Emily, Charlie, Roy and Mark were at Jack and Julie's house for Christmas week. Mary and Uli were there along with Zack, Dorothee and Evan. Grammy, Jack, Julie, Luke and Tracy and their exchange student Johnathan made for a full house! Of course we grilled up a storm and had loads of fun and good food. The first night we grilled butterflied leg of lamb on Jack's gas grill (oops). Seasoned with toasted coriander, black pepper and cloves it was yum. Julie had bought two legs so we cut up the other one and put it in a curry sauce which was also very tasty. Em made her yogurt, tomato, cucumber mix called...? which goes great with the curry and helps to cut the heat. What else did we have? Someone help. nan bread and...?
Second night was salmon. We had two huge fillets so Jack did one in the oven with slices of lemon, onion and fresh rosemary. It was fantastic! The other we did out of Planet Barbecue. Salmon Glazed with Belgian Cherry Beer - Page 428-429. I just want to go on record as not being a fan of drinking Belgian Cherry Beer but as the base for the glaze in this recipe it was excellent. I followed the recipe except that I used the zester for the orange and the garlic press for the garlic so both were cut smaller than the recipe calls for. It was ok. I also boiled the glaze longer than the recipe calls for. That may be because I had doubled it. Anyway, it came out great - it would have been even better if we had done it on a charcoal grill, but...
Christmas dinner was pork loin roast done in the oven. Mary had a great recipe which I will let her tell about. J&J had gone to Julie's family celebration so we were left trying to navigate in her kitchen without the captain on the bridge. Pandemonium!! But we got it done and the meal was wonderful especially with the cranberry relish that Julie left behind by accident. It went perfectly with the pork.
Sunday was spaghetti so no grill'n.
Monday was one of my favorite meals: Shrimp marinated in dill, garlic, olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper and grilled on skewers and steaks rubbed with ground pepper and coffee beans and some other spices thrown in for good measure. Sounds like the pepper/coffee steaks are Rob and Steph's favorite too!
Tuesday the Milwaukeans went out to an Afghan restaurant in Bethesda with the O'Keefes so we left the rest of the gang to fend for themselves and Julie made a yum potato soup.
Wednesday, Steve and Audrey (and Ginger) came for the night. I couldn't stand it any longer so I went out and bought Jack a Weber! He lit it up that night while everyone stood around shivering and singing reveille. (I was barefoot and not sure what all the shivering was about since it was at least 40 degrees out.) Tracy will post some pictures.
The inaugural meal was a huge success. It was Ga Nuong La Chanh - a Vietnamese recipe from Planet BBQ (page 386) involving chicken grilled in basil leaves. You are supposed to use lemon leaves but Whole Foods was fresh out of them. On the basil front, they were AOK so we went with basil. I'll let others comment on it but I thought it was great. We had way too much chicken so we did some of the boneless, skinless thighs whole after marinating in the sauce. Both the wrapped pieces and the whole pieces were good. Don't skip the dipping sauce which was good. Someone try it with fresh chili peppers. I used dried and I am not sure that was right. Julie picked out some great side dishes that went perfectly with the chicken. Maybe she will post the recipes.
Check out this web site... http://www.rocklands.com/ John lives in J&J's neighborhood. We went to his restaurant for lunch two of the days we were in D.C. MMMMMMM is all I can say about that. The ribs were perfect. I am hoping to go to the pig roast John puts on for the neighborhood every October.
Two other non-grill'n related highlights were Grammy taking us all to Oklahoma at the Arena Stage. She had been to see the original run in NY back in 1943! Uncle Jeff played base in the pit orchestra for this showing. It was excellent. The other highlight was tour of the Library of Congress arranged by Jack. Well worth the time if you have not been there.
All in all it was a wonderful week.
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