Long Lost Friend

I had a beloved friend growing up. I would see her often. She could be described as a tender soul but always full of juicy tidbits. We had a brief period in 7th grade where we thought about parting ways, but we figured it out. When I went to college and got married we lost touch. When we bought our house I thought about trying to get reacquainted but the timing never worked out. Finally Matt said we just needed to do it and stop thinking about it. So last week we had her over almost every night for dinner. We had a glorious time. It was better than I remembered. I started to really look forward to dinner time. I think it's going to be a long beautiful friendship. Here is a picture of our re-acquaintance dinner...

Yep- my friend is a steak... or any grilled meat in general. We FINALLY bought a grill and I.AM.IN.LOVE!! Sorry to all you vegetarians out there, but I come from a huntin', fishin', barbecuin' kind of family. And man oh man have I missed meat! We would have roast and stew, baked chicken etc. But nothing compared to grilled meat. In the last couple of weeks we've had steaks, grilled salmon, BBQ ribs, pork chops, chicken, hamburgers, turkey burgers, grilled bell peppers, pineapple and kabobs. I'm turning into a carnivore. There are some other pluses as well. Matt cooks all BBQ entrees including vegetables so I have a lot less dinner prep and clean up (no pans!!!! can I say how much I don't miss washing pans?!)

In 7th grade while I was reading The Jungle by Upton Sinclare everyday before lunch I couldn't eat meat. I still don't like hot dogs, salami, or pastrami because of that book. I like to know what kind and part of an animal I'm eating. Other than that I obviously got over my meat aversion.

Grilled salmon with lemon and lemon pepper. I realize this doesn't look nearly as appetizing as it actually is- just trust me, it is delicious.

The quality of our dinners just went way up! While we won't be eating steak and salmon every week, even just chicken or hamburgers are so much better grilled. I think I just discovered how I'm going to gain that 40 lbs for the twins! Welcome back dear friend. I've missed you!

Excuse the junk behind it- we still haven't finished post-painting clean-up.

What's your favorite thing to cook on the grill? Or good side dishes to go with grilled meat since that's what I'm in charge of cooking? Any seasoning/marinating tips? Matt read the whole BBQ manual and he's done a great job but we're excited to see how many things we can cook on there.