Mexican Pork Salad

Cut a pork tenderloin into 1" cubes. Mix 2 parts chili powder, 1/2 part ground cumin, 2 parts chopped fresh oregano, or 1 part dry oregano and a dash of tabasco and then rub the meat with the mixture. Section a red onion and lightly coat with olive oil. Skewer the meat and onion and cook on the grill until done. Just before serving arrange the meat and onions on a bet of greens along with 7 avacado slices and 9 orange sections. Dress with 1/4 C olive oil whisked with 3T fresh lime juice and salt and pepper to taste. A nice summer salad.

BBQ Chicken with Cucumber Tomato Salad and Baked Beans

This is another summer favorite. The chicken was rubbed with a mixture of 2 parts sweet paprika, 1 part day sage, 1 part dry thyme, 1/2 part ground cumin, 1/2 part ground cardamom and salt and pepper to taste. After several hours, or overnight, the chicken was slow cooked on the Weber, taking about 2 hrs. The BBQ sauce was the same sauce used with the briskett, described here before. The salad was rough chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, red onion and feta cheese, dressed with a redwine vinaigrette. The baked beans are created by mixing canned baked beans with, 2T ketchup, 2T prepared mustard, 2T brown sugar and 2T syrup. They are baked at 325 degrees for 2-3 hours.

Beef Salad

This salad is a distillation of many recipes which illustrates our point that you can easily make your own variations of recipes to suit your family. We used left over Outback sirloin in this case. It also includes blanched greenbeans, new potatoes, tomatoes, red onion, kalamata olives, and feta cheese on a bed of arugula. The dressing is a simple vinaigrette made by whisking together 1/4C olive oil, 3T redwine vinager, and 1t of Dijon mustard....salt and pepper to taste. We served it with Charles Shaw (Trader Joe's "2 buck chuck") Shriz.....Actually, $3 a bottle.

Asparagus Soup and Green Salad

Some of our vegetable soups start with a potato base rather than creamed. This is one of them. We used leftover garlic mashed potatoes. 2C mashed potatoes; if you don't have garlic mashed, we would suggest adding some, perhaps 2 cloves, crushed. Add the potatoes to a can of chicken stock, 14 oz., or you could keep it vegetarian by using vegetable stock. After the stock and potatoes have reached a simmer, add 2C of asparagus which has been chopped finely in a food processor. Continue to simmer until the asparagus is crunchy tender. Serve with shredded cheese and some crumbled bacon as a garnish. This soup would also make a nice first course for a dinner.
The salad is a simple mix of greens, and diced tomatoes with a creamy blue cheese dressing.
We served this with bread and a dry white wine.

Scallops with Tomatoes,Prosciutto , White Beans and Arugula - From Jamie Oliver

This is a wonderful use for scallops and is prepared in three parts. First, cut 4 plum tomatoes in quarters, drizzle with olive oil, salt and pepper and place in a 425 degree oven for 15 min. In the meantime, saute 1 clove of garlic and 4 chopped anchovie filets in 2T olive oil; add 1/2 t of hot pepper flakes and then one 14 oz. can of white beans. Simmer this mix for 10 min. Put this mixture in a food processor until the beans are a smooth paste. Prepare the scallops by rinsing and drying on paper towels. Drying allows the scallops to brown better. Heat 4T of olive oil in a saute pan. When the tomatoes have cooked the required time, place 4 slices of prosciutto on the same pan and return to the oven for 5 more minutes. Add 4 scallops to the saute pan and cook for 2 min, turn and cook for two minutes. Do not overcook the scallops. Assemble the dish by spreading a bed of the beans, placing the scallops on top and arranging the proscuitto and tomatoes around. Top with fresh arugula.
Serve with a dry white wine like a sauvignon blanc.

Santa Fe Chicken Soup

This is a wonderful soup with a nice spicey edge. First, cut two tomatoes in half and place under the broiler until the skin is blistered and blackened. Set them aside. Place 2 chicken breasts in 6 cups of water along with an onion, carrot, a rib of celery and a couple cloves of garlic. Bring to a boil and maintain a slow simmer for 60 min. This process creates the stock which forms the base of the soup. If you don't want to take the time, canned stock can be used. Remove the veggies from the stock and discard them. After the chicken cools, cut it into bitesized pieces. Saute 1 chopped onion, 2 jalapanos ( seeds removed), 3 cloves of garlic until tender. Chop the tomatoes prepared previously and add them to the saute pan. Continue cooking until the juice from the tomatos has evaporated. Add the veggies and the chicken to the stock and along with 1/2 C of uncooked rice or barley; simmer until it is cooked. At the end, you can add some crumbled tortilla chips, or, as we did, some mesa flour either of which thickens the soup just a bit and gives a nice corn flavor.Serve the soup with chopped cilantro, sour cream (pictured) and avacado.
We drank a Spanish Rose' with it.

Dee's Chedder Turkey Pie

Prebake a 9" piecrust according to package instruc-tions if you use a prepared crust, or, whatever recipe you use. In a skillet, brown 1 lb. ground turkey. Drain the meat if necessary. To the skillet add 5 oz. unsweetened condensed milk, 1 10 oz can of cream of chedder soup and a package of mixed veggies. Stir the mixture together and pour into the crust. Bake for 25 min at 400 degrees. You can serve with a green salad and good crusty bread. A dry white wine would go nicely.

"Chili"

There are few dishes in the US that invoke more discussion than chili. We had a friend that used to say "anyone who knows beans about chili, knows there are no beans in chili". We admit to using a spice mix, Carroll Shelby's Chili Kit. And, we use beans.
We use "chili meat", a roughly ground beef that is available from our butcher. Brown the meat along with 2 cloves of garlic, crushed, a small onion diced and 1T oregano. Drain the excess fat, if any and then follow the package directions. We also adjust the recipe by using 12 oz. of beer to replace the water in the directions, add a 14 oz. can of crushed tomatoes and a 14 oz. can of kidney beans. The finished dish can be topped with shredded cheese, chopped onions and the heat can be adjusted, in this case with Tabasco sauce.

Cheese and Garlic Omlette with Bacon and Toast

This is a very simple Sunday supper. A couple tricks we think are useful.... First, cook the bacon in the oven, making a "pan" from aluminum foil to hold the bacon. Bake at 350 degrees until done to your liking, about 10 min. or so. The bacon comes out perfect and there are no grease spatters on the stove. Second, heat the skillet to hot and then add the oil, or, in this case the bacon fat. The eggs don't stick that way. We used some chopped garlic and chedder cheese in this one but the additions are endless.

Stuffed Lamb Chops with Edemame and Twice Baked Potatoes

This is another collabor-ation with our son Greg. The stuffing was made by mixing 4oz. goat cheese, 3T minced scallions, 1/4C minced kalamata olives, 3 Cloves minced garlic, and 1T chopped rosemary. Make 1" slits in the chops and stuff about 2t of the mixture into it. This recipe made enough to stuff 10 chops. The chops were grilled on the Weber for 4 min on a side. ( Medium to medium rare) We think pork chops would work well with this recipe too.
The edemame was cooked according to the package direction.
The twice baked potatoes have been described here before. The potatoes are baked at 350 degrees until done, allowed to cool and then scooped out into a mixing bowl. To the potatoes, add 1C sour cream and, in this case, 3T chopped chives. Top with shredded chedder cheese. Put the mixture back in the skins and bake at 350 degrees for about 30 min.

Grilled Hamburger with Broccoli Salad and Crispy Potatoes

The burger was grilled on the Weber; about 3 min per side, then topped with blue cheese and the usual condiments.
For the broccoli salad: blanch some broccoli for 2-3 min until tender chrisp. Mix with diced tomatoes, red yellow and green bell pepper, banana peppers and chick peas. The dressing is a dill vinagrette prepared by whisking together 3T white wine vinager, 1/4C olive oil and 1T fresh dill.
We had a dry red wine with it although beer works well too.

BBQ Beef Brisket with Cheese Grits and Cole Slaw

This is one of the more com-plicated meals you will see here...but well worth it. The sauce simmers for several hours and the meat is slow cooked so leave yourself plenty of time for the preperation. Our son Greg collaborated on the sauce recipe.
The night before you cook, make a dry rub for the beef by mixing 1/2C mild paprika, 2T cumin, 1T each of cardamom, coriander, onion powder, oregano and thyme and 1t dry mustard, salt and pepper. Mix well and then rub the mixture on the beef and allow to sit refrigerated overnight.
For the sauce: Combine 1C bourbon with 5 or 6 dried chipotla peppers. Warm them gently to a simmer until the peppers are reconstituted; perhaps 10 min. Remove the peppers and chop them. In the meantime, add 1/4C brown sugar to the bourbon and stir until disolved. Set this mixture aside. In another sauce pan combine a large bottle of ketsup (24 oz), 1/3C vinager, 1/3C Worchestershire sauce, 2T ground cumin, 1T ground corriander, 1T ground cardamom, 1t dry mustard. Bring the mixture to the simmer covered and heat for at least 2 hrs. You can adjust the heat to your taste by adding various pepper products. We like a spicy sauce so we added 3T cayenne pepper. Then we added the bourbon mixture back to the sauce. You can add it to taste; we used it all. The alcohol gets cooked off of the sauce during the process leaving a very rich complex mixture of flavors.
The meat is then slow cooked on the Weber. We use just enough charcoal to maintain a temperature of 250 degrees and cook it for 6-7 hrs, adding charcoal ever hour or so. The indirect cooking method does not have the coals directly under the meat and a small foil pan containing water maintains a high humidity while the meat cooks. You will notice a red "smoke line" on the meat when you slice it. This is caused by the interaction of the smoke with the protein in the meat and does not mean the meat is rare. We don't sauce the meat until right at the end, perhaps 15 min before removing the meat from the fire. Thinly slice the meat and serve it with the sauce on good rolls.
For the cheese grits: Cook 1C of grits according to package directions. Allow them to cool and then add 1 slightly beaten egg and 6 oz. of grated chedder cheese. Bake at 350 degrees for one hour.
For the slaw: We use a packaged cabbage-carrot mixture and add mayo and italian dressing to the desired consistancy. Some people put the slaw on the sandwitch; onion and pickle slices go well too.
Beer is a natural beverage with this meal.

Filet of Beef with Asparagus, Radicchio and Potatoes

This entire meal was prepared on the Weber. The filets are wrapped in bacon and salted and peppered. I believe the key to grilling steaks is to make sure they are thick enough. These were cooked 7 min. on a side to medium/medium rare. The potatoes were sliced, coated with olive oil, salt, pepper and thyme. They were then skerwed and cooked for about 20 min. The asparagus and radicchio was also coated lightly with olive oil, salt and pepper. Add your favorite herb. We like tarragon or thyme.
The wine was a Concha y Toro Frontera Carmenere. A nice dry red wine for about $6.00
http://www.conchaytoro.com/home.html

Salad Nicoise

This is a classic salad made of greens, hard cooked eggs, tomatoes, tuna(in this case a filet of yellow tail which had been grilled), redskin potatoes and green beans. The dressing is a simple vinegrette....1/2C olive oil, 6T redwine vinegar, 1T dijon mustard, salt and pepper to taste. A nice summer evening dinner.
We drank a dry white wine with it.

Grilled Sirloin "London Broil", Twice Baked Potato, and Steamed Broccoli

This is one of our summer favorites. The London Broil is marinated in a mixture of 1/4C 3T Worchestershire sauce and 2 cloves of garlic, crushed. We marinate for a minimum of 3 hrs; overnight is better. The meat is then grilled over charcoal, the Weber, 7 min per side, for rare to medium rare.
The twice baked potatoes have been here before. The potato is baked until done, cooled, sliced in half and scooped out into a mixing bowl. Mix with sour cream and your favorite herb....we like tarragon....beat to remove the lumps, place back in the skin, top with shredded cheese and bake for 30 min at 350 degrees.
The brocolli is steamed for about 2 minutes for crisp-tender.
We served dinner with a red Pastiche from Joseph Phelps. $12.99