This past week I hosted a cookout at my place, and cooked a lot of (in my opinion) good food. Most of the recipes that I used were from one of my favorite food blogs: Food Wishes with the always charasmatic Chef John (aka Chef Juan).
I started preparing foods at about noon and continued cooking effectively until around 8 p.m., with help from some of my guests who pitched in as Sous Chefs and Grill Keepers throughout the afternoon.
In order of appearance the dishes I made were:
- Home-made Sangria
-
This was probably the most time-consuming dish since I diced almost a kilo of grape tomatoes in order to make it. It was very tasty on tortilla chips though.
-
Balsamic Strawberry Goat Cheese Bruschetta
To me, this was the star of the show. I don’t have any pictures of it though! If you click through to the link from the Food Wishes blog, you’ll see some photos, mine looked pretty much exactly like Chef John’s, and were probably just as tasty.
-
Pictured above on the grill, these turkey burgers are exceptionally flavorful, and surprisingly light. Whereas beef burgers typically leave me feeling a little bloated and greasy, these were filling in a way that allowed us to continue feasting on various other meats and veggies.
-
Dave’s Roasted Potato Salad
Not a recipe from Chef John, one from my good friend Dave. This simple recipe is as follows:
- potatoes (small red or Dutch creamer, baby Yukon Gold)
- green onions
- Some mayonaise and mustard
- olive oil, sea salt
Cube the potatoes, toss with olive oil and salt, roast at 450 until tasty. Let it cool, toss with mayo and mustard and finely chopped green onions. Serve warm!
-
Not really a dish, but no cookout in our backyard is complete without a fire, typically accompanied by Smores.