Earlier this week we had friends over for a lil backyard BBQ and they suggested we make grilled lettuce. Uh, sounds like the lamest thing you can put on a grill, right? Wrong. It was delicious and I’ve already made it again this week.
Based off this recipe, all you need are romaine hearts, olive oil, red wine vinegar, chopped herbs (or whatever spices you like), salt, pepper, Parmesan cheese and a grill.
Wash the romaine hearts, pull off any old leaves and cut the brown part off the stem (but make sure to leave enough of the stem that the lettuce stays together).
Drizzle olive oil over the lettuce, put the lettuce on the grill for about 3-4 minutes or until slightly charred, turn over and repeat on the other side.
Once the lettuce is browned to your liking, take them off the grill and top with dressing (red wine vinegar+olive oil+herbs+salt+pepper) and sprinkle with a touch of Parmesan cheese.
My pictures are no good, but it pretty much looked like this:
The second super simple grilling discovery we made this week was butternut squash. I wanted to use up a leftover pile of squash but also didn’t have the energy to do anything fancy. I have a distinct memory of tinfoil commercials from years ago where a couple of ladies just put veggies in tinfoil, add oil and toss it on the grill. I didn’t even bother doing any research, I just went for it and the results were perfection.
I took about 2 cups worth of cubed butternut squash, placed it on a large square of tinfoil, drizzled olive oil, salt and pepper over the squash, closed up the tinfoil into a little pouch and put it on the grill. I’m not sure how long I left it on the grill but my guess is about 20-30 minutes. Leave it on until the squash becomes soft. The squash was so amazing it tasted like dessert. It was light, melted in your mouth with little crispy pieces from the olive oil.
I’m planning to try this again with cinnamon for a sweetened up version. Again, no good pictures, but it looked like this (via):
Note to self: start using my camera to take legit food pictures.
