Holiday Weekend Eats

We’ve been trying out lots of new stuff here at the HQ this holiday weekend. First thing was our brand new grill! I’ve been looking at this grill for a while and have been meaning to get it for Scott for quite sometime.  I finally made the purchase and it arrived last Friday! Which meant we needed to get some grilling foods.

Because I haven’t learned how to make my own yet and because we don’t have a proper smoker, I was on the hunt for kielbasa.  I found some at The Anderson’s, they make it themselves!

I quickly purchased some of that along with a few other items.  Then it was off to the fish market for some mussels.  We love the bivalves!

In my head I had a great idea of steaming the mussels right on the grill. That meant it was time to experiment!

After grilling the kielbasa along with a few other things it was time to put the mussels on.  I placed a large pan on the grill and added in some:

  • olive oil
  • Cherry tomatoes, halved
  • Chopped red onion
  • Jalapeno pepper
  • Half a lemon

Sauteed that up for a minute then I added in the cleaned mussels.  I poured a beer on top, Sierra Nevada Summerfest, closed the lid and let them steam.

After about 10 minutes these babies were done! We had a great dinner that night with everything cooked on the grill!

  • Mussels
  • Kielbasa
  • Asparagus
  • Bread

YUM!

I found some blue cornmeal at a store recently and was so excited! It was the first time I had ever seen that before for purchase.  On Saturday, I made us some pancakes using the blue cornmeal.  This helped to fuel us for a day of shopping at the farmer’s market and a quick trip over to North Market.

The same place that I found the blue cornmeal, I also found some masa harina.  Which is what is used to make corn tortillas!

The tortilla press that I currently use is Scott.  He flattened the balls of dough using the plates that go in my waffle maker.  One side is for waffles and the other side is flat for grilling sandwiches.  Because we don’t have a real tortilla press, our tortillas were slightly thicker than they should have been.  However they still worked out great!  Once I cooked them up, they were used for shredded pork tacos.

I cooked a pork shoulder in the crockpot with onions, peppers, and a bit of beer.  I used Great Lakes Dortmunder with the pork.

Topped with homemade salsa with guacamole and sour cream on the side.  We had corn on the cob and coleslaw with the tacos.  They were amazing! As long as I can keep up a supply of the masa harina, I won’t be purchasing tortillas ever again.

Today we’re relaxing and there’s plenty of leftovers to get us through the day.

Happy holiday weekend to you!  How have you been celebrating? Any new foods you’ve tried?

11 thoughts on “Holiday Weekend Eats

  1. Those mussels are beautiful! The lens looks to be working great. I need to find some blue cornmeal. So far I haven’t found any around here, but I’m likely not looking hard enough. Lots of pastured pork around our house so we had to detox with a veggie pizza yesterday with all the goodies from the garden!

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