Grilling!

Besides being the best season of the year for fresh produce, summer is also the best time to cook outdoors, and as good Brazilians we love to grill!
The husband loves grilled meat, or “churrasco” as we call it in Brazil, so when the weather starts to warm up he already sets up outside and we basically have grilled meat every weekend. This Saturday was no different and with a nice sunny day we headed outside to make our meal.
Grilling is great because all the smells and smokes stay outside and we don’t get as many dishes dirty as when we cook indoors, so it is always a bonus to heat up the fire outside.
Normally we only season our meat with coarse sea salt, that is what “carne assada” is all about to us, but this weekend we decided to experiment with a recipe that came with the latest issue of Cooking Light.
Grilled Herb Steak was a nice change to our basic grilled meat and it turned out very flavorful due to the fresh herbs combination. As usual I didn’t follow the recipe to the t (I can’t control myself, I am always changing or sub something!) and used the herbs we had available at our backyard. Well, that is what cooking is all about, right?! At least it is to me, you get the inspiration from the recipe and if necessary simply adapt it to suit your tastes and/or the availability of your ingredients.
We used fresh thyme, oregano, parsley, and basil, and rubbed the mix on a big piece of sirloin instead of using already cut steaks. I believe you can make it with any of your favorite beef cuts, although the magazine recommends ribeye – we used sirloin, which happens to be our favorite meat for grilling. Just be sure to adjust the salt, in case your steaks are bigger/smaller.
I also grilled some corn on the cob and chicken (my all time favorite!!!) seasoned with salt, pepper, olive oil and lemon juice, simple but delicious! To complement it all I made a tomato salad/salsa (called “vinagrete” in Brazil) and a small appetizer salad with cherry tomatoes, fresh mozzarella and basil leaves “skewers” on a bed of spinach, doesn’t that look cute? I loved my idea!
Hope you enjoy some grilling too, we sure do like summer here!!
Ana

Isn't this cute?!!!

Grilled Herb Steak
2 tablespoons fresh thyme leaves, minced
1 tablespoon fresh oregano leaves, minced
1 teaspoon fresh rosemary leaves, minced
1 teaspoon dried marjoram
1 teaspoon dried lavender buds
1 large garlic clove, minced
4 (8-ounce) steaks
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Cooking spray

Combine first 6 ingredients in a small bowl. Rub both sides of steaks with herb mixture. Place steaks in a shallow dish; cover and refrigerate 4 hours.
Remove steaks from refrigerator. Sprinkle both sides of steaks with salt and pepper; let stand at room temperature 20 minutes.
Prepare grill.
Place steaks on grill rack coated with cooking spray; grill 2 minutes on each side or until desired degree of doneness. Remove from grill. Cover steaks loosely with foil; let stand for 5 minutes.
Yield: 4 servings (serving size: 1 steak)
Adapted from Cooking Light, AUGUST 2006

My favorite, grilled chicken, yum!!!