My Simple Labor Day Grill Session
Posted by Tracey Vowell on
For the entire time I have been farming, we have worked through just about every Monday holiday. This year is no exception, so Sunday was my Labor Day.
As I am preparing for a houseful of new windows on Thursday, I opted to use my grill instead of my kitchen, waylaying having a mess to clean up, while allowing me to still make myself a pretty spectacular meal.
I gather wood around the farm, and always have a supply of pecan shells in the cooler, for smoking. So, I lit the grill, and once things got going, I roasted a handful of our small onions, a few poblanos and Leysa peppers, corn (of course), and a half dozen or so carrots. Sounds like a list, and I guess it is, but all spread out on the grill in front of me, with a slab of ribs, my meal prep was very straightforward, cooking on the grates.
I held the carrots on the cooler end of the grill, and let them ride with the ribs for a while, as I kept the coals gently rolling, with the addition of small handfuls of wood pieces, and pecan shells, closing the grill, concentrating the smoke around those carrots, imparting a magical smoky flavor right over the sweet richness of the only half cooked carrot.
Peppers and onions roasted and peeled, I cut both into strips. I cut a chunk off of an unsalable watermelon that I brought to the house, and using an ice cream scoop, I shaved out curved slices, adding it to the bowl with the peppers and onions. I dropped in the kernels from a couple ears of corn, and thickly cut slices of the smoked carrots. I added a splash of sherry vinegar, and a generous amount of good salt, setting the bowl aside for a bit to let the juices build.
I sliced a big tomato, spooned my salad mixture over those slices, and pulled a couple ribs from the slab. This is where I got kind of excited about my Sunday supper, and failed to take a photograph, but it was a lively mix of colors and textures that I will have to ask you to imagine. DO NOT miss the juice that will collect in the bowl.
It's rare that I have enough time to make myself a meal this elaborate, let alone a meal which almost exclusively uses ingredients I've grown myself. This peak of the growing season dinner was the most satisfying I've enjoyed in some time and I wanted to share it with you.
-Tracey