Grilling is the Cure for the Quarantine Blues

It’s been one month since I moved my office home to the dining room table.  In that time, we’ve cleaned and organized our garage, basement, files, junk drawers and more.  Our yard looks like a yard of the month poster and we’re overdosing on Miracle Grow. As an entrepreneur I am allergic to this kind of OCD organization – I thrive on chaos and making messes, not cleaning them up.

Thank goodness for the internet – allowing us to stay entertained, spiritually connected and even teaching us something new!

So much has changed in the past month.  We attended Easter service via Facebook live.  I found it surprisingly moving and natural.  We’re limiting our exposure to the news and social media and instead  binge-watching Star Trek the Next Generation.  Season one had 26 episodes,  more bang for your buck than 8 episodes of Ozark without the subsequent nightmares. I even watched artist and oceanographer Guy Harvey on an hour long Facebook live as he touched up a painting and took questions from his viewers.  I feel like I have a new friend.

We’ve grilled every night but one for the past month.  We celebrate dinner time (and cocktail hour) and all the rituals of grilling. We go shopping often… to the freezer in the basement to determine what we’re grilling that night.  Our refrigerator looks like the produce department in our local supermarket.

We’ve thoroughly enjoyed grilling up a variety of colorful and flavorful meals.

Our plates are restaurant worthy and I’ve taken the obligatory food pics. I just don’t overshare them because I’m too busy enjoying my meal.  I checked the pictures on my phone for the past 30 days and you’d think we were chefs!  One Saturday we grilled breakfast lunch and dinner. I didn’t think it was possible to say I could enjoy grilling more than I already do. Grilling has definitely been our cure for the quarantine blues!

We’ve grilled through our normal rotation twice- stuffed burgers, salmon, bacon wrapped chicken, short ribs, scallops, shrimp…..

Susan is raising her game with 2 new versions of stuffed bacon wrapped chicken.   After cutting in half length wise, she spread Roasted Garlic Onion Jam, then closed up and wrapped in bacon and pinned.

Susan loves the PINZ for bacon wrapped everything.  The second version was stuffed with 3-4 spears of asparagus and some hard cheese.  Stuffed, bacon wrapped chicken breast is a great recipe to take and make your own. Chicken is a really great lean, versatile protein that you can do a lot with, especially on the grill.

Friday night is STILL steak night at the Barrett house.

We’ve also grilled a few special treats along the way. Susan and I have long celebrated Friday Night as Steak Night at our house.  Over the past few years we have institutionalized it with our friends and customers.   From my photo records I see that we grilled Hassell Cattle Steaks on Friday  April 3^rd and April 10, but not last Friday and frankly we were disappointed.  Susan missed her Hassell Cattle steak!  Note to self – Order Hassell Cattle Company steaks asap.  Friday night is only 4 nights away!

I even got to break in a new grill as Weber’s Smokefire pellet grill arrived the week before everything changed.  Lucky me!  I’ve used eighty pounds of pellets in 3 weeks.  I should have kept a logbook.   Jess Pryles AKA The Hardcore Carnivore, has a cool Pitmaster log book that I just ordered.  Speaking of new habits, I now keep a shopping list for my local Ace Hardware. I order online once a week and pick up those pellets and Miracle Grow as fast as the next day.

We may be locked down, but you can’t keep a good griller down.

GrillGrate. Eat Well. Stay Healthy.

– Brad