Since I took the summer off, I have some food shots lying around unposted. Here’s some stuff about food that came out of the backyard.
Some thick cut pork chops on the grill. I forgot where these are from, either Ditka brand chops or from Paulina Market. You don’t find these things in the case at Jewel or Dominick’s. These are cooked on a Weber Smoky Mountain, which allows pretty good fire control, since the meat is close to 2 feet away from the fire. The disadvantage is the grill needs to be left over a very hot fire to get hot enough for good grill marks. Note the grill marks here are reverse grill marks. A quarter turn would have made these prettier. Never the less, grilling like this (with the top on) creates an evenier heat, adds to the time of cooking, so the meat can absorb a nice smokiness, but without drying out.The Weber Smoky Mountain has such good fire/heat control that baking bread is easy too, again adding a smokiness.
A terra cotta dish works great as a baking pizza stone, keeping things from direct heat. A sheet of parchement paper is perfectly fine in there too, since there’s no roaring flame to ignite it.So pizza works too. Here’s my standard pizza dough recipe.
Before
After
You get a great smoky cheese as a result.And if you have tomatoes, oregano and basil growing a few feet from the grill, there’s no way you can get fresher ingredients (sausage from Paulina Market).
The tomatoes, while not overly abundant, were awesome, and made the best BLT I’ve ever had. To be honest, I may never have had a BLT before, at least where I didn’t pull off the tomatoes. Most of my life I never liked uncooked tomatoes, plucking them off everything from burgers to club sandwiches, but I’ve been converted to them recently, although only in season.
A homegrown beefsteak, posing in a pot of live oregano.
A great BLT, with homegrown tomato and bacon from Paulina Market.Take a cheap peice of average farmed salmon from Dominick’s, put a moist sheet of cedar paper under it, put it over a wood fire, sprinkled with wood chips and smoke/grill it for awhile and you’ve elevated it to something truely sublime.
Other produce includes a grape vine, but I think it’s primary purpose is to treat the neighborhoods wildlife.
We’ve employed some security, but overindulgence in his payment has impaired the performance of his duties.