All around this weekend the barbeques were lighted and the scent of dogs and burgers filled the air – along with major squeals from happy family get-togethers. We happened to be down the street from my brother and sister-in-law who had a healthy 26 for the weekend. We expanded with the kids home to a happy foursome – six if you count the dogs. And they should be counted for slider night.
As you well know, I love the kids coming home for all the usual reason, but also because they cook for us. With several new food magazines for inspiration – they couldn’t decide how best to celebrate the holiday. There were too many recipes for burgers to choose from, so they decided on a variety of sliders – you know –mini hamburgers so you can eat more than one without guilt!
Amazingly, a year ago, my daughter didn’t even eat hamburger (we’re talking age 20), but now she is in pursuit of the ultimate burger! Who says they don’t grow up? We all sat around discussing our favorite flavors and decided on four different varieties of burgers to try.
Burger Basics
Burgers are easy to customize with a little imagination. Just take high quality ground meat, add seasonings cut finely to mix well, some sauce or egg for binder (so it doesn’t crumble on the grill) and voila!
The men decided bacon was a must to add, that combined with barbeque sauce was one for the grill. Another version went Florentine with spinach, garlic and cheese. There was also a Mexican version with chili powder, Jack cheese and a little salsa. Or you can try the Mango Peach Salsa Sassy Burgers. Finally, there was the mushroom and cheese burgers with chipotle mayo – as you can tell we are largely a cheeseburger kind of family. We each had four tiny samples, but all were delicious!
Burger Tips
When making burgers use the finest quality meat, add finely diced herbs or other ingredients, add a binder such as egg, sauce or breadcrumbs to keep it whole on the grill. Taste test! Make a tiny burger of your favorite combination and grill first for flavor check – start light! You can always add more, but it’s harder to take out or add more meat to compensate.
Burgers Don’t Have to Be Beef
For all those years my daughter didn’t eat ground beef, that didn’t mean she didn’t eat grilled patties in a bun. Turkey burgers were a weekly staple in our house with mustard, onion and parsley for flavor. We also had our fair share of salmon burgers with mayo and dill. If you still crave meat, but want something with a little less f at, you can always use bison with a heartier flavor which is increasingly available in grocery stores.
If you can grind it, mix it and grill it – you have a burger for a holiday feast!
I admit it – this is one area where I have learned a lot in the past year. I thought I made pretty good ribs, but I didn’t understand what an art it really is. Now we think barbeques is the realm of the US, but I learned my lessons from the British born boyfriend of my daughter, Tom – OK, he is an American citizen now, but he still has a cute accent.
Barbeque in America is big business! Everyone thinks the BBQ from their region is the best – Texas, Memphis, Kansas City, Carolina. There are barbeque festivals in almost every state in the union – over 500 and counting! At the Memphis in May International Barbeque Festival people compete for over $100,000 in prizes. There are sites dedicated to ribs! And party people who specialize in grilling, roasting and smoking!
Silly me, I just used to slather ribs with sauce and throw them on the grill for a nice char – boy was I mistaken. To do really great ribs, they need to be slow roasted for several hours and just finished on the grill.
How to Make Great Ribs – Easy but NOT Fast
Again there’s a lot of regional lore about what’s best. Some people recommend boiling them to cook them, but generally that leaches out the flavor. In our house you rub the ribs lightly with oil. Sometimes we then pat on a dry rub of our favorite spices. Then you can put them in a crock pot smothered in your favorite for several hours on low or wrap smother them in sauce and wrap them in foil in the oven for several hours. The key is low slow cooking about 225 degrees, until the meat starts to separate easily from the bone. You can use either TSG Raspberry Grilling Sauce or try this recipe with Sisters Southern Sweet Barbeque Sauce – or a combination of both! Here a link to the TSG recipe that’s a little faster.
Then onto the grill for that caramelized and crispy finish.
Easy Grilled Corn Too!
If you don’t want to cook inside, I recommend BBQ roasted corn for a perfect picnic. Just take your corn in the husk – soak it in water for about an hour – then drop onto the grill. The corn will cook inside in about 10-15 minutes. Or if you like a little char and don’t have the hour, take off the husk, brush with olive oil and drop directly on the gril.
Keep all the mess outside with almost no clean up after – that’s my idea of a summer vacation! Even better, Tom is coming for the weekend and he’s going to do the ribs!
OK – you’re going to get tired of my grilling blogs over the next couple of months, but really, what’s better than some fresh local food grilled and shared in the back yard on a warm summer night?
Kids Love Grilled Vegetables
For those of you who lament every getting your children to eat vegs – this has to be the answer. Take just about any fresh veg you can find, slice it, spray or brush lightly with it with oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper and it’s guaranteed to vanish! My family generally moans when I ask what vegetable they want with dinner, but in the summer I have to grill three times what I think is the correct amount because it is stolen before it ever hits the table.
For a family, you can make it a fun day if you start at the farmer’s market in the morning where everyone can pick “their” vegetable to include. Maybe you can make it a game to add one “new” variety each week. This way each child has a vested interest in trying their new vegetable!
Easy Grilled Vegetable Recipe and Variations
My husband, – you know, Mr. BBQ – and I have different opinions about the best, easiest, and tastiest methods for grilling vegetables but the result is the same. I like to slice my vegs in pretty large pieces and put them straight on the grill for those nice markings you get in restaurants. I like yellow squash (it seems to hold up better than zucchini) red peppers, onions, asparagus, eggplant (for me- just the little ones) , onions and mushrooms (they go fastest). Really simple oil, salt and pepper is great, but you can add a little extra flavor by marinating with balsamic vinegar – and for a little extra flavor you can add fresh basil, rosemary or oregano – depending on your taste! If you are short of time you can use TSG Garlic Parmesan Vinaigrette, Vermont Maple Dijon, or Island Ponzu Sauce.
By the way – those mushrooms and tomatoes seem to grill best on a skewer – they’re a lot easier to handle en masse! For the onions and asparagus, it helps to have a smaller vegetable grill to put on the barbeque so they don’t fall in. Here Rick and I differ – I think they should still be metal for texture in the barbeque – and not coated. He likes some of the “basket” styles better, but I think they come out more steamed than grilled. And a little “spritzer” is handy to get the oil/marinade on the flip side when you turn them over.
Either way – when they are finished don’t put them in the oven to keep them warm – they get mushy. Besides, if you leave them out on a nice platter – everyone who goes by steals some and they’re one of the healthiest snacks you can find! Eat up!
The summer is arriving! Tonight Rick and I are attending our first evening concert of the summer season. In our family, this has become somewhat of a ritual event. We watch Shakespeare on the lawn, big band music, fireworks, Beach Boys and tonight an review of the Cycles: The Songs of a Lifetime…and we’ll find out what they are. We have eaten on blankets, in chairs,underwaterfalls, by rivers, oceans, parks, stages and also been eaten by bugs (uggh!) This is one of our favorite ways to spend the evening. We think we’re even pretty good at it! We have a little rolled up table in a bag (from Crate and Barrel) that keeps nature away from dinner, and we just eat our way through the bounty of summer.
5 Steps to a Great Picnic
Picnics should be easy and fun. In ours we always try to feature the bounty of summer as it ripens – so our menu changes some depending on the month and the temperature – but the good news is that fresh food is usually healthier too! First there are some rules:
1. Almost all food should be finger food. You never know how you will be surprised by your locale and you memory!
2. Have some favorites but try something new!
3. Don’t pack more than you can carry!
4. If you have a group, let everyone contribute – keep life easy!
5. Make anything you can disposable so there’s no clean up at the end.
Seafood Supper by the Sea
Tonight’s dinner is in a park by the ocean in North Carolina so we’ll be having dinner to celebrate the time and location. It will be about 3 hours so we’ll do three courses.
What’s fresh right now at the end of May? Those go on the list first and then I build around them. – Strawberries (we pick our own), Peaches the early crop from Georgia, asparagus and fresh local seafood.
1. I start with the main course, it sets the tone of the meal. In this case seafood. My favorite in the summer is ceviche – a seafood dish that actually cooks itself in lime juice so it’s cool and refreshing and doesn’t heat up the kitchen. Regardless of your recipe, I can pretty much use whatever is local and add the fresh herbs from your garden. If you want to try variations you can explore a world of ceviche varieties. Here in the Carolina’s there will also be shrimp on the menu, in the ceviche, but probably also with appetizers to just dip in cocktail sauce and enjoy the sweetness. Since I like the ceviche more than Rick, there will probably be some salmon too topped with yogurt blended with Over the Edge Herbed Spinach. Then I’ll either roast some red potatoes or make a couscous salad for the side.
2. Appetizers – grazing gone wild! Lot’s of crisp cut vegetables to dip or munch straight. Make a dip from your favorite seasoning using your favorite base, sour cream, yogurt, may or a combination. A little steamed asparagus wrapped in prosciutto. And a big bowl of the fresh strawberries with Snickerdoodle Sweet Cheeseball Mix blended in whipped topping as a dip.
3. Dessert – Here’s where my peaches (and a lot of other fresh fruit) go. Believe it or not, Rick will tackle these this afternoon. He will grill the peach halves and pineapple spears brushed with a little brown sugar melted with balsamic vinegar . Or you can eat them fresh with a little balsamic vinegar topping(the really good stuff) and some biscotti for texture. If my daughter were here, we’d flip it around and have chocolate dipped strawberries instead – but that will be next weekend.
Wear comfortable clothes, take a good book and a citronella candle and enjoy!
It’s fun watching my daughter branch out and become more comfortable in the kitchen. In our family she’s always been our dessert specialist, but in college – apparently you cannot live by dessert alone. Frequently on weekends, I get the text “Mom, I’m going to the grocery store, how do I make…..” During winter break we went to a Chinese New Year cooking class together, and both learned something new about cutting red peppers.
It reminded me of some of the fundamentals. I wrote before about how I was humbled by a toaster oven, reminding me to follow directions. The cooking class reminded me that my knives are probably my most important cooking utensil. I remember how excited I was to get my really good knives when we were married. After 30 something years, we now have two sets of knives – mine have become un-useable to my husband because with pressure, they are now left handed knives. The rest of the family has another set. (That excludes the serrated ones which are only for righties, unless specially ordered)
Importantly, keeping sharp knives is safer and makes cooking much easier for you to cook with. My mother is afraid of sharp knives and I can’t tell you how many times the knife has slipped, or it’s taken the force of ten strong men to cut a cantaloupe. In my house, I use the steel on my knife to hone it every time it comes out of the block. They get professionally sharpened regularly ( well, not as often as they should, but occasionally!)
Because I’m still learning, ( I may love to cook, but I’m not terribly skilled) I ordered a book on knife techniques. After reading it, the good news is that you don’t need to purchase one. With a few helpful techniques (which you probably have already adopted) you are in business. If you want a primer on knives through cutting here’s a great video, if a little dry. If you want the speed course, here’s another video where more is left to your observational powers.
What are the two most important things I’ve learned in the last ten years?
1. You can peel a clove of garlic most easily by smashing it with your knife handle like a hammer.
2. The red pepper trick? Core your pepper, cut through one side, lay it flat, carve a little “v” out of the bottom and you have a flat sheet of paper to slice. Thank you Jo!
My son has a sign in his room – Garlic is the 5th food group! And in our family that’s true. There are very few things that can’t be improved with Garlic. Growing up in California, garlic is a staple. Gilroy is the garlic capital of the world and its festival is world famous.
The Amazing History of Garlic
Garlic is one of the oldest seasonings available too! It was used and worshipped by the Egyptians, making it’s way to King Tut’s tomb, as well as the Greeks and Romans. Both cultures used it as food an medicine. It can even keep away vampires and other evil spirits in many cultures! At least in the old mythology – and it can certainly keep away undesirable advances on occasions. Although other cultures claim it is an aphrodisiac.
Garlic is also now proven to be good for you. Isn’t it amazing how many “old folk remedies” really have real benefits (like grandma’s chicken soup). Garlic is supposed to help lower blood pressure and while that is debatable, Louis Pasture found that it has great antibacterial properties. Garlic was even used as an antiseptic in WWI.
Great Garlic Ideas
I suppose that’s why Two Sisters Gourmet Outrageously Garlic is consistently one of the top three products in the line. It has great garlic flavor. My daughter takes a jar to school every semester and she doesn’t even really have a kitchen – you can use it a thousand ways. Most easily it makes an addictive dip with either sour cream or a combination of sour cream and mayonnaise. You can also let it soak in some olive oil for a great bread dip (add a little parmesan cheese and pepper and WOW!). You can always sprinkle it on fresh vegetables or French fries for some extra zest. Last night I added it to creamed spinach and had flavor at a whole new level.
Four Easy Recipes
Here are links to four of our easy recipes for Outrageously Garlic:
Summer time! A little heat! A lot of friends! Looking to have a fun, easy party? Keep it simple! Have a fiesta featuring Margaritas – it’s the thing to do these days!
Mexican food is now the most popular food in America (after pizza!) Having a Margarita is the perfect way to cool off on a warm evening, or to bring the spirit of fiesta to your home. Bright colors and candles can top off the fiesta feel with little money and effort. Add some salsa music to your playlist and you’re all set.
It’s as easy as one, two, three! With the right fixins, a pitcher and a blender start the party by makeing a chilling frozen margarita . A classic margarita features tequila, Triple Sec and Lime Juice.
Then grab some chips and salsa, TSG Black Bean and Corn Salsa or Mango Peach Salsa are great. Add traditional guacamole (if you can’t get fresh avocados, then buy the frozen and jazz it up with some onions, garlic and tomatoes).
If you want a fun dinner inside that takes no time to prepare – have a taco buffet – the only part you really have to cook is the ground meat. Cook with any commercial packet of taco seasoning, lay out lettuce, tomato, sour cream, salsa and shredded cheese. And you’re done.
Easy Recipes for a Great Margarita Party
Here are some easy recipes if you want a little more pizzazz!
Summer is coming up! The kids will be home and there will be lots of outdoor entertaining and picnic opportunities! Want some help in feeding the crowds? How about simple ways to use Apple Cake Mix to make a variety of new taste treats? There are a lot of great recipes in the TSG Recipe Box to tantalize your taste buds, but here are five new, easy ways to use apple cake! Thanks to Rita Held our great recipe creator!
Send us your recipe ideas and earn a chance to win 3 boxes of apple cake. We will choose ten recipes at random in a drawing
The Basic Skills of Cooking: It’s Simple but Follow Directions
Last week I was humbled by a toaster oven!. I think of myself as a pretty good cook, but every now and then we all need a “comeuppance” as my Grandma would say!
It all started when I needed to show our SRVP’s how versatile Beer Bread really can be. We just had a meeting where I handed out the “21 Ways to Make Beer Bread” sheet, and now I really wanted to prove that no one should leave a party with just one box.
So I went to the store and bought ingredients to make 5 different varieties –sweet and savory. I happened to be in the Hampton Inn where they generously let me their convection oven in the kitchen so I could make them all at once. Well, convection ovens cook differently, of course. Faster, but not quite so thoroughly, and I was making so many at once……
After rotating them around, I finally got them the crust looking toasty brown, but they still looked a little wobbly and didn’t sound right. So I figured I bake a fresh one in a small aluminum pan at work the next morning in the toaster oven. I whipped it up (Yummy with chocolate chips) and went to do a few things. I just about burned the building down!.
My bread was in too small a pan, so it rose into the coils and burned! And SMELLLED! And looked AWFUL! Then I went to cut the loaves from the night before – the crust was like leather and the inside was still a little soggy. So I salvaged what I could and ….
This week I got a new large size toaster/convection oven. I have some new bread samples to try on my desk so I got to work. I am now on the 5th loaf
the first was a small aluminum pan that rose, but looked like pudding in the middle
the second was on convection and was almost as burned as the one that rose into the coils (and I accidentally left it on for hours!)
the third was a slight dark brown with a crust that tasted like more leather
So I bought a real loaf pan….
left it on convection, turned down the temperature and it was edible (in fact Chris Johnson, our meeting planner ate almost the whole loaf!)
I’m on number 5 now – and I ‘ll photograph it shortly.
The moral of the story:
1. Read the instructions – they were actually tested
2. Use the right equipment – if it says 9×5 metal pan, they mean it
3. Never leave your oven untended
4. Learn how your own oven works, some tend hot or cold
5. Expect Disasters – they are part of cooking and make you better
Believe it or not, the catalog to be released in August was shot a month ago. I spent a week tasting our new products and looking (and eating) comfort food, holiday desserts and other great treats! I thought it would be fun to show you a little of the behind the scenes effort.
We all know that you eat with your eyes as well as your mouth, so food styling for the catalog is very important. There can be a lot of “bad press” about how food stylists “cheat” the dishes to make it appropriate for a magazine shoot. Take for example ice cream, it’s impossible to get real ice cream not to melt under hot lights. But the attitude of companies, savvy consumers and digital photography have changed the issues in shooting food and allowed all of our photography to be much more “natural”.
When we prepare food for the catalog, we actually create and test recipes (that’s a popular day in the office because they get to taste finished dishes, not just product). At the shoot our fabulous stylist Catrine Kelty prepares each of the dishes (with leftovers) and then works with our great photographer Paul Saraceno to bring it to you in the best possible light.
It’s true that we do help out our dishes a little – after all they do have to sit on the table for hours at a time and need to keep looking fresh. We spritz the lettuce with water to make it glisten, hand arrange the leaves, stack berries just so, and melt our cheese with a gun that peels paint off walls so it gets perfectly brown.
Tips to Make Your Table Look Great
Here are the top tips that Katrine uses in preparing our food whether for photography or your family table.
Set the table beautifully – make sure you keep a nice centerpiece and candles ready to be lit every night.
Use fresh, high quality ingredients – there’s nothing more sad than wilted lettuce!
Like those quesadilla? Well here are two of our great recipes using the Two Sisters Gourmet Black Bean and Corn Salsa, but you can really add your f avorite ingredients and make them your own:
All around this weekend the barbeques were lighted and the scent of dogs and burgers filled the air – along with major squeals from happy family get-togethers. We happened to be down the street from my brother and sister-in-law who had a healthy 26 for the weekend. We expanded with the kids home to a happy foursome – six if you count the dogs. And they should be counted for slider night.
