July Gathering

The 9th Ragamuffin Cooking Club gathering is hereby announced!! Since our first Grill Fest was so successful, we decided that it would be great to have a sequel. But unlike most sequels, this one should be at least as fun as the first. :P

Our goal for the sequel is to have as many parts of the meal grilled as possible at the grill-fest - so this might take a little creativity and research! See links below for inspiration.

Theme: Grill Fest - part 2!

Date & Time: Saturday, July 8th, 6:00pm

Place: Chad & Karen's

We need signups for the following:

• Grilled Main Dish - just like last time, everyone BYOM (bring your own meat)! However, instead of chicken, pork or steak, this time let's each bring a piece of fish. Salmon, tuna, halibut, shrimp - any of these would be good. Tilapia (whitefish) is a bit too thin and flaky to do well on the grill. We will email out marinade ideas so people can marinade their fish overnight ahead of time if they'd like.
  
• Grilled side dish 1 - bring it ready-to-grill! -
  
• Grilled side dish 2 - bring it ready-to-grill! -
  
• Grilled dessert - bring it ready-to-grill! -
  
• Wine / cocktails -
  
• Non-alcoholic drinks (sodas, etc.) -
  
• Cups (we should have enough plates and plasticware from the last time) -

Need ideas for this grill-mania? Check out the 10 grill menus on the food network (one is just seafood, and a few menus have grilled sides or desserts). Or check out grilled seafood options here. If you need grilled dessert ideas - look here! Of course the king of grills, Weber, has some ideas too. Go to Epicurious and do an advanced search for the dish you want, just specify "grill" as the prep method.

picnic

picnic
Originally uploaded by krisde.

prepping the cast iron grill

prepping the cast iron grill
Originally uploaded by krisde.

Karen

Karen
Originally uploaded by krisde.

smooth

smooth
Originally uploaded by krisde.

my sirloin

my sirloin
Originally uploaded by krisde.

Grill mania!

Wuhoo! We had a grill fest on Thursday night, that's for sure! The weather was perfect, everyone enjoyed trying out a rub on their meat and learning the basics of grilling from our resident grill masters, Chad and Michael. I think everyone really enjoyed learning about the art of grilling. Mmmm. And the food was great.

We enjoyed:

• fruity bellinis from Phil
• fruit salsa and cinnamon chips from Kristi
• rubs for the meat from Chad & Karen
• other drinks from Kristi & Michael & Toni
• bowtie pasta salad from Heidi
• chocolate raspberry bars from Jill

Fun times! We enjoyed our adventure with the grill and our steaks, pork and chicken so much that we have decided to have Grill Fest Part 2 next month! Next time we'll try to make side dishes on the grill, maybe experiment with pizzas, and who knows what else! Stay tuned for details - it will either be July 8th or 15th.