I had brought up a couple of steaks to grill but also had a hankering for sweet potatoes. Since I knew sweet potatoes were going to take way too long to cook on the grill, I had to cheat a bit and pop them in the toaster oven. Since using the toaster oven any time in the house causes all the lights to flash on and off (yes, we still haven’t quite finished updating all the outlets), it’s kind of annoying.

After tolerating about 45 minutes of blinking lights, I’d had enough and decided to finish them on the grill as the steaks were cooking. We had a simple green salad, a bottle of red wine and that was dinner.

Dinner the next night I thought would be easier.  I had brought up some frozen shrimp and was thinking of making a shrimp in a zesty green sauce.  I thought I’d grill the shrimp first, then finish them in a wok with some parsley pesto (made by hand with a mortar and pestle).

The Red House "Food Processor"

Problem was I forgot to bring up some garlic but got the idea that perhaps I could dig up one of the many garlic bulbs growing in the garden. That didn’t work too well, because the garlic when I finally freed it from the soil, looked more like a large green onion (albeit tinged purple) than anything else, but I cut it up anyway and if nothing else it smelled like garlic!

Now, I think I got the original hankering for owning a mortar and pestle because I saw Jamie Oliver on TV once crush some herbs with some olive oil, a bit of salt and pepper, and voila, he had instant pesto.  Not I.  I kept crushing the parsley but it just kind of sat there and got well, mushy.

Not So Pretty Parsley Pesto

I put it aside and threw the shrimp on the grill.  In the meantime, I cheated this weekend and brought up some burrata and sliced prosciutto from the Italian deli.

Yummy!

I made a quick tomato salad with some red onions and by the time everything was cut up, the shrimp were done.

Tomato Side Dish

Shrimp on the "Barbie"

The shrimp were pretty decent even with the ersatz parsley pesto. Before we left the next day though, I decided I would grill some chicken along with a couple of potatoes so that when we got back  to Long Island we’d have dinner!

Great Grilled Chicken, Potatoes, Too

Now Lynn has some fond memories of his Mom cooking up some extra food (chicken in particular) when they went on picnics so that once they got home, she didn’t have to worry about “what was for dinner.”  It made perfect sense for me, too.

Ironically, we hit absolutely no traffic on the ride home, which meant the chicken I had double-wrapped in tinfoil was still warm even after a four hour ride! And pretty darn good.

So when Mom and Dad came up to visit last weekend, I wanted to show them my “stuff.”  I started by grilling some chicken thighs and brushing them with BBQ sauce.

BBQ Chicken Thighs

Then I picked some yellow squash from my garden and wrapped it in some tinfoil, but not before putting some butter and brown sugar on it. When I opened the package, the brown sugar had formed a nice little pond which would be oozing sweetness when we cut it up into chunks.

Home Grown Yellow Squash

The red potatoes however, were a bit of a challenge.  Since I started dinner later than I wanted, (we decided to go for a spur-of-the-moment afternoon swim), I knew that simply plonking them down on the grill would take hours, if not days to cook.  I decided to boil them a bit first, then give them a good dose of olive oil, salt and pepper, and some dried tarragon, too, and put them under a piece of tinfoil to cook, but keep them peeking out so every once in a while I could move them around a bit.

Half Boiled/Half Grilled Potatoes

On the side burner I put a skillet pan filled with peppers and onions but truthfully, at that point, it was cocktail hour and I forgot about them.  Luckily, Lynn loves all things burnt, so he was more than happy with their outcome.

Peppers and Onions

I thought the meal came out nicely; we ate outside, even with all the mosquitoes biting our ankles and elbows and toes, and everyone seemed to enjoy just being at the Red House. And if you are wondering whether I still need an oven, the answer is if I am making bread pudding for dessert I do!

Using leftover hero rolls that I tore up and added some milk, cinnamon, sugar and an egg to, I popped the mixture into muffin tins, stuck it in the toaster oven, and plated the whole thing with fresh raspberries.  I want to say it was yummy but actually it was kind of dense, which leads me to think, maybe I should have tried making a “grilled” bread pudding?

Next time.

Red House Bread Pudding

I can’t. My colander does many things. I use it as a bowl when I’m picking fresh produce from the garden, as a strainer to drain potatoes or pasta, and when I’m done prepping, to carry whatever fruit or vegetable peelings I’m left with out to the compost bin.  My other absolute must-haves when grilling and cooking outdoors are a few decent knifes, a cutting board, and pans that can double for many uses.

The Colander I Can't Live Without

The one thing we both agree on, however, is that while getting the food and prepping might be cumbersome when you’re camping outdoors, the real problem is when you are relying on a grill (or any kind of outdoor flame for that matter) to cook your food, it takes a really, really long time.

Consequently, if I add up the time spent trying to put breakfast, lunch and dinner on the table at the Red  House, you’ll understand why the renovation is taking so long. (Because I’m cooking, not hammering!)

Breakfast:

My husband never had a steak for breakfast in his life until he met my Dad and my brother.  The family ritual was to have steak and eggs on Christmas morning.  Maybe it was a guy thing, since I’ll take some smoked salmon and a hard boiled egg with a fruit salad chaser over a steak any day.  Up at the Red House, though, steak and eggs just sounded like a really good breakfast to have if you were facing a grueling day of sanding a wall or two followed by a few coats of primer.

Thing is the grill we have kind of slants to one side (even after moving it around to different parts of the driveway), and instead of fussing with it, we just lived with the fact that everything we put on the grill pan always slides to the left.  Now, perhaps in certain circles this might have some sort of political connotation — at the Red House it simply means we have to fix the driveway!

See how the steak and eggs just cozy up to one another?  I love it. And yes, they were tasty, too.

Real Steak and Eggs

Lunch:

Remember the scene in The Company Men where Kevin Costner tells Ben Affleck to pick up two pieces of sheetrock the next time he’s carrying something into the house they are renovating?  Well, that’s kind of how I’m feeling about this house renovation right now; we need to both work harder and faster. Consequently, I feel that if Lynn and I are both doing a fairly decent amount of physical labor (he more than me, I will confess), it at least justifies eating hearty meals.  Well, sort of.  This probably explains why my husband didn’t even blink when I suggested we have pasta with broccoli rabe followed by barbequed chicken AND country-style pork ribs for lunch.

However, to make the broccoli rabe, I needed to put up a pan of water on the grill’s side burner about an hour before I wanted to eat.  After about half an hour of waiting for the water to boil (it never did; there were simply a few bubbles and a lot of steam emitting from the pan), I simply threw the macaroni in and stirred it a couple of times.  But here’s the thing, pasta that sits in warm but not boiling water like this and desperately tries to get itself  “cooked,” has a slightly different, kind of gummy taste.

Brings New Meaning To Cooking Outdoors

When I figured it was done enough, I strained the pasta into my beloved colander, then sauteed the broccoli rabe with some olive oil and threw the pasta on top of it.  I had forgotten to buy garlic but did have some red pepper flakes and a chunk of real parmesan cheese to grate on top so it wasn’t a total disaster.

Elbow Macaroni with Broccoli Rabe

Chicken and Ribs

Any sane person eating this much food for lunch (with a couple of bottles of Canadian beer no less) should have taken a nap.  I went out to weed the garden and Lynn got on the Troy Bilt to mow the lawn!

Dinner:

Well, I confess, I did cheat a little since I brought our first course from downstate — lovely balls of burrata that I plated with some grape tomatoes (store-bought, sorry!) but with fresh basil from the garden.

I do need to segue just a tad here for two reasons.  #1 I love burrata and when I’m feeling particularly flush (which is hardly ever), I buy the real stuff that comes in little plastic bags and is flown in daily from Italy.  The key word in that sentence, so you have an idea how outrageously expensive authentic burrata is, is ‘flown.” (As in there are lots of darling little burratas flying first class on Alitalia.)  Better option: Trader Joe’s makes a decent product  for under $5 that I’ve become slightly addicted to.  #2 I love burrata so much that when I read Gabrielle Hamilton’s book, Blood, Bones & Butter, and she talks about digging spoons into a big platter of lovely rounds of burrata instead of a boring old wedding cake, I thought what a brilliant idea!

Lovely Burrata

Meanwhile, back on the range (literally),  I had a fire going under some lamb chops topped with fresh mint from the garden.  In fairness, it looked pretty as it was cooking, but imparted absolutely no mint flavor whatsoever, which was actually perfectly fine with me since I’m not a big mint fan anyway.

Lamb Chops with Fresh Mint from the Garden

Earlier in the day (when I was weeding the garden actually), I had picked some yellow squash to eat with the lamb chops as well as some lettuce.

Freshly Picked Squash

Amazing Lettuce

I felt lucky that I was able to put together a few side dishes courtesy of my new garden but it did make me pause and think about the Red House and what it was like as a working farm a hundred years ago.  What were the people who were living here cooking, growing, and ultimately eating?  I’d love to know.  One thing I’m absolutely positive about, even 150 years later, we were both washing dishes at the end of every meal the old fashioned way — by hand!

Old School Dishwashing