And a comedy of errors THAT was, lemme tellya.
I decided at 6pm that it was too hot to cook in the kitchen. I’d used the grill as part of my “I blew up another shredder” solution, so it was full of ashes from THAT little project. I had to locate all the parts to the grill, figure out where I’d stashed the charcoal, get everything cleaned of ash, and then relocate the grill to the back porch.
The chicken was IQF, so I figured the sooner I could toss it on the grill the better. WRONG-OLA. The water that poured from the chicken put out over half the charcoal, making it necessary for me to pull the chicken from the grill, put more in and relight.
Once the chicken got going, it was time to shell and marinate the shrimp. I used a simple “asian” marinade – honey, rice wine vinegar, soy, garlic, ginger, sesame oil – and put the skewers in water to soak (while the shrimp was marinating and the chicken was cooking).
I’m not quite sure why the thought occurred to me, but I looked over at my sage bush on the back porch, and pulled off all the GIGANTIC leaves and tossed them in the grill over the chicken. Couldn’t taste it at all in the final product, so I think I’ll stick with drying it & making soup.
After flipping the chicken (and making a mental note to once again season the grates), I came back inside and tossed together a quickie vanilla ice cream.
Unfortunately, the chicken didn’t survive the amount of neglect I heaped upon it.
(all hail the mighty phonecam pic)
Enough of the chicken had stuck to the grill to make me VERY afraid of putting my shrimp skewers on the grill, so I decided to improvise.
I put the wok on the grill and took the shrimp off the skewers.
*sigh*
Yes, it worked and I had delicious amazing non-stuck-to-the-grill shrimp. And then stirfried some veg to go with it (I couldn’t make myself toss that beautiful marinade. Instead I poured it in the pan and coated the veg with it.
And after it was all said and done, I realized my most fatal error: I’d been to the farmer’s market first thing. And didn’t get any zucchini or yellow squash to grill.
PLANNING!