A cooking and baking journal

Take it 'Without' a Grain of Salt

6/20/10: Grilled Hot Dogs with Foil Packed Potatoes and Beets. Accompanied with Marshmallows on a Stick. ;)

Meal details: For this Sunday we started up the grill for the first time this year and grilled hot dogs, potatoes, beets, and of course, marshmallows.

Defining moments: This is a pretty standard outdoor menu (see my previous post for evidence), so nothing new for me this week!

Recipe sources: No recipe is needed this time. But for those who are wondering what I do to prepare the beets, here are some quick directions for you. Let me point out that I do the beets a couple ways.

Quick Grilled Beets

Remove leaves from beets and clean under running water. Peel and slice beets into quarters; if your beets are on the smaller side, keep them whole. Place beets in pot and fill with enough water to cover. Bring to boil and boil for ten minutes. Drain into colander and transfer to a long sheet of aluminum foil. Wrap into small packages and seal securely. Don't make packages too large, you need to maneuver them easily when grilling! With tongs, move packages to prepared grill and place over indirect heat. Grill for 10-20 minutes, or until fork tender.

Smokey Grilled Beets (direct approach)
This method gives more of a char flavor to the beets because of the sear that is gained from exposing them to direct heat.

Remove leaves from beets and clean under running water. Peel beets and keep whole. With tongs, place beets on grill over indirect heat. Grill for 30 minutes or until fork tender. Move beets to direct heat and grill for 10 minutes more.

What I learned: I learned a few tips this week. To start, the grill takes about 30 minutes to get up to temperature, the potatoes take an hour and a half to cook, it is a much better idea to baste the hot dogs with BBQ sauce during the last few minutes than ahead of time, I should have used Pam for Grilling, and. . . I think that's it. :D

Any modifications? None at all.

How did it taste? With all those fresh veggies and charred hot dogs, how can you not say, "Wonderful"? Everything was so flavorful that I begin to wonder how food, with no seasoning such as salt, can taste soooo good.

How about a 2nd time? As we dive deeper into the farming season, I'm not sure if we can heat up the grill again any time soon. We have to see.



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