Why Haven't I Ever Tried This Before?

Classes have been out for a month to the day today, and I think we are finally starting to really unwind. We sleep in. We watch bad reality tv. We play video games. We cook dinner and eat outside at least once or twice a week. Last night, instead of doing our usual veggie hot dog and corn on the cob, I decided to try grilling slabs of tofu. I've read about it, and even eaten it, but hadn't ever tried putting tofu directly on the grill. It was AWESOME!
So I just took a block of tofu and pressed it between two plates for about 20 minutes, with paper towels to catch the water and cans of kidney beans to weigh them down. Then I cut the block into 6 equal slices (maybe 3/4 - 1 inches each) and laid them out on dry paper towels to get out more of the moisture. Then I made a teriyaki marinade, whisking together all of this:

1/4 c. soy sauce
1/4 c. mirin
2 Tb. olive oil
1 Tb. sesame oil
2 Tb. rice vineger
1/4 c. brown sugar
1-2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 Tb. ginger, minced

I put the drained tofu slices into a ziploc bag with half of the marinade for about half an hour in the fridge. Then I threw them on the grill with some thickly sliced zucchini, green bell peppers, onion, and carrot slices. Every now and then I would brush everything with the marinade. The tofu cooked for maybe 3 minutes on each side.
It's the first time I brought a bowl of jasmine rice out with the cookout, and it was so successful that Zips wanted it again the next day!

God Bless Grilled Plantains and Pineapple Skewers!

We trotted off to the State Parks of Southern Indiana over the weekend... toting a plethora of things to throw on a grill. We read up on grilling pizza on various foodie blogs, and as pizza is one of Zips' favorite things, I thought I'd give it a whack.

The verdict for grilled pizza is still out for me. The roof of my mouth is still burned from the melted cheese. We used boboli pizza crusts and topped 'em with green bell peppers, black olives, tomatoes, onion, I included pineapple and Yves meatless pepperoni. On the grill with a lid on, everything got good and toasty, but by the time the cheese melted, the bottom of the crust burned ENTIRELY. I never thought I'd ever say this, but I think I put on...(this is difficult to write)... too much cheese.

There. I said it. Maybe it's because we used prepackaged pizza crust. Maybe it's not the type of thing to travel with. Maybe the smell of grilling evokes such an appetite for hot dogs that NOTHING, no matter how tasty, will take its place (we LOVE Yves Good Dog!!). Hot dogs next time.

But I'll tell you what's good. Grilled pineapple and grilled plantains!!! How have I lived this long without eating these every week!?! Here are the pineapples on the grill with the boboli:

We made a marinade/baste for the pineapple that included 1/4 c. honey and a Tbs. of butter and a sprinkle of cinnamon, but I'm not sure it was necessary. The pineapple itself was so sweet and juicy, it would've caramelized itself!

The grilled plantains could've been skewered too, but with all the burned cheese on the grill, I made a packet for them. I cut them into pieces, and dotted with butter, and sprinkled turbinado sugar and cinnamon. After you close up the packet, you can turn the whole lot of them with just a flip of the tongs! They start off orange-ish...

When they're done, they turn a lovely deep yellow...

Zips prefers hers with more cinnamon sugar and a dollop of whipped cream. Despite a scorched mouth, I wolfed mine down so quickly, I can't say I was missing a thing. As Rachel Ray says, Yum-O!!!