Grilling Season 2013 - Chicken Sausage Sandwiches With Red Pepper Relish

It's way, way early, but we've been having a few nice days on and off and decided to pounce on one for the first official grilling of 2013! Of course now two days later it's snowing and there's a winter storm warning...

Kicking off grilling season for the year we made chicken sausage sandwiches with caramelized onions and a bell pepper relish. To start this mammoth meal, Megan is frying onions on the stove top in olive oil with chili powder, cinnamon, ketchup, vidalia onion hot sauce, and pepper.

Next we cut two red bell peppers in half and removed all the seeds in preparation of grilling.

After hitting the hot grill in the backyard for a few minutes on each side, we brought them back in and diced them up.

To put together the "relish" we mixed the peppers with garlic red wine vinegar, olive oil, basil, parsley, and garlic powder.

Here's our two "sauces" ready to go on our sandwiches. But before they can get spread down, we've got some meat to grill!

We won't bother rehashing how we grill this time since it's been covered pretty extensively in last year's grilling blogs (for those who aren't familiar, we use a charcoal and a chimney starter). Here we've got a few chicken sausages heating up nicely.

We're also going to briefly grill our sandwich buns to get them a little crispy. First Megan drizzles on some olive oil, then they hit the grill on either side for about a minute.

To put together the sandwiches, slather on a layer of dijon mustard on the buns.

Next spread on a thick layer of the caramelized onions.

Set on  your sausage (or two if you're so inclined!)

Then goes a dollop of the bell pepper relish.

We're of course having our sandwiches with a fresh side salad. Mine had a variety of veggies and a poppy seed dressing.

This is Megan's sandwich and salad, and she went with fruit and vegetables.

We may be on hold for grilling until the snow passes again, but there's still plenty more coming to Six-Seven-Eight soon! Next up is another example of interconnecting meals - as we made the next two dinners of the week utilizing the leftover onions and bell pepper relish for bacon wrapped chicken and a vegetable soup.

Birthday Potstickers And Pizza Puffs

There's a frozen bag of potstickers Megan and I love getting at the store, but it's fairly spendy and we wanted to try making our own to save on costs and tweak the flavors. Having done this several times now, we decided to make two different kinds of potstickers for my recent birthday bash.

Here we're starting the filling for our potstickers using ground turkey, but we've also had good success with ground pork and chicken as well. Also going into the mix are garlic powder, green onions, soy sauce, dijon mustard, ketchup, eggs, and diced bell pepper.

Everything is thoroughly mixed together so each potsticker has a little bit of everything.

The 'stickers are individually wrapped up in a wonton wrapper - it's a bit time consuming, but can be fun if you get everyone involved.

Here's a cutting board covered in a batch getting ready to go. We tried out several different ways to fold them - pick whichever one looks the best to you or is the easiest to do on a large scale.

The finished potstickers hit the frying pan with some hot oil.

Eventually the bottoms get crispy, giving a crunch on the bottom and a soft texture on the top.

We didn't just do turkey for my birthday, however, as there's another kind of food I'm a fanatic about - anything involving buffalo chicken!  Here we are cooking some diced chicken breast.

Next we threw in green onions and some standard garlic and pepper seasonings.

The seasonings were followed of course by our own homemade buffalo sauce!

Here Megan is putting together one of these non-traditional potstickers with two wonton wrappers - wetting the edges by dabbing her finger in a cup of water and then running it along the edges, spooning in a teaspoon of the filling, and then setting the wrappers over each other.

These can also be made in a large quantity ahead of time and frozen - just be sure to lightly brush them with flour so they don't stick together.

Here we've got some of our second batch of frozen potstickers going.

This is both varieties together - buffalo on the left, turkey on the right. We fried the buffalo ones in more oil for a more crispy finish.

Remember our recent "finger foods" like pull apart pizza or bacon alfredo puffs? We also did another take on a simple, all-in-one snack/meal for the birthday shenanigans. Here Megan has made our regular pizza dough, rolled it out into several small circles, and then topped them with tomato sauce, pepperoni, and three kinds of cheese (gouda, mozzarella, and cheddar).

These little pizza puffs are then rolled up into large balls, like a mini-calzone or stromboli.

Here's several of them together getting ready to go.

After all being rolled up, the tops are brushed with olive oil and dusted with Italian seasonings.

Here they are coming out of the oven, golden-brown on top and gooey and cheesy inside.

And for the big finale Megan had some fun with dry ice and a green appletini Crystal Light punch!

Check back in soon for a new entry in the culinary world tour, more unique pizza creations, and the start of grilling season 2013!

St. Patrick's - Pork Apple Sirloin and Gouda Bread

Our traditional St. Patricks' day dinner consists of Irish stew with soda bread, but for 2013 we wanted to do something a little different. We still wanted to make a fun bread to go with dinner, so this time around we used a beer bread mix we got as a gift, but decided to jazz it up using Killian's Irish Red and some delicious gouda.

Before getting the bread ready, we started putting together the star of the meal: a pork sirloin which will be covered in an apple-based sauce. Here we've minced garlic and are getting ready to rub the sirloin with sage and thyme.

The pork is slice open at several locations and stuffed with the diced fresh garlic.

After being rubbed down, the sirloin is wrapped tightly in plastic wrap and allowed to sit for a few hours so the flavors work in.

As a nod to the traditional corned beef and cabbage, we decided to make another Irish dish called colcannon, which is mashed potatoes with fried cabbage. Here Megan is slicing up a head of cabbage for frying.

Next we get back into the bread, which is going to have gouda cubes baked in. Here Megan is slicing up some delicious gouda cheese.

Small cubes of the gouda are dropped into our bread mix before we add the liquid ingredients.

Next a bottle of Killian's Irish Red is poured in and mixed. Guiness would be another good choice for an Irish theme.

While the bread mix is sitting, we start putting together the roast, which is placed in an oven-safe dish along with onions and carrots.

Here are the roast and bread mix, getting ready to hit the oven and start baking.

The bread comes out first, looking amazing and smelling great!

The roast is almost done, but it still needs a sauce, which we made using diced apples and onions, corn starch, and sparkling apple cider.

Dinner is just about ready, so it's time to bring the colcannon together. First we made standard mashed potatoes, then fried the cabbage and green onions, and now we're mixing the two together.

The cabbage and onions and stirred in gently.

Next the roast comes out of the oven and is sliced up.

Here's my plate of delicious St. Patrick's awesomeness - veggies, pork roast with the apple sauce, a dollop of colcannon, and a slice of gouda-beer bread.

Of course, we're going to wash it all down with a few extra Killians!