a little detour

I totally forgot to take more bathroom shots today. Why? Because I spent the day with my new best friend:

ohhh, how I love thee (let me count the ways!)

I bought this baby a couple of weekends ago.  I've been looking at something like this for years.  It's a gas grill on one side, charcoal on the other, and there is a smoker attached that can also be used like a mini sized grill, like a hibachi or something.  Normally barbeques like this that I have seen are just gargantuan....and quite a chunk of change to boot. Being that I had just built the kitchen of my dreams, it seemed silly to be spending so much money on something that would take me out of my beloved kitchen after all that effort.

But a month or so ago, I ran into this little number. It's smaller than the other ones like it I'd had my eye on.  It didn't have the gas side burner off to the side (just a little flip up tray table instead), making it less expensive, and that was just fine by me, because most people have told me they rarely use their side burners anyhow.  Still, I resisted and walked away from it. Then a couple of weeks ago, it went on sale.  They'd knocked fifty bucks off.  And then they also allowed me to use a 20% off coupon towards the sale price...woohoo!  It went from $300 to $200 just like that, and I could no longer resist.
 I love grilling. Love LOVE  LOVE grilling.  I love using charcoal whenever I have the time, but I also loves me the speed of a gas grill when I don't the time (easy clean up! yay!).

So this morning I woke up, got on the ipad and picked out a few recipes I'd seen on a cooking show recently.  I dashed out of bed. I didn't even make a cup of coffee. I went straight to the store (coffee shop next door), bright and early before the crowds could get in there. Then I texted and called people to see who was available last minute to come over and join us.  And then I started cooking (forgetting all about the bathroom).

I made:
Apricot Mint Gin Sours (huge hit...made it just as is, but then we added fizzy water to it)
Honey Glazed Grilled Fig Salad (subbed arugula for the mizuna), and...
Grilled Pizza with Shaved Asparagus

 me 'n mom in the kitchen...photo compliments of Kimberly

The pizza recipe, I tweaked a bit. First, I didn't bother making my own dough. I love to cook, but I'm still a slacker. I bought the pizza dough.  I used truffle salt on the pizza dough instead of kosher salt.  I blanched the asparagus tips and used them as a topping in addition to the asparagus shavings. I couldn't find the cheeses called for so I tried the "featured cheese of the month" at Trader Joes called an "Elderflower Tomme", and I used parmeseano reggiano instead of romano.  I shredded the cheeses rather than using slices.  I tossed the parsely and the lemon zest together so the zest would spread would distribute more evenly, and I sprinkled that mixture on after grilling along with the asparagus shavings. Let me tell ya'...the lemon was an amazing addition (my new favorite thing on a veggie pizza) not nearly as odd as it sounds.

these two pics are also compliments of Kimberly

the first is the crust being grilled getting ready for toppings...

the second is the crust topped with the asparagus tips and cheeses on a sheet pan in the barbeque getting all nice and metly!  It was then pulled off the heat and topped with the asparagus shavings, parsely, and lemon zest

Oh, and then I grilled a NY strip for MyFavoriteKid to have alongside a caeser salad, as there is no way in hell he's an adventurous of an eater to eat figs, arugula, or pizza without red sauce ;-)

Kimberly and Sandy came over, as well as my parents.  We stuffed ourselves, then we sat with our cocktails and let our legs dangling in the pool. Pretty great day :-)


Except that in all the hubbub I forgot bathroom photos!!  Gah.  I'm not sure what day this week I'm back over there again, but they will indeed be coming soon!