Tonight’s cookout was an exercise in patience and radar-reading skills. Right as I was about to walk out the door to fire up the grill, roundabout 5:45, a crack of lightning rang out and the skies opened up, giving us a good old-fashioned downpour! LeeLee arrived home from the gym a few minutes later and asked what we were going to do about dinner.
“Give it 15 minutes,” I replied. “Ma Nature will get this out of her system.”
Well, in all honesty, it took 20 minutes for Ma Nature to settle the score. But as soon as the rain dwindled to a sprinkle, I was out in the back yard, charcoal bag in hand, to get the grill prepared for the meal. Admittedly, it took a few extra minutes for the charcoal to light properly, but we got things going in the end.
I’ve made Anchorage dogs once before, years ago, and when I was working on this week’s menu they popped right up in my brain as the perfect Sunday-evening entrée! Far from a nutritionist’s delight, they are teeming with goodies – vegetarian bratwurst, to begin with, and horseradish on the bun; then top the whole thing with a dollop of potato salad and a sliced hard-boiled egg. Dieter’s special, no way! But tasty? Oh, my, yes.
In an effort to validate our entrée choice, I went light and easy for side items. I sliced up four fresh baby squash and placed them in a foil packet with a handful of cherry tomatoes, seasoning the veggies with garlic powder, salt, chipotle powder, and minced dried onion before topping them with a light coating of olive oil. Then I placed a can of baked beans in a foil grill pan and cooked both the beans and the squash for the better part of 25 minutes until the squash was crisp-tender and the beans were bubbling.
The veggie brats only took about 10 minutes from beginning to end, so I held them off when putting the rest of the meal on the grill. Then at the very end of their cook time, I heated up two buns, letting them turn a bit crispy on top before taking them back off the grill as well.
We slathered our veggie dogs with all the fixins and dug in right away! And the results were glorious. Again, this is a bit of a gluttonous meal, but it was also our Big Meal of the day, so who’s to judge? And we enjoyed every morsel.
We’ve got two more brats left over for later, to say nothing of the additional potato salad, squash, and baked beans. Big Dinner tonight may be Big Lunch tomorrow – and I’m OK with that!
:)