Eating the Red, White, and Blue

Happy Unofficial start of Summer! Memorial Day is here and it brought so much delicious food with it!

YUM YUM YUM!! 

I'm currently crashing with a friend as I work through summer classes, but we had the day off for the holiday. My roommate and I were having some barbecue/beach life/long weekend vacation FOMO, but thankfully a mutual friend was feeling the same. So we pulled together to get a cookout going! He had access to a charcoal grill, poolside, and a full kitchen! I decided it was the perfect opportunity to knock out some Moosewood recipes.

As a vegetarian, grilling can be tough to navigate, so I thought vegetable kebabs would be a great meal for me and side item for others. I chose cherry tomatoes, summer yellow squash, zucchini, onion, orange and yellow bell peppers, carrots, and mushrooms. These were totally delicious! I ate about five along with tons of watermelon and potato chips.

The mushrooms mostly all fell off the skewers as soon as you tried to put them on the stick. The carrots also sometimes were finicky. But I was generally able to get it to work and most of the chunks stayed on even after grilling. Moosewood has a marinade recipe, which I followed loosely. Basically, it consisted of oil, red wine vinegar, and a few spices. I used some black peppercorns, salt, oregano, and basil. Moosewood also suggested thyme, but my roommate didn't have any and I didn't want to buy a whole new container. I really don't think they needed anything else, but I also think you could totally freehand the marinade and it would be great!

Also, we had a ton of vegetables not yet skewered, but perfectly marinated. So for dinner tomorrow, we're gonna stir fry those up with some rice and possibly fried egg. Can't wait!

Moosewood suggested a lattice for the top crust,
but I didn't really have enough crust to work with

My other contribution to the barbecue was a blueberry pie--very American. I decided to try to go for a red, white, and blue motif by adding a layer of strawberries. As has been seen before, I have some issues with pies and pie crust, so I decided to use store bought this time. Unfortunately it really did not do any better. Instead of being dry and brittle, it was doughy and mush. Also the blueberries did not really congeal. So I ended up with a kind of blueberry-strawberry cobbler soup. Which was very yummy, but very weird. There's about a quarter left over, so I might try to make it into some kind of blueberry crisp dessert. Not sure yet.

All-in-all, it was a great dinner and a great way to spend the day! Hanging out by the pool, eating delicious food with friends, laughing, singing, and straight up enjoying life! Things are going great!