My husband says that there are things I don’t do simply because I refuse to — not because I can’t but because I won’t. Grilling used to fall high on that list. For a long while, I hid behind not knowing how to (read: not wanting to know how to) light the thing up.

Not so anymore. Several years ago (um, by several I probably mean closer to 6 years), I sucked it up and started grilling  because, well, I write a food blog. It seemed stupid to continue refusing to grill when it’s an important part of the American cooking experience.

These days I grill a lot and love to.

Recently, I was contacted by Kitchen PLAY who asked if I would be involved in a Progressive Party with the theme “Make This Recipe…Safer,” sponsored by the Ad Council. Of course, I agreed.

This campaign, headed by the USDA, is all about food safety — a topic that’s important for anyone spending time in or out of the kitchen. There’s even a Food Safety website dedicated to these crucial cooking reminders

Basically, the four tenets of safe cooking are clean, separate, cook and chill. What do these things mean?

Clean: Keep your cooking surfaces, utensils and hands clean while cooking by washing them with soap and water. Personally, I am obsessed with keeping my cooking area clean, as well as my hands. I keep soap next to the sink just for this.

Separate: Keep raw meats away from other foods, including using separate cutting boards. I always use different boards for meat, veggies and bread.

Cook: Always be certain to cook meats and seafood to the proper temperature before serving. You can use a food thermometer to ensure that the inner temperature of the food meets minimum safe temperatures.

Chill: Finally, foods should be chilled — both raw, perishable items and cooked foods. Leftovers should be wrapped up and stuck in the fridge shortly after eating to ensure that they remain safe.

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Every so often, a new ingredient gains popularity and you wonder why no one was cooking with it sooner. That’s how I feel about pea shoots. They have that fresh, just-picked flavor and pleasant cool crunch — similar to bean sprouts. When I saw a package of them in Trader Joe’s I couldn’t wait to try them out.

I wasn’t disappointed. As a longtime fan of sprouts of all kinds, these are pea shoots are just up my alley. I think they would be awesome in sandwiches too. But, my first experiment with them was to make Grilled Quesadillas with Pea Shoots.

Grilling quesadillas is easy to do. You start with a hot grill. It should be well-preheated (I made mine after grilling chicken, so it had been on and heated for awhile). Then you toss the tortillas on, cover them with cheese and other toppings and close with another tortilla.Then, they just cook on the grill in about 5 minutes or so (yes, you have to flip them once).

It’s super easy, and since there is no butter or oil on the tortillas, they are a little better for you than the traditional pan-made ones.  Serve them as an appetizer or side dish with dinner.

One more really fun idea for this: A grilled quesadilla party. Invite a bunch of friends over and offer a variety of fillings and cheeses. Everyone can design their own and grill it up in a few minutes. It would be a great summer gathering, and you could totally celebrate summer’s freshest bounty by offering a bunch of farmers market veggies to stuff the quesadillas with.

Have you had pea shoots? Did you like them?

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Does this plate look familiar? It should. It’s the same plate from the Herbed Grilled Red Potatoes, just shown at a different angle. Generally, I don’t end up photographing two new dishes at the same time, but when this super simple chicken dish worked out so well that I wanted to share it.

But I have to warn you. This recipe is so simple, it almost doesn’t need to be presented in recipe format. But I think that sometimes even simple things are easiest to glance and cook with so the recipe is below. Look, it’s worth it.

Grilled Caesar Chicken Strips are a new take on the classic Italian dressing-marinated grilled chicken. Basically, you make a really flavorful, easy and fast chicken tender dish (strips of chicken breasts can be used instead, if you can’t find chicken tenders) and marinate it in Caesar dressing. Then it’s grilled to perfection.

They are just perfect served with a salad. Though, it doesn’t have to be a Caesar salad (but that could be amazing).

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If I could use one word to describe the planting of our garden this year, it would be quiet. In previous years, it’s been a fast and furious effort involving the whole family. Beds were added and a fence installed. Shawn even made a special gate for the garden last year. But this year, it’s been a slow and quiet process. We haven’t added any more planting space or moved the fence. And it’s fine — for now.

In terms of preparing the garden for planting, that’s been mostly on me — with a bit of help from the kids. I’ve turned the soil, added compost and dealt with garden pests. (I hate bugs. All of them. Seriously, seriously hate them! *cringe*) And planting? It’s been a slow and quiet process as well. Weeks of rain have delayed the progress. Much like farms in the area, our plants went in late this year due to the weather and some are still waiting. Parts are looking withered, and I don’t know if they will survive. But the tomato plants are thriving. So are the herbs, and the broccoli.

This planting season has been so different, but I guess that’s to be expected. Over the past few years, I have learned that no two growing seasons are alike. Two years ago, we struggled with a month of rain in June that gave way to late blight. The blight meant that there were virtually no fresh tomatoes all over the northeast. That was hard, since tomatoes are the crown jewel of summer crops here. Last year, the season was so early that by the time we tried to pick strawberries in late June, there were nearly none left. This year, the strawberries are right on time … but we’re holding our breath a bit to see what the up and down weather will mean for gardens and farms this year. No one is quite sure yet.

For now, I am happy the herbs are doing well.

I called these Summer’s First Harvest, but this really isn’t my first harvest this season. I’ve used a little mint (which I grow on the edge of the property where it’s free to be as invasive as it likes). And I’ve picked a few herbs here and there. But these Herbed Grilled Red Potatoes are the first dish where my homegrown herbs really star this year. It’s a spectacular thing to be able to walk into the backyard with scissors and come back with enough herbs for a dish that hits the table about 30 minutes later.

When I was working on this side dish, I wanted to make it easy as can be. So, I skipped the mincing of the herbs. Instead, they are rinsed and left wet, which allows them to steam in the center of a pile of potatoes inside a foil packet. They lend fresh summery flavor to the sweet, tender, buttery red potatoes. But it only takes less than five minutes to toss this all together and about 25 minutes to cook. It couldn’t be easier.

Shawn wished they had the crusty outside of roasted potatoes. This just isn’t that type of potato dish though. They’re fork tender with bits of caramel-colored richness, making them easy for kids to eat with little help. I didn’t have to cut them up for my 3- and 5-year-old, which was great. And the flavor? It can’t be beat. I love the way the herb flavors permeate the potatoes like wisps and whispers. They don’t overpower the natural sweetness of the red potatoes, but rather complement it.

What are you grilling up these days?

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For more than a year, I have barely eaten beef. While I like it, my body isn’t fond of it and I’ve found that avoiding it means that I can live with less bouts of my severe asthma – and less medication. It was a no brainer to eat less of it.

That said, I have never set out to eliminate it from my diet altogether. Everything in moderation, you know? So, with summer nearing (could someone please tell Mother Nature that summer is almost here? I don’t think she got the memo for New England), I plan to enjoy a few burgers this summer. But because I rarely eat beef, I want to make it count when I do.

At the same time, I have made a commitment to losing weight and generally being healthier. It’s kind of a catch-22. I want to be healthy, but I also want to enjoy life … and the food I eat. And while I do really like turkey burgers and chicken burgers, nothing substitutes for a great beef burger when that’s really what you want. So, what’s a girl to do?

Ultimately, I come back to moderation. Cheddar Bacon Burgers are delicious, but when it comes to trying to be healthy, they aren’t the best choice. The cheddar and bacon add so much more unhealthy fat to the beef burger. After struggling with this, I decided to stick with 85% fat ground beef, which produces a juicy, flavorful burger. But I cut out both the cheese and the bacon. (I’ll still have cheese with my turkey burger though!) And for the roll, I am now skipping the bakery rolls and traditional hamburger buns in favor of the thin multigrain rolls that I eat sandwiches on for lunch. They work well and hold up to the burger while having less calories and more fiber.

But a plain burger? Even a juicy, flavorful one enhanced with salt and pepper needs something more, something to make it great. Enter the veggies. My Super Veggie Beef Burger is like a fab salad combined with a juicy, amazing burger. The avocado (yes, it has fat, but it’s healthy fat) adds a creaminess that substitutes well for the missing cheese. Then there is crunchy red pepper, smooth baby spinach, sweet tomato slices and crunchy alfalfa sprouts (well, sort of crunchy). When you take a bite, you get this surge of flavors, wrapped in the dripping juices of the great burger. It’s amazing.

I’m not giving up my occasional beef burger … when I have one, you can bet that it will be piled with fabulous fresh veggies.

How do you like your burger?

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Last year, I really wanted to master grilling pizza. However, many pies later, I still didn’t have the process down. That all changed when Everyday Food ran a feature on it recently. It totally demystified the whole thing.

Amazingly, it seems that grilling pizza is way easier than I ever imagined it could be. Stretch, flip, flip, flip, top, serve … all in less than 15 minutes.

So, how do you do it?

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Growing up, I always picked radishes out of salads. To me, they were a garnish that shouldn’t be consumed ever. The fierce peppery-ness just didn’t appeal to me at all. But then, a few years ago, I tried Balsamic Sauteed Radishes and it was a complete revelation. The peppery taste of the little, hard, red roots was completely tamed by cooking and the balsamic added this fabulous sweetness to them.

For the past year or so, I have been looking for another way to cook radishes in a way that tames them but makes them flavorful too. This, these grilled radishes with dill, white wine vinegar, garlic, olive oil, salt and pepper, are the result. The subtle flavor is slightly sweet, totally dilly and wonderful. They are tender bits of radish goodness that go great with fish, chicken, salads and more …

If you haven’t had radishes cooked, then you need to try them. It’s amazing. It’s beyond amazing — it’s craveworthy goodness. Try it.

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Hello, my name is Sarah and I am a fresh mozzarella, tomato and pesto addict. We eat it as a salad, on bread, over pasta and mixed into baked potatoes. And now … we even have a go-to lasagna recipe that’s perfect for summer.

This grilled lasagna is super easy to make. It can be whipped up and cooked in under 30 minutes (it only takes about 10 minutes on the grill), and then you are sitting down to a fresh, tasty, delicious dinner. I feel like I recommend this ad nausem, but eat this with a big salad and crusty bread. And I strongly recommend having Basil Vinaigrette on the salad. It’s just awesome together.

This combination just screams summer to me … what food combo says summer to you? Read the rest of this entry…

Yesterday was a day filled with sandcastles, swimming and laughter. The kids and I spent nearly all day at the beach (don’t worry, we remembered the sunscreen!). We paused for a fast lunch, but otherwise we could be found splashing in the water, playing in the sand and generally having a good time. When I brought Paige home at 4ish, she collapsed into bed for a long, long nap. That’s the sign of a good day.

It nice on days like yesterday to have an arsenal of ready-to-go dishes that won’t heat up the kitchen. These little single serve lasagnas are just that. Make them and freeze them when you have time, and then you can just whip them out to defrost. When it’s time to cook, they grill up in just 10 minutes.

And don’t worry — just because these are fast and easy to cook, you aren’t losing on flavor. These deliver big-time with that familiar meaty goodness.

They are also a cinch to prepare. You layer cooked lasagna noodles in a mini loaf pan with ricotta, sausage and marinara and then top them off with fresh mozzarella. The result is a delicious, satisying pasta dish that goes perfectly with a big tossed salad.

(Psst! Check back tomorrow for a vegetarian version.)

What have you been grilling lately?
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Pork chops are one of those foods that elicit either really positive or really negative reactions in my house. Some recipes, like Pork Chops Saltimbocca and Rosemary Garlic Pork Chops are total favorites, while others fall completely flat — leaving us silent and brooding. And honestly, whenever I say we are having pork chops for dinner, the statement is met with silence …

Yes, I find pork a challenging meat to work with.

Fortunately, I’ve learned over the years that if I plan ahead and really think about a recipe before I make it, I more often than not meet with pork chop success. That’s the case with these Marinated Grilled Pork Chops. These babies are a little tangy (thanks to the lime!) and definitely flavorful. But it’s not overpowering flavor, instead it’s subtle and light … just right for serving with rice and a big salad.

What is great about this recipe, I think, is that it’s largely a throw-together one. The marinade takes just a few minutes to whisk together, then you set the meat to soak it up for between 30 minutes and an hour, and then you grill it. Easy peasy, and it doesn’t even heat up your kitchen.

So, what did my crew of tasters think? There wasn’t a spec of pork left after dinner … in fact, Paige asked to be excused, leaving some on her plate, but then quickly returned to finish it. Frequency of that happening? Close to never.

Do you have a killer grilled pork chop recipe? Share the recipe (or a link) in the comments! Read the rest of this entry…