Monday, July 11, 2011

It's that time of the month!

Girl's niiiiight!

Brandi and decided that a Girl's Night was long overdue. She and I have been getting together pretty frequently to drink beer and make delicious things, like stuffed pretzel rolls, but we hadn't really done the whole Girl's Night adventure.

We picked a night, we chose a venue, we created a menu. Fin.

(Clearly, I should have been either a theater major or a poet).

(Also, am I the only one who wants to spell theater like this: THEATRE)?

Our theme was simple. Black and white. And not even fancy black and white, just black and white. Because nobody (except maybe me) wants to go to the trouble of re-creating an accurate costume depiction of a 1930s French hooker.

Because it has been sunny for three (3) consecutive days this year we decided to RISK IT ALL and throw a barbecue. Luckily, the weather cooperated.







Brandi proudly displays the Brussels
Skew!
Grilling things is fun. We wanted to grill as many things as possible and thus our menu consisted of veggie kabobs, corn, Brussels (are you supposed to capitalize brussels if you're referring to the sprout?), soy dogs and some side dishes.

Brandi and Jessica began the skewering process while I ran around trying to find matches.

The kabobs were beautiful! Sweet potato, acorn squash, zucchini, carrots, broccoli, tofu and mushrooms with a garlicky delicious marinade!


I finally found some matches, and was working at getting the grill going. I am not a seasoned (hah!) grill professional, but I understand the basic concept.


Fire = Success.

Look, it's burning!!
It did, however, require some teamwork to get the fire pit going. Note: certain types of printer paper have a chemical(s) in them that will make your urban campfire smoke smell like the melting Barbie dolls. Stick to newspaper.


Enter Patrick - forgetting it was a Girl's Night barbecue. He had returned from mountain biking with a bag of cherries and an intense hunger for all things barbecue. How could I turn him away?!? Because my friends are NOT horrible people we decided to embrace Patrick as one of the girls for the evening. We put him in charge of the grill (because, SHHH, it had already fizzled out at this point).


He also helped with the fire pit because the neighbors were calling and asking us to PLEASE stop burning tires in the backyard.

Lighter fluid works better than My Little Pony's 
Truth be told, with Patrick manning (hah again) the grill our evening blossomed into a full fledged Girl's Night. We were able to sit, drink, and be served. It was a dream come true.

Grill Master Patrick



The end result was perfect. We paired our grilled food with a coleslaw I had made the night before and corn fritters that I'd made that morning.

The coleslaw is the same recipe as posted earlier, but this time I added radishes, red onion and some raw cashews left over from another recipe.

The cashews had been soaked overnight and made the coleslaw THAT MUCH BETTER. Really. 

Oh, and I added a teaspoon of Vegenaise because it seemed like a good idea AND IT WAS. 

I used a whole head of cabbage and we ended up having a ton of leftover coleslaw.  another dream come true.


The corn fritters were a recipe from the Vegan Yum Yum cookbook. Thank you Lauren Ulm for being so magical.

I used frozen corn because I had a whole bag in the freezer and because I wanted the fresh corn for the grill, but the end result was great! I made a dipping sauce with yes, more Vegenaise, sriracha, and some creole seasoning and spicy mustard. Mmmmm.

I had made the fritters that morning with the intention of re-heating them on the grill, but they were just as tasty cold and were all eaten by them time the grill actually got going.



Corn Collage courtesy of Jessica. I love corn, obviously. 
Have I mentioned how fun grilling things is? BECAUSE IT'S THE BEST! And have a mentioned how much MORE fun it is when someone else grills everything and you get to eat it while drinking white wine in a cocktail dress on your back porch? That's EVEN BETTER!

Nya having the TIME OF HER LIFE!

Tiffany loves the grill!
After dinner it seemed appropriate to have dessert. That is where the raw cashews come in. Veg Web had posted a raw dessert that looked too amazing to not try. Coupled with the fresh Rainier cherries that Patrick had brought and fresh strawberries these dessert bars were stellar (hahahahahahahahaha)!

Not as beautiful as the Veg Web picture, but taste-wise a TEN! (and one of them has a little smiley face! AGH! I just noticed it and I LOVE IT!!)

There was only one thing that could make the evening EVEN better and thankfully Jes made it happen. I officially deem this (Almost) Girl's Night Barbecue a complete success!


Coming up: weddings, MORE barbecues, and hopefully some more desserts. This time of year is a little hectic, so bear with me when it comes to erratic posting!

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