Friday, May 08, 2009

Don't like the weather? Wait 5 minutes - it'll change.

Truer words were never spoke. Take today for example. We've seen 3 seasons since 9 am. And I know most of you all over the northern hemisphere have been experiencing some funky weather conditions that change drastically from day to day. This can make meal planning a bit tricky. It was foggy when I got up this morning so I planned a stir fry for supper. Then several times throughout the day it got quite sunny which makes me want to barbecue. Then it got drizzly which made me want to make a soup. What's a girl to do?!


I took out a piece of beef for my stir fry and I have a zucchini that needs to be used before it's no longer usable. But now I really want to barbecue. Solution? I'm going to barbecue my beef and the veggies for my stir fry. Tomorrow I'll just cut them up, soak the rice noodles and make up the sauce. I'll heat it and toss it all together for lunch! That leaves me with a nice piece of salmon and some asparagus to barbecue tonight for supper. Nothing gets wasted and I get to take advantage of the great turn in the weather. 'Cause goddess only knows what tomorrow's weather will bring! Got to enjoy it while it's here!

A little tip about defrosting. I decided to make salmon at the last minute. Since I hadn't taken it out ahead of time I needed to defrost it before it hit the grill. I find most microwaves that possess a defrost function end up cooking part of the meat/fish when using 'defrost'. I use a low heat, 3 or 30% to 4 or 40% of the heat and just do about 45 seconds at a time for fish, 1 minute at a time for meat, check and do for another 45 sec/1min until defrosted. And you don't need to have it defrosted all the way to the centre. If you leave it a little frozen in the centre then you run less a risk of cooking the bejezuz out of it. I usually aim for about 75% defrosted.

Happy Barbecuing and here's wishing you less schizophrenic weather ahead.

No comments: