Griller's Dream

I have been inspired to blog once again!  Tonight I made one of the most amazing, grilled meals EVER... and when I say "I made it", what I really mean is I could not have done this meal without Caleb.  What an amazing sous chef, and future husband (12 days to go!).  After watching The Next Food Network Star, Caleb and I were yet again inspired to try a new and exciting meal... Two hours later, one of the best meals of our lives!  Nothing like a hard two hour meal to de-stress a girl after a long day of wedding planning... at work :)

Since I was not prepared, I do not have step by step pictures, and honestly, there were WAY too many steps to try that. But man oh man what a feast!

We enjoyed Bobby Flay's, Grilled Butterflied Trout; Melissa D'Arabian's Grilled Potato Salad; Grilled onions (green and white); and Gina Neely's Turnip Greens.  Whew, was that a mouth full! Oh boy was it!

Its hard to pick a favorite, but the potato salad was absolutely to die for!  I started by preparing the grilled potato salad.  First, cut up and boil the red potatoes for 8 minutes, then add the diced sweet potato.  While that is boiling for another 8 minutes, mix up 1/4 cup mayo, 1 tbs dijon, 2 tsp onion powder, 2 tsp garlic powder, and 1/4 tsp cayenne.  Now I am a baby and don't like things too spicy, but this cayenne was AMAZING! So after the potatoes are boiled and cooled you add them to this mixture and then grill them 1-2 minutes on each side.  Then you add them to the delicious green onion bacon vinaigrette, basically red wine vinegar, dijon mustard, olive oil, and bacon grease YUM!

For the trout, we didn't even marinate it in anything, just grilled it and afterwards topped it with a delicious home-made parsley-lemon butter.  

Turnip greens, even easier: in a dutch oven, add olive oil and butter. Sautee your onions, garlic, turnip greens.  Add a mixture of dijon mustard, chicken stock and white wine.  Top with red pepper flakes and let simmer until almost all of the liquid has evaporated.  I add a few diced tomatoes at the end for extra flavor and color... not too mention Caleb loves it.

For the most obvious, the onions, just put them on the grill top, season with salt and pepper, and eat as if they were potato chips!  I'm telling you, as hard as this meal was, it was 100 times more mouth watering. 

It was so smokey and hot in the apartment we decided to enjoy this feast on the patio to get some fresh air. I'm telling you this was last meal of your life worthy...

If you are having a rough day, or a boring one and truly enjoy bringing mouth-watering happiness to your man, make these potatoes!  We were both wary about the sweet potato, in fact, we didn't even get them the first time to the grocery store, but after reading the reviews, it was difficult not to be tempted. 

And for the grand finale, Caleb made this delicious dessert.  He used his second favorite new toy, the Magic Bullet (his new espresso machine is his most favorite).  He blended blueberries, strawberries, heavy cream, and powdered sugar.  Not too much heavy cream, just enough to make it decadent.  He poured that into a nice bowl and plopped a nice scoop of vanilla bean ice cream into it.  Talk about amazing... He really knows the best way to my heart!  I could have had about 3 more bowls of this stuff, but alas, I must fit into the tiniest of dresses in just 12 days!

Don't worry, I blog about the wedding, the honeymoon in Jamaica and our lives to come full of good food and full stomachs.