July 21, 2013

BBQ



This year, after years of enjoying barbecues at our son and daughter-in-laws house, we finally made the decision to buy our own small gas grill. We've had charcoal grills in the past but hardly ever used them, but now that we have our handy gas grill, we've been barbecuing left and right. We love our grill, by the way, and use it quite often. We tend to be a little repetitive in what we grill but since we only have ourselves to please, why not grill what we like best? We especially love to grill tempeh, zucchini, potatoes, peppers, mushrooms, asparagus, eggplant and corn.

I made an impromptu barbecue sauce by blending jarred, crushed tomatoes (more about the tomatoes in a future post) with a bunch of other ingredients, and brushing it on the tempeh as it grilled. It was great. My husband, who prefers to use recipes, found a recipe for barbecue sauce in "Complete Vegetarian Kitchen," by Lorna Sass, and has been marinating and grilling tempeh with the excellent sauce rather frequently. A Vitamix blends a fast, thick, smooth sauce in seconds with whatever ingredients you care to throw in.



We find that most fresh vegetables look and taste so good right off the grill that they don't really need enhancement, unless you'd like a sprinkle of herb salt or grind of pepper. I usually enjoy my corn plain, but have you ever tried rubbing a small amount of umeboshi plum paste on freshly cooked corn? It's a good substitute for butter and salt.



Here's a simple dinner of tempeh, zucchini, potato and curried cauliflower kimchi. (The potatoes don't looked cooked, do they? They were, though.) Tonight we're having tempeh (duh), potatoes, coleslaw, kale salad, quinoa with roasted veggies and parfaits! (Company coming!)

24 comments:

  1. Oh, I love to grill! All your goodies look so good. I'd love to hear more about your sauce. :-)

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    1. I intended to post this a few weeks ago when I still remembered how I made the sauce so I could post a recipe. But, oh well. It probably contained garlic, ginger, tamari, salt, jalapeno, etc. I'll have to try to recreate it because it tasted great.

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  2. the grilled zucchini looks perfect!

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    1. Don't veggies look better when they have grill marks?

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  3. Oh, that all looks so good! I love the flavor that a charcoal grill provides, but you simply can't beat the convenience of a gas grill. I had a really nice charcoal grill in LA that I rarely used, because it was so time consuming to get the grill hot and ready to cook. Especially when you're cooking vegetables, which take such a short amount of time to cook, that's a lot of lead in for something that can be so simple! Now that we have a gas grill, we use it all the time, even if we're just having a salad with grilled garlic bread.

    It's surprisingly hard to find organic, non-GMO corn in Iowa, but I talked to a farmer at the farmers market yesterday, and it looks like I'll finally be in luck next week! I'm intrigued by your umeboshi plum paste idea!

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    1. You can add some of the charcoal flavor back by adding liquid smoke to the BBQ sauce. It's amazing how realistic it is. But, you're right, the gas grill is so much cleaner and easier.

      We can always find organic corn and I didn't realize it would be hard elsewhere. Maybe you'll have to grow your own if your source doesn't work out. Or move. :)

      I learned the umeboshi trick when we were eating a macrobiotic diet — that was a pretty standard way to enjoy roasted corn.

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    2. Yes, I am a fan of liquid smoke! It's a good trick to have in one's back pocket!

      I like your second idea... the one about moving. I'll talk to my husband about that... ;)

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    3. Haha! I think you'll find all the organic corn (and everything else) you can eat in Portland or Seattle.

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  4. We love our gas grill, too. It's so much cleaner & easier to use than charcoal. I also love my corn plain but I saw a recipe for chili lime corn on Pinterest that I'd like to try.

    All of your veggies look perfect! If only everything could be as easy as grilling!

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    1. I used to hate getting charcoal dust all over my hands — and usually my clothes. I love our little Weber. Chili lime corn sounds excellent!

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  5. I think cooking or eating anything in the open air automatically makes it taste so much better! If I had a garden, I'd be BBQing like there's no tomorrow - lots of grilled tofu and veggies every night!

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    1. The open air is part of it, but I also love the grill marks and the texture of grilled food.

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  6. Your zucchini is making my mouth water! It looks like it is perfectly cooked and delicious!

    Courtney

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    1. There's something about those black marks that makes veggies look so much better. Zucchini, eggplant, asparagus — I love them all grilled.

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  7. Grilled food is the best! So much easier to throw things on a gas grill and be done in no time. Even without any sort of sauce, simple grilled veggies taste awesome. :-)

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    1. Yes, it's true that you don't really even need sauce for grilled veggies. I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks so!

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  8. What a lovely combination of grilled foods! I tried a couple of recipes from Grills Gone Vegan, and they were a huge hit including the Chimichurri Sauce!

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    1. Thanks! I'll have to look up the sauce and try it. Thanks for sharing.

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  9. ooh, I bet the grilled tempeh is amazing. my mouth is watering!

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    1. I just ate a leftover piece cold and it was still juicy and delicious. I looked everywhere on line to try to find the sauce recipe my husband uses, but couldn't. Probably any marinade would work.

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  10. Oh, I'm so jelly. I bought all the fixins to make Brussell sprout shish kebabs, but then lazily (and hotly) roasted them last night instead because the weekend got away from me. Try sriracha on cold, leftover corn on the cob.

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    1. I don't think we've grilled b-sprouts, yet. Thanks for the idea. We've grilled just about everything else, though. Love the grill! Sriracha is good on everything, isn't it? :)

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  11. Oh the many things one can do with umeboshi paste! The corn looks perfect. I miss freshly grilled vegetables! The tempeh looks great too.

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    1. Grilled fresh corn is so perfect — sweet and smoky. I eat it straight up. I'm so glad we finally got a little grill.

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