Ah, Barbecue Season

I have been working on this post for almost 2 weeks, now. We have been thoroughly enjoying our barbecue season and often feel remorse when we choose something made inside when we could be outside grilling up a storm. So many of our excellent recipes and creations are made inside because the barbecue season is fairly short. We do our best to get creative and grilled vegetables are an example of something other than just meat that we love to cook on the barbecue. But, after a while, it starts to seem quite similar and anybody who knows us knows that we are not the meat-and-potatoes types.

 

  Cedar Plank Steelhead Trout and Mexican Bean Salad by Jay Scott on 500px

Certainly, a person can do much more than just meat and potatoes on the grill but those dishes where the flavors all combine and come together to be something more than the sum of themselves don't seem to often happen for us cooking that way. Don't get me wrong, few things satisfy me the way biting into a tender and flavorful piece of meat does. It's just that a lot of our favourite flavours don't often go the same direction as a lot of barbecue flavors. I guess that's just why we will need to keep watching online and searching for some exciting ways to cook on the barbecue.

We've been trying to include more fish in our diet and are very thankful that Fiona seems to always like any type that we give her. The cedar plank steelhead trout and Mexican bean salad were a hit with all three of us. And the best part was that everything can be made ahead which resulted in virtually no dishes. That is a win in our household.

 

  Banana Maki Rolls by Jay Scott on 500px

Finally was a photo that I took a long time to get around to making. These kid-friendly maki rolls mimic sushi in a delightful way. Simply a white flour tortilla, spread with peanut butter and rolled up then sliced into bite-size pieces. The strawberry sauce drizzled on the top was an analog for the spicy sriracha mayo you will often find on maki rolls, in Canada, anyway. The analog for soy sauce was chocolate sauce and the vanilla yogurt stood in place of wasabi. They were quite tasty. My only regret is that the strawberry sauce was not cold enough so it did not maintain the proper shape. I look forward to seeing what Fiona thinks of these once she gets a little bit older. I have collected a number of fun food items to prepare for her and hope that I don't need them, but have the opportunity to enjoy making them for her just for fun, not because she is going through a phase of picky eating.

Time will tell.