Summer Dinner With Guests Using What I Had on Hand

Hi friends, how was your weekend? Did you find some time to relax and recharge, or were you in go-go-go mode Friday through Sunday?

I was medium busy. We had company for dinner Sunday, so I spent most of the weekend cleaning, cooking, and rearranging furniture. I didn't have access to a car to go grocery shopping before Sunday afternoon, so I just decided to work with what I had on hand. In the end, it all worked out, dinner was delicious, and I enjoyed the challenge. Here's what I found in our freezer, pantry and garden to use for a "company" meal.

(Is it food porn if it's basic humble foods?)

I had a whole chicken and a package of little smokies in the freezer for the meat portion. I barbecued the chicken whole.

After the chicken had sat for 20 minutes, I cut it apart (like I do for roasted chickens), giving us a total of 10 pieces of chicken, 4 breast portions, 2 legs, 2 thighs, and 2 wings. This was a casual meal, so eating with our hands was definitely in the plans. 

While I was parting the chicken, one daughter was heating the little smokies. I'd bought these packages for 49 cents on markdown at Grocery Outlet a few months back and kept them in the freezer.

For vegetables I looked to my garden. I picked 2 large cucumbers, several ripe tomatoes, and a small bowl of basil leaves. I made a dressing of home-grown garlic, home-grown oregano, lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. Just before serving, I grated in some Parmesan cheese.

I also dug some of our potted carrots. I cut the greens off and scrubbed the roots, split in halves, and oven-roasted them. I like to leave just a tiny amount of the carrot tops still attached -- evidence they're home-grown.

I needed a starch, so I made rosemary-olive oil bread (a French bread recipe adding chopped fresh rosemary and using olive oil in place of vegetable oil). I doubled the recipe, so this made a very large loaf. We served this sliced with butter (nothing quite like real butter).

And for dessert, a blackberry pie. My husband picked 1 1/2 quarts of blackberries from our property early Saturday. I baked the pie later that afternoon.

In addition to chilled water to drink, I also made a pitcher of blackberry lemonade, using (of course) juice from our blackberries plus lemon juice, sugar and water.

It was a warm day, so I set up a table on the deck where we could enjoy the lovely evening breezes. We lingered over the table until the sky overhead darkened. A lovely evening with lovely guests.

Although I spent a good chunk of the weekend cleaning and prepping for company, there are a couple of  side benefits that I get to enjoy for days to come. One, the next day's meals are easy to throw together. Chicken sandwiches on rosemary bread along with little smokies made easy lunches on Monday. And Monday's dinner was a simple pot of chicken and dumplings with leftover salad and more fresh blackberries. The other side benefit is I get to now enjoy an extra clean house and tidy outdoor living spaces until we mess it all up again. 

I'm a bit tired this evening, but I'll be back tomorrow with another post.

Another Way to Cook With Leftover Meat Fat

If you have a surplus of fat leftover from cooking meat, here's another way to use it while cooking.

Here's about 2 tablespoons of bacon fat that sat in the fridge for about a month and may or may not have picked up questionable odors and flavors. Rather than risk ruining whatever I'm cooking, we've been using old fats in place of lighter fluid for starting charcoal briquets when barbecuing. 

To use the fat, I first melt it in the microwave.

Then we pour it over the cold briquets as I would lighter fluid. We've also experimented with spreading the fat right onto the briquets. That also works, but pouring melted fat is easier.

Then we light the briquets with paper, sticks or bits of cardboard inside the chimney along with the briquets.

The fat is a little slower to catch on fire than the lighter fluid, but it burns longer, allowing the charcoal to fully heat and develop a nice white ash on each briquet. To help the fat-covered charcoal catch fire, we add some paper and sticks to the chimney. 

As a bonus to the long burning of the meat fat on the briquets, I feel better about eating food that has been cooked over charcoal covered with meat fat than charcoal covered with a petroleum or alcohol (not the drinking kind) product. Adding fewer chemicals to our food is always a plus.

Anyway, we've been doing this all summer and are not only glad we have a way to use the old fat, but also we appreciate how well this has worked while saving money on not buying the commercial fluid.