Grilled Hot Sausage Sandwich with Red Pepper

You gotta love working from home on a Friday afternoon, cracking a bottle, and grilling hot sausage patties for a late lunch. You really do. I threw on a piece of corn and a red pepper as usual, and sliced up the pepper to eat with the sausage. I made the sandwich on a soft, whole grain roll with yellow mustard, relish, lettuce, and of course the red pepper on top of the hot sausage patty. Delicious.

Grilled Broccoli

Grilled broccoli!

I don't know if I've ever tried to grill broccoli before, but what I made last night turned out really well! I created a simple recipe based on a few things I had seen, so let's take a look...

Ingredients

• 1 head of broccoli
• 1/4 to 1/2 C. balsamic vinegar
• 1/4 C. olive oil
• coarse sea salt
• fresh ground pepper
• (optional) 2 oz. grated cheese

Directions

  1. Cut

Trim the outside of the broccoli stem (almost like peeling a carrot), but don't cut it off. Cut the broccoli into long, thin pieces, keeping a length of stem with each floret. You want to have a couple inches of length in addition to the floret, so you can put it on the grill.

  2. Marinate

Combine oil, 1/4 C. balsamic vinegar, salt, and pepper in a large bowl. Use tongs to toss the broccoli pieces in the marinade. Pour a little more balsamic vinegar over the broccoli pieces if desired. Let sit for 30-60 minutes, tossing every few minutes.

  3. Cook

You'll need to figure out how best to cook it on your grill. I did it this way... 

Turn one side of the grill on high and the other side on low. Cook broccoli on the low side. Place thick pieces of broccoli on the back edge of the bottom rack and thinner pieces on the upper rack. (I also cooked chicken on the same side of the grill.) 

I moved a few pieces over to the high heat side for more char.

Cook for 20-30 minutes. Just cook until the broccoli reaches your desired tenderness -- and char level, if any. If it starts to char too quickly, move it to the top rack and/or turn off the heat completely on one side. Depending on your grill, flame level, temperature, etc. move the broccoli and adjust the heat accordingly until done! Remove from grill (and sprinkle cheese over broccoli if using).

grated raw milk cheddar cheese

mmm chicken

chicken, broccoli, and tomato cous cous

Cooking Out Often Lately

I've already dipped balls deep into cookout season over here, so I want to share some pictures from recent meals. 

I'll do a full recipe post for my Amazing Chicken some time soon. You just need chicken and four other ingredients of your choice to make an amazing sauce. 

sweet n spicy chicken

I like grilling my vegetables raw, especially when I have high quality veggies. Red and green peppers, corn, and other veggies supply their own great taste when grilled properly, in my opinion, and don't need anything else.

Hebrew National hot dog grilled corn and green pepper

I make a flavorful curry paste for mixing into burgers, which I really enjoy. I use curry powder, hot sauce, soy sauce, brown sugar, and a few other choice ingredients. I should do a post for that as well. When I moved into the apartment on Penn a couple years ago, and we got the gas grill, I started working on my own recipes for burgers, chicken, pork chops, etc. So I've had a lot of practice with some of these.

Joe burger with avocado and banana peppers

cheddar cheese, avocado, banana peppers

relish and yellow mustard

When I grill corn I leave it in the husk. If I have a chance, I soak it in water for a little while before grilling. I actually peal away a few pieces of husk, leaving maybe 2-4 layers rather than, say, 6-8. I firmly believe in slow grilling -- for almost everything. You can make the corn quickly in about 10 minutes, or go slowly for 20 or more.

grilled corn on the cob and Joe Chicken

sweet and spicy Joe Chicken

For an almost instant meal that takes no preparation, try grilling chicken sausages and whole red peppers. I get the peppers at Donatelli's Italian grocer in Bloomfield for like $1.19 for a bag of 8. Throw them on the grill for about 10 minutes over medium to high heat. I cook the red peppers whole then cut 'em up and serve with the sausage on a roll.

chicken sausages from the store

sweet red pepper -- perfect grilled plain

JoeSoGarden Update: Cilantro/Coriander seeds in the ground

Yesterday I planted a handful of coriander (cilantro) seeds next to the already grown coriander (cilantro) plant. (I <3 the shit outta cilantro.) 

I only see one carrot plant sprouting so far from the seeds I planted on April 16, 2013. I expect about a 15 day germination time on the carrots, so they should start poking their little stems through pretty soon! I do feel a little nervous that they won't come up at all. "Wool Sea."

Juicy Mornings

I've had fresh juice every morning this week! I've used various combinations of apples, grapes, tangelos, mangoes, and an orange or two.

JoeSoGarden Update: Red Pepper, Banana Pepper, and Tomatoes

I just want to check in with a quick Garden update. I put the rest of my seedlings in the ground a few days ago. I don't expect to see the temperature drop below 37, so, frost free. I had a hot banana pepper plant, a sweet red pepper plant, and a tomato plant (that had gotten knocked over and spilled during the dog napping incident). I also added a photo of the unknown leftover herb (I'm guessing). Can you recognize it? I threw in a bonus pic of the basil plant as well. The tomato plant refused to have its picture taken just yet (looking scraggly).

banana pepper -- love on pizza with pepperoni 

Red pepper! Love it grilled plain...

Basil

Mystery plant ... leftover in the garden from previous tenant
What is it??

Bonus shot of banana pepper plant

Crock Pot Vegan Black Eyed Peas

My recipe turned out great!

A month or two ago, I came across various ideas for black eyed peas: the spicy southern kind. Most of the recipes include bacon and/or ham, which sounds good and makes sense, but also sounds like the kind of thing I'd rather avoid putting in a vegetable side dish -- ya know? So I queried the 'net for a vegan version and found this. Her recipe requires only:

• 6 cups dried organic black eye peas (soaked overnight) 
• 12 cups purified or distilled water 
• 2 organic onions (diced) 
• 2 - 3 tablespoons pink Himalayan salt 

And optionally:

• 2 - 3 dried bay leaves 
• diced jalapenos (to taste) 
• black pepper or cayenne pepper (to taste) 
• diced garlic (to taste)

jalapeno ... holla 'pain,' yo

It looked like exactly what I wanted, but it also looked ... really plain. Fine, I understand you want to leave out the ham hock, but jeez, you have to put something in there! Now, I've never made anything like this, and, honestly, I've hardly ever even eaten anything like this, so what the hell do I know, but ... black eyed peas, water, onions, and salt ... that's it?! Jalapenos optional?! Come on, you gotta have at least a little heat in there! So I went commando and decided to invent this one myself. I did want to keep it vegan so her recipe was a great starting point.

I didn't have enough black eyed peas
so I used a medley of other stuff as well!

I had about 2 cups of black eyed peas (and soaked them overnight). I didn't think that was quite enough so I added some lentils and wild rice. This I put in the crock pot with about 2 or 3 cups of vegetable broth, sea salt, hot paprika, and fresh ground black pepper. I let that cook for a bit on high while cutting the other stuff. I diced about 4 to 6 small tomatoes, about 4 to 6 jalapenos, and a small onion.  I added all that to the crock pot. I let it cook for a while, added some more broth, and eventually added some water. I dropped in a few large pinches of freshly grown stevia because it tasted too salty at one point.  Oh, and you know what, in a moment of inspiration, I felt like it needed some fat for flavor so I added a tablespoon or 2 of olive oil. It cooked for maybe 8 hours on high -- I wanted it to get almost mushy. People loved it, and I will definitely make this again. It could have used more onion and some garlic. So...

Ingredients

love this picture!

• 3 cups black eyed peas, soaked overnight (or 2 cups + lentils, etc)
• 2-3 cups vegetable broth
• 1-2 cups water
• 4-8 small tomatoes, diced
• 4-6 jalapeno peppers, diced
• 1 or 2 small onions
• 1 or 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• a few cloves of garlic
• hot paprika
• sea salt
• pepper
• fresh stevia??? (optional)

Directions

1. Soak black eyed peas overnight. 
2. Add peas and 2 cups of broth to crock pot. (Substitute some lentils for the black eyed peas for variety, if desired.) Cook on high while preparing other ingredients.
3. Add diced tomatoes and jalapenos; add oil, onions, garlic, and spices.
4. Continue cooking on high. If necessary, add more broth. Taste along the way, though, and add water instead of broth if flavor is too strong.
5. Cook for 6 hours or more, until desired consistency. It will take a while for the black eyed peas to get mushy.

served with burgers...

...sausages, and fruit salad