It's a habit of mine to starve myself when I work which means that I'm nearly famished by the time I get home for supper. Lucky for me, my girlfriend was off and decided to prepare it all for when I did get home.
What we had was nothing really extravagant. The steak we grill on the bbq with salt & pepper and simply pour on some barbecue sauce after the meat is cooked to medium-well perfection. With that we often sauté some small button mushrooms with onion, garlic & butter. This time I used some of the leftover butter I had from the mushroom sarnies (see previous post).
With that my girlfriend prepared to of her famous salads. Though the macaroni salad is nothing fancy, it's really delicious. She prepares it with macaroni (of course), loads of sweet imitation crab, sometimes includes cubes of ham when we have some left over, about half a brick of cheddar cubes, shredded carrots, chopped scallions & celery, and enough mayo to bring the whole thing together into a satisfying whole. The result is something sweet - but not too sweet - which is also tasty and creamy.
The last feature of this feast is also one of my girlfriend's favourites: "Greek" salad (the apostrophes are there because I'll be the first to admit that lettuce has nothing to do in an authentic Greek salad). With tomatoes, feta, red onions, unpitted kalamata olives (non of that tasteless canned crap), and romaine lettuce, this salad is already off to a good start. But what truly makes it a joy to eat is the sharp vinaigrette my girlfriend makes with it. The trick is that the large amount lemon juice makes every ingredient sing as if they were all from the cast of The Sound of Music. So here's the recipe!
Sharp Greek Vinaigrette1 1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
splash of white wine vinegar
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1 tbsp dried or fresh whole oregano
2 small garlic cloves minced
1) Mix all ingredients together and be sure to shake well before drizzling vinaigrette onto salad. And please note that this vinaigrette should only be made and used on the day of consumption...any longer and the ingredients seperate and their taste transforms into something which is not nearly as tasty.
I love pork tenderloin. It’s way cheaper than beef tenderloin and still oh so good. To cook this lean and tender cut on the barbecue is nothing short of heavenly. I mean, good meat + BBQ is always a recipe for success. When we lived in Sudbury I used to buy Renee’s Creole Dijon Sauce and slather that over the tenderloin while it cooked on the barby. It was good. Sweet, sticky, sharp, and really delicious when you take into consideration that it comes from a supermarket bottle. Something that can’t be found when, say, you try to make good Indian food with a jar of Pachuck. For this I just marinated the tenderloin in a Greek-ish marinade. As you would expect, there was tonnes of oregano, garlic, olive oil, a bit of vinegar, etc. It made the tenderloin pretty delicious though I’m always disappointed at how little chicken and pork take on flavours. But at least the marinade tied the meat into our Greek salad and leftover souvlaki pita sandwiches. Nothing fancy. But good.
