As today was the first day of spring we had big plans to fire up the grill for it's inaugural meal of 2011. Sadly it was snowing this morning and in the low thirties. When I returned home from work it was merely raining and in the high thirties. Perhaps we should have taken advantage of grilling this weekend when it was in the seventies but it was still the winter this weekend! Who grills in the winter? That's just silly!
Well, I wasn't about to let a little rain stop me from lighting up the grill. I probably should have because it wasn't that easy to get started in the rain but I persevered.
Tonight, for salad, I threw a lot of what was leftover in the fridge together. What I came up with was sort of what you'd have if Pasta Puttanesca, a Caesar salad, and a health nut procreated in some sort of unholy manner. I used up the remaining red kale, tossed in some leftover capers, anchovy fillets, lemon juice, Dijon mustard, hot sauce, olive oil, salt, and pepper. The result was far better than I'd have expected. I would definitely make this one again. That is, of course, if I ever made the same salad more than once or twice.
On second thought I'll say I'd make this again then I will promptly forget I ever made it and it will be lost in the annals of time.
The first thing to make it onto our grill was this fantastic pork chop from Lucki7 Livestock Company, a Step 4-rated farm in Rodman, New York. I spotted this at my local butcher shop and made the wise idea to purchase it. Any time I see pork from Lucki7 I pick it up since their pork is so great. Even if I have a fridge full of pork, I'll just throw all that stuff out and replace it with this.
I hesitate to do much to their pork so I just served it with some sauteed chard, boiled potatoes with butter and olive oil.
I had made and frozen some corn muffins out of the leftover batter from the Mexican shepherd's pie I made the other night. I sliced a couple in half, buttered them, and fried them up in the pan.
For beer I had this Traquair 2020 from Scotland. Apparently they brewed it to celebrate the first decade of the millennium to be consumed in the second decade of the millennium. It's not supposed to age or anything, you're just supposed to drink it within these ten years.
I found that very easy to do and I found this beer quite tasty. It's very similar to the Gouden Carolus I had last night in that it is very much like malt and molasses. Just the kind of beer you can enjoy out of a snifter as long as you close your blinds to make sure no one is looking in to see how much of a jerk you are.
Today someone at work gave me a tiny portion of baklava and it got me to thinking about how I hadn't had baklava in ages. Since I had the leftover filo in the fridge I decided I'd throw together a quick one. It was really just scavenging whatever what left in the fridge together so it was a little thin. I used equal parts walnuts, pecans, and almonds from the cupboard and made the sauce out of water, palm sugar, and honey.
Baklava isn't really spring-themed but it was fun to make and get to use the rest of the filo dough that I was convinced I'd end up throwing away.
Blossom by blossom the spring begins.
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