed with homemade Green Goddess.

The fresca was made very simply: pluck an entire bunch of basil and put it in a pan, add a few smushed cloves of garlic, any other seasonings that appeal to you (I used dried savory, fresh rosemary, and a scratch of black pepper), top with a 28 oz can of peeled Italian tomatoes and simmer for a bit.

One guy in our group walked 18 in the morning then was walking another 18 in the afternoon couples' event!

You must have an interesting transition between the dry desert of CA and the tropical jungle of NC!!!

THAT would be MY husband. I've never heard him complain about the heat. It's been 108 this past week and he's been walking and carrying. He'd happily do 36 that way if the occasion called for it. Crazy.
Actually, we are both from humid locations originally (him Boston, me Florida) so we're pretty acclimated to wet heat even though we live in the dryness most of the year. We are not, however, acclimated one bit to the cold. Total wimps.

I got an urge for a very old way of making enchiladas...traditional from the area I lived as a kid, not far from the Mexican border. I believe the Mexican lady who taught mom to make them said they were New Mexico style stacked enchiladas. Corn tortillas are slightly crisped in oil, then dipped into enchilada sauce, and placed on a plate. Topped with raw onions and grated cheddar cheese. You can have as many layers as you wish. This is topped with a fried egg. Gene loves an egg on his, I do not. Such a simple preparation but there is something about the raw onions with the cheese. When you make one stack, it goes into a warm oven, until all the rest of the plates are made. Serve when cheese has melted. I'm serving with a plate of heirloom tomato slices, marinated in fresh herbs, a little vinegar and oil.

Tonight we had Romanian Flank Steak (marinated with EVOO, pepper, and granulated garlic for most of the day in fridge), grilled over charcoal and mesquite chips. For sides we had corn on the cob and a salad with mostly local veggies. We matched it with an ‘08 Los Rocas Garnacha. Can’t think of a better way to spend a Saturday night!

Saturday night is usually pizza night, year round, irrespective of the weather. But today's heat wave had us very reluctant to crank up the oven so we went with the same ingredients/flavors and had tomato risotto with basil. The tomato sauce was made today with farmer's market tomatoes and is one of the few redeeming things about all this summer heat!

We had a salad with lettuce and radishes, and a 2009 G Descombes Morgon VV was a great match for the risotto. Good dining. My little 22-month old son even gobbled up the risotto almost as fast as we could keep it on his plate (which is not always the case with him and dinner).

There's a fish market here that opened up to the public only recently. The company sells a lot of stuff to local higher end markets and restaurants, and we'd been wanting to drop by for a while now. We picked up a half pound of sushi grade ahi, 6 small oysters, and a pound and a half of halibut. The oysters and tuna were consumed raw and the halibut was cooked in a hot skillet. Also had an Asian influenced butter bean salad and corn on the cob. The fish was just excellent - we'll be going back to that market frequently.

I put a whole organic chicken sitting on a bed of sweet onions into a open wire roaster which is for our grill. It is stuffed with fresh lemons, rosemary, sage leaves. I made a brush on marinade, with soy sauce, rosemary oil, butter, fresh garlic, chopped rosemary leaves and brush over the chicken every few hours. I threw whole, young carrots along side the chicken and toped them with freshThyme sprigs. A side dish of rigatoni and fresh tomato sauce pulled from the freezer, and a baby spinach salad with mandarin oranges, Craisins and dried blueberries with an orange muscat champagne vinaigrette. Salad will be tossed than sprinkled with cashew halves. If it were just Gene and eating, I would leave off the rigatoni. I'm
feeding a very tall grandson these days who is prepping for the Navy and body building. He requires a bit more food/carbs/protein than us!

[Robin Garr]

Okra's in! The garden is producing an ample supply now. Tonight, Dahi Bhindi, Indian-style okra in tomato-yogurt sauce. 

Nice Robin...I did something similar tonight with a myriad of baby summer squashes in roasted home made tomato sauce, with a little lemon, basil, macadamia nut pesto for an added dimension of flavor.

Last night, we had a little dinner party. Served the following:

- Cantaloupe with chili/lime/mint
- A roasted tomato/gruyere crostata (made without assistance by my 14 year old!)
- Grilled portobellos with a honey-balsamic glaze
- Lamb kebabs with fresh figs and sweet chili glaze

Friends brought tabbouleh, a Sicilian pasta-cauliflower salad, and a kale-beet salad. Dessert was fresh strawberries with homemade shortcake, whipped cream, and vanilla ice cream.

[Jenise]

Mike, that sounds wonderful. Love the sweet/fruity elements throughout for a middle-eastern tinged hot-day summer meal.

I'm cooking a real dinner tonight for the first time in many days. We're going to have burritos stuffed with refried beans topped with a spicy chile verde meat mixture made by braising the last of the leftover smoked pork ribs from the Fourth with three roasted pasilla chiles plus a few guajillos. Mike's menu just convinced me that our side for that should be an orange honeydew and mint salad.

We have had two meals of of a single rack of extremely meaty St Louis ribs that we picked up at BJs. We smoked it four hours over hickory in our electric water smoker. After cutting them up into single ribs we sauce them we our tangy BBQ sauce and served with biscuits and sliced tomatoes. The second night we went with a tossed salad instead of the tomatoes. The ribs were fantastic.

[Jenise]

We have had two meals of of a single rack of extremely meaty St Louis ribs that we picked up at BJs. We smoked it four hours over hickory in our electric water smoker. After cutting them up into single ribs we sauce them we our tangy BBQ sauce and served with biscuits and sliced tomatoes. The second night we went with a tossed salad instead of the tomatoes. The ribs were fantastic.

That's how we've been eating; I had more leftovers from the Fourth than I expected. Never thought I'd see myself get tired enough of ribs to want to braise the rest. But that's what I did and the resulting burritos were the best I've ever made!

A very tasty Gazpacho tonight. Made it early this morning, and it is sitting in the refer to chill and develop flavors. We love quesadillas with our Gazpacho, so If I have the energy, will get a couple of them made. At 107 and 110 the past few days, I have little energy in the afternoons.

[Jenise]

At 107 and 110 the past few days, I have little energy in the afternoons.

Heat zaps me too. Good luck getting through it.

[Robin Garr]

Sausage, peppers and onions over polenta, using LightLife Italian-style Smart Sausages. Great with a ridiculously cheap Barbaresco from Trader Joe's.