How do you feel about grilling? Not eating grilled foods, actually grilling? For years, I avoided it – I think I felt grilling was “men’s work”. A few years ago, I was planning dinner on the grill and JP got stuck late at work, so I gritted my teeth and tried cooking on the grill, and found (a) it’s really pretty easy and (b) I’m really pretty good at it!
So…yesterday was my birthday. JP’s been working crazy hours lately, so he took me out for dinner Sunday. Which was nice, but then I had to decide – what did I want to cook for my birthday dinner? As it happened, yesterday was a crazy work day for me, so he ended up taking me out for dinner, and I made my (grilled) “birthday” dinner tonight.
One of my favorite things to put on the grill is zucchini – I think grilling really brings out the flavor of the zucchini. I sliced two large zucchini lengthwise into fairly thick slices and marinated it for about 15 minutes in a mixture of 1/4 cup olive oil, 1/2 tablespoon garlic powder, 1 tablespoon parsley flakes, and salt and pepper.
While the zucchini was hanging out letting the oil and spices sink in, I preheated the grill by leaving the top closed and turning all burners on high till the temperature is as high as it can go, went over it with a wire grill brush to remove anything burned onto the grates , turned it down till the temperature was about 450, and put my sausage on to grill. After about ten minutes, I put the zucchini on, turned the sausage, and in about 20 minutes total, we had a delicious dinner! By the way, I left the grill closed when the sausage was on there alone, and then finished the sausage and made the zucchini with the grill open (it gets too hot for the zucchini with the top closed).
(Yes, part of the sausage is indeed burned – that’s the way I like it, and it’s (still) my day, so that’s what I did!)
To go with our sausage and zucchini, I made a quick Caprese salad with 15 cherry tomatoes and 4 oz. fresh mozzarella. The dressing was 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil, 1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar, a little salt and pepper, and 1/4 tablespoon dried basil. I would have preferred fresh basil, but I wanted to pick that up yesterday, and as I said… the last two days at work have been busy and I never made it to the store! It still tasted pretty good, but I’d recommend fresh basil any day!
Hope this has inspired you to try grilling for yourself!