Grilled chile-glazed tri-tip and green rice

 

I always have my eyes peeled for interesting things to stick on the grill. Chicken breasts slathered in barbecue sauce and ribeyes are great... once a summer. I need variety. I need seafood on my grill and strange complicated sausages and anything you can stab with a skewer. Variety! The spice of life and crap!

Admittedly, this isn't the wildest thing my grill has ever seen. It's just a hunk of beef. The tri-tip (also known as triangle, culotte, and bottom sirloin steak, and many others I'm sure) is one marvelous cut of cow. Well-marbled, but not fatty. Tender, but still extremely flavorful. And affordable to boot! They also come in a convenient array of sizes; you can get a huge whole tri-tip and feed a dozen people or a little 1 or 2 pounder to feed just a few. Apparently it's also the cut of choice for chili contest enthusiasts. Long story short, if you haven't grilled one before, pick one up. It's impossible to mess up. Well, don't burn it. But other than that you'll be fine.

Pad Thai

Behold, my first attempt on the glorious takeout classic. We love pad Thai - whenever we order from our amazing neighborhood place, we inevitably get one pad Thai and one something else (gai pad gra pow or green curry, usually) and go halfsies. I shouldn't have waited this long to try making it at home, it wasn't nearly as scary as I feared.

Unless it's a dish that I recognize will taste a certain way by just the ingredients, I read a lot of reviews before I try a recipe. I really recommend it, often there are suggestions for improvements posted by the folks that have already tried the recipe and found it lacking in something or other. However, I actually had a hard time finding a pad Thai recipe that had 5-star reviews, so I was even more nervous.

Fish sticks with roasted potato wedges and minted green beans

Fish sticks, y'all. Minus the fins and eyeballs and guts and other unrecognizable ingredients you get in the ones from a box. This is food for a 3 year old,  fit for adults. They're incredibly quick and easy to make, not to mention tasty as all get-out.

I've mentioned before that I have a pathological fear of deep-frying. I just can't get over the thought that the oil will bubble over and burn my house down, or the whole (400 pound Le Creuset) pot will just spontaneously jump off the stove and murder us all... It's sad. But it is my reality, so I find ways to work around it, such as these potato wedges. All the tastiness of fries, none of the crippling fear. And they're healthier to boot. Huzzah!