Girl vs. Grill

Made it a comfort food night and made some home made, baked mac -n- cheese. :)

Ingredients

1 (13 ounce) package whole wheat elbow macaroni

1 (8 ounce) package shredded sharp Cheddar cheese

1 (4 ounce) colby jack cheese

1 (12 ounce) container small curd cottage cheese

1 (8 ounce) container sour cream

1 (4 ounce) marscapone cheese

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1/2 a cup of buttermilk

salt and pepper to taste

1 cup panko bread crumbs

1/4 cup olive oil “butter”, melted

cayenne pepper

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Bring a large pot of lightly salted water to a boil, add pasta, and cook 6 minutes or until done; drain.
2. In a large bowl, stir together macaroni, shredded Cheddar cheese, colby jack cheese, cottage cheese, sour cream, marscapone cheese, buttermilk, salt and pepper. In a small bowl, mix together panko bread crumbs, parmesan cheese and melted butter. Sprinkle topping over macaroni mixture and then sprinkle with some cayenne pepper.
   
3. Bake 30 to 35 minutes, or until top is golden and then broil for 5 minutes to make the top nice and crunchy.

**This was a really good, creamy mac and cheese.  The panko crust on top gave the dish a nice flavor along with a nice crunch.

**Pictures to follow later

Steak is unbelievably easy to make.  Alex and I went to Whole Foods to pick up the skirt steak that I’ve been craving, along with ingredients to make some “risotto.”  All I did with the steak is season it with salt and pepper and grill each side for 3 minutes max.  I really enjoy just the taste of the meat and I didn’t want to marinade it and taste a majority of marinade flavor vs. meat flavor. 

As for the “risotto,” it really was just organic orzo with browned garlic, fresh lemon zest, Mascarpone cheese, freshly grated Parmesan cheese and sautéed cremini, Portobello, oyster, and shiitake mushrooms folded into it.  It really was a great dish and VERY easy to make.  

Last minute I ended up throwing asparagus on the grill, because a) I love asparagus and veggies, and b) I like my plates to look colorful (just the mushroom orzo and steak would of not cut it.)

The wine of choice was a nice Cabernet Sauvignon

Another Victory!  Rhia: 4 Grill: 0

***Lessons learned this round:
-Steak is delicious and easy and I’m going to grill it more often.
-Alex loves this dish and said it was one of his favorite meals of all time! :D   Guess I will be making more of it.
-For the orzo, I really love creamy pastas and next time I would use the whole Mascarpone cheese tub vs. just ½ the tub. 

I wish I knew earlier that pizza was so easy/quick to make on the grill.  All I did was stretch and flatten out the dough, brush it with olive oil, and place it on the grill. After about 3 minutes I flipped the dough over, brushed the newly grilled side with olive oil, and let it sit for a minute. I then brushed the vodka sauce on the dough, scattered some mozzarella, artichokes, mushrooms, spinach, red pepper flakes, turkey meatballs, and onions on top.  It was really tasty :o)

Another Victory!  Rhia: 3 Grill: 0

***Lessons learned this round:
-As much as I flattened the dough and thought it was thin (I enjoy thin crust pizza), it wasn’t thin enough.  The dough kind of fattened up on the grill, so next time I will make the dough paper thin in hopes that it will come out thin crust style.

A canteloup and blueberry parfait!  And some homemade gravy, made with the drippings from the ribs!  The gravy was made to go with the mashed potatoes that I didn’t end up grilling.

I took the crazy challenge of making ribs for the very first time…

Day before rib night: I purchased pork St. Louis style and baby back ribs at my butcher shop, brought those suckers home, rinsed them, massaged them with salt and pepper and let them sit at room temperature for an hour.  During this hour, I made my marinade/BBQ sauce which consisted of:  some purchased BBQ sauce (I need to work on creating my own Rhia BBQ sauce), OJ (not the shady mcgrady ex-football player), dry red wine, pineapple jelly, maple syrup, Worcestershire sauce, salt free mesquite seasoning, McCormick’s seasoned salt, and brown sugar.  I also made my dry rub that contained:  a Caribbean seasoning, smoke paprika, mesquite seasoning, and some salt.  The ribs were then placed into their respective Ziploc bags and I divided the marinade into each bag, released the excess air, sealed the bags and turned them all around town to coat the ribs.  After this, I placed the bags with ribs in a large container and let them marinate in the refrigerator overnight. :o)

Day of rib night: Preheated over to 350, scooped marinade out of each bag and poured into medium bowl.  Once in the bowl, I mixed the marinade with 2 cups of water and placed it into a large baking sheet.   The ribs were then transferred to the baking sheet and a teaspoon of dry rub was placed onto each rack half.   Covered those bad boys with foil and popped them into the oven for 2 hours.   After I took them out of the oven, the ribs cooled for 30 minutes before I placed them on the grill (medium-high heat).   I then went on to baste those bad boys with my delicious sauce, flipped them over, basted them some more, let them glaze over, and then transferred them to a fancy, schmancy, disposable pan.

For the next rib round, I think I’ll just straight dry rub them and not put them in a liquid marinade to sit overnight.

Another Victory!  Rhia: 2 Grill: 0

***Lessons learned this round:
-Don’t sprinkle dry rub onto ribs when they are on the grill.  I almost made a HUGE mistake and could of ended up with really salty, undelicious ribs.  Thanks baby! xoxo
-I enjoy grilling St. Louis style ribs vs. baby back.
-You can NOT use the marinade as a BBQ sauce!! Thanks JimmiOhio!!

***Next me vs. grill will either be turkey burgers, or pizza!! :o)