A New Era

It's difficult to express to you how excited Johnnycakes and I are about our brand new Weber grill. This is our fifth summer in our house and tonight was our first cookout! We jealously watched and listened as our friends and family enjoyed many a grilled dinner in the past but now it's our turn. Our reasons for not buying a grill sooner boils down to 1.) not being able to afford a gas grill and 2.) security reasons in our backyard. Once we were able to tackle those obstacles, we were full steam ahead!

So what did we make for our first dinner a la barbacoa (Spanish, I think and I can't stop saying it!)? Cheeseburgers, of course! Yummy. Johnnycakes made hamburger patties using cumin, ketchup and diced onions. I picked up some fresh wheat rolls, lettuce and a tomato at lunch time. I also bought some sweetpotatoes to make fries on the grill. We diced the sweetpotatoes using our Pampered Chef Crinkle Cutter so they looked like real "bowling alley" fries. That's what I like to call them anyway. We tossed the fries in olive oil, salt and pepper and wrapped in foil and baked for about 30 minutes. I even made a lemon garlic mayonaise (Miracle Whip) for dipping. Once the burgers were cooked thoroughly and the wheat buns were toasted on the grill. we topped them with reduced fat Cracker Barrel Cheddar cheese. We tried to make our burgers "whopper-style" which means using mayo (we used the lemon garlic mayo), ketchup, mustard, lettuce, tomato, onions and pickles for "fixins".

This was a great traditional meal to make for our first cookout. I heard Johnnycakes and our neighbor scheming up some lofty dinner plans for tomorrow night. Don't worry, I'll keep you posted!