Simple grilling - veggies

The Year of Bessemer Food

I've shared this with several friends this Spring. I discovered (with the help of two friends) Sweet Heat Seasoning at Freshfully in Avondale. I'm sure it is available elsewhere, but Freshfully is worth the drive to get fresh eggs, vegetables and other locally grown products.

Okra

Wash your okra, and skewer 3 or 4 with a short wooden skewer. Brush with olive oil, and sprinkle liberally with Sweet Heat. Place on hot grill for about 10 minutes, turning a couple of time, until browned, like in the picture.

Just serve them on the skewers. Even those who do not like okra will love these. The slime is cooked out of them. These are SO good.

(Hint: soak skewers in water to prevent them from burning.)

Corn

I use Sweet Heat on corn as well. Corn can certainly be grilled in their husks but I prefer to shuck them so I can clean the silks out well. Then I butter my aluminum foil. What?

It's easier than buttering the corn, just use a knife and spread on the flat foil. You'll get used to it.

(Here is where I insert a math lesson, valuable because I am afraid that Bessemer residents don't get this in school, with their 36% graduation rate and all. See my previous posts).

I use a soft butter and spread it in a rectangle starting at one edge (the length of the corn) and extending about 6.25 inches from the edge (corn is about 2 inches in diameter and about 6 inches long, so the area to be buttered is the length of the corn times the circumference of a piece of corn. The circumference (distance around a circle, or a piece of corn) is the diameter times π.

π of course, is 3.1416 (approximately) so 2 x π is (close to) 6.28. Therefore, the area to be buttered is ?

Then I sprinkle Sweet Heat seasoning on the butter, and roll them up (click on the picture to embiggen and see the Sweet Heat bottle)...

...until they are tight little corn on the cob packets. Now the butter and seasoning are in contact with the corn.

Cook these for about 10 minutes over a hot grill, rotating 1/4 turn every 2 or 3 minutes. The corn will come out hot and juicy, but with a little bit of brown on some of the kernels. Yum. Sorry I don't have a picture of the final product. We tore into them and were halfway done eating them when I thought about it.

Sweet Heat can be used on other veggies or poultry or in soups and other ways.

Enjoy the Summer Solstice and grill something today. It 's the longest day of the year.

Thought. We have Winter Solstice parties and music to set the tone on that cold night in December. Does anyone celebrate the Summer Solstice?

A cooking lesson

I love the smell of cooking Cajun or Creole foods. The seasoning mixture, the onions, peppers and celery cooking in olive oil, a bourbon pecan pie, fresh from the oven (and fresh from John Besh's cookbook, featured in the Birmingham News yesterday).

I use Emeril Lagasse's Creole seasoning recipe. Let me stop here for a minute. I am not a purist. Cajun and Creole foods are often confused, and I make no attempt to keep it straight which foods are which. So my Cajun pork tenderloin, for instance is actually seasoned with this Creole seasoning.

Anyway, I made up a batch of seasoning this morning. Here are the ingredients. They are: paprika, fresh ground black pepper, cayenne red pepper, oregano, garlic powder, onion powder, thyme and salt.

Here is the finished product. Yum!


This can be used in a lot of dishes, but I especially like to coat pork or chicken with it. Pork tenderloin can be brushed with melted butter, then rolled in the seasoning (or sprinkle it on). Line a shallow pan with aluminum foil (for easy cleaning), and place the tenderloins in, separating by 1/2 inch or so, and roast at 375 for 1 to 1.25 hours. This smells so good while cooking, but tastes even better.

Or, take some boneless chicken breasts and wash them, then cut into strips about 1/2 inch wide, and skewer them on wooden skewers that have been soaked in water. I skewer the strips by folding them back and forth, like an "s" pattern. Then sprinkle generously with the seasoning mixture. Grill for a few minutes (depending on your grill and such) until done. Yummy.

You can also skewer peeled shrimp, brush with melted butter and season with this mixture and grill them.